BioWare - To Be Acquired by EA

Corwin
American anti-trust laws might not apply here, as Bioware, at least, is a Canadian company. Anyone but EA!!!!
Right, but of course I am not referring to going after Bioware.

Sure, Bioware eats babies and wants to paint the world PINK cause it makes them feel pretty but still, I think they should be given the benifit of doubt.
 
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Sh*t happen, a formulaic 12 hrs RPG every year? I don't worry too much. EA got Crytech too. I am sure new developers will spring up...let see how many EA can buy out.
 
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It is the end of the world. EA will replace all Bioware workers with robots in black suits that previously only worked on chicken packaging factory lines.

Serioiusly though, only time will tell. EA was, after all, the publisher of Sentinel Worlds, Wasteland and Ultima, all classics. Of course, anyone involved with EA and those games is now either retired, in an insane asylum or working on Tabula Rasa (from inside an asylum)


Um news flash they did not publish ultima. until when they took over and destroyed origin.
 
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Why the outcry? Bioware games have increasingly become formulaic at their own accord ever since BG2. Should go together well enough with what EA wants. After all, their formula sells.
 
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Thank you for ruining my day...

It isn't a puzzle..we all know what happens next. More focus on consoles, no dragon age (or dragon age made for masses instead of their orginal vision) etc. Sure money is money, but Bioware losing it's independence is not a good thing for us or the pc platform.
 
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Oh well, EA did make a decent C&C even after buying Westwood (C&C: Tiberium Wars was quite good). Who knows, we might still get some decent games from Bioware - EA must know that they've bought RPG developers, I don't think they bought them to make FPS games exactly.

Besides, hasn't it always been up to Feargus Urquhart and Chris Avellone (and so on) over at Obsidian to make the best RPGs? They made the best ones in the past (BG, PS:T, etc) and they will most likely make the best of the future as well (MotB is really solid in my opinion).

Not much has changed from my point of view - I'm still looking forward to Dragon Age, and other than that I haven't really been expecting any new PC RPG from Bioware at all. Maybe some secret game is in production, but none that I know of.
 
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Now I feel my time as a gamer is nearing an end.

No other company played a greater part of my gaming life than Bioware except for BlackIsle/Obsidian. It was the last company on the American continent that could produce RPG's with the size and content worth buying.

Now it's assimilated by the Mc Donalds of video gaming.
 
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IT'S IN THE GAME - EA business strategy

- But EA is more than just a successful company in a glamorous industry. It is a model of successful management for companies in any industry. Lots of organizations struggle to turn ideas into blockbuster products. EA pulls it off by honing the way that it develops and markets games: by thinking of its products as emotional, cinematic experiences, not toys.

- Lots of organizations struggle to turn ideas into blockbuster products. EA pulls it off by honing the way that it develops and markets games: by thinking of its products as emotional, cinematic experiences, not toys. By allowing its 12 studios the freedom to innovate while instilling the discipline to meet deadlines..

- In attracting new customers, though, EA has to be careful not to lose its core customers, who don't want to see their beloved games dumbed down for newbies. So EA has begun focusing on the first five minutes of game play. That's how long a customer at Best Buy or Wal-Mart may spend trying out a game. The challenge is to create an experience that leaves these two distinctly different consumers with different impressions of the same game. It must be easy enough for one, yet hard enough for the other.

- It takes a tough company to make entertaining games. "The forgotten aspect of creativity is discipline," says John Riccitiello, president and COO. There is the discipline of understanding the audience through focus groups. The discipline of sharing best practices and technologies across the studios through an intranet library. "There's a saying around here," says Brown in communications. "If somebody develops a better blade of grass in one game, that grass will be in somebody else's game the next day." There's also the discipline of grooming the next generation of executive producers. EA's "emerging leaders" program gives participants firsthand experience in departments outside their own. There is the discipline of studying (well, playing) the competition. "We often know more about the feature set of our competition's products than our competition does," boasts Riccitiello.

- And yet, the staff is encouraged to take creative challenges. Neil Young was the executive producer on Majestic, an online conspiracy thriller that broke the rules of traditional computer games. It was episodic, like The X-Files. It took interactive play to a new level, offering clues via email, fax, and telephone. But EA discontinued the game because of disappointing sales.

- At Electronic Arts, creativity is built on a foundation of management discipline. EA even takes a disciplined approach to the challenge of developing creative leaders. A dozen or so producers and designers at each studio meet throughout the year for a series of workshops. A dancer came in to talk about how movement can be used to express physical and emotional states. A film expert talked about the use of music in silent films to enhance the action. The idea behind the program is simple yet effective, says Andy Billings, vice president of human resources and organizational development: Expose creative leaders to other art forms and new ideas, and see what rubs off.

- And the millions that EA spends on market research to decide what games it should sell lessens the chance of a big bomb. For much of EA's past, that setup made it a model of reliability. But it's hardly a recipe that stokes creativity.

- In the past we have committed to ship dates with large development teams before we had a game design," says Lee. "That is changing....We're going to have the best games and release them when they are ready."

This could mean a higher level of quality for the company's new game titles, but it could also translate into headaches for investors as EA's product pipeline and revenue stream become less of a sure thing. That is probably not music to Wall Street's ears. But it may just be the price EA pays to achieve greater creativity.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_12/b3976086.htm
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/65/ea.html

If you ask people on the street what they play Im sure the first answer is rpg.
 
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Well, Bioware did make Jade Empire and now MassEffect XBox exclusive. Could that already be called EAesque tendencies?

. . .

So long, and thanks for all the RPGs.
 
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Bioware used to be the cream of the crop, but disappointed me by going "light" with Jade Empire as a console exclusive, and has since not really shown much promise. I admit Mass Effect looks cool for a console game, but it still strikes me as a commercial game first and foremost.

This is still somewhat shocking, however, and it simply goes to show that my cynical jaded nature is justified.

Welcome to EA's new baby, known as EA Canada.
 
Mhm..we wil live, we will see what happen. But I don't expect fireworks.
I hope the market can't stand free space and some new companies appear to deliver us some good games.
 
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Yes, it could well be that Greg&Ray are taking the money and running - to start a brand new indie studio :) It could also be that 1½-2½ years from now, in a stunning surprisingly move EA CEO John Ritticello axes Pandemic and sells Bioware back to Greg and Ray of Bioware. All this are just guesses, though.

As for the anti-trust laws, the link from the San Francisco Chronicle I posted yesterday did say that the merger (or take-over) were to be approved by some officcial board? or something. And while Bioware indeed is a Canadian Company,
EA most assuredly is not.

However, when you look at the history it looks like:

John R. leaves EA to form Elevation Partners.
Elevation Partners merges Bioware/Pandemic
John R leaves Elevation Partners to become CEO of EA
John R, as CEO of EA, buys Elavation Partners, or rather VG Holding which owns? Elevations Partners.

I'm not sure this move would be legal in Denmark or in Europe since this would mean that John R would benefit financially, e.g. this move would mean that he would be lining his own pockets with a lot of money, from this move.

As for Bioware games becoming formulaic, yes, they could be a bit repetive with their neutral, good or bad choices, but I really do think this was because the worlds of Lucasarts and the&D&D worlds made it so. In Mass Effect, from what I've seen so far, Bioware is trying to break free from this concept and making some tough choices for the player to choose from in the game.

However, I do feel, that this means that in 5-10 years time, Bioware will not exist as a separate developer, but let's see...

/aries100
 
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@JemyM
Obsidian Entertainment HQ is located in California I believe.
 
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