BioWare and EA

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It surprises me that there isn't a topic about this yet. Well, for those who don't know it yet, EA paid $860 million for VG Holdings which consists of BioWare and Pandemic. Obviously this is good news for EA and it will no doubt put them back on track.

But I fear a bit for BioWare though. They have provided me with awesome games for years and years, and the financial injection will do them good no doubt. But I hope they get the opportunity to continue on the way they have been for so long. Seen how it went with Mythic Entertainment, I seriously doubt that.

How do you guys feel about that? With the loads of D&D players here, some must have built up some affinity with BioWare. How do you feel this will evolve, and how many of you are planning on playing SW:TOR?

 

http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=45248

You're a bit late to the party

There were a few other threads here and there where we discussed this, though not in the Bioware forum (they're probably all in the News forum; searching for Bioware & EA or Electronic Arts should give you most of them).

That said, people may have changed their mind about the deal in the 18 months since.

 

No. They have become more business like. Just an other developer.

 

I've been very active in the DA:O message boards since well before this was announced, so I feel like I've gotten a bit of an inside glance at the transformation. From my perspective, EA has probably taken over and re-worked the business end of BioWare (example: marketing), but seems satisfied to let BioWare develop the games they want to. They had the chance to make some serious changes in DA:O, including, it seems, a LOT of political correctness, and there's no indication that they have (though I do question Morrigan's attire in one particular scene, it seems far too conservative).

All in all, while I don't really know for sure at all, I'm quite hopeful that BioWare will be largely uneffected by this. Yes, I have developed a particular affinity for BW, but not because of D&D (I severely dislike the D&D universes and rules sets), but rather simply because they're about the only ones that do good story-driven games these days (I haven't been impressed with Obsidian yet).

 

Dragon age was already in the system when EA took over so they decided not to mess with it. The games that comes next make me fear.

I am not a regular at those boards and pop in oche and a while. To protect myself I did not read any of the millions of treads that keep on blabbering about things nobody knows. What I do notice is the change in attitude.

example1: Hey boys and girls we are going to release a patch for Mass Effect soon. 6 months later nothing, nothing absolutely nothing.

example2: The system requirement for Dragon age. were commented by some members since they made no sense. Some information was dead wrong. After 30-ish pages of posting a developer shod some light on it. it still is not perfect.

example3: pre-order Dragon Age announced. However beyond the USA there is a fog preventing anybody to find the fabled Collectors-Edition, or even the royal Bioware edition. No response what so ever. They state that the details are not conclusive. If that is true, why start pre-ordering?

 

Now that I think about it that may be what happened. I have been wondering about the sharp turn in marketing that happened with DA:O. I do not think that it was very successfull though. But that is just guessing.

 

From the Devs, I have yet to see any change in attitude. From the marketing side, it's like they've been possessed by a spirit of idiocy.

I've payed no attention to ME, so I have no clue about that. It does seem suspicious, though patches are notoriously unpredictable (how exactly can you predict when you'll fix something you don't know how to fix yet).

I've been looking through that thread from time to time. I'll admit I don't follow it too avidly(since I confirmed by 5-year-old laptop really is as crappy as I thought it is), but it doesn't seem like there's that much confusion. It seems like, more than anything, people are confused at what BioWare means by "minimum" and "recommended" specs.

Marketing. Also note that individual distributers have been doing pre-ordering from back when the "official release date" was Q1 2009, before BioWare did anything with them.

 

And we have our first example how EA impacted Bioware - Dragon Age II

 

Unfortunately so, indeed.

May be time to start the lament for another fallen.

 

Reminds me of Westwood Studios...