EA Black Box

Black Box Games was a studio in British Columbia, Canada, founded in 1998 by former Radical Entertainment employees. In its early years it worked for hire for publishers such as Sega, Midway Games and Electronic Arts, mostly on sports games: NHL 2K (2000) for the Dreamcast, NASCAR 2001 (2000) for PlayStation, NHL Hitz 2002 (2001), Sega Soccer Slam (2002) and NHL Hitz 2003 (2002).

In June 2002, while it was making Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (2002), Electronic Arts bought it and made it a subsidiary of EA Canada under the name EA Black Box. Short of space, in March 2003 it took over the top four floors of an office tower in downtown Vancouver, and in March 2005 it was split off from EA Canada as a studio in its own right, still owned by EA. Those years brought Need for Speed: Underground (2003), Underground 2 (2004), Most Wanted (2005) and Carbon (2006).

Next came Skate (2007), Need for Speed: ProStreet (2007), Need for Speed: Undercover (2008), Skate 2 (2009) and Skate 3 (2010). In December 2008 EA announced it would close the Vancouver office and move the studio into EA Canada's Burnaby facilities as part of a worldwide consolidation; the studio stayed under the EA Games label. Its last games were Need for Speed: World (2010) for PC and Need for Speed: The Run (2011).

In February 2012 EA confirmed lay-offs at the studio and a shift towards online, social and free-to-play games. In July 2012, during work on Need for Speed: World, it was renamed Quicklime Games, the name it kept until it closed in April 2013. Ghost Games took over the Need for Speed series later that year.