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News of EA's BioWare/Pandemic acquisition is washing over the 'net with interviews and commentary starting to pop up. First, GamesIndustry's newsbit notes John Riccitiello will earn $4.9M from the deal, according to an SEC filing. Gamasutra has a summary of an EA conference call on the deal as well as an interview with Pandemic. FiringSquad has an Insider View, with insight apparently coming from unnamed BioWare staff after a meeting to explain the situation, as well as general commentary:
...and GameSpot's Tor Thorsen is first to actually chat to the Doctors, who are always up for some positive PR:The downside, however, is that John has arguably bet his own personal political bank at EA on BioWare and Pandemic. Should they not deliver to expectations, their failure could be an excuse for traditional EA elements to remove Riccitiello and return to EA’s profitable-but-boring sequelitis ways. This, of course, will mean the doom of BioWare in the way that Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, and Maxis were wiped out. With any change comes friction, and there is little doubt that by cutting into the bloat in EA and by bypassing the traditional EA power structure with BioWare-Pandemic, John Riccitiello has created enemies in the company. Like, say, people who think that a slow, unwieldly, but attractive interface in the name of the Almighty Brand is a good idea.
We are Borg. Anyway, here's a bit on Dragon Age:Greg Zeschuk: Well, to be blunt, I don't really see ourselves as not being independent anymore. We've got a goal of making great BioWare games, and we believe in [EA CEO] John[ Riccitiello]'s vision--we can't overemphasize that. We've worked with John for years, and we're looking forward to keep doing what we're doing and doing it well.
More information.GS: Now, you just mentioned Dragon Age. Since Dragon Age wasn't mentioned in the acquisition announcement and so little has been heard about it, there's been some speculation that it was canceled.
RM: Oh, no. We were just playing that last week as well. It's one of the more enjoyable things I've done in the past few weeks, by far. I could not stop playing it. I meant to play it just for a little bit just to check it out, but I ended up playing it all weekend. I wish we could say more about it, as the team has been putting in some late hours on the project, and they've come up with some amazing stuff. We're gonna be revealing some more about Dragon Age very soon, I think, and I think you'll be excited to hear about it.