r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Significant-Row2457 • 4h ago
Don't hug me I'm scared EA strikes again
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u/Noel_Ortiz 4h ago
Eh. They've been dead for years. You can't put out 4 shit games in a row like that
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u/MoistProlapse 3h ago
They've released 3 games in the last decade. Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, and Dragon Age Veilguard. I'm not counting the legendary edition of mass effect since it's just a combination of 3 much older games, with some minor improvements.
Mass Effect Andromeda was a meh game at best.
Anthem, lol.
Dragon Age Veilguard was generally pretty decent. I have my own personal dislikes, like why does everyone look short and frumpy, and character creator was really bad. But outside of that, it was also a pretty meh game.
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u/pnoodl3s 2h ago
Anthem gameplay was actually really good IMO, the technical issues and end game content ruined it. They could’ve been warframe 2.0 but the network instability, lags, optimization all suck the joy out of the game
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u/chillednutzz 3h ago
Andromedas final state was fun and a fine game
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u/ironballs16 2h ago
For me it was that it had the same problem I've had with the Assassin's Creed games - the open world is more about giving the player busywork without much of a narrative reason to do it. The Witcher 3 avoided that by giving the various side quests compelling mini stories alongside them.
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u/Seraphimskillets 2h ago
I feel like Andromeda had the best combat out of all the mass effect games. The addition of boosters and balances they had for the different classes really had it standing head over shoulders. It's a shame the story was kind of rubbish and repetitive. If they had more structures story, eliminate the reputation, and spent some time polishing all those day 0 bugs they could have had something that stood tall in the series.
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u/Spirited-Isopod6969 1h ago
It was a fun tech demo to show off their planets. I don't wanna drive the Mako Junior around the whole game though
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3h ago
[deleted]
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u/CarryBeginning1564 3h ago
Movie studios, production companies, and music labels go out of business all the time. Any company that makes a commercial product is subject to going out of business. You are just hearing about game studios closing because there has been a lot of that this year.
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u/John_Bot 3h ago
Uhh what?
An artist puts out a crap album and they still break even cause it costs so little to produce it
A bad bioware game can lose $100M+ and cost lots of people their jobs.
Just... What?
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u/Wagglebagga 3h ago
The point was that, gaming studios get shutdown far more than most other media companies. In that they have less breadth for failure than other industries. But I made it poorly. So often the failure of the game will be placed solely on devs and they get laid off, whilst oftentimes the parent company made money just not as much as they wanted and that is deemed grounds for dismissal of employees and dissolution of the developer they worked for. In my experience, it seems it happens the most in the gaming industry. I am not an expert in any way and am reacting to the situation, perhaps a bit recklessly.
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u/John_Bot 3h ago
Games have way less margin for error.
Concorde budget was ~$300M
And revenue was $0
Everyone was justifiably fired and the studio closed.
Games cost massive amounts of money and are 4+ year long projects.
Failure is monumentally worse than failing a movie or album.
And movie studios are on the verge of collapse. Look at paramount, warner brothers, etc.
Look at cinemas
They're just trying to stay afloat at this point. But if a studio makes a bad movie they still have 4-5 others that they'll release that year to help recoup losses.
A game studio has ONE game to show every 5 years. That is death to the studio.
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u/Babetna 3h ago
The fact that a company still carries the name of a company that was once good does not make it the same company. I can be nostalgic about the good old days, but I can also be realistic and not mourn a company that keeps churning out garbage. As for Mass Effect, I'd rather have no Mass Effect than crappy Mass Effect, and I share this sentiment about most of my favorite franchises.
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u/Exurota 2h ago
As a halo and dragon age fan, I'm eating very, very well recently. Schadenfreude is delicious.
There are times leadership makes decisions and the people at the bottom just take the blame. Sure. But when you release "Team Snipers" and not one single weapon in the playlist is the Sniper Rifle, that is not a management decision, it is a dev decision, and it is baffling and emblematic of the fact the issue is pervasive, not top-down.
When you have a bowl full of sugar and salt mixed together, it's not worth separating. Gotta toss the whole lot.
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u/TougherOnSquids 44m ago
When you have a bowl full of sugar and salt mixed together, it's not worth separating. Gotta toss the whole lot.
I get what you're saying, but salty and sweet is like the most popular combination of flavors in the world lmao
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u/Salty-Paint-9700 2h ago
So how about changing leadership instead of firing everyone in the chase for quick buck?
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u/fatBatman92 3h ago
It's alarming that they're still referring Mass Effect 5 to still be in early development. The first trailer for it was 5 years ago. I put a significant amount of blame on EA for the last 15 years of Bioware, but I'm not surprised it's closing down
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u/Exurota 1h ago
Not surprising. I have a feeling BioWare and 343/Halo Studios have a lot in common internally - it came out that even after the release of Campaign Evolved, a small single player remake released 5 YEARS after the last mainline game, no games were in active development.
5 were in preplanning stages. They hadn't even picked one yet. Every developer in the studio was totally idle.
Chances are BioWare had fifteen thumbs up its arse.
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u/ThePizzaNoid 4h ago
It's okay. While it's true EA purchased the studio and severely mismanaged them for years only to close them years later due to their own leadership failures, at least they now own all of that BioWare IP that they can just sit on and do absolutely nothing with for the next several decades. Not like this hasn't happened many times before after all.
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u/mindreader_131 3h ago
I’m all for shitting on EA but BioWare have done a great job of killing themselves. They haven’t released a good game in a decade, no AAA studio should be able to survive that. The BioWare that created KOTOR, Baldurs Gate, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age have not existed in a long time.
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u/FrabbaSA 4h ago
EA didn't demand Anthem be a live service game, Bioware did that.
EA didn't tell Bioware to ban any mention of destiny during development of Anthem, Bioware decided that.
While I'm sure there's some blame to be had on the EA side, people need to make peace with Bioware being a poorly ran studio that relied on crunch and crossing their fingers that "Bioware Magic" was going to happen.
Bioware killed Bioware.
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u/MinervaJB 3h ago
They also treated their writers like shit, apparently unaware that a huge part of the "Bioware magic" was the fantastic writing.
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u/lovingpersona 3h ago
Same shit happened when everyone was blaming Activision for downfall of Bungie. Whilst they are by no means the good guys either, both of them going their own ways really showed that it was truly Bungie who killed Bungie.
People have too much sympathy for the devs. And I can see the reasoning, but they forget one thing... these are not the devs that made masterpieces, those had been fired and replaced with either cheap labor, DEI, or in the case of Epic soon to be AI.
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u/Redericpontx 2h ago
Yeah but it's eas fault anthem released in such a poor state. Given enough time and resources it would of been a success as it was also a time before live service was over saturated.
Andromeda was also ea pushing it too soon but veilguard was their own fault since they games state was fine it just sucked.
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u/FrabbaSA 2h ago
Andromeda was Bioware fucking around trying to make No Mans Sky Mass Effect happen for 3 years before cramming all of their work into what, 16 months? to get something out the door. Again I think blaming EA for the problems of that game is misplaced, Bioware took a big swing and then couldn't deliver and had to pivot.
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u/Redericpontx 2h ago
EA sets the deadlines and release dates. Sure bioware could of pulled a kajima and have each part working well before the next so that when the publisher forces them to release 60% if the game it's in a practically finished state but kajima is the exception not the norm. EA should of given them more time.
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u/FrabbaSA 2h ago edited 2h ago
EA gave them 5+ years for Anthem. At a certain point the publisher is going to stop throwing money into the pit.
Bioware did not know how to make the game they were going to make, nor what game they were even making until late in the process. Again. Their development process has been dysfunctional for a long time. At the end of the day these are businesses and things need to make financial sense.
E. Which is also why AAA gaming is going through such upheavals right now. The economics of making games at this scale are changing, and I'd not be shocked if GTA and maybe the cyberpunk sequel are some of the last big "AAA" games of the old model.
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u/Redericpontx 2h ago
From what I heard anthem got a lot of good changes in a short amount of time before being canned which shows with more time they could of figured it out.
Andromedas final state is good from what I hear.
Veilguard is really the only one that's genuinely their own fault considering they had plenty of time for it.
The main reason AAA gaming costs are sky rocketing is because publishers are chasing graphics. There's plenty of AAA quality AA games that cost a fraction of the money to make. You could argue the AA games often lack optimization but that's also a issue with AAA.
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u/FrabbaSA 2h ago
We have to make peace with the reality we share and occupy. Getting it right the first time is going to increasingly matter. Not every game is going to be able to get the cyberpunk treatment where it gets fixed after launch, something has to fund those efforts and if there isn't a belief that the juice is worth the squeeze, it's not going to happen. Especially for a live service game, something like anthem shitting the bed at launch alienated a lot of players from having interest after that.
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u/Redericpontx 2h ago
I mean rainbow six siege shows the potential for comeback which is crazy considering it was Ubisoft. I'm not saying bioware isn't partially at fault but to say the primary blame for those 2 games considering the polish of veilguard shows those 2 failed because of ea but again veilguard is on them.
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u/FrabbaSA 2h ago
It really does feel like you're handwaving their well documented internal dysfunction during the development of each of their previous offerings over the last decade.
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u/Redericpontx 39m ago
Not really just pointing out that it's not primarily their own fault like you make it seem like
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u/pyrhus626 26m ago
By the time Anthem came out Destiny had that market cornered. The only good part of that game was the flying and it was EA interference that kept Bioware from cutting it from the game, and it was BW’s idea all along and EA gave them more than enough time and money to make a game of that scale. It’s not EA’s fault it sucked.
Andromeda was BioWare sucking around for years on procedural generation, then starting from scratch and pushing out the game we got in less than a year of crunch time. EA offered an extension and extra money to polish Andromeda and BW said no because leadership there is too far up their own asses and thought they could do no wrong.
EA always gave BioWare a ton of leeway and basically everything that led to BW releasing shit games and collapsing was 100% their own fault
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u/Unique-Doubt-1049 3h ago
They haven't put out a truly great game since 2012. Its shocking they held out so long. Hey Bethesda this is your future if you keep fucking around
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u/Lord_Zarcxon 2h ago
Honestly just let it happen to Bethesda, it's been long overdue since they released fallout 76 and Starfield.
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u/TheDonutPug 2h ago
honestly I think if elder scrolls hit isn't simply the largest best game in history there's not much left for them lmao. the "charm" of broken games wore off a long time ago.
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u/Unique-Doubt-1049 2h ago edited 1h ago
They get exactly one more shot with me with elderscrolls. If it can't at the very fucking least surpass fallout 4 which isn't a high bar then I'm done with them
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u/ScootyMcTrainhat 2h ago
My bet is Bethesda will never release a game again, and we're about 2 years from an Elder Scrolls Amazon series.
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u/Salty-Paint-9700 2h ago
A human way to deal with that would be to fire/relocate a couple of the top people there responsible for steering that ship and give the workers a better leadership. But that would mean a long term commitment and planning and the number must go up now, before the end of next fiscal year, so Saudis see number go up and Android Wilson can get a bonus. And all those people? Who cares, just numbers.
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u/Unique-Doubt-1049 1h ago
Sometimes a companies entire philosophy is just shit and it's better to shutter it
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u/PoisonPeddler 3h ago
Thanks for Kotor, Dragon Age Origins and the first three Mass Effects.
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u/hake2506 3h ago
the first three Mass Effects
The first 2 and three quarters Mass Effects. The last bit killed my desire for gaming for years afterwards. Never really recovered tbh. I was kind of hoping an actual sequel might fix that but I guess that just is it then.
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u/Sherbyll 4h ago
They will be dearly missed, made some of my favorite games! :[
At the same time, I have heard really not great things about their more recent releases. I personally didn't like Mass Effect: Andromeda either, so I think they were already on the downward course.
My hope is that the devs from these games go on to other studios (or even start their own) and make some really amazing stuff!!
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u/ShantyLady PURPLE 2h ago
Honestly, this is where I am on it all. It's sad to see a studio that's been open for 30 years shut down because of layoffs. I mourn for the stories and worlds they created over the years, I mourn what would feel like a slap in the face for the devs and execs there, no matter how long or short they were. I mourn that we'll never get a chance to see what Mass Effect 5 would have been.
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u/Sherbyll 1h ago
To be honest I knew things were bad when I started dreading their releases. It really really sucks.
The world building was exquisite. The emotional tension was astounding. Fantastic blends of combat and story. They really excelled at RPGs. I hope that one day we get to see their influence in other games!!!
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u/serge-mv 1h ago
It's not EA. They did it to themselves. They haven't released a single good game for more than a decade and consistently lost money. They are probably down a billion dollars at this point.
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u/Lord_of_Seven_Kings 1h ago
Most of those games were bad because of EA interference or firing their staff members.
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u/serge-mv 1h ago
Nah, most of it was Bioware themselves. Biware even made a press release highlighting how much EA helped them and kept them afloat and financed for a long time. You might argue about the engine controversy, but every game failed not because it was developed with a certain engine, but because of crappy writing, bad stories, overall crappy game design in case of Athnem, and many other things. It was Bioware themselves that did all that. Don't blame EA for everything.
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u/Fixit_NZ 1h ago
Pretty sure the CEO of EA played anthem early on and straight out just called it shit to their faces.
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u/pyrhus626 45m ago
It’s even worse than that. The EA executives previewing and playtesting an early build were told by BW they were going to remove the flying stuff and the EA guys practically had to order BW to keep it in. Y’know, the only redeeming quality of that game was the flying and it was EA “meddling” that kept it in lmao
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u/SadlyNotPro 1h ago
Ladt game they made without EA interference (either being rushed, pushed to a certain direction etc) was Dragon Age 1.
It was a miracle they lasted this long under EA.
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u/duke_of_danger 1h ago
BG3 was good, but outside of that, Andromeda, failguard, and anthem were nails in their coffin.
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u/TomTomXD1234 1h ago
BG3??? Huh?
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u/duke_of_danger 1h ago
I think they were the publisher, but not the developers.
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u/TomTomXD1234 1h ago
BG3 has nothing to do with bioware or EA.
It is developed and published by Larian
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u/duke_of_danger 1h ago
Oh.
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u/Ipad_Kidd 1h ago
Do your research before talking out your ass
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u/Tom_F_0olery 14m ago
Be reasonable, the image literally says “Baldur’s Gate” it is a reasonable, while incorrect, assumption to make that they also worked on 3.
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u/Liveangel ifunny.co 1h ago
Very much not surprising. I called it since the news of EA being sold to Saudi Arabia started circulating last year, especially since their recent releases bombed and the team had been whittled down to a skeleton crew of a skeleton crew.
I would be pleasantly surprised if the Dragon Age and Mass Effect IPs get sold off, but I'm expecting EA to sit on them and do nothing.
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u/Anayalater5963 1h ago
I mean from a financial perspective probably? Chop up and sell what you can to at least make your money back.
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u/justagenericname213 1h ago
Except they may think they can get more money by sitting on the IP to sell show rights to (a show set in y he DA universe could go really hard if it was actually made by people who like the setting) or to make a dramatic comeback in a decade
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u/Significant-Row2457 1h ago
I thought they would save it, preserve it…they like money….why….why did they let the dream die…a dark day in gamer history
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u/Spirited_Season2332 0m ago
They do like money and bioware wasn't making it. They havnt made a good game in 10+ years let alone a profitable one
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u/RAMChYLD 1h ago
Because the saudis bought EA for one thing only: their sports titles. They’re not interested in anything else EA has to offer.
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u/Corporate_M0nster 2h ago
I know it’s not EA but do Bethesda next so they can stop trying to sell my Skyrim again and I can stop waiting for the next elder scrolls.
BioWare died a long time ago. I’m just shocked it took so long.
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u/Killer_Ex_Con 1h ago
I really don't get how we have no information really on es6 like they announced the shit in 2018. If it isn't a massive success they honestly might get canned as well.
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u/Doobiemoto 2h ago
People when business do the right business decision and shut down a company who literally has had their last four games bomb. *shocked pikachu*
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u/Equivalent-Green-580 2h ago
To be fair, BioWare has been a husk for over a decade now. As much as I dislike EA, the only thing that this version of BioWare actually created was Anthem.
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u/FiveDollarRimjobs 4h ago
I thought that Andromeda and the Veilguard were fine but both of those games bombed and Anthem also bombed so it's not surprising that Bioware is being shut down
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u/Fuzzy_Dragonfly_ 4h ago
Veilguard was an insult to Dragon Age fans.
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u/EightGlow 3h ago
I gave it 30 hours of effort, I tried to like it, but it was just a slap in the face as a DA lover.
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u/AbsorberHarvester 3h ago
But if you forget that it is Dragon Age at all, game is 4/5 (excluding abnormal gay shit going inside)
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u/Brilliant_Elk5492 4h ago
This is beyond mildly infuriating..... I want mass effect, damn it
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u/Puzzleheaded_End2735 4h ago
Andromeda suuuuucked. ME 1-3 were legitimately fantastic.
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u/Brilliant_Elk5492 4h ago
Agreed. I was rooting for their redemption arc the ME5 but I guess we'll never see :( I have a ton of mass effect inspired artwork in the office.... I hold that trilogy close to my heart
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u/Capable_Tumbleweed34 3h ago
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, by owlcat games, comes out in Q2 2027. It's mass effect but in The Expanse universe. Hopefully it lives up to both franchises, given the track record of owlcat i'm not too worried.
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u/Puzzleheaded_End2735 4h ago
I truly, truly hope that EA doesn't try to push a crap "substitute" developer. I would NOT put that past money grubbing EA at all. They own the rights to ME now.
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u/Noscratchy 4h ago
It can still happen, just whatever was in early dev. EA still owns so can do something with it later on.
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u/MysticalSushi 4h ago
Well their last few games have been shit. Should’ve pushed back harder against their bosses trying to make slop
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u/Seraphimskillets 3h ago
Balder's Gate. Neverwinter Nights. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Dragon Age. Mass Effect. Anthem.
One of these things is not like the others 🙃
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u/SlakingSWAG 2h ago
All the morons who cheered on the acquisition by the Saudis as "better than the current management" must be very thrilled about this news, I'm sure
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u/NeoAnima31 2h ago
At least they are cutting costs. Bioware hasn't released a good game in over 10 year.
I have hopes that they will sell the IPs to a decent studio.
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u/deaconsc 2h ago
They are cutting costs because the Saudis bought them via LBO (leverage buy out). This means that Saudis got money and EA was the collateral. EA now has 18 billions debt out of nowhere because Saudis bought them.
THIS. IS. WHY. THEY. ARE. SO. MUCH. INTO. CUTTING. COSTS.
Also nobody has the money to buy those IPs. And those few who have the monies wont touch it because there is a solid chance it wont pay out.
Well, maybe Rockstar... but I doubt they will have a free time. (they have them monies tho)
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u/FYDPhoenix 2h ago
A rockstar flavoured Mass Effect would be... Odd. I have a feeling they'd go open world as is their speciality... Gotta say, the prospect of driving/flying around the citadel or ilium is pretty dope. Sad it's just a dream. The trilogy is still amazing, and it's still there for us to enjoy. Still a very sad day for ME and DA fans no matter how it's spun.
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u/Slarti226 1h ago
This is what happens when you let Saudi Arabia buy things that go against state religion... Happened when Niantic sold to them and PokomonGo is terrible now.
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u/Bulky_Mix_2265 3h ago
Im sure the IP will get developed by someone else right? Right?
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u/deaconsc 2h ago
You mean those IPs that are one of the most wanted and probably extremely expensive? Those IPs? Suuuure.
Or maybe EA, who got a huge debt by being bought by Saudis will find the resources to work on them... lol
(yes, 18 billions USD is the new sexy debt EA got by being bought by Saudis)
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u/Carlosthefrog 2h ago
You mean a bad studio ? You can blame ea all you want but BioWare haven’t released a good game in a while and that’s why they are being axed.
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u/Sah_Kendov 2h ago
Yeah. I agree with the comments that BioWare has been dead for a while, but IPs like Mass Effect deserve better than being put in purgatory like EA’s other properties.
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u/paintlegz 2h ago
As sad as it is to see EA shuttering another studio, BioWare is not the studio it used to be. They haven’t made a good game in 12 years.
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u/gljivicad 2h ago
What do you mean mildly infuriating? This studio has not created a good game for 12+ years. I am more surprised it did not shut down earlier.
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u/auslad9421 1h ago
I think the very first bioware game i played was dragon age origins, easily one the best games I've ever played
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u/ElegantNet9803 1h ago
At least we know what is happening to the mass effect game that was in development now. Bioware has not been a good company in years unfortunately
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u/TheDoomBlade13 1h ago
I personally liked Inquisition enough, but even if we start counting from there it has been a decade since they released a game that was well received. Everyone had to know their number was going to come up eventually.
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u/Boring-Relation-4365 44m ago
Anthem was the game that put Bioware's name into the coffin, and Dragon Age the Veilguard buried it
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u/Jackalope1993 26m ago
Company has been dead for near a decade now, whatever was working there now was moving Bioware around like a meat puppet. This is a long overdue mercy killing sadly.
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u/Own-Raisin5849 3h ago
I mean, honestly, outside of Dragon Age: Origins, I found anything made from them kind of lackluster, but I also never got into the mass effect games.
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u/C-LOgreen 1h ago
I was really hoping to see the new Mass Effect but let’s be real here there last profitable game was almost 10 years ago. I love video games as an art, but you have to make money at least some of the time to justify them keeping your studio open. Even if EA was not acquired They still would’ve closed BioWare at some point soon.
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u/tiersanon 1h ago
The only infuriating thing is that it didn't happen sooner. Bioware hasn't had a successful game in over 10 years.
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u/Significant-Row2457 4h ago
All those memories, gone. Like tears in the rain.
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u/Beneficial_Fig_7830 4h ago
That’s not true at all. Just cause the corpse of BioWare was finally taken out to compost doesn’t take away the memories you made playing the games. The games are still there and playable and will remain so. All this means is that there will be nothing new coming from them which considering they haven’t made anything worth while in over a decade ain’t the end of the world. Condolences for those who lost their jobs though that is the true tragedy in all this.
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u/Temporary_Error_3780 3h ago
It must feel impossible to get a job in the games industry right now. So many talented people laid off over the last two year.
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u/Double_Ocelot_8673 3h ago
Yay corporate profit! Think how much shareholder value this will create! And it'll open up even more live service games! /s
I loved most of these classics Bioware put out.
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u/Bonsai-is-best 1h ago
The comments that are all "BioWare sucked now anyways" are really showing their hand. Who gives a fuck if the games they've released recently haven't been good? All those IPs you love are being buried with BioWare because EA doesn't release anything but dogshit gun and ball games, maybe if we didn't let reactionaries sabotage the release of games because of "the woke" like with Veilguard we'd still be getting decent games, half of what they released last year was MEH not BAD.
You mfs piss me off so fuckin bad.
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u/badwords 1h ago
Bioware ended in 2012 when the last two of the founding doctors left. It's been a shell ever since.
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u/user-unknown-404 3h ago
Fuck EA and the Saudis that bought it. It was only a matter of time that they would close down a studio that makes LGBTQ+ characters.
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u/John_Bot 3h ago
Probably more that the last 3 games they made lost zillions of dollars and weren't good.
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u/BlackCoatedMan 55m ago
Deserved. Their last good game was Mass Effect 2, their last decent game was Dragon Age Inquisition. They hadn't made a good game in a decade. Only in this Industry can people be shit at their jobs for a decade and expect pity at losing said job. Anywhere else, its just normal to get fired for poor performance.
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u/Neat_Expression9992 43m ago
BioWare has been garbage for a decade, nothing of worth lost with this.
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u/HiveMate 4h ago
Very sad, but Bioware has not been THE Bioware for awhile