The Three Thousands is a new game studio based in Melbourne formed by three former EA Mobile veterans previously responsible for games including Real Racing 3, Need for Speed No Limits and The Sims FreePlay.
The studio’s cofounders say they will draw on their prior experience in racing and car culture for their first titles. Some of those games will be mobile titles, we’re told. The studio’s debut is slated for 2025, with more games and partnerships will be announced in the coming months.
CEO Joseph Donoghue is the former general manager at EA’s Firemonkeys studio in Mebourne, Australia, who previously managed a team 120 developers working across Real Racing 3, Need for Speed No Limits, The Sims FreePlay and The Sims Mobile. He also previously worked at Glu.
Chief product officer Nikhil Kurian is a 12 year development and operations veteran, and was previously general manager for racing at EA Melbourne. Chief creative officer Benjamin Dawe has over 15 years of experience from his time at EA Melbourne as creative director, and more recently as Roadshow Films’ head of creative.
“Our goal with The Three Thousands is to become the ultimate digital automotive brand, blending racing, culture, and entertainment in a way no one has done before,” said CEO Joseph Donoghue. “We’ve assembled a core team that are truly best in class at what they do to help deliver against the vision and we couldn’t be happier with the results.”
The Three Thousands founders’ departure from EA Mobile is perhaps no surprise. As we’ve reported previously, EA mentioned its mobile efforts very briefly during its recent investor day, stating that it would only be making “concentrated bets” on standalone mobile titles going forwards.
The publishing giant has also cancelled multiple mobile games in the last 18 months, the latest being The Simpsons: Tapped Out. That followed the publishing giant’s decision earlier this year to merge its mobile teams into its ‘HD’ counterparts and closed several games. Kim Kardashian Hollywood, Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth, Tap Sports Baseball and F1 Mobile have also been closed by EA in 2024.
This year’s cull followed January 2023’s cancellation of Apex Legends Mobile, Battlefield Mobile, and the shuttering of mobile studio Industrial Toys. (We later discussed the demise of Battlefield Mobile studio Industrial Toys with studio founder Alex Seropian.)
The Three Thousands is not the only team of ex-EA Firemonkeys that have set up their own studio in Melbourne. In 2022, we reported on Ultimate Studio, a Supercell-backed start-up formed by the team that had been running Real Racing 3, Need for Speed No Limits and more up until 2018.
