EA Seattle was a video game developer founded as Manley & Associates in 1982 at Issaquah, Washington. It was renamed to Electronic Arts Seattle following its purchase by Electronic Arts in 1996, with the subsequet relocation of the studio to Bellevue, Washington.
The studio worked alongside EA Canada for PC exclusive Special Edition releases of The Need for Speed and Need for Speed II, released in 1996 and 1997 respectively.
The Seattle team would continue development in the Need for Speed series throughout the 1990's, sharing development with the team at EA Canada of the PC versions of Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit released in 1998 and Need for Speed: High Stakes released in 1999.
Afterwards, the studio started development in the next entry in the series, Need for Speed: Motor City, although during development the game was stripped of single player features and repurposed as an MMO, released in 2001 as Motor City Online.[1][2].
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, released in 2002, would be handled by EA Seattle for its PC, GameCube and Xbox versions, whilst the PlayStation 2 version was handled by Black Box Games. Electronic Arts closed the Seattle subsidiary in the same year, moving half the people to Vancouver and firing the rest.[3]
Games[]
| Game | Platforms |
|---|---|
| The Need for Speed: Special Edition | PC |
| Need for Speed II: Special Edition | PC |
| Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit | PC |
| Need for Speed: High Stakes | PC |
| Motor City Online | PC |
| Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 | GameCube, PC, Xbox |
References[]
- ↑ Article: IGN.com (2001) Motor City Online. Available at: https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/02/13/motor-city-online-2
- ↑ Article: IGN.com (2001) Developer Journal: Motor City Online, pt. 1. Available at: https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/05/02/developer-journal-motor-city-online-pt-1
- ↑ Seattle pi (2002) Electronic Arts closing Bellevue game studio. Available at: https://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/electronic-arts-closing-bellevue-game-studio-1098967.php