r/pcmasterrace • • 8h ago

News/Article BioWare is closing down.

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u/ItsYaBoyBackAgain 8h ago edited 8h ago

RIP to one of the most legendary studios of all time. It's a shame how they became a shell of their former selves the last decade or so. Fuck EA.

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u/Gesha 8h ago

The legends, as in the people that made it legendary, have long since been gone. This is just formalizing what was already the case.

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u/StoicSunbro 8h ago

Exactly. Game studios are not like the Ship of Theseus. You cannot replace core creative talent like planks.

They are like bands: once core members leave the music never sounds the same. Bioware has not been the same studio for many years.

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u/chmilz 7h ago

Relevant music trivia: Saliva (of Click Click Boom fame) still produces music, but is an entirely different band than the one people probably think of or hear on the radio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saliva_(band)#Timeline

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u/ThePrussianGrippe AMD 7950x3d - 7900xt - 48gb RAM - 12TB NVME - MSI X670E Tomahawk 7h ago

That’s kind of wild.

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u/chmilz 6h ago

An interesting philosophical question about when might be the right time to rename a band. Do the current members even feel like they have a real identity? When they tour and play the hits from the first 4 albums, are they just a cover band?

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u/pyronius Compooter 4h ago

Imagine what must go through the minds of the original members of a band like that.

Like, imagine they start a band in high school, spend years touring, and eventually all leave the band one by one as they get older. But then, one day, years after the last one left, they all get together for a reunion at somebody's house when they hear on the radio that their band is going to be playing a show in town soon. They look around the room and realize that every original member of the band is right there, but they are somehow not that band.

If they decide to jam, what band is playing?

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u/chmilz 4h ago

I wonder how the legalities would work if the original members wanted to do a reunion tour. Imagine if the current band said no.

I'm sure there's some established music industry legal stuff around joining and departing a band, but is there any precedent for this?

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u/Ok_Dragonfruit_8102 5h ago

I bet they all individually think "hell yeah, I'm playing in Saliva..." and none of them ever broaches the subject of whether they're actually the band they think they are

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u/GodsIWasStrongg 5h ago

Old Crow Medicine Show is similar. I think they only have one core member that's been there since the beginning.

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u/chmilz 4h ago

Eh, there's a ton of well known acts where the frontman is the only permanent member. Heck, virtually every pop artist operates in that realm. Might be less common in rock, but it's not uncommon.

The entire band changing over, including the frontman and/or creative force? That's extremely rare.