r/technology • u/Bobcats_Forever • 2h ago
Business EA cancels new Mass Effect, closes BioWare after being bought by Saudi Arabia
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/rpg/ea-cancels-new-mass-effect-closes-bioware-after-being-bought-by-saudi-arabia/170
u/Etiennera 2h ago
Feel bad for the BioWare employees who are out of a job in my hometown that hardly has same-industry alternatives. That's rough.
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u/Objective_Resist_735 2h ago
Fuck EA so hard.
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u/KinkyPaddling 1h ago
Also, fuck the Saudi oligarchs so hard.
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u/evil__brain 22m ago
EA has always been like this. Since long before the Saudi family dictatorship puppet state bought them.
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u/Big_Anteater_4834 1h ago
Lol cry more. Mediocre sequels to once legendary IPs gets you fired. If your only intent is to push quotas and "own the chuds", then you deserve to get Firewalk'd
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u/Weedity 1h ago
Wtf are you talking ahout chud?
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u/Big_Anteater_4834 40m ago
"Whaddya mean?" As you forget the flops of Mass Effect Andromeda, Dragon Age Veilguard, and Anthem. Are you smoothbrained?
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u/EuphoricCrashOut 2h ago
Gamers. I really hate to have to say this, but we really got unite on this one and boycott every single thing EA touches. If you already own the game(s) no problem; but don't give them a single credit.
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u/Careless-Ground4818 1h ago
I'm already doing it by default but I hate to tell you boss that EA has a majority population of Ball & gun gamers and they don't care about the quality of what they buy.
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u/LegendaryVenusaur 2h ago
EA makes most of their money on sports games, specifically gatcha card packs. People tried to boycott CoD once... and we know how that turned out.
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u/culman13 1h ago
Yeah, adolescents high pitched screamed at us that they were going to have sex with our moms. That's how it turned out.
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u/EuphoricCrashOut 1h ago
I seriously think it had a big impact. It's not anything like it used to be and they got 'a' message.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 1h ago
Because 99% of all social media arranged boycotts on things are moronic anyways.
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u/XensNexus 1h ago
So what's stopping people from reverse engineering their entire sport game library into open source games with complete team rosters for every team for the last century? Call it EASySports
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u/recycled_ideas 58m ago
So what's stopping people from reverse engineering their entire sport game library into open source games with complete team rosters for every team for the last century?
Because despite the AI hype about it lately that's actually illegal. Copying reverse engineered code like that is a copyright violation. It also doesn't work anywhere near as well as people think.
And that's forgetting the fact that using real sports franchises and real people requires permissions and licensing and a gigantic war chest, particularly for top tier professional sports.
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u/XensNexus 45m ago
Lol I was half joking, but yes it's obviously illegal to do that. Despite that, there's basically nothing stopping people aside from the red tape. Also I'm not just saying vibe code a buggy mess, I meant thoroughly fleshed out open source versions that either rival or exceed the originals. Ea doesn't own the rights to the sport itself
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u/Immediate-Cress-206 30m ago
The NFL's lawyers.
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u/XensNexus 21m ago
Lawyers don't really have a great track record of ending ports, recomps and open source alternatives to software, otherwise the dozens of various clones, fangames and hacks wouldn't be a thing
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u/starmartyr 1h ago
I agree with you but I'm not confident that this will happen. Gamers are terrible when it comes to consumer advocacy. We complain a lot whenever something like this happens but we're right back on the hype train the moment someone drops a slick looking trailer.
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u/Abinunya 19m ago
Gamers also arent the target demografic. They dont want someone who'll ...idk, discuss the ludonarrative dissonance, they want
Men 18 to 30 ,College educated Women over 40, Suicidal poets, Fat midwestern fathers Kids with diabetes, Pentecostal preachers, Mothers under 20, Interracial couples, Atheist professors, Government employees, Xenophobes and racists, Private aviators,
Why cater to a specific group (who might be connected and organized and knowledgeable enough to know about your shitty labor-practices), when you could aim for everyone else.
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u/admiralfrosting 1h ago
Letâs be honest, BioWare has put out garbage for a long time now. It isnât the studio of 20 years ago. This was their own doing and EA actually gave them a long leash. They just decided to hang themselves with it.
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u/DUH455T 51m ago edited 30m ago
Guy this is an empty gesture. Bioware hasn't been Bioware for like 15 years. All the people that made your favorite games left a long time ago
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u/browneyesays 13m ago
There were a lot of people that worked on the original trilogy still there and working on this. The two bigger people to leave were writers and that was in the last year or two. They still had the same producer/management, lead designer, narrative, art director, cinematic and animation leadershipâŠ. The list goes on and on. They were working on this for years and made the first announcement in 2020 meaning probably most of the veterans touched the now cancelled game.
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u/BronzeTomatillos22 42m ago
I can't believe Kushner and MBS went back in time to make Bioware shoddy with Dragon Age 2 and ME3's ending.
I'm being sarcastic as I agree.
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u/AlarmingShower1553 27m ago
I share the sentiment but every single football- and soccer player in the nfl and the top flights buys thousands of $ worth of packs in their multiplayer modes each month. it's a "too big to fall" situation with EA as a whole. it will just lead to most branches being dropped like singleplayer rpgs
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u/Deranged40 1h ago
Any attempt to boycott Madden will result in more copies of Madden being sold than they would've without the boycott.
Boycotts in gaming has been tried and the results are in: It does not work.
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u/BillaBongKing 1h ago
They at least got them to remove micro payments in NCAA for dynasty mode offline.......that was micro payments to play your game by yourself.
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u/slingslangflang 1h ago
Iâve been boycotting EAâs bitch ass ever since they tired to make me sign up with them just to play my physical copy of bf6. Even the god dammed single player mother fuck EA ruined the entire DA series. I hope theyre not around in our cyberpunk future.
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u/Ok-Seaworthiness7207 41m ago
I will say, I'm buying the last installment of the Jedi series. After that? They can fuck all the way back to where the Houthis are fucking up the Saudi's day.
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u/rainator 17m ago
Iâve been boycotting them since the mid 2000s, itâs been so long that Iâve actually forgotten the specific reason I started it.
Their games are almost always so shit it doesnât feel like a boycott thoughâŠ
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u/Hiddencamper 12m ago
I boycotted EA after the dragon age shenanigans on steam.
I made one exception for apex legends. Not really sure why I did. But thatâs it.
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u/El_Kovidente 11m ago
Technically been boycotting them for years, not through any conscious effort on my part though. They've been competing with Ubisoft in a slopathon and they are neck and neck.
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u/MisterSanitation 1h ago
Anyone who buys an EA game deserves it man. I swore off years ago, 10/10 do recommendÂ
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u/alfrocks 1h ago
I got Dead Space remastered for dirt cheap, like $1.99 or something dumb. Iâve never played it because I have to create an EA account. Never looked back.
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u/Blueguerilla 1h ago
lol you say that like gamers are a homogeneous group. And the gamers on Reddit are an extremely small percentage of people who play games. The vast majority are casual players who donât follow along any news like this, let alone boycott anything.
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u/JWAdvocate83 1h ago
Boycott? Just stop buying EA.
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u/No_Ampersand 55m ago
What do you think a boycott is, my dude?
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u/JWAdvocate83 19m ago
A protest. I'm saying, just stop buying it.
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u/Redararis 2h ago
the thing is that newer genâs play minecraft and roblox, gaming as millenials are perceiving is dead.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 1h ago
I'm gonna buy the games I want and like, thank you very much. Even from series EA owns.
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u/computer_d 1h ago
I think we're all a little envious that we're not so simple
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u/bwoah07_gp2 1h ago
Because it is that simple...
People like to complicate their lives over the silliest of matters.
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u/kontor97 1h ago
Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner's private equity firm* bought out EA. It's not just a horrible country, but a horrible country and a horr8ble domestic leader who's family is able to get away with anything atp
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u/Oneguysenpai3 53m ago
XBOX Gaming owns (Zenimax, Activision, etc) & and they had closed-door discussion to sell itself to Private Equity..
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u/EuropaWeGo 2h ago
I have a feeling that the Saudi's aren't going to get their money back on this investment.
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u/Irish_Whiskey 2h ago
Oh yes they are.
Their goal isn't to make profitable games. It's money laundering, pumping stocks with petro-dollars from their states that make individuals rich, and buying cultural and political influence.
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u/MisterSanitation 1h ago
You should look up how the Saudis are doing right now⊠They are getting their ass whooped by tribal people from the poorest country on the planet. I donât say tribal as a negative either, they literally are and theyâve been bombed by the Saudis and the U.S. for over a decade and they are tough and can shoot down modern aircraft.Â
I heard a former U.S. diplomat say he put it at 50/50 they still exist after this war
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u/onexbigxhebrew 2h ago edited 2m ago
Why would rich and powerful Saudis need to launder their money - especially with with purchasing and shuttering high profile american companies?
This makes no sense lol.Â
Edit: TIL everything shady with money is laundering on reddit
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u/Irish_Whiskey 1h ago
Have you bothered to look into the issue?
Saudi Arabia holds tens of billions of dollars worth of companies including Uber, EA, Live Nation, Meta and Walmart, funded through petro-dollars. This includes companies directly owned by senior Administration officials, such as Kushner's Affinity Partners. These purchases circumnavigate regulatory obstacles on foreign direct investment through CFIUS and function as lobbying and bribery. In addition they are used as tools to turn state dollars into means for private individuals to profit by means of the foreign investment.
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u/Mistyslate 1h ago
Kushner is technically not in the administration. âSon in lawâ is not a cabinet position.
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u/namisysd 1h ago
Itbhasnât stopped him from acting like one, the rules dont matter to these assholes.
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u/Mddcat04 19m ago
Redditors have no idea what money laundering is and say itâs what is happening whenever there is something moderately complex happening with finances.
The term here is âsportswashingâ because itâs usually related to sponsoring / buying professional sports teams.
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u/MisterSanitation 1h ago
Bro they ainât gonna be around to collect on this investment lol.Â
Last I checked they ainât long for this world. The house of Saud is getting paid back by the poorest country on the planet. How sweet that irony must be to the Yemenis.Â
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u/strolpol 1h ago
Really depends on whether the sports games keep being reliable income streams. Lots of people spend lots of money on them
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u/Good_Nyborg 58m ago
I'm pretty sure that the main thing the Saudi's really wanted from this deal was ownership of the sports franchise games.
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u/Charirner 1h ago
The Saudis closed down a studio that had gay people and strong female characters in it? Shocking
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u/PlagueSoul 1h ago
Donât forget a string of failures.
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u/Zestyclose_Band 1h ago
idk why youâre being downvoted so much. Itâs true that everything since inquisition could be considered a failure either financially or quality wise.Â
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u/Charirner 1h ago
So everything after EA bought them?
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u/Zestyclose_Band 43m ago
didnât they buy them in 2008?Â
bioware released many good games since then. Mass effect 2 and 3. 3 was definitely controversial with its ending but it was still a good game until then. Dragon age origins. dragon age 2 (definitely a rushed project but not awful). Inquisition was definitely a success. The last three games were the thing to kill bioware. Anthem, andromeda and veilguard. I hate EA as much as one can but they arenât the sole reason bioware is dead. Changes in writing quality and tone is what killed bioware whether thatâs EAs fault idk but veilguard was the final chance and they blew it.Â
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u/suprachromat 52m ago
With the exception of Anthem which was foisted upon them unfairly, tbh BioWare has been on a downhill slope since ME3. Then Andromeda. Veilguard was utterly terrible and focus grouped to hell, felt like HR was in the room. Many other issues. ME4 would have been their last chance. Bottom line the studio was on thin ice even aside from EA. The EA buyout was the final nail.
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u/Interesting_Key3507 16m ago
Do people not understabd how bad bioware games have been since pre-andromeda
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u/MisterSlosh 2h ago
Damn... They're seriously letting Mass Effect die on the junk that was Andromeda. Sad day for that franchise.
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u/Zestyclose_Band 1h ago
the rights to produce mass effect games should be given to a fresh studio. I would say owlcat would do a good job but theyâve already made their own mass effect.Â
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u/No_Ampersand 54m ago
Which game is that?
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u/Zestyclose_Band 38m ago
the expanse osiris reborn. Itâs literally a mass effect spiritual successor if you watch the gameplay trailers. Owlcat is itself the spiritual successor to bioware. Starting out with fantasy CRPGs and then developing a 3d space game. Plus the writing in all of owlcatâs games is mature and not focus grouped to hell like veilguard.
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u/Nyte_Crawler 1h ago edited 1h ago
It's been almost 15 years since Bioware last released a good game, this honestly has little to do with new ownership.
After veilguard flopped it honestly seems more likely Bioware wasn't immediately shuttered just to make it seem more enticing to buyers. Given that they still have a lot of clout just based off their hot streak of dragon age+mass effect from 20 years ago.
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u/waltz_with_potatoes 2h ago
We all knew that after this buy out EA will just cut out anything risky.Â
We won't see them making anything other than their sports titles, FPS, Sims or Star WarsÂ
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u/Major_Stranger 1h ago
It was expected. The Saudis have little to no regards for anything outside the big 3 Hyperpredatories genre: ball games, F2P and the Sims. They don't want RPGs or games with swords. Those are reserved for public executions of political dissidents.
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u/KennyWeeWoo 2h ago edited 2h ago
I guess we wonât be getting any CoD games based in the Middle East again
Edit: Iâm wrong, I thought EA owned activisionÂ
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u/Badtrainwreck 2h ago
Theyre going to make it an alternate universe where it wasnât Saudi Arabia that did 9/11
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u/foamingdogfever 2h ago
Activision is owned by Microslop, so this deal won't affect CoD. There will still be an overpriced, yearly respin of the same tired shit.
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u/GuySmith 2h ago
Give it a few months, they will own Activision. Everything will be under one company. Every single game.
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u/epicfail1994 34m ago
Considering that it was what, over a decade since they made a well received game? Iâm not surprised
It took them ages to deliver on Veilguard and it was corporate, safe, and underwhelming. They were incapable of making a good game
I had been looking forward to the next dragon age game and I knew it couldnât match the expectations I had for it, but it was so much worse than I expected
They have been a shambling corpse for the past decade just waiting to be put down
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u/dumb-idiot-commenter 2h ago
EA has been a zombie for years I love Mass Effect and KotOR but this is a mercy kill.
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u/Melted_ICE_5193 1h ago
I swear to God. There should be no way a foreign government or entity should be able to wholesale buy an American company.
But here we are.
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u/psykoX88 1h ago
And chuds are blaming veilguard
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u/Fractales 1h ago
Anthem started the nail, veilguard hammered it closed
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u/TraitorMacbeth 1h ago
Was andromeda before anthem?
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u/Shiragami 1h ago
Mass Effect: Andromeda 2017
Anthem 2019
Dragon Age: The Veilguard 20243 flops in a row
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u/BronzeTomatillos22 40m ago
Dragon Age 2, honestly. Their past 3 games were massive flops and their entire inventory since 2010 has been deeply flawed with the exception of mass effect 2.
The conspiracy is not the boogeyman shutting it down, the conspiracy is why EA took so long to kill bioware when it was fit to be put to pasture in 2020.
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u/StopReadingThis-Now 1h ago
I think this is for the best. They were never going to recapture the magic of the original trilogy.
Just wish we got ME3 Multiplayer in the Legendary Edition.
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u/BlackopsBaby 26m ago
This is truly a sad day. I have deep nostalgia to the Mass effect series. The fact this journey ended with MEA only adds to the pain. Bioware, Bungie, Ubisoft, Eidos, fucking Bethesda.... all meant a great deal to me. My hope solely rests on Exodus and The Expanse now.
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u/fullautohotdog 4m ago
So the global climate wasn't enough, now the oil-rich have to come for Mass Effect?
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u/Lumen__-___Spero 0m ago
Bioware closing is a bit sad, but at least the Saudis won't have any content to sell besides NCAA now.
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u/Getafix69 1h ago
Hopefully this doesn't effect Amazon's Mass Effect TV series it's one of the only ones I had high hopes for.
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u/dropthemagic 1h ago
The fucking saudis took over Pokemon go, they blow up anything they touch those fucking bastards
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u/ieatPoulet 1h ago
I like the sentiment here boys.. but letâs be real.. the GA will continue to buy EA slop.. thereâs no stopping the gun/ball gamers.
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u/MWGaskill 2h ago
Todays gaming youths are simple minded and don't appreciate games you have to think through. Instant gratification is what they look for in everything.
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u/MisterSanitation 1h ago
Wtf does that have to do with EA being typical EA? Are the âgood for nothing lazy kids nowadaysâ the reason they bought code masters and killed the dirt series?Â
What a boomer thing to say lol đÂ
You gonna mention how they also have too long of hair, wear jeans, and swing their hips too much when dancing there peepaw?Â
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u/1nconsp1cuous 1h ago
Just the fucking BOOMERiest of boomers. Go peep homieâs comment history talking about âThere used to be a western on when I was a kid and we had to walk FIFTEEN MILES uphill in the snow to wait for new episodes!â đ€Ł
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u/1nconsp1cuous 1h ago
Thinking âthe youths are just simple minded and want everything easyâ is arguably the most simple-minded and braindead take anyone can have. Facebook is đ that way, boomer.
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u/bunky_done_gun 50m ago
So no sequel to Command & Conquer Generals then? ( I can only imagine what the new owners might think of it)
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u/I_Am_Conjoined 2h ago
(And after the studio burned an absolute shit ton of money by purposefully making games no one wanted in order to push their political ideals)
But sure let's put the blame solely on the Saudis
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u/SecretAgentxMan 2h ago
What games would those be?
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u/I_Am_Conjoined 2h ago
You tell me
Take a look at the discourse around their recent games
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u/Irish_Whiskey 2h ago
Can't help but notice you couldn't answer the question.
I'm sure as a Bioware fan, you were outraged by their inclusion of trans, gay and political storylines in Dragon Age Origins. Or the political and queer messages of Mass Effect 1. Or maybe Knights of the Old Republic 1. Which came out 23 years ago.
The Epstein funded Gamergate crowd are simply latching onto any representation and politics to the left of David Duke and claiming it's why games fail. While ignoring the countless examples of successful progressive games, or that this studio has had progressive politics for decades including in their best games.
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u/Zestyclose_Band 1h ago
if you think the way queer characters were written in previous games is in any way comparable to the way they were in veilguard ur nutsÂ
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u/Irish_Whiskey 1h ago
Please specifically say in what way they are different.
Because I never said they weren't written differently or as well. The entire game was written differently, which is what happens when you lose some of your key writers. But the Gamergater I'm responding to is whining about the new "political ideas" ruining the game.
So go on. What was written differently about queer characters that resulted in new "political ideas" that made the games bad?
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u/Zestyclose_Band 57m ago
thereâs no depth or real human tone to any of it. Like all the characters being playersexual rather than having their own identity. This was in DA2 as well but i canât say iâm the biggest fan of that game either. Also the way itâs talked about is very out of character for the world. Using modern terms that just donât fit the vibe. This goes for the entirety of the writing tbf. Thereâs no gritty vibe to the way itâs treated, all the conversations have this silly childish tone to them. Instead of grown adults. The entire roster in veilguard acts and talks like theyâre in some therapy group. Also especially with Taash these queer characteristics are basically their only trait. Instead of person who just happens to be non-binary itâs the main focus of the entire character which imo is actually reducing queer characters. These aspects are perfectly fine and interesting if done well but in veilguard they make it lame and cringe which is the worst part. You can have a trans or non binary character just donât make it lame. Krem wasnât lame.Â
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u/I_Am_Conjoined 2h ago
Hope Bioware sees this bro, I'm sure they'll appreciate it as they're clearing out their desks
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u/Irish_Whiskey 1h ago
I didn't say anything defending them. I just pointed out that victims of the right wing culture war grift look like absolute morons when they confidently claim Bioware recently embraced progressive politics.
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u/I_Am_Conjoined 1h ago
Insulting me is definitely the way to get me to see things as you see them
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u/Irish_Whiskey 1h ago
I've zero hope you're capable of personal growth or learning. It's been over a decade of repeating far right political talking points you were brainwashed with online.
I'm not trying to convince you. I'm mocking your ongoing sad attempts to turn every issue you come across into a culture war, on behalf of people who want you poor and stupid.
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u/I_Am_Conjoined 1h ago
Sure bro, totally cooked me. Wish I had it all figured out like you, then maybe I could be part of a failed studio like Bioware
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u/Irish_Whiskey 1h ago
Suggesting that Bioware failed because they recently embraced progressive politics is just objectively wrong. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the company knows they've been doing this for decades, and with beloved games.
If you made a mistake and when asked for clarification said "Oops, I was wrong", no one would think anything of it. But of course you're just deflecting and being a coward even still. You aren't interested in learning or growing. If you were capable of admitting error and wanting to be a better person, you wouldn't be you.
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u/ElectricCelt 2h ago
How do y'all enjoy any form of art? Music, video games, movies, tv, painting, dance, whatever. Every single thing, you turn into woke vs whatever nonsense you love. Is it really so hard to just enjoy something? I can listen to Pink even though she went all pro Israel. Her music is still good. Ice Cube comes out of the ether every few years to tell everyone to vote Republican, but I still love his music. Is it because the capitalist fascist overlords are always the bad guys? It's exhausting with you people. Everything has to be entirely catered to straight white Christian men or it is "woke". It must be miserable worrying about someone else's genitals all the time, especially video game characters.
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u/shawnkfox 1h ago
Video games just have to be targeted at the people who play video games. It has always been predominantly men. It isn't so much a question of being woke, the games just weren't made for the straight male audience. It isnt just the LGBT characters etc, it is the fact that the gameplay and stories being told aren't interesting to the people who used to buy Bioware's games.
No matter what product you are making, if you ignore who buys the product to chase after some other audience, you can't blame your original audience for refusing to buy your product.
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u/ChongusTheSupremus 50m ago
What the fuck Is this title?Â
Bioware went down after spending 15 years without releasing a remarkable game, not to mention their new Mass Effect was in "early development" despite being in development for 6 years now.
It's not really on EA, let alone Saudi Arabia. The implication has some racist undertones i dont appreciate.
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u/Joe_Spazz 2h ago
Didn't take them long.