EA has many divisions. And they've never had any qualms just stopping development after 2-3 years on a project and just taking a loss. They're big enough that it doesn't phase them. If one dev, or one team walked, they'd either hire to replace them, or close the project.
With Ultima Online 2, two different times they vested three years of man-hours and dollars into the project and completly junked it twice without batting an eye.