Electronic Arts Acquisition of BioWare Progresses

Remove all ads!

Electronic Arts continues fixing its position as the owner of BioWare and Pandemic. The CEOs of BioWare are now its co-managers and vice-presidents of Electronic Arts. Here's a snip from Gamasutra:

EA Games president Frank Gibeau will oversee both studios within his organization, and BioWare's Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk have each been named as vice presidents of EA and co-general managers of BioWare. Similarly, Pandemic's Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick have each been named vice presidents of EA and co-general managers of Pandemic, while Greg Borrud has been named vice president of EA and chief production officer of Pandemic Studios.

EA has said it aims to broaden its portfolio through the acquisition of the two labels, hoping to attain a competitive position in the RPG, action and adventure genres. EA agreed to pay up to $620 million in cash to the stockholders of the studios' parent, VG Holding Corp, and also said it would issue up to an additional $155 million in equity to certain vested or high-performing employees of VG Holding Corp.

Wonder if that will mean good influence on Electronic Arts of bad influence on BioWare... or maybe you have a different view of this. Discuss at your leisure below, while for now reading the rest at Gamasutra might be a good idea.

 

Having worked in the games industry since '93, first as a games journo and now as a recruiter, I have to say I have become rather cynical about this sort of thing, especially where EA are involved.
We used to call EA "The Borg" thanks to their penchant for buying up promising developers and assimilating them - ripping out any individuality they had, or worse, closing them altogether. I've seen it happens to great companies like Bullfrog, Westwood and Origin.
I remember talking to Peter Molyneux after he'd left Bullfrog to start up Lionhead. He'd been only too happy to sell to EA at first (well, it did make him a lot of money) but got disenchanted with all the useless board meetings where they discussed things as trivial as what toilet paper to stock in the bathrooms. Bullfrog went from being the most successful and innovative developer in the UK to a company forced to churn out crap like High Octane in order to satisfy EA's quarterly budget requirements. And of course, once Molyneux left, they didn't last much longer.

I really hope Bioware retains enough autonomy to avoid this. I would hate to see it happen to another company whose games I've loved dearly.

 

From what I've seen the last decade I would say that both Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk have enough business sense to avoid the scenario's Cal Jones describe. I just hope that they have enough corporate power to justify their creativity.

 

I really hope the Bioware guys can keep the vision (geez that's a pejorative now thanks to Sony) they had during the Baldur's Gate days. A Bioware MMO with a real living world could be genre-shattering.

 

Nobody is that stupid. To kill a golden egg laying goose twice.

 

I can't say I have the highest of hopes for BioWare's chances in light of EA's track record, but we shouldn't give up on them completely. EA must know that people know and love BioWare so they have a fighting chance. Their fanbase from a long list of successful games can't be silenced