Update: Jeff Brown, EA’s head of corporate communications, has commented on the men’s departure: “EA has been nurturing great developers for 27 years and making room for the next generation is an important part of that process. It takes a team to make a great game like dead space and and there’s a stunning array of talent in the Visceral studio — creative leaders who now have the opportunity to step into the spotlight and have their talent recognized.”

Original story: Sources close to EA have revealed that Activision have poached two senior developers from EA studio Visceral Games. According to a report at GameSpot, this comes as the culmination of “intense” recruitment by Activision of the studio’s staff.

Former Visceral general manager Glen Schofield and COO Micheal Condry will now take up positions in Activision’s new, as-yet-unnamed, San Francisco Bay Area studio. GameSpot’s source, who wishes to remain anonymous, revealed that the departure of the pair follows weeks of rumour and speculation fueled by “intense recruiting by Activision of many staffers at Visceral.”

“It’s not a very happy day here,” said the source.

This will come as a blow to EA, who just rebranded Visceral from its previous incarnation as EA Redwood Shores. As part of the rebranding, the studio known for creating the Dead Space series and Dante’s Inferno was supposed to be recognized as a “city-state” studio, with added creative independence from EA. How this will pan out following the loss of two of the studio’s main players remains to be seen.