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.'"
(Pardon me for being cynical, but I can't help but be afraid that a company like EA, known for mediocrity, is going to drag down Bioware, known for excellence)
Let's hope that Bioware, like Maxis/Will Wright, can fight hard to get free reign. Pandemic, on the other hand, will just slowly fold in on itself as it become just another EA company.
Yea, I'm not sure what all this is supposed to mean. Are we gonna get a ton of sequels (KotOR 3? Jade Empire2?) or is EA gonna leave them alone and just give them bags of munny hoping they can make great games they can bank off of? The Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] already shows Mass Effect 2 and 3 are in developement.
Oh yeah, KotOR already moved away from bioware, KotOR2 was one of the most disappointing games I've ever played. But there will definitly be a Jade Empire sequel now, along with ME2 and ME3. Probably JE3, JE4, & JE2010. ME4,5,6,7,8. And they will all, individually & collectively suck. I remember from my teenage years how EA used to be a name you could rely on for a fun game. Now, they're a shambling zombie force that sucks the life out of anything they touch, and causes their newly assimilated zombi
Now, they're a shambling zombie force that sucks the life out of anything they touch, and causes their newly assimilated zombie-children to spew foul darkness onto the marketplace.
I tend to think of EA more like "The Borg" - they are out to assimilate every other game company, suck the individuality out of them and turn them into themselves - lifeless automatons.
Agreed, it may be a money-maker, but it's not good for those who love great games and look forward to more being created in the future. Can anyone here name just one company that got better in terms of product quality and service AFTER a merger? I certainly cannot, and am not aware of any.
So, to summarize this business deal: EA= Big Daddies, Bioware = Little Sisters, and if history is any guide to how EA treats their people, bioware's programmers/artists = corpses being robbed of their mana. And where do the customers factor in? We're the fellow passengers on the airplane that crashed during the Bioshock opening scene -- literary filler which exists only because it can't be logically avoided.
It will enable us to further the careers of the passionate, creative and hard working teams at BioWare Edmonton and BioWare Austin.'"
Yes. When they consolidate there will be several people passionate about eating and paying their bills who will be looking afield to continue their careers.
Bioware was a lot bigger than Bethesda, and they just got bought. In fact I would consider Bioware to be probably the biggest 'independent' developer around. So I don't think Bethesda is immune. To quote Futurama, "Maybe you don't understand just how rich he is. In fact, I think I'd better put on a monocle."
I, for one, have never seen anything *good* come of an EA acquisition. Anyone remember the Ultima games? EA bought Origin Systems, and the series promptly went from the brilliance of Ultimas III through VII Part 2 to the flops and incredible series ending disappointments that were Ultima VIII and IX. Both were buggy, lacking in plot, and virtually unplayable. It was terrible to have such a wonderful, complex continuing story terminate with a muffled whimper.
EA is doing everything they can to kill of The Sims.
They've absorbed Maxis entirely at this point, you won't find the Maxis name on anything anymore. They recently just changed from Safedisc to securom on the series which has caused uncountable problems, and to sweeten it they've got a moderator on a rampage banning and screaming at anyone who dares defile the securom name, or even claim they're having a problem because of it. That despite the fact that they set up a forum specifically to talk about securom.
No, EA gives *Will Wright* a lot of free reign, because he's Will fscking Wright, and you can bet he'd be able to jump ship and land on his feet somewhere else if EA ever held him back. As for the rest of Maxis, they've been swallowed up by the EA hive collective, and are now drones in charge of cranking ever more irrelevant sequels, ports and expansion packs to The Sims.
Maxis no longer exists. The studio was folded into EA years ago.
Look no further than SimCity Societies to see how far the SimCity series has fallen. The Sims, revolutionary way back when, is a pathetic cash cow at this point.
Imagine SimCity, only take out the simulation elements, dumb it down, give it a lame 3d engine, and hire the mediocre studio behind the failure that is Caesar IV to design it. That's exactly what EA is doing with SimCity Societies. One of the most venerable PC game series of all time is reduced to the uninspired, inoffensive, mildly-likable crap that EA specializes in. If Maxis were still around, I doubt we'd be seeing this.
Then there's the Westwood. EA dissolved the studio and released C&C: Generals. It had no live action cut scenes, no creative and silly weapons, and no enigmatic bald men bent on world domination. It was a generic RTS featuring the USA, China, and some Arab quasi-nationstate fighting across desert landscapes dotted with mosques - the same setting used by every Clancy knockoff.
(Just because you build a city doesn't make it SimCity. Likewise, just because you command a modern army doesn't make it C&C.)
And let's not forget the Battlefield series. DICE revolutionized online FPS gaming with BF1942. To this day, it's still one of my favorite games. Battlefield 2, however, is a system hog that could teach Vista a thing or two. Post-release support is abysmal and the game is still riddled with bugs. BF2142 is for all purposes a half-assed futuristic mod based on the same crummy BF2 engine...and it features in-game ads.
I could go on and on, but you get the picture. I've been playing PC games ever since SimCity 2000 in 1993 and have witnessed EA steadily bastardize so many PC games I know and love. They make boatloads of cash from their exploitation games (Madden, The Sims) and then buy out respectable studios. Am I cynical for thinking that BioWare and Pandemic will go to shit? Based on my experience with EA, it's only a matter of time.
I could go on and on, but you get the picture. I've been playing PC games ever since SimCity 2000 in 1993 and have witnessed EA steadily bastardize so many PC games I know and love. They make boatloads of cash from their exploitation games (Madden, The Sims) and then buy out respectable studios. Am I cynical for thinking that BioWare and Pandemic will go to shit? Based on my experience with EA, it's only a matter of time.
I think that their success in part parallels the rise of the non-geek gamer. I have NEVER owned a football game for any system I've owned. I think the last one I even rented was for the Sega Master System since I was trying to find a game my stepdad might be interested in. I'm sure a lot of geek gamers feel the same way. Well, it doesn't matter: sports games are huge sellers. Someone is buying them. When geeks were all about Doom, Myst was by far the top-seller of all time. Some geeks like it and many disliked it. The important part was that a whole lot of non-geeks really liked it. Barbie and Monopoly games sell more than traditional geek games.
With gaming going so mainstream, there are a lot of people now who accessorize with games rather than geek out over them. Consider the breakdown between music geeks and mainstream -- music geeks will get all into their favorite band, go obsessive over it, and geek out -- non-geeks who don't really care will just buy what their friends listen to so they can fit in. As far as the industry is concerned, a happy geek pays just as much for a CD as a mallrat so they're pleased.
The point I'm getting at, there are people who buy the latest football games because that's what their friends play. There are also people who just get whatever the flavor of the month game is popular and only play it superficially. Then they sell it back to the store and move on. Also, don't discount the parent factor. Here's a Harry Potter game, I'm getting it for the kid. Do I care what the reviews say about it? It's Harry fucking Potter, maybe this will shut the brat up.
Back in the day, it was marginally harder to push out a crappy game because the market was smaller and a lot geekier and thus harder to satisfy. With gaming going more mainstream, the acceptable quality threshold is lower. The same thing goes for movies. I tend to be picky as hell and bag on most of them. Most people I see them with tend to be happy so long as the film doesn't break. "There were lots of lights and fast, shiny objects. I enjoyed myself." My dissatisfied ticket made the studio just as much money as the other guy's genially uninformed ticket. Studio 1, Me 0.
My only hope is that the talent within the company accepted the buy-out offer with the intent of jumping ship to form a new development studio and continue to make good games. Cuz God knows, Bioware is already history.
Unfortunately, while their plans for Baldur's Gate IV: You Are Not A God include using edgy 3D character models instead of carefully animated sprites, replacing all the NPC interactions with shrugs and "huh" noises (and some bad chat-up lines between Minsc and Aerie if you know how to find the easter egg), cutting out the spell effects with complex graphics and having a guy just pull out a gun and shoot the bad guy first instead, scrapping the D&D-based game mechanics in favour of "highest level always
Sometimes you have to sell out and slaughter that cash cow you fed and grew for years. Now it's time to enjoy the proceeds of the efforts. I hope all the principle developers get a great cut and cash out.
Now for us gamers..... crap! Well if you are going to go out with a bang, then I guess Mass Effect is a great place to end it on.
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday October 11 2007, @07:01PM (#20947889)
Statement: Master, would you like to make a trip to EA headquarters?
Clarification: For research purposes of course.
Unrelated Query: Have you seen my blaster rifle?
I really liked playing Star Wars: Battlefront I & II and Destroy All Humans! I & II, and this news is like a poke in the eye. I can't recall an EA game that I enjoyed playing since...oh...Nightfire, which was released 5 years ago now. In fact, I thought that all EA released now was Sims expansion packs and sport games. I also dislike the way they're reputed to treat their employees [wikipedia.org].
At the end of the day, it's the way of business....the small ones either grow or get consumed by a larger company. With the cost of developing games getting so high, there's not too much that can happen with that. Unfortunately, that means that game studios start resembling movie studios - with huge $$ being invested, they're less likely to go with something original and more likely to develop sequels or copies. The smaller companies may release interesting games, but they're not as likely to be a success [wikipedia.org]. A shame.
If Bioware stays as its own studio, and EA just acts as their backer, that may not be such a bad thing. Relic is owned by THQ, but as far as I know, they are still an independant entity. This could then just mean that Bioware ends up getting more reliable funding, and ends up churning out games in a more regular fashion. In addition, Bioware is not exactly known for extravagant salaries, so this may end up getting a bunch of them better pay. On top of that the Austin studio will get much better backing for the MMO.
If EA intends to get heavily involved in Bioware's day to day operations, than Bioware as an independant studio may not exist for too much longer. EA already has studio's in Vancouver and Montreal, and do not really need extra floor space. If that happens, I expect that alot of Bioware's core employees will just quit and form a new studio. Many of them have lived in Edmonton a long time and probably have some pretty deep roots in the community. Plenty may want to leave for milder weather in Vancouver though.
What will be really interesting is to see what Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk end up doing. If they stay with their Studio in Edmonton and stay in control of day to day operations, things should be fine. If they take their money and run, well they earned it.
A few people have mentioned D&D games... Bioware is not making D&D games anymore. NWN 2 (like KOTOR 2) was designed by Obsidian, not Bioware. Bioware seems to have gotten frustrated with the limitations of using others' IP, which is why they are using their own IP for the games they are working on now, like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Dragon Age--not some future D&D game--is their spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate and NWN.
Well, they seem to be shaking things up a bit over there and getting away from the "Mega-conglomerate" mode of thinking, and letting smaller teams work on their own. Hopefully they'll continue down that road and do the smart thing. That being, "leave Bioshock the fuck alone to do their, only now with more money!"
Hopefully Will Wright and the Sims will have taught EA that, sometimes, you just need to STFU and let groups with an awesome track record continue what they're doing. If Bioware gets gimped because of EA, slashdot should start a boycott of EA products. Seriously, if the Slashdot crowd led the way, others might follow and put just enough pressure on EA to get them to stick to their sports games while real companies innovate and expand the gaming market.
The Sims came out after the buyout by EA [wikipedia.org] and the expansion packs were all done by other teams inside of Maxis courtesy of EA (sorry, no reference). If you think about it, the base games show the same style as earlier maxis games while the expansions stink of EA's sequel/expansion-style franchise milking.
Can't EA stop destroying good games and companies?
Can good game companies stop selling out? It's just like asking musicians to stop selling out to the RIAA, at the end of the day most of us will go for the money.
EA never made good games. They purchased companies that did, and the quality improved for a year or two until their creativity burned out too.
Back in 80s, EA attracted a number of top game developers and was (to many) synonymous with interesting, solid gameplay. MULE and Archon are two clear standouts published by EA, but a complete list of hits both big and small from "back in the days" is pretty lengthy (Bard's Tale, Mail Order Monsters, the various Construction Set games, Starflight, Seven Cities of Gold, etc.)
EA itself may not have "made" these games, but its distribution strategy and relationship with developers back then did a lot to get good games in the hands of eager players.
I'm not amazingly informed on the matter, but Electronic Art is also a publisher, is it not? In that case, Bioware would be rid of Atari from this point and on (not counting their older, Atari-exclusive franchises). That can only mean good things. As bad as EA is, Atari was worse.
Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Pardon me for being cynical, but I can't help but be afraid that a company like EA, known for mediocrity, is going to drag down Bioware, known for excellence)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
I tend to think of EA more like "The Borg" - they are out to assimilate every other game company, suck the individuality out of them and turn them into themselves - lifeless automatons.
Parent
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
This sums things up nicely: (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Fuck, Fuck, FUCK! NOOOOO! God damn it! First the NFL license then this shit."
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, to summarize this business deal: EA= Big Daddies, Bioware = Little Sisters, and if history is any guide to how EA treats their people, bioware's programmers/artists = corpses being robbed of their mana. And where do the customers factor in? We're the fellow passengers on the airplane that crashed during the Bioshock opening scene -- literary filler which exists only because it can't be logically avoided.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Thanks for the Game Property (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes. When they consolidate there will be several people passionate about eating and paying their bills who will be looking afield to continue their careers.
Anybody at Bioware-Austin (Score:5, Funny)
NOT pleased at all (Score:2)
EA Games... (Score:5, Funny)
Purchase Everything
</whisper>
Game over! (Score:5, Funny)
It's not the first of april (Score:5, Insightful)
Carry The Torch? (Score:3, Interesting)
RIP Bioware...
Reapy
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Re:Carry The Torch? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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Terrible news... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's hope for Bioware (Score:4, Interesting)
Pandemic on the other hand is basically borg-fodder.
Re:There's hope for Bioware (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:There's hope for Bioware (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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EA: We Ruin Games (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine SimCity, only take out the simulation elements, dumb it down, give it a lame 3d engine, and hire the mediocre studio behind the failure that is Caesar IV to design it. That's exactly what EA is doing with SimCity Societies. One of the most venerable PC game series of all time is reduced to the uninspired, inoffensive, mildly-likable crap that EA specializes in. If Maxis were still around, I doubt we'd be seeing this.
Then there's the Westwood. EA dissolved the studio and released C&C: Generals. It had no live action cut scenes, no creative and silly weapons, and no enigmatic bald men bent on world domination. It was a generic RTS featuring the USA, China, and some Arab quasi-nationstate fighting across desert landscapes dotted with mosques - the same setting used by every Clancy knockoff.
(Just because you build a city doesn't make it SimCity. Likewise, just because you command a modern army doesn't make it C&C.)
And let's not forget the Battlefield series. DICE revolutionized online FPS gaming with BF1942. To this day, it's still one of my favorite games. Battlefield 2, however, is a system hog that could teach Vista a thing or two. Post-release support is abysmal and the game is still riddled with bugs. BF2142 is for all purposes a half-assed futuristic mod based on the same crummy BF2 engine...and it features in-game ads.
I could go on and on, but you get the picture. I've been playing PC games ever since SimCity 2000 in 1993 and have witnessed EA steadily bastardize so many PC games I know and love. They make boatloads of cash from their exploitation games (Madden, The Sims) and then buy out respectable studios. Am I cynical for thinking that BioWare and Pandemic will go to shit? Based on my experience with EA, it's only a matter of time.
Re:EA: We Ruin Games (Score:4, Insightful)
With gaming going so mainstream, there are a lot of people now who accessorize with games rather than geek out over them. Consider the breakdown between music geeks and mainstream -- music geeks will get all into their favorite band, go obsessive over it, and geek out -- non-geeks who don't really care will just buy what their friends listen to so they can fit in. As far as the industry is concerned, a happy geek pays just as much for a CD as a mallrat so they're pleased.
The point I'm getting at, there are people who buy the latest football games because that's what their friends play. There are also people who just get whatever the flavor of the month game is popular and only play it superficially. Then they sell it back to the store and move on. Also, don't discount the parent factor. Here's a Harry Potter game, I'm getting it for the kid. Do I care what the reviews say about it? It's Harry fucking Potter, maybe this will shut the brat up.
Back in the day, it was marginally harder to push out a crappy game because the market was smaller and a lot geekier and thus harder to satisfy. With gaming going more mainstream, the acceptable quality threshold is lower. The same thing goes for movies. I tend to be picky as hell and bag on most of them. Most people I see them with tend to be happy so long as the film doesn't break. "There were lots of lights and fast, shiny objects. I enjoyed myself." My dissatisfied ticket made the studio just as much money as the other guy's genially uninformed ticket. Studio 1, Me 0.
My only hope is that the talent within the company accepted the buy-out offer with the intent of jumping ship to form a new development studio and continue to make good games. Cuz God knows, Bioware is already history.
Parent
This is GREAT news! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately, while their plans for Baldur's Gate IV: You Are Not A God include using edgy 3D character models instead of carefully animated sprites, replacing all the NPC interactions with shrugs and "huh" noises (and some bad chat-up lines between Minsc and Aerie if you know how to find the easter egg), cutting out the spell effects with complex graphics and having a guy just pull out a gun and shoot the bad guy first instead, scrapping the D&D-based game mechanics in favour of "highest level always
Good for them. (Score:4, Insightful)
Now for us gamers..... crap! Well if you are going to go out with a bang, then I guess Mass Effect is a great place to end it on.
What does HK-47 say? (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, this sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
At the end of the day, it's the way of business....the small ones either grow or get consumed by a larger company. With the cost of developing games getting so high, there's not too much that can happen with that. Unfortunately, that means that game studios start resembling movie studios - with huge $$ being invested, they're less likely to go with something original and more likely to develop sequels or copies. The smaller companies may release interesting games, but they're not as likely to be a success [wikipedia.org]. A shame.
I wonder if Bioware will stay as its own Studio. (Score:4, Insightful)
If EA intends to get heavily involved in Bioware's day to day operations, than Bioware as an independant studio may not exist for too much longer. EA already has studio's in Vancouver and Montreal, and do not really need extra floor space. If that happens, I expect that alot of Bioware's core employees will just quit and form a new studio. Many of them have lived in Edmonton a long time and probably have some pretty deep roots in the community. Plenty may want to leave for milder weather in Vancouver though.
What will be really interesting is to see what Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk end up doing. If they stay with their Studio in Edmonton and stay in control of day to day operations, things should be fine. If they take their money and run, well they earned it.
END COMMUNICATION
D&D games (Score:3, Informative)
Unskippable (Score:5, Insightful)
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I mean Bioware.
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Re:Another one bites the dust... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
No (Score:3, Interesting)
If EA can destroy everything better than it, then the standard is lower and EA games become the most attractive thing out there.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just like asking musicians to stop selling out to the RIAA, at the end of the day most of us will go for the money.
Parent
Re:No. No No No No No. (Score:5, Informative)
Back in 80s, EA attracted a number of top game developers and was (to many) synonymous with interesting, solid gameplay. MULE and Archon are two clear standouts published by EA, but a complete list of hits both big and small from "back in the days" is pretty lengthy (Bard's Tale, Mail Order Monsters, the various Construction Set games, Starflight, Seven Cities of Gold, etc.)
EA itself may not have "made" these games, but its distribution strategy and relationship with developers back then did a lot to get good games in the hands of eager players.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
As the truth begins to emerge...
Bioware: "That wasn't part of the deal! You said you would leave us alone!"
EA: "I am altering the terms of our agreement. Pray I don't alter them any further!"
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