When they got sold to ea, this was the only possible outcome anyway. Not sure if they sold out or ea did some corporate bullshit to force them to it, but they should have stayed away from ea if they wanted to keep making games.
post
That means all BioWare games should become free now, because a closed studio can't get the money? /s
Of course EA will have no problem getting money on their behalf, all while slashing the developers. If you waited for a call to legitimately pirate BioWare games, this is it.
In these lists of great things to remember Bioware for, people keep not including MDK2. It told an amazing story of a mad scientist, his janitor and robot dog, repelling an alien invasion and saving Earth. Deserves to be mentioned alongside their othet awesome games.
Such a tragedy. Black Isle and Bioware were such a great combo in the late 90's.
Just following the fate of Bethesda and Id: kiddos, your heros will die. So it goes.
CDPR hopefully will not make these same mistakes... or they already have.
Just to push back on this, this is long overdue.
EA closing down studios they buy is the expected inevitable outcome
Anyone who lets EA acquire them deserves this. It's not even a secret, so fuck everyone at BioWare who sold their company to this. You can be sad, but you don't get to be surprised
Batteries Included – Purchased in 1987 and closed that same year. Origin Systems – Purchased in 1992. Closed in 2004. Bullfrog Productions – Purchased in 1995. Closed in 2001. Maxis – Purchased in 1997. Closed in 2015. (Studio name still used by EA.) Westwood Studios / EA Pacific – Purchased in 1998. Closed in 2003. Kesmai – Purchased in 1999. Closed in 2001. DreamWorks Interactive / Danger Close Games – Purchased in 2000. Closed in 2013. Black Box Games – Purchased in 2002. Closed in 2013. NuFX / EA Chicago – Purchased in 2004. Closed in 2007. Hypnotix – Purchased and shut down in 2005. Team folded into EA Tiburon. Mythic Entertainment – Purchased in 2006. Closed in 2014. Phenomic Game Development – Purchased in 2006. Closed in 2013. Headgate Studios / EA Salt Lake – Purchased in 2006. Closed in 2017. Pandemic Studios – Purchased in 2007. Closed in 2009. J2MSoft – Purchased in 2008 and folded into EA Korea. Playfish – Purchased in 2009. Closed in 2013. Chillingo – Purchased in 2010. Began shutting down in 2017. Fully closed in 2023. Industrial Toys – Purchased in 2018. Closed in 2023. BioWare – Purchased in 2007. Closed in 2026.
Maybe the ex BioWare Devs can found a new studio. Maybe OrganicWare.
I fully believe there's a huge amount of money and effort in making a studio -- but it seems like killing off a known brand wholesale like this just should result in a new brand that is the successor.
'Friendship ended with Bioware, Now OrganicWare is my best friend' kind of energy. We were never there for EA's involvement. We wanted These People*.
*First link I found, you get the point, but it might not be accurate for the whole team.
Gaming is getting harder with economy and silicon prices -- but that means we can just take the stories we want to tell and do so without 4A graphics.
EA has form for turning buyouts into shit. Look at PopCap who produced joyous casual-but-fair games until EA sunk their claws into them.
The Morons in Japan are trying to blame online piracy. Makes me wanna swallow some nails..
bioware was dead somewhere in between getting taken over by ea, long before this.
people havnt forgiven them for destroying the CNC franchise, and they tried to money grab with CNC4, and tiberium alliance.
Gosh that pissed me off. And the shitty mobile game.
I did enjoy the C&C1 remaster though.
And do not pretend that they didn't told you that it's wokeness that killed the modern game industry! /s
I really wish we could get another great Mass Effect game, but I knew not to get my hopes up. I played Andromeda, after all.
EA is a pox on humanity now.
it's crazy that despite this happening a couple days ago, the official bioware website still says nothing about this closure. Like they didn't even bother updating the site to say "hey btw we are closed" The optimistic side of me hopes that it's because they want to try to go inde again and run on their own but.. probably not.
top 50 comments