EA Digital Illusions CE AB
Overview
Started in 1988 by
Ulf Mandorff,
Olof Gustafsson,
Fredrik Liliegren and
Andreas Axelsson,
EA Digital Illusions CE AB is a Swedish game development studio.
Like many Scandinavian studios, it was originally started as a demo group,
The Silents. The four initial developers all came from the same town Alvesta in Sweden. During the initial days the team also operated out of a dorm room at Växjö University. Initially, the company was well known for its Amiga and DOS pinball games, such as
Pinball Dreams (1992) and
Pinball Illusions (1995). The company was officially formed as
Digital Illusions HB in May 1992 and became
Digital Illusions CE AB in January 1993. The company moved to Gothenburg in 1994 and remained there until 2005.
A big expansion occurred in early 2000 when the company fully acquired
Refraction Games AB and a large majority of
Synergenix Interactive AB, though the latter was bought by
Red Jade Inc. in the same year. In 2001 DICE made its presence in North America through the acquisition of the assets of the Canadian development studio
Sandbox Studios. It was renamed
Digital Illusions Canada, Inc.The company's breakthrough occurred at the end of 2002 with the release of warfare shooter
Battlefield 1942, the first game in a long-running series of
Battlefield games. In March 2003
Electronic Arts, which published the first game, became the studio's biggest owner with 19 percent of the stocks. The team to work on the franchise was strengthened with the acquisition of
Trauma Studios in September 2004, a studio that became known through the popular
Desert Combat mod for
BF1942. The Trauma studio was then dubbed
DICE New York. After doing work on
Battlefield 2 (2005), the Swedish studio wanted the US team to move to Sweden to help work on
Battlefield 2142 (2006), but Trauma decided against relocation and was discontinued in June 2005. Most of that team moved on as
Kaos Studios working for
THQ.
In November 2004 Electronic Arts announced its intent to buy all outstanding shares of the company. The offer was accepted and on March 31, 2005 EA owned 62% of the company. The acquisition was completed on October 2, 2006 and the studio was renamed
EA Digital Illusions CE AB.
For most of the titles, the company used two generations of the
Refractor engine, originally by Refraction Games AB. In June 2008, with the release of
Battlefield: Bad Company, an entirely new in-house developed engine was introduced:
Frostbite DX.
After having worked almost exclusively on the
Battlefield warfare franchise between 2002 and 2008, an entirely new game was introduced in November 2008, the parkour action game
Mirror's Edge, based on completely new IP.
In June 2009, the company released
Battlefield Heroes, a browser-based, more casual-oriented
Battlefield game.
The company also owns
DICE Simulations AB.
Also Known As
- Digital Illusions CE AB (from Jan, 1993 to Oct 06, 2006)
Trivia
Company information in 2004:
Digital Illusions CE AB (DICE)
Maria Skolgata 83, 118 53 Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: +46 8 658 78 00
Fax: +46 8 658 78 99
CEO: Patrick Söderlund, tel. +46 8 658 78 01
Marketing Contact: Jenny Huldschiner, tel.+46 8 658 78 03, +46 73 420 98 00
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