If this goes through, let’s all say goodbye to one of the best non-Japanese…hell, one of the best RPG developers of all time.
EA just wants to own the IPs for the original games, which doesn’t even include Neverwinter Nights, KotOR, or the Sonic RPG they’re making. They’re not disbanding the company, they’re not firing people, and they’re not moving projects to other developers. Everyone is overreacting about this.
People did the same thing when Square and Enix merged. No surprise.
It’s actually a good thing for bioware who will be getting even more money now to develop their original IPs.
The general problem with this is, it’s EA. While this will no doubt have some benefits (bigger budgets, larger staff, better publishing), EA is a company that seems to stand at the antithesis of Bioware’s general development and business practices.
The only way I can see this working out is if EA realizes that a RPG is not a sports game; you can’t publish a new game every year and expect the same level of quality Bioware is…mostly known for. (I’m looking at you, Jade Empire.) EA is a company built upon meeting deadlines over ensuring quality, forcing employees to work insane amounts of unpaid overtime, and dissolving any company that does not meet their demands.
If EA is smart, they’ll let BioWare do their thing and only interfere in important situations, not because Mass Effect 2 isn’t ready to go November 2009.
Agreed. But precident tells us otherwise, so…
I gotta tell you, I’ve played a lot of Bioware games and the only one worth a damn is Mercenaries, which in itself is two dimensional and repetitive. KoTOR is probably the lamest game ever and Neverwinter Nights was boooooooring.
BioWare fans are probably imagining the nightmarish scenarios à la Origin and Westwood.
It’s an excellent deal for EA though – now the company covers most of the bases genre-wise.
EA’s shareholders love the deal so far – the stock was up about 4% around noon; it would be interesting to observe how the latest acquisition affects the company in the long term.
It all depends on how EA will treat its new acquisition. Personally I don’t trust them one bit but they can spend their money as they see fit. I’m still pissed about Origin.