EA Opens Austin Studio For Pogo Development

Electronics Arts opened a new studio, Pogo Austin, expanding its team behind casual games community Pogo.com, which also has locations in Redwood City, CA and Shanghai, China. Led by studio head Sean Clark, the new 12 person-strong division in Austin, TX -- co-located with the BioWare Austin offices -- will focus on creating family-friendly titles based on Hasbro properties. The first of these will be Pictureka! Museum Mayhem, slated to release online in November at Pogo.com and at PC retail in early winter. The title is based on Hasbro's 2007 board game Pictureka! Players take on the role of a museum curator who finds that someone has broken into the building and re-arranged the exhibits. To win, they'll have to restore missing items and catch the troublemaker. "We are thrilled to open a studio in Austin as there is such an enthusiastic and knowledgeable game development community," says Pogo general manager Andrew Pedersen. "It's great to be a part of that spirit, and I feel privileged to be working with a team full of game makers who bring such tremendous talent and experience to the Pogo team."