I have a sore spot in my soul for Electronic Arts. Not because of money ill spent or lackluster titles, but because I remember Bullfrog Productions. Bullfrog was the British developer for such ground breaking titles as Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Syndicate. Those of you who remember will smile as I do when I think back to hours spent sending floods against the worshipers of the opposing deity or of training and disciplining the creatures of my dungeon. The programmers at Bullfrog had a certain synthesis of programming expertise and designing savvy. A generation of gamers on both PC and consoles, whether they know it or not, were influenced by the design decisions of these clever folks.

My sore spot comes from EA’s decision to consolidate Bullfrog into its other British holdings and to farm out the workers to other projects, which occurred early in 21st century. (Yes, I’m going to speak of the century in these terms now. It’s 2008, so don’t complain.) As a result of this decision, there will never be a Dungeon Keeper III or another version of Populous.

But even EA can learn from its mistakes. In this article, EA’s CEO acknowledges that “These were great studios that created great products and yet these places no longer exist today… Something broke, it didn’t happen as we or they dreamed it. I would state simply that we at EA blew it, and I was involved so I can say I blew it.”

Yes, you blew it. And EA has posted some losses recently. But perhaps EA can learn from its mistakes. In any event, I accept Riccitiello’s apology. There will be no future releases from a developer whose products I thoroughly enjoyed. I hope that EA will fill in the gap they themselves have created.

Doing so will go a long way to winning over gamers with long memories. I know I’m not the only one.