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Electronic Arts Purchases BioWare, Pandemic
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)
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
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.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Still have your Resistance is Futile shirt? :D
I think this is likely to be a disaster, unless EA learns to keep their fingers out of the pie.
swger, kotor player, bioware admirer. im not pleased. and im feeling less positive towards ea as of now.
Read radical news here
Can't EA stop destroying good games and companies?
Please tell me this is some kind of joke. Maybe way back when EA actually produced quality games and wasn't busy drinking douch sauce, but now?
This news hurts my soul.
Living With a Nerd
Yeah, like that will happen
Purchase Everything
</whisper>
My prediction: it'll be kinda like "Brainwashed"-- George Harrison's posthumously released album, great work, sad knowing that nothing more will be forthcoming. Farewell Jade Empire & Mass Effect sequels, you're going the way of NFL Gameday or Mythic. Ah well.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
EA is to king midas as shit is to...
Game over man, GAME OVER!
crazy dynamite monkey
And this joke isn't funny even if it were.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Resistance is futile. Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will become one with the morgue
Fuck
I can't wait for Neverwinter Nights '08! Then '09! Then '10....
Who is going to pick up carrying the torch for delivering high quality RPG games?
RIP Bioware...
Reapy
Because whilst there are good games companies out there, there are games companies producing better games than EA can.
If EA can destroy everything better than it, then the standard is lower and EA games become the most attractive thing out there.
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 gives Maxis quite a bit of free rein, and they're loath to kill off that golden goose. I should hope Bioware gets the same treatment.
Pandemic on the other hand is basically borg-fodder.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Some of EA's finer moments:
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.
Baldur's Gate would have been a much better game if it had more basketball and football in it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Obi Wan: "I feel a great disturbance in the force. As if millions of gamers suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."
Of course, there is always the other side:
Vader: "This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Bioware, and soon it will see the end of gaming."
Honestly though, there is only two words needed: This Sucks.
I mean, they're cranking out The Sims expansions like clockwork.
When was this?
I honestly don't remember such a time.
Westwood made good games.
Maxis made good games.
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....
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
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.
Consider that Bungie (another innovative studio popular among gamers) was absorbed by Microsoft back before Halo 1, but just recently (Oct 1) took back its independence. And despite producing 3 of M$'s biggest cash cows, they still seem to have their humor and character intact. Here's hoping BioWare can do the same.
NOT a good example. Westwood studios made lands of lore where patrick stewart did voice work as king richard. Guess who bought and killed westwood?
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
My Mercenaries! My beloved Mercenaries! NOOOOOO!
I for one welcome our Wii-enhance Bioware shock troops and look forward to them appearing in an upcoming EA preview of Spore.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The horror, the worst news of the year.
I love Bioware games, and now thats over
Mass Effect renamed to EA Presents John Madden's Mass Effect: 2008
Seriously this new sucks, every time EA buys something out to grab some IP they screw it up. I remember when they bought Westwood, the creators of the Command and Conquer series. What did we get out of that; RA2, Renegade...Generals (ok CNC3 is pretty good). I was looking forward to Mass Effect, but I've been boycotting EA for years now, and I don't think I'll be picking it up because of this. Mass Effect was the reason I was going to finally buy a new console and HDTV. Maybe I'll just be building a new PC instead, and I've been interested in the Wii too, which is looking like a better purchase because of the excellent price and my lack of an HD setup.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Yep, Bungie gains it's independence (Oni was the last independent release, right?) and BioWare gets absorbed. BW will get out when Bioshock 8 comes out and they have a sweet diorama to go with it.
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?
Is John Madden popping up and telling me "throw a Hail Mary to your Mage in the end zone" I owned both NWN 1 & 2 and now with EA at the reigns....3 will be a pass, if it even ever comes to fruition.
Bioware did not make Bioshock.
EA does not have any rights to D&D related stuff, so Neverwinter Nights cannot be made or published through EA.
Unfortunately Atari have that privelige (I wish Atari would hurry up and die).
But overall, this has a sense of foreboding.
I hope Bioware does not get stuffed around.
As science struggles on to try to explain.
Oxytoxins flowing ever in to my brain.
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.
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. A shame.
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
I loved Ultima too... And though I have no love for EA, you can't put all of the blame on them for the series' awful ending.
Garriott was a wonderful designer for his time, but he didn't seem to be able to evolve with it. Though most of the blame for Ultima 9 probably falls with EA and its pushing for a premature release... with U8 EA had just acquired Origin, and it was released as a mostly-matured product. Garriott himself came up with the cornball world, the action aspects, and the mock-jrpg style story.
I don't know if he just lost his inspiration, or if he didn't want to produce good games for the corporation he sold his company to. Either way it seems like he's the one who crashed and burned Origin. I'm left wondering if maybe he was just never able to scale with the amount of production it takes to produce a modern game, i.e.: When he started he was able to write, design, and produce whole games independently... maybe he never gained a knack for working with a large production team?
I mean... look at Tabula Rasa. How long had it been in development? First it was gonna be some sort of PhantasyStar looking silliness, then it's an FPS-Massive? WTH? And then it's finally released and though I haven't played it, most reviews seem to say it falls flat.
Tautologies, they are what they are.
As he is obviously joking.
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.
END COMMUNICATION
Anyone else remember Air Warrior?
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
RARE made one of the best and most influential console FPS of all time: Goldeneye. It wasn't innovative compared to the PC games out at the time, but it was really fun to play alone or with 4 people. EA got the rights to make future Bond games and they have all been much less fun. They play more like movies and less like interesting games. Fortunately RARE came out with Perfect Dark, which was the sequel to Goldeneye without the 007 branding.
I, too, am scared that Bioware will be destroyed by the evil monster that is EA games. There is one thought though that gives me hope.
Bioware announced that they were working on an MMORPG a while back right? What if EA has decided they want to back some competition for WOW? You now have a game created by a well established studio (Bioware) with an EA sized wallet. If that's the plan, then it could turn out to be a really good thing for those of us who like MMORPGs.
I had Madden Football one and two for the apple ][. Compared to contemporary games, they were great. Recently I was given, as gifts, modern versions (I think 1998 and 2004) and they had less functionality. Twenty years of development, and now I have virtually no control over my offensive line. I can't roll the pocket. I can't design my own trap or counter play. And my recollection is that I can design one custom pass route per play.
Further, I can't get updated player rosters - except from EA, and except for the year at hand. I don't understand why I can't copy EA's official San Diego Chargers team to my fake one and mess around with the stats or add or remove players.
Maybe I was unaware of all the features, but I lost interest pretty quickly.
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
Another great gaming company destroyed
"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." I really hope that they don't destroy the NWN and D & D games, but they probably will. :[
"Time is nothing; timing is everything."
This is horrible news.
THQ isn't known as a company that buys and then destroys the companies that make great products, EA is. Everything that EA touches turns to shit over time.
We see less and less inspiration from the remains of Maxis(is The Sims 2 really showing anything even close to inspiration, or is it an improved The Sims with natural updates?). Spore may be good, but it remains to be seen if it will be, or if EA will force it to be released with tons of bugs because of delays.
So, I mourn the slow death of Bioware. I hope it survives to release some great RPGs, but it may disolve before the next great RPG after Mass Effect.
I don't live that far from Bioware Edmonton, and I was wondering why I faintly heard screaming and sobbing today. :)
:)
Seriously, Bioware prides itself on being a tight, self-sufficient, family office that makes great games. There was enough worry during the Pandemic merger that such qualities might be lost... they seemed to have come through fairly unscathed... and no the behemoth that is EA is going to come play in the sandbox?
The bad news is that I sense a lot of soon-to-be-unhappy people at Bioware.
The good news is that if they move on, maybe I can live the dream and work there
Hey, I figure ya gotta look at the bright side with everything
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Because. That's how huge soulless companies feed.
Acquisitions.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Bioware has lost their soul long before they sold it to the devil. They disappointed hard-core RPG fans when they gave away Neverwinter Nights 2 to Obsidian. They betrayed their loyal RPG fans again when they decided to delay the release of the much anticipated PC-oriented D&D RPG game, Dragon Age. The reason? they want to rush the release of blockbuster action game Mass Effect, which is more console-oriented, so it can hit your big screen LCD TV in this holiday season. This project is so important that they have their hands full and unable to fix the ridiculous bug of Neverwinter Night that plagued users since GeForce 8000 series is out.
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.
Agreed. EA was legendary back in the day, when the market was much, much smaller and games much, much simpler. It took a company that could aggregate the small studios to keep them all afloat and present them to a national audience. (seems that part hasn't changed much..) There were hardly any franchise or movie tie-ins, those were mostly reserved for pinball games. (well, there was the Goonies for the C64...)
I remember sometime in the late 90s when EA's reputation really started to slide. Remember the slashdot coverage of the dismal work conditions and morale at EA? The employees were suffering and it showed in the games. Typical crisis of corporate culture.
Hopefully EA will tread lightly over BioWare, and more importantly, BioWare will watch out for itself. If BioWare gets into a situation that kills their creativity or changes their culture to the point that they can't produce the same quality games, then it's their own fault for selling out on bad terms.
--M
You are our only hope....
As was mentioned in another post here: It really saddens me that EA uses the truckloads of cash from the mainstream mindless sheep that buy Madden and Sims to buy creative quality game studios. They then take their properties known for quality and brilliant design, and pigeon-hole them into sequel factories that do nothing but churn out shovelware for the masses. And of course they force them into unrealistic release schedules with little post-release support. What was the last company EA bought that produced anything original or good afterwards?
I, for one, welcome the new EA/Bioware game - "Ballers Gate".
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
Lets just hope they don't touch Mass Effect, or else the cover will look like this: New cover for Mass Effect
Great now PC gaming really is truly dead.
Now I think we can look forward to the next Bioware games having unskippable corporate spinning logos for 5 minutes before the game starts up. Yay.
EA - It's In The (every fucking) Game.
Man, time flies. Didn't realize it was April already! Hahaha. Thanks for the laugh. I still remember when EA bought out Bullfrog and Origin. Man, they 'really helped' out those two great companies.
Let's time-warp back to 1992 and play word-substitution:
If Origin stays as its own studio, and EA just acts as their backer, that may not be such a bad thing. This could then just mean that Origin ends up getting more reliable funding, and ends up churning out games in a more regular fashion. In addition, Origin is not exactly known for extravagant salaries, so this may end up getting a bunch of them better pay.
We all know how that turned out, don't we?
RIP, Bioware. It was great knowing you.
of course not. quit it around late 2004. account still stays though, with the hope that lucas might fire soe and hire some other dev house.
Read radical news here
yeah, but how would another dev house undo the murder already done on the gameplay by SOE? there's a huge amount of inertia behind the direction an MMO takes, and it'll take a complete redesign or, more optimistically, a new game to fix that.
disclaimer: not responsible for rumors and false hope.
/. is what happens when geeks talk. get used to it.
It would be awesome to not be able to use Spell Check in MS Word until you "unlock" it by typing 1,000,000 characters.
Read my blog.
Give up the hopes, EA usually leaves the bought studios relative freedom in their current projects after that the corporate hammer comes down and slowly over time the studios fizzle away. Maxis as is would be dead if Will Wright wouldnt have fought against the management to get the Sims released (EA was in oppossition to the Sims Wright fought it through) EA is dead, Westwood is dead and so are many other studios EA has bought over time. The worst loss probably was Origin, so far.
I never have and never will purchase an EA game. Ever. Why? One Word:
Origin
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Ultima IX had a PREMATURE RELEASE? You're joking right? The original Ultima IX was started back in 1994-1995. The overall development time on this game ran a LONG TIME and involved the development teams completely turning over several times. The garbage that got released (aka Ultima Ascension) was basically the leftover scraps of a game hastily pasted together and branded "Ultima."
What killed Ultima IX is simple: Ultima fucking Online. Thanks to Starr Long, Garriott got it in his head that MMO is the only way to go, and together these two fools destroyed probably the longest running and most revered video game series at that time. Ultima Online development is what killed the original Ultima IX team...they got "reassigned" to work on UO while the original U:IX got thrown into some corner where it rotted and languished, periodically being turned over or having more crap shovelled on top of it by the cleaning staff.
I hate EA, but the fault for the mess that was Ultima Ascention falls squarely on Richard Garriott's shoulders. Sadly, he still hasn't learned his lesson about what made his games great and his MMO efforts crap. You want a glimpse of what COULD have been? Google around for Bob White's (one of the ORIGINAL U:IX team members) summary of what the plot for Ultima IX was originally going to be. Instead we got Ultima Ascension, featuring a Blackthorn doing his best Anthony Ainley "Master" impersonation, a stupid love sub-plot, MASSIVE contradictions with what came before (and no explanations at all as to how everyone got back to Britannia), and absolutely stupid (and totally contradictory with the rest of the series) resolution where the Guardian turns out to be the fucking Avatar's evil shadow (Hmm...I seem to recall Infocom's Spellbreaker having the exact same plot). GIVE me a BREAK.
As an aside you can see scraps from the original Ultima IX pre-renders appearing throughout the horrible iterations of Ultima Online. The crap at the beginning of the "Minax" release was actually from the original Ultima IX cutscene featuring a prematurely aged Lord British being tormented by his Guardian-sent visions of the Avatar.
"Damn you British....Damnnnnn yoouuuuu!"
Tangent: Mail Order Monsters...There was a fun, odd game. I can't think of any other game that satisfies my urge to pit giant squid against giant wasps in epic desert(weird for squid) deathmatches.
In separate cases I have now had my publisher, my parent company and my franchise licence bought by them. And this is why I'm thinking zombies instead of Borg. The Borg travels in a pack and pulls people in, whereas zombies (like EA) spread in all kinds of unexpected ways... I'm starting to think the real way to make money in games is to start a studio by hiring people fleeing from EA and then sell it back to EA for a 100 million.
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
Go for the eyes Boo, GO FOR THE EYES!! RrraaaAAGHGHH!!!
RTFG - Read The F#$%ing Google!
"In other news, newly freed Bungie announces that it has been acquired by EA...
'It was fun while it lasted, but after shelling out all the cash to buy back our stock, we didn't have any money left for our weekly Red Bull and Domino's bills. And now that EA owns BioWare too, they can finally announce the secret Halo RPG they've been working on...oops, I wasn't supposed to say that?' - BungiEA spokesborg FrankiEA
--
AoD
I kind of like this idea- mostly because I know people that work in EA and one thing that EA is devoted to that pandemic (who sucks anyways) and bioware aren't is supporting the PC platform that oh-so many companies have abandoned- and even mores from what I have heard they are firmly against dx10 only releases and keeping xp users in the loop
They're so careful with they're money, I would wager that this press release was printed at the same time as the notifications to Bioware developers stating "Join us in Redwood, CA... or else."
That's exactly what happened to Origin in Austin. Whatever talent Bioware has and EA hopes to assimilate and abuse will depart for greener, freer pastures once the corporate shredder turns to Bioware's studios.
Let's consider the real winners here: the stockholders. They're rich off of Bioware's efforts and production. Now they get a huge lump sum of money for doing NOTHING. In a few days/weeks/months, they'll turn some of those millions back towards an independent studio who will come out with the next great must-have game, make more money and sell out again to make even more money.
Can someone loan me a million dollars so I can start my own build-up/sell-out cycle and replace my heart with a stock ticker? I'll pay you back 5x times the amount after two sellouts.
True that. I kindof forgot about that whole bit looking back. It gets fuzzy for me because I used to be a Garriott mark... and it's still hard to separate his excuses (and his fanboy's excuses) from fact. lol.
Tautologies, they are what they are.