Fallout From the BioWare/Pandemic Buyout

Yesterday's announcement of EA's purchase of BioWare and Pandemic took a lot of people by surprise. Today, there's some more information, reactions, and assurances from the people involved in the move. First and foremost: Mass Effect should not be affected by this purchase. The future of the series is still up in the air, but the game we've all be waiting for is still slated for a November 20th release exclusive to the Xbox 360. EA held a conference call about the buyout soon after it was announced, and answers a number of questions about specifics. FiringSquad has a feature on the reaction from the developers, and that piece has some assurances that EA's CEO John Riccitiello has the best interests of the new acquisitions at heart. Gamasutra has a Q&A with Pandemic's management team, which wants to point out that Pandemic/BioWare and their parent company drove this deal forward; this was not a hostile acquisition. Likewise Gamespot has a chat with the BioWare co-founders, who are equally excited about the deal. This may have been surprising, but if the two companies were onboard with this move it can hardly be dire, right?

Comments

game over

[Aurisor]

Anyone else feel like you're in a zombie movie and your best friend just got bitten?

Me: Bioware? Bioware!?
Bioware: BRAAIIIIINNNSSSSSSS
Me: Nooooooo!

*cocks shotgun*

You never know - look at Will Wright

[dtolman]

The fact that they have pampered Will Wright, and pretty much let him do whatever he wants (on two projects now - the Sims and Spore, is a good sign they know how in theory how to not destroy a creative development team. If they can extend that good practice to the entire Bioware group... maybe this won't end up being a disaster like Origin's buyout...

Re:You never know - look at Will Wright

[dtolman]

Yeah - but EA isn't a town - its a continent. As long as they aren't working out of the same office (and keep their release dates a few months apart), I'm sure they'll never realize they ain't the center of the EA universe...

Re:You never know - look at Will Wright

[techpawn]

I see this as EA is more financial backing for these creative minds. As long as they can continue to do what they've been doing EA most likely won't muck up what works. Just add a successful name to the portfolio and keep them fed.

Then again, look at the SIMS expansion packs...

Re:You never know - look at Will Wright

[dtolman]

Yeah cause if there's one thing "he wants" it's to push out a new crapspansion pack for the sims every 6 months. Too many people forget the Origins, the Westwoods, the Bullfrogs. But as long as we can shovel out another crapspansion for the sims they are all too happy.

But that IS the whole point. Will Wright gets the freedom to create new original ideas and implement them (you think he's spent a second of his time on the Sims since publishing the original?), as long as EA gets to inherit the IP and turn it into a franchise (aka - pump out endless expansion packs). And who exactly loses in this deal? Wright gets creative freedom, EA gets new IP, and users get content shoveled at them. No one is forcing anyone to buy more expansions. Personally, I think its a good thing that a years old title is getting regular updates. Those Sims expansions are the closest thing out there to a working episodic gaming model...

Re:You never know - look at Will Wright

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not entirely true of The Sims. Will Wright had to develop a lot of The Sims off the clock and in secret just to get a demo going to convince the then EA management that it was an idea worth pursuing. He had to fight a lot to get that game greenlighted:

"Don Mattrick, a former top Electronic Arts executive who was involved in the company's 1997 acquisition of Maxis, said the company's then-management didn't know how to deal with Mr. Wright. "They had a hard time communicating with Will," Mr. Mattrick recalls.

Electronic Arts, an increasingly powerful developer and publisher of games, acquired Maxis for $125 million. At the time, Mr. Wright's stake in the company was valued at about $17 million, according to regulatory filings. The company declines to discuss Mr. Wright's compensation.

Even though Mr. Mattrick encouraged Mr. Wright to continue the project, there remained considerable skepticism among sales and marketing types. In the past, "people games" had bombed because players were unforgiving of the graphical flaws in human characters imposed by computers' limitations.

In December 1999, just months before "The Sims" was scheduled to ship to retailers, the sales and marketing department at Electronic Arts forecast it would reap only 400,000 sales over its entire life."

(from http://kotaku.com/gaming/journalism/will-wright-in-the-wsj-177200.php)

However, once The Sims became the best selling game of all time, EA's management lightened up a bit and decided to let Will have the freedom he does now.

the MMO?

[genrader]

Does anyone know if this will affect the MMO that bioware has been working on? I have always trusted bioware but the fact EA had to find some way to acquire them shows me EA is desperate and that this MMO may suck now.

Re:the MMO?

[RogueyWon]

No idea whatsoever. However, part of me wonders if the MMO is related. Perhaps Bioware did a serious look at the costs involved in setting up and maintaining a large-scale MMO and decided that they wouldn't be able to get the ball rolling without some serious financial backing.

Running an MMO game world with hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of players in a persistent environment, with tens of thousands at the very least per server, is very different to managing the community for something like NWN, where players do much of the hard work and hosting. Blizzard and Square-Enix both found the jump tricky in some respects (although both of them undoubtedly got there in the end).

Re:the MMO?

[Reapman]

Does EA run any MMO's other then Ultima Online? Sims Online, NFS MOtorcity or w/e it was called, died horrible deaths last I heard. UO2 and UO:X was cancelled. I agree that they may have cringed when looking at the realities of running an MMO, but I don't think EA would be at the top of my list of companies that can run an MMO well. Hell I'd pick SoE over em, and that is NOT saying much considering I've despised most of their games.

All the assurances in the world still don't get the bad taste that Westwood and Origin's deaths created. I hope I'm wrong.

Re:the MMO?

[Pandur77]

EA bought Mythic some time ago (and renamed them to EA Mythic) which is the developer of Dark Age of Camelot. EA Mythic is also developing the new Warhammer MMO.

Hardly

[CaseyB]

This may have been surprising, but if the two companies were onboard with being given stacks of cash so large they require heavy machinery to move it can hardly be dire, right?

Fixed that for you.

Re:Hardly

[Miltazar]

That is exactly why this went forward. What just because a company went along with it, somehow it changes the fact? EA still is EA, whether this is a hostile take-over or them dumping piles of cash on Bioware. Origin Systems went willingly as well, what happened to them? Oh yeah, their founders eventually realized it was a bad idea and left. Now the company that had some great franchises, such as Wing Commander, Ultima, etc, now only makes Ultima Online expansions. The truth is that they did it for the money. After a few bombed games we'll hear how the bioware staff/founders are leaving, etc.

Fear Mongering

[poena.dare]

The title include the word "fallout", yet nothing in the blurb justifies the use.

Damn sensationalist /. eds!

Ahh to be young again!

[CheddarHead]

This may have been surprising, but if the two companies were onboard with this move it can hardly be dire, right?

Such naive optimism! I miss those days before my heart was a dried up little rotten apple of cynicism. Oh well, I'll give it a try. Yeah... right... this can't be that bad. It's probably even a ...

Oh, never mind.

Re:EA vs Atari vs Microsoft

[BarneyL]

The difference between Microsoft and EA is that Microsoft wants to destroy the competition. EA seem out to destroy the industry.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Dumb move by EA

[GregPK]

Nope...

Every person I've worked with that was involved with EA takeover in some way pretty much took thier Cash and left.

A great number of good games could have been made had EA not done thier best to destroy them. Or release everything they make with Serious bug issues.

Microsoft back in the early days of gaming did everything they could to foster the creativity of gaming into what it is today. With big budgets, big parties, big group gatherings.

God those were the days when I was happy to be in the industry. Now I'm happy to be out of it and buy a few slect games every year.

Re:EA vs Atari vs Microsoft

[azuredrake]

This is not true at all. EA gets a lot of flak for previous acquisitions (Westwood, Origin) where the move was widely seen as just buying the IP and then cannibalizing an otherwise perfectly creative studio. However, their new CEO, John Ricotello, has a very accurate vision for how to move the company forward into developing new IP and really amping up the creative side of game design, rather than just the business side. I've heard him speak, and he really does know exactly what he's talking about. Furthermore, EA has no interest in destroying the gaming industry. That doesn't make even one bit of sense - without an industry, they would put themselves out of business.

Re:EA vs Atari vs Microsoft

[azuredrake]

Hah, I wish I was John Ricotello... then I'd have stacks of money and be running the world's largest third-party game publisher...

In all seriousness, though, I worked at EA Headquarters from March of this year until September, and I was there from the beginning of his transition to CEO. I wish there were transcripts of his speech he gave about his vision for the company, but I'm sure those are industry secrets and not meant to be shared. However, I can say without hesitation that as a lifelong gamer and as someone who went into that job not really liking EA for what they'd done to studios in the past, I came away with a profound respect for the direction in which the company is headed, and a lot of hope for its future.

OMG OMG - Oh, wait, FUCK!

[MWoody]

You son of a bitch. You don't include "fallout," "bioware," and "pandemic" in an article title like that, ever. Now I have to change pants, and all for naught.