r/pcmasterrace • • 8h ago

News/Article BioWare is closing down.

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u/mythrilcrafter Ryzen 5950X || Gigabyte 4080 AERO 7h ago

I'm betting that "we" aren't even the people/bosses that allowed their existence.

Pre-Saudi Purchase EA seemed squarely willing to support Bioware no matter what because those bosses seemed to believe in "Bioware-magic". The Post-Saudi Purchase EA bosses clearly do not share that faith in the Bioware-magic.

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u/goober36 6h ago

That well runs dry after over a decade of not producing a game that makes money. They have not put out anything of success in over a decade. Would you rather just continue to burn through cash as a business to prop up a segment of your company that just brings nothing to the table?

This was honestly overdue. The BioWare magic has been gone for a while.

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u/NadeshikoEatingPasta 2h ago

Yeah, no studio can survive the dry spell Bioware has had.

-Mass Effect Andromeda (100 million budget)

-Anthem (100-200 million budget)

-Dragon Age: The Veilguard (200-400 million budget)

The budget is part of it. These games all flopped horrendously, with Anthem's end of service this year accompanied by no refunds representing the most severe hit to player trust. But the main thing was the time. That's like 12~ years of development time that didn't let them make a single decent game. Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League ate Rocksteady's entire output for about 8 years by comparison, which was still a huge failure.

In 12 years, From Software released Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Bloodborne, Dark Souls III, and Sekiro, as well as DLC for the various games. 12 years of CD Projekt Red output got us Witcher 2, Witcher 3 and two game-length DLCs, Gwent, Thronebreaker, and Cyberpunk 2077. 12 years is a long fucking time.

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u/Wooden-Lake-5790 1h ago

12 years at Bethesda got us Skyrim. 5 times!

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u/Bugbread 2h ago edited 1h ago

Here are their metacritic scores, chronologically

Edit: Updated because I missed DragonAge: Veilguard, and also to add user scores, too.

Does not include mobile games, browser games, or reissues of previous games.

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u/Chuckfinley_88 4h ago

This times 1000.

You can even see it in the games they listed. It starts off banger after banger, on cheaply (compared to today) made games. And then it ends with Anthem, an extremely expensive failure.

They cant be left alone, or you get Anthem. They cant be managed or you get the latest dragon age games. Only thing left is put em down, Old Yeller style.

EA gave them more than they deserved, which is a wild statement.

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u/Random_name_I_picked 4h ago

You could always sell it to some other chump.

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u/Diligent_Lemon_72 5h ago

So we're passing the blame to the Saudis and not the developers who put out 3 underperforming games

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u/mythrilcrafter Ryzen 5950X || Gigabyte 4080 AERO 2h ago

We can blame both.

Modern Bioware sucking at making games that people want to pay money for is parallel to the Saudi's from being the ones who pulled the trigger.

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u/Diligent_Lemon_72 2h ago

It's not the Saudis fault Bioware dropped 3 failures. The Saudis only sin is pruning the trash from ea.

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u/CrackSmakcer 2h ago

Literally this. Studios get shut even after successful games. BioWare hasn’t shat out a good game in over a decade. Good fkn riddance. Another useless team of devs removed from a studio which had genuine potential

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u/TheWarlordAres357 4h ago

The developers only develop what ppl in charge allow and instruct them too. The Saudis had nothing to do with it. Just poor management from start to finish after the old heads left

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u/Muggsy423 4h ago

Bioware didn't even want to keep flying in Anthem until the EA exec basically forced them to,  and it was the only part of the game that got praise. 

Bioware has been a sinking ship,  don't try to excuse the devs for their poor decisions. 

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u/Diligent_Lemon_72 4h ago

Why are you replying to me I'm not blaming the Saudis

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u/BrockSramson 4h ago

The new bosses have more sense than EA management. The Bioware magic has been gone for a long time now.

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u/CorporateCuster 4h ago

It’s not hard to start a new studio. Crate indie games and generate revenue. I wonder why we let ea get away with it