PopCap Dublin closed by EA, studio issues statement

PopCap Dublin has been shuttered by EA. The news broke after studio employees confirmed the closure on Twitter.

MCV reports that EA has closed PopCap's Dublin arm. The publisher acquired PopCap in 2011 for $650 million with an additional $100 million stock option.

Associate producer John Vaughan tweeted, "And it's official, Popcap Dublin is now closed :(."

The closure follows statements made by EA's Frank Gibeau suggested that lay-offs at PopCap's Seattle and Dublin studios were the result of 'duplicative' roles and a shift in focus to the mobile market.

“Typically at EA what we do when we acquire a company is we make sure that we go slow initially and really understand the culture of the company, and then we look for whether there’s opportunities to integrate the companies – and then we accelerate."

“So with PopCap," he added, "what we found is that there are some areas inside PopCap that were duplicative what EA was doing; a lot of central resources, legal, business affairs those types of things so we accelerated the integration there.”

UPDATE: MCV has just published an official PopCap statement:

• The consultation period in Ireland has been completed, and after having consulted fully with the employee representatives the PopCap leadership team has decided to close our Dublin office.
• 96 people have been affected by the decision. PopCap has provided outplacement support and many employees have offers in other parts of PopCap, at EA or new opportunities with technology partners in Ireland.
• Europe remains a critical market for PopCap and we will continue to grow our presence through centralized services operated from our North American offices and through the extensive European EA network.
• In Ireland, EA announced last week the addition of 300 jobs for its European Customer Experience Center in Galway, almost doubling the number of staff. The Galway facility currently employs close to 400 people.

We've asked EA for a statement. More as we get it.