Electronic Arts Purchases BioWare, Pandemic 232
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.'"
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)
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.
No. No No No No No. (Score:1, Insightful)
This news hurts my soul.
It's not the first of april (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Terrible news... (Score:5, 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.
Re:Carry The Torch? (Score:3, Insightful)
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:There's hope for Bioware (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There's hope for Bioware (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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
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.
Re:Carry The Torch? (Score:2, Insightful)
Unskippable (Score:5, Insightful)