EA selling BioWare and Mass Effect would be the best news ever – Reader’s Feature

With EA having put itself into billions of debt, a reader is worried what will happen to Mass Effect and developer BioWare, and if the studio can survive by going independent.

So everything to do with this EA ‘buyout’ seems absolutely awful. I agreed completely with GC’s excellent feature on the sale and the general state of the games industry today, and the terrible people who are in charge of it. Too many gamers don’t care as long as good games keep coming, but that is going to stop soon enough the way publishers are carrying on.

EA has said it’s going to make cuts, at least $125 million, which is going to mean whole teams going, not just the odd person here and there. There have been rumours, which I believe most people now seem to think are false, that BioWare are on the chopping block. But I wish they were.

Not to lay off the developers, obviously, but if EA were to sell off BioWare, the way Microsoft has with Double Fine, that would be such a relief to me. The idea of BioWare being independent again, or at least owned by a company that isn’t run by psychopaths (are there any of those?), would be a dream come true for me, and I’m sure any Mass Effect fan.

It’s very obvious EA is never going to make another Dragon Age game after the disaster that was The Veilguard, but officially they’re still doing a new Mass Effect. They’ve never really offered much proof that they are and, like The Elder Scrolls 6, it always seems to be two or three years away, no matter when you ask, but I think the chances of it ever coming out now, when EA are desperate to make back $20 billion (!) in debt is basically zero.

I was slightly optimistic when there was talk of a TV show and Henry Cavill seemed to be attached but that never came to anything, which is where I suspect EA’s interest in putting any real money into making more disappeared.

The problem with Mass Effect, from EA’s point of view, I think, is that it’s loved by many, but it’s not quite big enough. It’s successful and makes money… but not that much money. I think the remaster trilogy was a bit confusing for EA because it was successful but, again, not huge – so it didn’t really make it obvious whether they should do a new one or not.

I feel there’s a lot of video games like that, where they’re technically triple-A but they’re not the A-list. They’re not Assassin’s Creed or God Of War, they’re popular and there’s merch and everything, but they’re a step below that.

There’s probably a small chance that EA tries to make a show of pumping money into new projects, like Mass Effect, to show that debt isn’t going to be a problem. But I think that’s probably a longshot, and even if it’s not how long is that attitude going to last? That amount of debt is going to be around for years and no one’s going to pretend that a proper Mass Effect 4 is going to make it back for them.

The only real answer I can see, as a fan, is for them to leave EA and set-up on their own or with someone that really wants to bring Mass Effect to the next level. I don’t know the chances of that, but I feel the chances of a lot of layoffs at BioWare, very soon, is approaching 100%.

I remember back in the late 2000s/early 2010s when BioWare was one of the biggest, most respected developers out there. But after Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age: Inquisition it’s all been downhill and, to be honest, I’m surprised EA hasn’t tried to shut them down before this.

A change like this is at least a chance for something good to happen but I’m not sure how optimistic I am about that. I fear that one of my favourite franchises and developers is now on borrowed time.

By reader Gambon

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