Pandemic: We still feel independent

EA developer to change business model amid game creation cost worries

Pandemic's co-founder and president, Josh Resnick, has told GamesIndustry.biz that his company still feels like an independent studio, despite being bought by EA last year along with BioWare.

"Yes," he said. "It says Pandemic on the box, we've got Pandemic email addresses and we're making Pandemic games."

Resnick's words are interesting at a time when speculation is rife about how key development talent at Take-Two, including Sid Meier, Ken Levine and the Houser brothers, would react should EA's prospective takeover be successful.

And he added that he was confident there would be no interference on products from further up the EA food chain.

"John [Riccitiello, Electronic Arts' CEO] has said that in the past interfering with the internal studios hasn't worked for them," he said. "That's not the model that EA is now following.

"The model now is to trust your talent, support your talent, give them what they need to do and let them tap into what EA has to offer, which is the fact that they are the best publishing organisation in the world.

"It just doesn't make logical or business sense for them to change a development studio like that. John and all of the executives at EA have very loudly said that in public. They want to empower their creative talent."

Resnick also told GamesIndustry.biz that he was concerned about the traditional business model for making key game titles, and that he was going to change the way that Pandemic operated as a result.

"Well the good news is that I am going to change our business model," he explained. "In fact we've been changing it for a little while.

"I'm very worried about how much money our games cost to make, I'm worried they take so long to make, I'm worried they have to have so many people working on them to make them and I'm worried the only place we can sell them is in bricks and mortar retail stores.

"A lot of that has to change and we have to find ways to make game development smaller, more flexible, faster out to retail and with more dynamic teams. We're thinking a lot about that right now."

The full interview with Josh Resnick, in which he also talks more about new business models, is available now.