It is a sad day in gaming today. Man are they going to butcher those studios now.

Originally posted by cerebrix

this is by far, the wierdest month in mmo history

But hey, at least Bungie went indy and ditched Microsoft.

Man, that seriously sucks.  I have heard from somebody who worked for EA that they treat their employees like sh*t.  I also don't really like EA games in general.  Man, what the hell is going on?

Originally posted by soecabal

This is the END of Bioware.  Within months most of their talent will be long gone off to probably a startup (hopefully), much like Obsidian came from Black Isle, maybe the Bioware devs can form their own indie house. 

EA bought Bioware, IMHO, to get ahold of their MMO team, largely made up of Pre-CU SWG developers, such as former producers Gordon Walton and Rich Vogel. My guess is they put them on fixing the problems with WAR that caused them to have to abruptly cancel the beta.  I can't see those guys wanting to work for EA though, because EA is perhaps the only company even MORE narrow minded than SOE.  Bioware has basically become what they left SOE over.  What they do will be interesting.

Atleast get your facts straight, they did not cancel beta.   EA Mythic is taking a long break between Beta Phases to apply changes according to Beta Player Feed back, adding in new areas, and the Elven Races.   Plus they're preparing for the Guild Phase of Beta which starts in December when the servers come back online.  Contray to many's beliefs this has been done before.  

Bioware's MMO team have their own MMO IP they're working on secretly still.   Its one of the reasons EA the vicious demon that is wanted Bioware. 

Existing Bioware IP will be milked till it's dead, like all EA acquisitions.  Considering that Bioware was largely a partner of EA rivals Microsoft and LucasArts, this move has more to do with weakening competition, and EA was willing to spend nearly a billion to do it.

EA is long past the point of being able to sustain any sort of creativity.  As a company they are successful based only on inertia and sports licenses.  Madden 2007 is a hit despite being worse than Madden 2006, for example, but no one else can make a NFL game, so your alternative is to go pound sand...

The first time I see KOTOR, NWN2, or any other classic Bioware title with an EA logo on the box, I'm going to throw up, then cry.  The chances of Bioware ever again producing anything as good as those games again has dropped to somewhere between 0 and -1.

KOTOR2 and NWN2 were done by Obisidian NOT Bioware.   But I agree its sickening.  Honestly EA destroys more companies and game IPs then they've ever saved.

 

I just gotta stay strong..i love bioware to much to boycott their games even if I won't touch an actual in house EA game.

btw if the beta was cancelled the boards would be littered with people from the actual beta saying why and what was wrong and how crappy the game is.  So far everyone is mum which usually signals its going to be damn excellent.

Yeah I know that two wrongs don't make a right but .  .  .

the next time folks start to really bash on SoE ( only as far as games go) they should really take a step back and think about EA.  As far as I know SoE hasn't killed anything yet completely and I am not so sure that the SWG bloodbath was all their fault.  Obviously Gods and Heroes was a lost cause before SoE got involved.

Customer service may suck and stupid ideas may be launched in game but when we come down to the brass tacks as gamers the most important thing is allowing for variety.  If enough games are allowed to LIVE then there is a better chance for there to be some title that you enjoy being available.

Two more interesting tidbits from the conference call that followed the news release:

- The CFO of EA expects games from the two newly aquired companies to generate of 300 million dollars in income during both the '09 and '10 fiscal years.  It did not say if that was expected profit, or net. 

-He also said that number(300 million) would increase in the back half of that time table (meaning '10 fiscal year) when the Bioware MMO is released.

For clarification, the '09 fiscal year starts in April of '08....which means he's saying they won't be releasing the mysterious mmo project until at least spring of '09 (most likely later)

Originally posted by BriarFox

Yeah I know that two wrongs don't make a right but .  .  .

 

the next time folks start to really bash on SoE ( only as far as games go) they should really take a step back and think about EA.  As far as I know SoE hasn't killed anything yet completely and I am not so sure that the SWG bloodbath was all their fault.  Obviously Gods and Heroes was a lost cause before SoE got involved.

Customer service may suck and stupid ideas may be launched in game but when we come down to the brass tacks as gamers the most important thing is allowing for variety.  If enough games are allowed to LIVE then there is a better chance for there to be some title that you enjoy being available.

I'm more concerned about the possibility of no true independent game developers by the end of the decade.  The market is being gobbled up, mostly by these two companies.

EA is paying over 850 million USD in cash and stock to buy VG Holding Corp., which is a portfolio company owned by Elevation Partners.

Elevation Partners bought both Bioware and Pandemic in '05 and combined them to create BioWare/Pandemic Studios.

For THAT much money, over 3/4th of a BILLION dollars...

EA will NOT be scrapping or altering Bioware/Pandemic in any significant way. They bought them because they make good products that make lots of money. EA just wants a piece of their pie, NOT to change the way either studio does business....

Unless Bioware/Pandemic start releasing crappy products that don't make money, I can gaurantee that EA won't lay I finger on any Bioware/Pandemic product in development.

BioWare / Pandemic were NOT indy companies. Never independant as they were privately held companies owned by a portfolio management firm. Maybe they were before they were bought in 2005, but since then both companies have been very corporately owned and operated.

This EA deal mean nothing to Bioware/Pandemic. They just have to have to pay different stock holders now. Only difference.

Originally posted by heerobya

EA is paying over 850 million USD in cash and stock to buy VG Holding Corp., which is a portfolio company owned by Elevation Partners.

Elevation Partners bought both Bioware and Pandemic in '05 and combined them to create BioWare/Pandemic Studios.

For THAT much money, over 3/4th of a BILLION dollars...

EA will NOT be scrapping or altering Bioware/Pandemic in any significant way. They bought them because they make good products that make lots of money. EA just wants a piece of their pie, NOT to change the way either studio does business....

Unless Bioware/Pandemic start releasing crappy products that don't make money, I can gaurantee that EA won't lay I finger on any Bioware/Pandemic product in development.

BioWare / Pandemic were NOT indy companies. Never independant as they were privately held companies owned by a portfolio management firm. Maybe they were before they were bought in 2005, but since then both companies have been very corporately owned and operated.

This EA deal mean nothing to Bioware/Pandemic. They just have to have to pay different stock holders now. Only difference.

Pretty good catch all statement. I agree.

I do not see this as a bad thing at all really.  However I can understand the initial concern.  Yes I realise that EA did cancel Earth and Beyond.  But that was a long time ago and it is human nature to learn from past mistakes.  I personally feel that EA did this move not to change Bioware, but to add their expertese in the field of RPGs.  Much like when they added Mythic for their MMORPG experience.

I think that their relationship with the Mythic team is a perfect example of how they have changed their thinking process on things.  From what I have seen, EA has pretty much let the EA Mythic team do their thing without dictating things every step of the way.  And they have actually had them help out with Ultima Online.  If they cancelled things just because it interfered with their cash cow(UO) they would have cancelled Dark Age of Camelot instead of letting Mythic continue to improve on it.  And Warhammer Online would also be cancelled. 

I actually think that there is a very good chance that the Bioware mmorpg might see the light of day.  It seems to me that EA is setting themselves up to have a large stable of mmorpgs much like SOE and NCSoft.  Which is a smart move in my opinion.  This day and age it is not wise to place all your eggs in one basket, especially with how competitive the mmorpg market is.

Damnit.  

We'll never see a Baldurs Gate or NeverWinter Nights quality RPG from EA/Bioware.

And i guess any new user-created content for NWN 2 will be banned now too.

shyt.

This is terrible news for the upcomming releases from Bioware, specially the long term projects. One of the reasons Bioware stuff is usually anywhere from pretty good to excellent is because they don't have someone breathing down their necks to release something, forcing them to cut features and release unfinished crap.

It's extremely unlikely that a big corp like EA is going to "just let them do their thing", since if you look at the history of their acquisitions, this has not been the case.

"Profit maximization", which large corps are quite fond of doing, means you release stuff as quickly as possible taking as much advantage of hype and name recognition to drive up sales, instead of spending the resources (and risk) to create something unique, creative and polished. While this tends to dry up the well rather quickly, they [EA] simply move on to the next well, and the next, and the next...

What a sad day for the game industry.

Originally posted by heerobya

EA is paying over 850 million USD in cash and stock to buy VG Holding Corp., which is a portfolio company owned by Elevation Partners.

Elevation Partners bought both Bioware and Pandemic in '05 and combined them to create BioWare/Pandemic Studios.

For THAT much money, over 3/4th of a BILLION dollars...

EA will NOT be scrapping or altering Bioware/Pandemic in any significant way. They bought them because they make good products that make lots of money. EA just wants a piece of their pie, NOT to change the way either studio does business....

Unless Bioware/Pandemic start releasing crappy products that don't make money, I can gaurantee that EA won't lay I finger on any Bioware/Pandemic product in development.

BioWare / Pandemic were NOT indy companies. Never independant as they were privately held companies owned by a portfolio management firm. Maybe they were before they were bought in 2005, but since then both companies have been very corporately owned and operated.

This EA deal mean nothing to Bioware/Pandemic. They just have to have to pay different stock holders now. Only difference.

Look at the history of their acquisitions. You better believe they WILL change thinks to MAKE SURE they get their 800 million back ASAP. If this means releasing half finished stuff that will sell simply because of name recognition while saving 50% in production costs, while shelving anything that could be a financial risk (ie not guaranteed to be a big hit) that's exactly what they will do.

Yes, bioware had already been bought before, but that agreement was made because *THEY* negotiated 100% independence, and simply got a lot of cash in return to give them the freedom to develop whatever they wanted. However, in THIS new deal they're not even involved. They're buying the owner of the owner company that originally gave them this deal, and as such EA can very much change the working relationshop as they see fit.

It sound like EA has no idea where to spend money!

Two of my favorite companies bought up by one of my least favorite ones.

I was really happy when I heard Pandemic and Bioware merged.  What the minds of these two companies, both of whom have released some of my favorites games, made me really look forward to what they would come up with in the future - particularily their MMO.

Now that EA is in the picture I am now somewhat turned off of anything they might offer in the future.

A pity really.  I was looking forward to their MMO.

I really dislike EA, both the way they run/ran their servers and the quality of the stuff they put out.

Originally posted by Flummoxed

Damnit.  

We'll never see a Baldurs Gate or NeverWinter Nights quality RPG from EA/Bioware.

And i guess any new user-created content for NWN 2 will be banned now too.

shyt.

 

you think they have more BG in the works? i doubt it, possibly more NWN content, but i think the days of BG are long gone...its a pitty..  i still roll through shadows of Amn on a whim...

I still think the games will be great from this merger, who's the competition??? Time is the only thing that will kill them, if it does, that sucks...move on.