Mastertronic International Inc. (1986–1989) Virgin Mastertronic International (1989–1991) Virgin Games, Inc. (1991–1993) Virgin Interactive Entertainment, Inc. (1993–1995) Burst Studios (1995–1998) Westwood Pacific (1998–2003)
EA Pacific (formerly known as first the internal American development divisions of Mastertronic and Virgin Games, then Burst Studios and Westwood Pacific) was a developer formally owned by Virgin Interactive's North American operations, and was based in Irvine, California.
The company was initially founded in 1986 as a subsidiary of Mastertronic, and Randall Masteller was the first programmer hired at the studio.[1] Masteller was later hired by Graeme Devine, who was a close friend of Masteller.[2] Over time, the company hired more employers like Darren Bartlett, David Perry and John Botti, all of these Virgin development executives had left to form their own studios.[3][4] The development division then adopted the Burst name in 1995 as recommended by producer Neil Young.[5]
Burst Studios was beset by production problems during its early years; Virgin Interactive's president of worldwide publishing, Brett W. Sperry, commented in 1997, "The way the Burst studio was structured made a lot of sense on paper, but for a variety of reasons, it wasn't delivering product at the end of the day."[6] Burst Studios was acquired by Electronic Arts together with Westwood Studios and Virgin's North American publishing operations in August 1998.[7] The company was later renamed to Westwood Pacific, under that name, the company developed or co-developed games like Nox and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2.
