Yesterday, gaming website VideoGamer published a report about the cancellation of the Dead Space franchise. We reported on their alleged findings.
"EA has ceased development on Dead Space 4 and effectively axed the series following lower than anticipated sales of Dead Space 3," read the piece on VideoGamer.
VideoGamer stated that it had learned of the series' demise from an unnamed source, who said that Visceral Montreal (Army of Two) had been prototyping Dead Space 4 when EA canceled the game and laid off the studio. Likewise, the publication reported that EA had pushed the main branch of Visceral Games to make Dead Space 3 more like the Mass Effect series of games.
Not long after the report went up, EA Games reached out to Gamasutra to state that the allegations in the report are "patently false".
In addition to responses to the story by employees at EA and Visceral, EA's COO Peter Moore today accused VideoGamer of fabricating the entire story in a series of comments on Gamesindustry.biz.
Moore's comments are squarely aimed at VideoGamer for the original publication and not for any of the other websites who picked up the news. Given the publication's history of accurate reportage, it's curious as to how something like this could even happen.
We are reaching out to VideoGamer for comment.
Update: VideoGamer's Dave Scammell sent us an update with an official statement on behalf of the website. You can read it here.