Avi Lewis, head of the Canadian NDP party, has expressed support for employees laid off by EA last week, and spoke out about the perils of private equity.
I’ve got a whole lot of hate for private equity turning everything they touch into shit but this with EA, the closure was a decade in the making with how EA treated all of its acquisitions, drastically changing their culture, and forcing them produce quantity over quality.
Uhh the opposite actually. BioWare used to make a ton of games. For the last decade, they’ve made just a few games. They did better when they had a game out every 1-2 years rather than 4-5.
It’s both. EA was always a parasitic company, but PE accelerated the extraction of value by saddling it with an unsustainable amount of debt. It’s a zombie company now.
And it’s not just EA; even the smaller shops are following suit.
TBF, an employee-owned rebirth might be the true path out of this. But the Federal support is going to need to be strong enough to either let them create an internal publisher or put in enough breaks that a publisher will be happy to take them on.
I think that even if they were to go independent, the magic and the IP are gone for Bioware at this point. A lot of the original veterans have all been laid off already by EA over the years, they’ve moved on, and while they could create spiritual successors to the IP, they’re locked away now and it really wouldn’t be the same if that’s what fans were looking for.
I think it would be more like a Turtle Rock Studio type of situation if they were to come back at this point.
the magic and the IP are gone for Bioware at this point.
aboslutely true, but there have been 58,000 game developer layoffs since 2022, with funding, and a willingness to relocate a few pieces of top talent from the US, I bet you could make one HELL of a studio.
Use the name to put a real team with bored industry experts back together. Start fresh or license it from EA. That’s free money to EA, they shitcanned the game expecting it to not bring anything in.
I’ve got a whole lot of hate for private equity turning everything they touch into shit but this with EA, the closure was a decade in the making with how EA treated all of its acquisitions, drastically changing their culture, and forcing them produce quantity over quality.
Uhh the opposite actually. BioWare used to make a ton of games. For the last decade, they’ve made just a few games. They did better when they had a game out every 1-2 years rather than 4-5.
It’s both. EA was always a parasitic company, but PE accelerated the extraction of value by saddling it with an unsustainable amount of debt. It’s a zombie company now.
Yep. They’re just leveraging the newest boogyman for more bullshit. Same as it ever was.
And it’s not just EA; even the smaller shops are following suit.
TBF, an employee-owned rebirth might be the true path out of this. But the Federal support is going to need to be strong enough to either let them create an internal publisher or put in enough breaks that a publisher will be happy to take them on.
I think that even if they were to go independent, the magic and the IP are gone for Bioware at this point. A lot of the original veterans have all been laid off already by EA over the years, they’ve moved on, and while they could create spiritual successors to the IP, they’re locked away now and it really wouldn’t be the same if that’s what fans were looking for.
I think it would be more like a Turtle Rock Studio type of situation if they were to come back at this point.
aboslutely true, but there have been 58,000 game developer layoffs since 2022, with funding, and a willingness to relocate a few pieces of top talent from the US, I bet you could make one HELL of a studio.
One hell of a studio that wouldn’t be allowed to make ME or DA games. There are tons of those already. No IP means no BioWare.
Use the name to put a real team with bored industry experts back together. Start fresh or license it from EA. That’s free money to EA, they shitcanned the game expecting it to not bring anything in.
Oh my god Turtle Rock. That’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.