Sacked developers poke fun at EA in iPhone game

The activities of games corporations like Electronic Arts can leave many casualties. Take Pandemic Studios, which was acquired and shut down by EA in a scant two years, leaving 1500 developers jobless.

Four of those pink-slipped developers have turned their attention to the iPhone and created the development studio Downsized Games. And its first app, BulleTrain, pokes a little fun at the developer's former overlords.

The game's blurb paints the player as a small shipping company on the planet Glendon 19 (referencing Pandemic's former offices at 1100 Glendon Ave in Los Angeles) who gets gobbled up in a hostile takeover by Elaborate Acquisitions (EA), lead by the dastardly JR (John Riccitiello).

So you scrape together your last credits and, with the help of your best driver, Atal (Ariel Tal, the game's programmer), outfit your trasport ship with weapons to take down the corporation's BulleTrain service. "It's time to hand out the pinkslips, in blood," the website says.

Writing on the game's blog today, a member of Downsized Games said "there are some comments from people who apparently take everything at face value and have no appreciation for tongue-in-cheek.

"Yes we were all laid off by EA. Yes it sucked. Yes it got us together and got the creative juices flowing."

BulleTrain will be out soon on iPhone and iPod touch.