vg247: "New Dragon Age, Mass Effect titles will be heavily influenced by Anthem, says Bioware"

[Owain Taggart]

Well, at the same time, Bioware is one of their top studios, both in terms of their output and their brand recognition. I think they'd close other studios before closing Bioware. To them, closing Bioware wouldn't just be about closing a studio, but losing out on a brand that has been well-recognized.

It'd be like Take-Two losing Rockstar, which is almost unthinkable at this point.

 

[SPCTRE]

It'd be like Take-Two losing Rockstar

that's... yeah, no, not even close

 

[SPCTRE]

Didn't Casey Hudson return to Bioware after Andromeda?

which is a good thing to be sure, but he's just one guy (albeit in a prominent position) in a company that has changed - a lot

 

[Owain Taggart]

that's... yeah, no, not even close

Maybe, maybe not. My point is that they're both studios with storied histories and strong brand recognition and pull that extend to the mainstream, and there are few like that out there anymore. Should EA close Bioware, they'd not only lose the studio but the pull associated with it.

 

[SPCTRE]

My point is that they're both studios with storied histories and strong brand recognition and pull that extend to the mainstream

yeah that's still not a helpful comparison to draw in this context if we want to look at BW's relative importance for EA as a corporation

I say all of this as someone who generally loves BioWare games (not limited to their earlier work!) - it's just that fiscally speaking, it's easy to vastly overerstimate the reach and success of BioWare's more recent output, especially if you lack the context of EA's earnings as a whole

is BioWare an important division of EA, generally speaking? to be sure, but that mostly applies to the core market. are they too important for EA's guidance figures to fail? not by a long shot. not even close.

if you want to make a (still not perfectly valid) comparison to GTA (especially Live Services bookings with GTA Online) and Take Two Interactive, think: FIFA (especially with FIFA Ultimate Team Live Services), which dwarves most EA franchises in fiscal performance mostly due to Ultimate Team.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, but FIFA or any of their other sport franchises aren't really developed by prominently named studios that the public necessarily know or look for, which is lilkely the way EA wants it as they can just as easily farm them to any of the studios they own. They don't have brandings or a cachet of their own the way Bioware does. I mean, sure, they do make more money, but what I'm saying is that I think EA needs the strong branding to reach more of their audience.

 

[Reverend]

Bioware's "prestige" means nothing to EA if their output continues to disappoint both critically and financially. Bigger, more influential studios than Bioware have been liquidated. The video game industry is very much of the "but what have you done lately?" mindset.

Personally, I think the company is on VERY thin ice at the moment. If Anthem sales don't pick up and if the next DA game (if it ever gets finished) isn't a smash hit, then then best they can hope for is massive staff reductions, if not outright closure. That's just the reality of the business.

 

[SPCTRE]

@Owain Taggart I too love BioWare (well, I love what the name stood for once), but you are vastly overestimating their "cachet", especially the "mainstream pull" of the brand (which is negligible in the grand scheme of things)

 

[Owain Taggart]

Well, maybe I am. But I just think that if EA were to lose Bioware, there'd be a deep void that would be hard to replace. I do agree though, that with Anthem being a disappointment, along with Andromeda, that they are currently in a precarious position. I'm not even sure if they're well-off enough to split from EA like Bungie did from both Microsoft and Activision.

The irony in Anthem is that Bioware has always for the most part been focused on single-player games with the exception of The Old Republic, so having them make a competitive muliplayer shooter really sounds off the beaten path for them when their expertise is in single-player games with stories. And we've seen how well that worked with Bethesda and Fallout 76.

I guess the best case scenario is, EA eventually close Bioware and while EA would most likely retain their properties, Bioware veterans start up a new studio to continue doing what they do using new IPs of their own. Being released from the shackles might also have the effect of renewed creativity.

 

[Reverend]

Well, maybe I am. But I just think that if EA were to lose Bioware, there'd be a deep void that would be hard to replace. I do agree though, that with Anthem being a disappointment, along with Andromeda, that they are currently in a precarious position. I'm not even sure if they're well-off enough to split from EA like Bungie did from both Microsoft and Activision.

The irony in Anthem is that Bioware has always for the most part been focused on single-player games with the exception of The Old Republic, so having them make a competitive muliplayer shooter really sounds off the beaten path for them when their expertise is in single-player games with stories. And we've seen how well that worked with Bethesda and Fallout 76.

I guess the best case scenario is, EA eventually close Bioware and while EA would most likely retain their properties, Bioware veterans start up a new studio to continue doing what they do using new IPs of their own. Being released from the shackles might also have the effect of renewed creativity.

So far as I'm aware, most Bioware veterans have already jumped ship or left the industry entirely.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Nothing lasts forever, I guess.

 

[BillJ]

I can't believe EA didn't have Bioware make a Star Wars game.

 

[Reverend]

At this point I'm starting to suspect that EA bought the exclusive licence to Star Wars not because they wanted to make Star Wars games, but because they didn't want anyone *else* making Star Wars games that would directly compete with their other titles and loose them money. Which sounds just stupid enough that it might actually be true.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, there are enough hints that sway it in that direction, even within EA itself. I mean, there have already been two previous attempts at a single-player game that were both very promising, and the moment these games sound more promising than their Battlefront games, they get cancelled. It's like they're sabotaging their own efforts. They have one of the biggest franchises around and they've only released two games both of them multiplayer shooters. Well, that's a far cry from the influx of Star Wars games we had in the 80's and 90's. Makes me wonder what Disney thinks and if it regrets signing with them.

 

[Aragorn]

An exposé of everything that went wrong at BioWare with Anthem came out today. BioWare responded to the article within minutes without even reading it.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Wow... I had no idea things had gotten so catastrophically bad. And they want to use this Frostbite dumpster fire of a game engine that wrecked Anthem for DA4? It seems like the idiots in charge keep trying to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. If this is the future then BioWare is finished.

 

[SPCTRE]

BioWare's "response" (as Aragorn said, without even reading the article) was beyond shameful

I mean, WTF? this is not how a development studio responds to an article like that

if you want to persist in bad labor practices*, at least get your fucking PR in order

*which, to be clear, you should not, it is not sustainable and it is ruining your company

 

[SPCTRE]

@Owain Taggart this part of the Schreier piece harkens back to our discussion of the individual value business units have for EA as a whole and how they, well, rate internally

 

[137th Gebirg]

I was thinking about this as well. The fact that BioWare’s efforts constantly took a back seat to EA properties like FIFA and other non-fantasy genres when it came to technical support shows just where EA’s priorities are and their internal pecking order. The kind of games that BioWare makes generate a fraction of the revenue that the others do and are treated accordingly. It seems they were never all that and a bag of chips to begin with.

 

[captainkirk]

So what good reason is there to use Frostbite at Bioware? I doubt the cost of royalties for using Unreal Engine are any higher than the development costs for making Frostbite halfway usable for RPGs. It just seems like EA is trying to make life difficult for every studio they own.