Electronic Arts Announces Singapore Studio

Electronic Arts has announced the opening of a new regional office based in Singapore, as part of a continuing expansion of publishing/development presence in the country which has seen the recent opening of a Koei office and LucasArts' setting up of a joint film/game studio in the territory. The new EA Singapore studio will focus on localizing and customizing popular EA games into at least five different languages for distribution throughout the Asia region. In addition, the studio is poised to evolve into an online game development facility. A development team is already in place and the first localized projects have already started to be shipped. VP Operations, Asia, Ms Irene Chua will manage the development studio which currently has a development team of 20 international staff from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Holland. EA veteran Chris Thompson, Vice President and GM of EA Southeast Asia will also be based in Singapore to oversee EA’s publishing business. Chris comes to Singapore from Tokyo where he spent seven years serving as General Manager of EA Japan. “We are happy that Electronic Arts has chosen Singapore to establish their primary localization studio in Asia. In addition, EA will also be able to utilize the studio for online game development. EA is the latest addition of top tier digital media companies that EDB has attracted to Singapore over the past 18 months. It is a significant boost to our efforts in building Singapore into a Digital Media Capital, where Singapore creations can be made for global consumption," said Mr Teo Ming Kian, Chairman, Economic Development Board. “We are excited to build a team that will customize and localize EA’s games for the pan-Asian market,” said Jon Niermann, President, EA Asia Publishing. "Singapore offers everything we need to build a world class creative organization. The Economic Development Board has been very supportive and we are looking forward to working closely with them to build a positive local presence.”