EA acquires Bioware

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Maique

EA killed Bullfrog! a new Dungeon Keeper game would be so sweet

Dungeon Keeper MMO -- you're the mobs and you raid the goody two-shoes King whatever...

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by Duppin

So is EA the cool new game company to have an irrational hatred for?

Are you for real?

[Rythonn]

Originally Posted by Pyros

If UO2 was going to go the way UO went with trammel and whatever else, it's a good thing it never was released ^^.

I had high hopes for this game, at the end with the motion caption was great.

[Dreven]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Sad

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!

[Duppin]

Originally Posted by Goliath

Are you for real?

Pretty much, yep.

Then again, neither SOE or EA ever raped my family pet, so I am apparently in the minority on these boards.

[Xakk]

Originally Posted by darksensei

Just reading the title, I honestly did an equivalent of the Vader no. This is definitive proof that there is no god.

well, at least I wasn't the only one.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by darksensei

Just reading the title, I honestly did an equivalent of the Vader no. This is definitive proof that there is no god.

God gave the founders of Bioware free will. They choose to use their freewill to get 800 million richer.

[Dumar]

Originally Posted by Duppin

Pretty much, yep.

Then again, neither SOE or EA ever raped my family pet, so I am apparently in the minority on these boards.

non oN ono nONONONO. just.. don't start.

it's one thing to not have hatred for soe. but to NOT HAVE HATRED FOR EA.. you must NOT play games.

[Kaosu]

Actually, I just read a article on Firingsquad.com

It seems that the EA buyout isn't as bad as it seems.

Its not the same EA hierarchy.

John Riccitiello -> Frank Gibeau (President of EA Games) -> Greg Zeschuk & Ray Muzyka (BioWare co-founders). That’s it.

John Riccitiello is the one who's vested interested in totally in Bioware. Its not the end of the world, however as long as EA doesn't conflict with development or anything like that, we should still see the same quality from Bioware as always.

[Digits]

Don't be deluded. The instant it starts being profitable to produce shittier games is the instant EA will make it so. Fuck capitalism in the industry of fun.

[Kaosu]

That might be true, but you have to realize that the CEO is the one that has vested interest. He also the one that said "Sequels are boring."

Not quite the regular EA upper management tard would say, don't you think?

I don't think anything immediately will change.

Hell, Vivendi owns Blizzard, yet they still manage to pump out quality games. And Vivendi are french.

I don't believe in EA, but I do believe in Bioware staffers. Considering that the CEO is more for Bioware than EA (and the success of Bioware hinges on John's spot as CEO), I don't think you'll see any upper management touching until you see some sort of news item that mentions a re-shuffling or consolidation of management within EA.

Then its time to be worried.

[darksensei]

Originally Posted by tad10

God gave the founders of Bioware free will. They choose to use their freewill to get 800 million richer.

You can go to Bioware's website and see for youself. 800 million dollars richer, and a reputation back to zero with skepticism for future games. Mass Effect 1 will be fine, its done and will come out next month. I believe Dragon's Age will be fine, a lot of work has already gone into it and I'm sure they'll start pushing it once Mass Effect buzz settles. It's the future the concerns me, EA doesn't think they'll see a profit on this until 2011. That's a huge fucking investment that they'll have to explain to their stockholders (whom they pander to, a lot). Bioware has always been about "when it's done" and EA's been about nickel and dime bullshit. They can't be too pushy initially because that would cause the talent there to leave, but it's going to be a long time before Bioware earns back it's reputation.

I'm absolutely not being optimistic about this, because it was great as it was. Any change was bad, this change is worse. BUT, if you did want to look at this in a positive light, you could say EA feels Bioware's MMO is so good that it's worth a 860 million dollar investment.

[tad10]

Eh. I would probably have done the same thing if I were them. Hard to turn down 800 mil. Silicon Valley Gazillionaires aren't the only ones who need 100 million dollar yachts.

We'll see what happens with the MMO.

[kasey]

Dammit, they only put out shitty mainstream stuff =((( who buys EA's titles? football fans?

[Szlia]

EA top people are many things but stupid is not one of them. They know they are hated by gamers, they know they set the standards for the industry as they have been considered to be the first truely professional video game publisher and they know historically they have set these standards poorly (see "buy company with IPs, gut company, keep IPs" techniques, working condition debacle with EA wives and co, sequel galore, game as marchandizing of sports events, etc). But it's bad for the industry as a whole and they know that, so they work toward changing that and we can pretty much trust them with that because it makes business sense to have diversity, quality products and good working conditions if you want your industry to grow and be prosperous.

That's the theory at least. In practice, working conditions are suposed to be significantly better, that's one thing, but EA Japan that was working on several very innovative DS games vanished into thin air after releasing Sim City on DS and we wait on the first batch of new EA IPs, starting with Army of Two, to have a sense of where they are going and if they can keep going that way.