EA closes Bioware, cancels Mass Effect new game, lays off 400.

[FilanFyretracker]

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-indus...rpg-developer/

Likely not the last axe to fall as the private equity firm that bought them plunders EA for all its worth.

[Wool]

I just came here to post the same thing. Big oof. We have almost gotten to the point where Bioware and Mass Effect are no longer (gaming) culturally relevant, but this still sucks.

For added context, EA was bought out by Saudi Arabia as they seek to diversify their economy away from just oil. But EA took a really bad deal. It was called a leveraged buyout, I think. EA's own assets were used to buy themselves, and they basically have to pay for the cost of buying them. That means less risks and more squeezing what value they can out of consumers. I don't think you can even necessarily blame the investment firm that bought them for this. EA has to do things that people are going to hate just to survive the buyout, it's crazy.

Mass Effect is one of the few franchises that could have actually turned EA around. That they backed out of this and killed Bioware is a big deal. They likely decided that Bioware was no longer financially viable after Dragon Age Vanguard and didn't want to give the same team another chance to fail. Who knows when, or if, they will try to reboot it again, or who will be the ones making it.


Edit: Dark humor - I was going to joke that in 10 years maybe EA will make a PC game launcher and named it Bioware (like they did with Origin), but the reality might be that in 10 years EA is dead and EA is what Saudi Arabia calls their PC game launcher app.

[FilanFyretracker]

yes the leveraged buyout is a common tactic of private equity groups, they really should be illegal because its solely a tool for corporate raiding. In this case it means the people buying EA can pillage it for all its worth and when the pipe comes calling they walk away with a big pile of cash and most of the IPs.