EA pulls plug on tardy Tiberium

Electronic Arts Inc. on Tuesday canceled Tiberium, a spinoff of its popular Command & Conquer franchise of shooter games, and said it would lay off an unspecified number of employees at its Playa Vista office.

“The game was not on track to meet the high quality standards set by the team and by the EA Games label,” EA spokeswoman Miriam Sughayer said.

Sughayer said the Redwood City, Calif., developer would strive to place most of the affected workers into other EA projects.

“This is not about cutting back financially,” she said. “We still have tons of positions open, and we’re hiring throughout the company.”

Earlier this year, EA pushed back the launch of Tiberium to 2009. After spending more than a year developing the game, EA said it decided to cut its losses rather than put out a mediocre product that could mar the company’s recent efforts to revitalize its reputation for producing high-quality titles in an increasingly crowded market for video games.

-- Alex Pham