BioWare employees fear for studio's future after EA's $55 billion sale

[midian182]

Connecting the dots: The $55 billion purchase of EA this week by a Saudi-backed consortium has a lot of people worried about the effect it will have on the company. Not only have there been claims of AI being used extensively to reduce costs, but staff at BioWare are reportedly worried that the studio will be closed down.

Soon after we heard news last week that EA was in talks to go private in a multi-billion-dollar buyout, the $55 billion deal was anounced. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), private equity firm Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners – an investment firm led by Jared Kushner – led the consortium of investors.

As with any takeover, the threat of job losses is hanging over EA employees. The fact that the deal included $20 billion in debt financing from JPMorgan Chase is exacerbating these fears.

According to an anonymous source who spoke to Insider Gaming, BioWare staff are particularly concerned about the future of the long-running RPG developer. Ignoring 2021's Mass Effect Legendary Edition, it hasn't had a hit since 2014's Dragon Age: Inquisition.

"I've been doing it since last year, but I'm making sure I have a portfolio ready and feelers out for other jobs," said one source, who added that it "kind of feels like a matter of time" before the studio finds itself in trouble.

The memory of Dragon Age: The Veilguard continues to haunt BioWare. While it wasn't a full-blown disaster, Veilguard attracted around half the number of players EA expected, leading to mass layoffs and a drop in the company's share price.

"Look at the negativity that came after Dragon Age [The Veilguard]. If we felt it was only going to get worse then, you can imagine what some of us think now," said another employee.

There have been fears that another round of layoffs would hit BioWare following those at the start of the year. With the team focusing on the next Mass Effect game, they haven't materialized, but that could soon change.

As for the highly anticipated next Mass Effect game, an employee said they planned to keep working on it "until they tell us we're done. It's not the healthiest way to live, but as long as the paycheques keep coming, we're not going to just walk away."

There have also been reports that EA now plans to lean heavily into AI to reduce its costs. That could be limited to expense-cutting and time-saving measures for general development tasks, but it may also include using AI-generated voices and graphics for EA games.

In 2024, EA boss Andrew Wilson said generative AI would make EA 30% more efficient while boosting monetization by 20% over the next five years. It also has the potential to put people off buying EA titles, of course.

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BioWare employees fear for studio's future after EA's $55 billion sale

 

[gabelogan1324]

The reason they would be afraid is that Dragon Age Veilguard was marketed differently to the older ones - it had a lot of woke stuff in there - now, if you take that out and make sure its like the older games and the same with Mass Effect, people will flock to it ( I love Mass Effect) and things should be fine.

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

When your development team spends a lot of time & money to produce a game that just didn't sell all that well, then yes, they should be worried for their jobs. With every normal business you are expected to produce things that people actually want to buy. Or more accurately, keep your production costs in line with the actual sales you will be able to manage.

 

[Revolution 11]

Start updating your resumes and looking for other jobs, Bioware developers.

Although you should have been doing that from the moment your founders left EA and your games started to drop in review scores and audience reception...

 

[yRaz]

When your development team spends a lot of time & money to produce a game that just didn't sell all that well, then yes, they should be worried for their jobs. With every normal business you are expected to produce things that people actually want to buy. Or more accurately, keep your production costs in line with the actual sales you will be able to manage.

So much of the stuff people doesn't like about veil guard was stuff management insisted the devs to put it in. People got outraged, the devs took the fall and the management will likely get promoted as that's the way the world works.

 

[m4a4]

They aren't the old, talented BioWare anymore (Veilguard is proof enough), so not much of a loss. Though, I have a feeling they'll try to restructure the studios instead (to keep the brand).

Either way, a new DA or ME game is yeeaars out. Won't be able to tell if new management can fix the gamer-hating rot that seeped into these studios for a while...

 

[PXAbstraction]

So much of the stuff people doesn't like about veil guard was stuff management insisted the devs to put it in. People got outraged, the devs took the fall and the management will likely get promoted as that's the way the world works.

If I recall, Veilguard was originally supposed to be a live service game at EA's insistence, then they had to rip all that out and rebuild the game around not having it like a year from release. Any wonder it was a mess.

 

[axiomatic13]

So much BS about Veilguard. I finished the game and only saw a couple of the things people were clutching pearls over. You really had to lean in to the diversity choices to see it. If you did not lean in to it, you didn't see it. Lastly, if you use woke as a pejorative slur, I question your intelligence.

 

[EnTaroTzula]

As they should be, anything EA touches turns to dog water

 

[havok585]

"Look at the negativity that came after Dragon Age"
OH NOES, look how bad it did because we had only 1 neuron working and badly catered to a minuscule demographic, COLOR ME SURPRISED.

DUH.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I thought Dragon Age went to crap when it moved away from what made the first game enjoyable - at least for me. I enjoyed the way combat worked in the game, then it turned into a crappy hack'n'slash wannabe RPG that had just a handful of maps that were reused over and over again.

 

[James321]

Ag shame...

Maybe next time don't go woke.

 

[axiomatic13]

I thought Dragon Age went to crap when it moved away from what made the first game enjoyable - at least for me. I enjoyed the way combat worked in the game, then it turned into a crappy hack'n'slash wannabe RPG that had just a handful of maps that were reused over and over again.

This I agree with. I did prefer the combat in the previous games.

 

[NumberNine]

The BioWare who cranked out the hits hasn't existed for a long time and is never coming back. Using their branding as a mask for new projects under new teams with EA's financial priorities does not consitute a quality revival.

EA is cooked, along with everything under their umbrella. They've been a joke for over a decade and now they're nothing. Let them rot.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Queue the standard woke pearl clutching comment section that has come to define Techspot comments.

Frankly EA has been treating Bioware with kid gloves for a while. ME3 ending was a mess, but the game overall was good and sold ok.

Inquisition was a good 40 hour game that got watered down to a very meh 100 hour game, but still sold quite well.

Then the real problems started.

Mass Effect Andromeda, was not well received and didn't even sell well enough to warrant a DLC.

Anthem was just a trainwreck out of the gate.

Veilguard spent 10 years in development hell and finally got slopped together in a shockingly functional but otherwise lame product.

EA has killed a lot of devs for far far less, but 10 years (Inquisition was 2014) of more or less continually failed products is a lot more rope than others have gotten.

Frankly I am actually hoping the Saudis Khashoggi Bioware before it has a chance to really eff up their legacy with a lame Mass Effect 4 that somehow will retroactively make the ME Trilogy bad by cracking open that pandora's box.

 

[passwordistaco]

Failure has consequences in the real world.

I thought Dragon Age went to crap when it moved away from what made the first game enjoyable - at least for me. I enjoyed the way combat worked in the game, then it turned into a crappy hack'n'slash wannabe RPG that had just a handful of maps that were reused over and over again.

I really enjoyed Origins but never played another Dragon Age. Regardless of sales, the subsequent games didn't measure up to the original.

 

[RoJoelon]

The Ship of Theseus,

Unfortunately, this has been a common occurrence for many gaming studios over the years.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Good, they SHOULD be scared. All they have managed to produce over the last decease are a trilogy of failures while alienating their own audiences with political BS that doesnt belong in the games they are making. In any sane world, the studio would have been gutted after the failure of Anthem's development. Now that they dont have BRIDGE funding from Blackrock to back them up, they have to actually put out what audiences want, and the current corpse of Bioware is totally incapable of doing that.

So much of the stuff people doesn't like about veil guard was stuff management insisted the devs to put it in. People got outraged, the devs took the fall and the management will likely get promoted as that's the way the world works.

Are we still coping about how it's all "managements fault"?

How many times to game developers have to be revealed as lazy, hyper political ideologues that hate their own audiences before people admit that maybe, JUST maybe, the rash of bad game is a developer problem?

Like sure, EA probably mandated they needs some diversity. Maybe they even mandated there needed to be a non binary/trans character. But are you going to sit there and tell me with a straight face that EA management insisted that the devs needed to make said special character utterly insufferable, write the entire game like it's a sesame street after school special on friendship, and completely ignore the lore of previous games while making the art style look like a cartoon and strip all the interesting mechanics out? REALLY? You think anyone believes that? You think these devs were just BURSTING with amazing original ideas and had everything stripped out by greedy management?

Because we know what that looks like. Those types of games still have gameplay worth the investment, interesting stories, good characters, ece. Veilguard isnt that chief.

So much BS about Veilguard. I finished the game and only saw a couple of the things people were clutching pearls over. You really had to lean in to the diversity choices to see it. If you did not lean in to it, you didn't see it. Lastly, if you use woke as a pejorative slur, I question your intelligence.

You managed to not pay attention to one of the main characters going on a rant about their sexual identity and how others are not validating them, which is part of a main questline.

That's pretty impressive, in all the wrong ways.

 

[AnilD]

Nothing says gamer trust like a fifty five billion dollar deal backed by oil money, massive debt, and Jared Kushner. This feels less like the start of a new chapter and more like a weird dystopian DLC no one asked for.

The irony of EA leaning on AI to save money while also having a reputation for soulless monetization loops is almost poetic.

 

[m4a4]

Are we still coping about how it's all "managements fault"?

I took that as "Bioware's management", not the publisher (EA); the people who were in charge and hired the gamer-hating "talent" to make the games. EA might've had some typical demands, but the studio seniority certainly mismanaged everything else.

 

[vicsrealms]

I thought Dragon Age went to crap when it moved away from what made the first game enjoyable - at least for me. I enjoyed the way combat worked in the game, then it turned into a crappy hack'n'slash wannabe RPG that had just a handful of maps that were reused over and over again.

Absolutely. I haven't been happy with the series since DA2. Tried DA:I, and wasn't willing to give the last one a chance. I'd rather just mod and play DA:O.

 

[Axeia]

Funny how most see EA as a company that used to release good games.
I still see it as the Grim reaper that takes over franchises just to ruin and or kill them.

Theme hospital? Gone.
Theme park world? Gone.
Sim city? Gone
Command and conquer? Ruined then gone
Red Alert... Actually, they didn't ruin that they just stopped making them.
Sim farm? Gone
The Sims? Ruined by the time gap between 3 and 4 whilst not really being an upgrade in a lot of ways.
Dungeon Keeper? Sold off to China where it died. Gone.

I enjoyed ME1-3 although the ending of 3 was so bad it almost undid the joy the rest brought. A finisher so bad only Game of Thrones rivals it. Andromeda was... Alright.

 

[PXAbstraction]

There's more to this deal than appears on the surface and none of it's good. I wrote about why: https://geekbravado.com/the-ea-buyout-is-worse-than-you-think/