Ben Bell, Jon Dean, and Vance Cook, executive producers for EA Salt Lake in their Bountiful offices on Tuesday, March 2,2010 photo: (Paul Fraughton / The Salt Lake Tribune)

Electronic Arts is closing its Bountiful office and moving its 100 employees to downtown Salt Lake City, where one of the world's largest producers of video games hopes to expand as it works on new projects.

Vance Cook, an executive producer for Electronic Arts in Bountiful, said the Redwood City, Calif.-based company is remodeling offices at 324 S. State St. for the move.

That means the company will vacate its office in Bountiful and shift all operations to the new facility, three years after it bought a video game company from Cook and made it part of Electronic Arts.

"Our lease was up here in Bountiful and, as we continue to grow, we wanted to locate ourselves to a more central location and some place better to attract and retain talent in the future," said Cook.

The move is expected to take place the end of March or in April.

Jon Dean, executive producer for EA's Hasbro group in Utah, said the move shows increasing confidence in the level of talent in electronic media in the area.

"I think the really nice thing is that it shows the growing and changing role of Salt Lake, and I think it shows the increasing level of confidence in having a facility in Salt Lake."

Dean said the Salt Lake move also will allow EA to put everyone in a space where they work together closely. Its new offices cover 21,000 square feet, with room to expand if the company continues to hire.

Cook founded Headgate Studios in 1992 in Bountiful as a business-productivity software company that branched out into electronic games. He sold the company to Sierra Entertainment in 1996, bought it back and then sold the company again about three years ago to Electronic Arts.

Even though it is a video game giant, EA reported a net loss of $1.08 billion in its fiscal year 2009, which ended March 31. It had revenues of $4.2 billion. In fiscal 2009, Electronic Arts announced a restructuring plan that closed 10 facilities and trimmed about 11 percent of its work force, or 1,100 employees.

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello said last year the company was looking to expand operations outside of California.

"Our industry is going through transition," said Cook. "We traditionally have been building games in some of the most expensive places around the world. We need to quit doing that."

Utah's Cook, 44, said he soon will be leaving EA to take some time off before pursuing other endeavors and that the Salt Lake office will be run by Dean and Ben Bell. The latter is an executive producer for EA's Sims Group in Utah, which produces games that allow players to create and live a virtual life on a computer.

EA will be transferring some employees from California to Utah, though the number is not set, and also will be hiring for key positions, said Bell.

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Electronic Arts Utah

» The Utah office of Electronic Arts employs about 100 people.

» It is responsible for well-known games such as "Tiger Woods PGA Tour" and "Madden NFL" and Hasbro games such as "Nerf" and "Little Pet Shop."