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EA/BioWare Deal Finalized, Nets EA Ten Franchises

Posted by Zonk on Mon Jan 07, 2008 03:20 PM
from the bully-for-them dept.
Businesses Entertainment Games
Gamasutra notes that the announced deal, where Electronic Arts was to purchase BioWare/Pandemic, has now been formalized. This arrangement will fold ten new franchises into the EA family, from the just-released Mass Effect all the way back to BioWare's classic titles. "EA Games president Frank Gibeau will oversee both studios within his organization, and BioWare's Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk have each been named as vice presidents of EA and co-general managers of BioWare. Similarly, Pandemic's Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick have each been named vice presidents of EA and co-general managers of Pandemic, while Greg Borrud has been named vice president of EA and chief production officer of Pandemic Studios. "
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Related Stories

[+] Electronic Arts Purchases BioWare, Pandemic 232 comments
Kotaku is reporting that EA has purchased BioWare and Pandemic Studios, having offered some $620 million in cash to the Elevation Partners group to buy up VG Holding Corp. From the press release: "'We are truly excited by John Riccitiello's new vision for EA,' said Ray Muzyka, Co-founder and CEO of BioWare Corp. 'This vision is consistent with BioWare's focus on crafting the highest quality story-driven games in the world. It will enable us to further the careers of the passionate, creative and hard working teams at BioWare Edmonton and BioWare Austin.'"
[+] Fallout From the BioWare/Pandemic Buyout 89 comments
Yesterday's announcement of EA's purchase of BioWare and Pandemic took a lot of people by surprise. Today, there's some more information, reactions, and assurances from the people involved in the move. First and foremost: Mass Effect should not be affected by this purchase. The future of the series is still up in the air, but the game we've all be waiting for is still slated for a November 20th release exclusive to the Xbox 360. EA held a conference call about the buyout soon after it was announced, and answers a number of questions about specifics. FiringSquad has a feature on the reaction from the developers, and that piece has some assurances that EA's CEO John Riccitiello has the best interests of the new acquisitions at heart. Gamasutra has a Q&A with Pandemic's management team, which wants to point out that Pandemic/BioWare and their parent company drove this deal forward; this was not a hostile acquisition. Likewise Gamespot has a chat with the BioWare co-founders, who are equally excited about the deal. This may have been surprising, but if the two companies were onboard with this move it can hardly be dire, right?
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EA/BioWare Deal Finalized, Nets EA Ten Franchises 50 Comments More /

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  • Following this announcement, all BioWare and Pandemic developers were ordered to repor t to headquarters for a 10 digit tattoo on their arms and re-EAification [livejournal.com]. Prepare to learn how to saturate the market with your titles differing by only one digit!

    Christ, for a moment there I thought EA's Battlefield, Medal of Honor & Crysis games were going to have to step it up a notch to compete with these new ... oh wait, nevermind, competition's been purchased. Whew! That was close. Ok, everybody resume average game ideas, and above all nothing risky or extraordinary! Remember, your ideas have to be approved through like seventy levels of command so don't even start with any out of the ordinary stuff we aren't sure will be an instant mediocre game netting us an average profit.

    WoW, I can't wait for Mass Effect 2 through 5 and Mass Effect 2010, 2011, 2012 & 2013. Just imagine the rosters!

    • Obligatory PA post on the subject (Score:5, Funny)

      by ErikTheRed (162431) on Monday January 07 2008, @04:39PM (#21946952) Homepage
      Click here [penny-arcade.com]

    • While I agree that the majority of EA games are fuming turds, don't touch Crysis. It's one of the best-looking and most fun games I have played in a long while.

      Apparently Crytek has been getting real nice treatment from EA, it is good to see that they are giving the developer's they own some bit of freedom now. Hopefully this will continue with BioWare.

      But... I don't know, considering how well Crysis sold, we'll have to wait and see what they allow BioWare.

      • This has spoilers, so don't read further if you're still playing the game. It's also opinion so feel free to disagree ;).

        Crysis was pretty and the physics were awesome, but I'm not sure if I'd describe it as "fun". The only thing that stopped me from quitting was the fact that I paid for it. Oddly enough everyone despises the alien plot theme, however that was the *only* saving grace for me. Running around the jungle got old. From the helicopter pulled directly from Half-Life that could find you if you wer

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by gameforge (965493)
            So you toned all of the graphics settings down, for both your drivers and in the game, and with a 2.0GHz dual core and your other specs, you had FPS drops in the DEMO?

            Something else is wrong. Either the demo had some glitch when you tried it or your system is goofed, because I have the real game and ran it on an Athlon 3000+ w/ the same amount of RAM and a whopping Radeon 9800, and after toning the resolution and settings down, it played just fine. Didn't look bad either - I don't recall having to bottom
            • Oh, and the aliens in Crysis, aside from all looking like the same model, looked like they came straight out of Duke Nukem 3D, except they weren't billboards... even with lots of texture filters you could see huge, ugly, disgusting texture pixels, unless it was the other 7/8 of the alien which was jet black and was more of a silhouette than a model... so if you saw any of that, that wasn't your hardware. ;)
    • "We are throwing a party in honor of your tremendous success. Place your keyboards on the ground, then lie on your stomach with your arms at your sides. A party associate will arrive shortly to collect you for your party. Make no further attempt to innovate. Assume the 'Party Escort Submission Position' or you will miss the party."
    • "Gentlemen, you can't have a small worry in here! This is the Crysis room!"

      • Re:Like Bioware wasn't already stuck in that rut? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rhombic (140326) on Monday January 07 2008, @04:24PM (#21946810)
        Did you play KOTOR? And KOTOR 2? And you can say with a straight face that Obsidian is "the Honda to their GM"?? Jeezus, KOTOR was a terribly fun game, and ran pretty well on the Xbox. KOTOR 2 ran horribly, had major, game ending bugs, apparently used five year olds as the level designers, and left more plot lines dangling than a daytime soap, and made the Sopranos look like a well-thought out, complete ending. To top it all off, they left all the voice acting to a fantastic, unimplemented ending in the final product, rubbing it in for us. Bioware's not the best ever, but if Bioware is GM, I'd suggest Obsidian is Zastava (maker of the famous Yugo).

        • I wholeheartedly disagree. I thought KOTOR 2 was excellent. The plot wasn't as good as KOTOR, but the gameplay was much better (extra levels, extra feats, lightsaber forms were actually pretty damn cool). It ran just fine for me (and on a woefully underpowered system, at that), I encountered no bugs, and the level design was pretty much the exact same damn formula as in KOTOR, so you have no grounds whatsoever to complain on that note. I will agree that the ending sucked the big one, but the rest of the gam
      • Say what you will... Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights were awesome games.

  • I felt a disturbance... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Boogaroo (604901) on Monday January 07 2008, @03:26PM (#21946082) Homepage
    It was as if millions of gamers cried out and were silenced.

    • It was as if millions of gamers cried out and were silenced.
      You're new to this internet thing, aren't you.

  • The Collapse Of Microsoft's First Party Support (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07 2008, @03:29PM (#21946148)
    Bungie - Was so unhappy working with Microsoft they forced them to let the company become independent and work on any platform they want
    Bizarre - Ended their exclusive Xbox development when they went off to Activision
    Bioware - Ended their exclusive Xbox development when they went off to EA

    That pretty much just leaves Lionhead and Rare as Microsoft's first party Xbox developers. Rare has been a disaster for the money Microsoft paid to acquire the developer. Lionhead has been 'meh'. A decent developer that talks too much about grand plans that continually disappoint in their actual product.

    With these rumors of Microsoft looking to license the Xbox to third party manufacturers you have to wonder if Microsoft is ready to turn their focus away from console hardware and back to Windows gaming.

    • But Duke Nukem Forever is being reworked exclusively for X-Box!

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's even worse than just those three. Mistwalker has turned out to be a disaster with the failures of Blue Dragon and Lost Oddessey. And Epic has sounded very, very pissed off at Microsoft and their online service forcing them to spend six months to a year rewriting UT. Rockstar has tried to hide their frustration and anger at being forced to fit their giant city sized game onto the 360's tiny and smaller than last gen's 7.1GB DVD disks and no standard harddrive.

      With the sudden and rapid death of HD-DVD th
      • I dunno... having bought all these game companies in order to build up the 360's installed base, and having succeeded, doesn't it make sense now to sell them off and recoup their costs? They'll still make games for the 360... 3rd parties go to where the gamers are. The PS3 is barely a threat at this juncture, and Wii isn't raking it in for 3rd parties either.

        MS way very agressive early on in aquiring these companies, and it has paid off. Sony would do well to follow their example.
      • I still have no idea why Microsoft decided to sell a HD-less console, and continue to force developers to not make HD-only games. It seems like most people who bought the core system, did so with the intent of buying an HD later, well now is later, so go get one. The Xbox 360 Core system was a regression from the original xbox in terms of storage, and the only reason they did it was to pinch pennies out of people who would otherwise not buy one.
    • Whilst the 360 is in second place to the Wii, it's still 1st place in terms of software sales by quite a decent margin. That means that no matter what the 1st party support it's still getting a hell of a lot of development attention because it's the console software developers can currently make the most money from.

      Seeing as Nintendo and Sony have much greater 1st party software support yet lower software sales for their consoles (despite in the case of Nintendo having a higher userbase) I fail to understan

      • The 360 also has a much stronger attach rate than the Wii
        Counting or not counting Wii Sports and Wii Play? Counting or not counting Xbox Live Marketplace and Wii Shop Channel? I'd like to know what source you're using.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Tim C (15259)
            Alternatively Wii games, by their nature, may have a higher replay value and greater longevity, leading to fewer sales because why buy more when you're still playing the ones you have?

            From what I've seen of the Wii (= the games my ex has for hers) they're mostly about team/party play and replayable games, with games with a definite beginning, middle and end being in the minority - puzzle games, mini games like Wii Sports, etc.

        • Re:The Collapse Of Microsoft's First Party Support (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07 2008, @04:12PM (#21946662)
          Right. I forgot this was Slashdot. I forgot that Microsoft was a total failure of a company. Has cheated to get where it is today, and has been dying for 10 years now, with each new product having fatal flaws that will kill the company.

          Face it. So far Microsoft is in a solid second place, and thanks to the high attach rate and traditional style, probably number one as far as most 3rd party game companies are concerned.

          Can Sony pull it together and do better? sure, it's possible, maybe even likely. Maybe Nintendo will start getting some serious 3rd party development and not the shovelware it seems to be getting.

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by Anonymous Coward
              Your arguement boils down to "Xbox is bigger than PS3 now by a large margin overall, but not in countries other than US, UK and Australia". US, UK and Australia make up the bulk of sales for American games anyway. So when Microsoft no longer has those American developers under their tight control, it still doesn't matter because the console has the biggest install base overall right now and will continue to have the biggest install base in the countries where their games will sell most for a long while to c
  • Come on EA, dip into that huge bank account you have and fully fund Baldur's Gate III!

    • Re:I see one plus to this deal (Score:5, Funny)

      by LighterShadeOfBlack (1011407) on Monday January 07 2008, @03:53PM (#21946450) Homepage

      Come on EA, dip into that huge bank account you have and fully fund Baldur's Gate III!
      You mean Baldur's Gate 2009 (to be released Autumn 2008). Or as it's known internally 'BG2 with facial expressions'. And I've heard rumours of plans for a followup, known only by it's secret codename 'BG2 with facial expressions and realistic grass effects'

      And of course there'll be no more text feedback to read in battles, it'll all be provided by commentary from Andy Gray and Martin Tyler (Americans can insert whoever commentates on whatever games EA whores over there).
      • You mean Baldur's Gate 2009 (to be released Autumn 2008). Or as it's known internally 'BG2 with facial expressions'. And I've heard rumours of plans for a followup, known only by it's secret codename 'BG2 with facial expressions and realistic grass effects'

        Is that the one with the Mohawk class of Night Elves?

      • Re:I see one plus to this deal (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07 2008, @04:14PM (#21946680)
        John Madden.

        Or, how I would envision it...

        Madden: You see, Minsc just helped his party out by not being hit and by hitting his enemy. If he can continue doing that, then his party will win the fight.

  • In related news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Darth (29071) on Monday January 07 2008, @03:34PM (#21946240) Homepage
    Bioware announced their next game, expected to be released in early 2010, Madden Effect 2k10.

  • What a sad day for gaming (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 40ozFreak (823002) on Monday January 07 2008, @04:27PM (#21946838)
    And baby Jesus wept.

    That EA is allowed to buy out all their competition rather than be forced to produce top notch titles in an effort to battle over the market is a farce to me. They did it with Madden as well by scooping up the NFL license just as Visual Concepts' ESPN NFL 2k series was starting to show signs of seriously competing with Madden. They can't be allowed to continue doing this. Why would BioWare want this for themselves? Doesn't anyone inside gaming feel that EA needs less help than anyone? Stay independent! Fight the urge to conglomerate!

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by blahplusplus (757119)
      "That EA is allowed to buy out all their competition rather than be forced to produce top notch titles in an effort to battle over the market is a farce to me"

      I wish people would stop bashing EA, the fact is many of their games are pretty good, even with some bumpy patches here and there (battlefield), The sims series, simcity, Need for speed (almost every god damn one has been and fairly well made). There's other crap for sure, but the fact is you don't get to be top dog if you totally blow. Fact is, EA

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Endo13 (1000782)
        EA is good at marketing, yes. But then so is McDonalds. And despite their insane popularity, there's very few restaurants out there that don't serve better food than McDonalds.

        Out of the dozens of "games" EA has released in the last 5 years, I can count on one hand the ones that were both fun to play and not complete bug-ridden crap. The same cannot be said about the number of stellar franchises they've purchased and subsequently trashed in the same time period. There's reasons people bash EA. Lots of reaso
        • "EA is good at marketing, yes. But then so is McDonalds. And despite their insane popularity, there's very few restaurants out there that don't serve better food than McDonalds."

          You keep forgetting though that people care more about the taste then anything else, people go to Mc Donalds and eat their food for the taste. McDonalds has got it's chemical engineering of its food down to a science, unlike 99% of other restaurants. They are quite capitalistic and scientific in their methods, they are an exemplar
      • "That Creative is allowed to buy out all their competition rather than be forced to produce top notch sound cards in an effort to battle over the market is a farce to me"

        I wish people would stop bashing Creative, the fact is many of their cards are pretty good, even with some bumpy patches here and there (Live 5.1 under XP), The AWE series, extigy, speakers (almost every god damn set has been and fairly well made). There's other crap for sure, but the fact is you don't get to be top dog if you totally blow.

        • "That Microsoft is allowed to buy out all their competition rather than be forced to produce top notch software in an effort to battle over the market is a farce to me"

          I wish people would stop bashing Microsoft, the fact is many of their products are pretty good, even with some bumpy patches here and there (ME), The XP series, XBox, mice (almost every god damn one has been and fairly well made), and keyboards. There's other crap for sure, but the fact is you don't get to be top dog if you totally blow. Fact
      • No, many of their games are crap (or, at least, games I can't stand, which is different, I grant you). EA produces good games, they just happen to be few and far between compared to the masses of mediocre/bad games they put out.

        Also, I'm still pissed off that they bought the NFL license. God forbid we have a level playing field here... your competition makes a better game than you, so take away their ability to make it! Good game, EA (and NFL). Good fucking game.

    • Why would BioWare want this for themselves? Doesn't anyone inside gaming feel that EA needs less help than anyone? Stay independent! Fight the urge to conglomerate!

      Sorry, Bioware can't hear your earnest plea over the clinking noise of the bag full of gold coins the EA rep is shaking in front of them.
    • They did it with Madden as well by scooping up the NFL license just as Visual Concepts' ESPN NFL 2k series was starting to show signs of seriously competing with Madden.

      You can blame the NFL for that one, since the prefer to exclusively license everything. EA had no choice but to buy the rights, if they wanted to continue publishing Madden with NFL teams.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by LrdDimwit (1133419)
      Perhaps because EA's new CEO [wikipedia.org] used to be involved with these guys [wikipedia.org] who were already running Bioware? He pretty much went EA top manager -> Elevation Partners (owning Bioware) -> running EA.

      So I dunno if I'd call that smart, but that could certainly be one reason. Bioware knows firsthand the guy now running EA. Does that mean EA will magically turn awesome? I think EA's problems will continue as long as they think they'll get good work out of slavedriven employees. But it also means Bioware has per

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by pokerdad (1124121)

      Why would BioWare want this for themselves?

      The short answer - $

      The long answer - Bioware was founded by three doctors who wanted to develop medical software. Along the way their priorities got shifted and it became a gaming company; this move probably cause some strife as one of the original partners left back in 1997.

      Anyways, for all the success they've had BioWare has always been a pretty small studio, and I can't help but wonder if the thought that they could be much bigger and even that much more successful is what led to them "joining for

  • Does this mean that all of Bioware's titles are going to play like XBOX games ported to the PC, like all of the C&C games now? I'm sure it does.
  • I predict this aquisition will go just as well for them as it did when EA bought out Origin, Bullfrog and Westwood studios!
    • That's a horrible thing to say, you bastard.

      I don't want all the people to leave the companies and go form new ones that put out overhyped and underwhelming titles years late.
  • One thing I've heard rumours of, is that they're actually illing to pay a little more to keep the talent that bioware brings to the table. rather than just buying the company out, letting the people go and replacing them with less-talented kids fresh out of school. We'll see how long that lasts, I hope the good Doctors got some good money for it. I'm looking at you Muzyka.

  • EA ruins another developer. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by syn1kk (1082305) on Monday January 07 2008, @09:22PM (#21949326)
    Example 1 - Dungeon Keeper series by Bullfrog:
    "Bullfrog had decided not to do any other RTS of any kind. This decision was in effect the end of Bullfrog as a brand; the company had already been owned by EA for several years, and EA laid off some employees and put the remainder onto other projects such as the Harry Potter line."

    "2004 met the final end of Bullfrog when Electronic Arts combined their side studios into EA UK."

    Lord British - talking about how EA is a ONE TRICK PONY:
    "Richard Garriott: The short explanation was, as they say, fundamental creative differences. If you've seen any of the Ultimas, you know they contain very large virtual worlds, deep story lines and they took me each years to develop. But EA's core business is making sports games, and they've got a machine and a process that does that very, very successfully. Frankly, EA wasn't convinced that the MMOG business model was the way of the future and so that ultimately led to my retirement from EA. In fact, when I left in 2000, I fully anticipated that if EA wasn't interested in MMOGs, that Microsoft or some other big company would dive into this bold new world that we'd opened up and then dominate the market segment. After a year of retirement -- and with no one approaching us -- my brother Robert and I decided to put together a company to create MMOGs that we briefly called Destination Games. "

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by syn1kk (1082305)
      Example 3 - Origin Studios:
      "In 1997, they released one of the earliest and most successful graphical MMORPGs, Ultima Online. After this title, Electronic Arts decided that Origin would become an online-only company after the completion of Ultima IX in 1999. However, within a year's time, EA canceled all of Origin's new development projects, including Ultima Online 2, Privateer Online, and Harry Potter Online. Richard Garriott left Origin shortly after and founded Destination Games in 2000."

      Example 4 - Westw

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