Originally posted by NaughtyP

When EA comes knocking on the door with millions in cash, it is the death knell for your company. You will filthy rich, but your company will be Doctor Doom'ed.

Amazing Valve shut them down even with a 1 Billion dollar offer, then.

It's called integrity, the DR.'s have none.

Originally posted by Kuinn
Ah finally they broke free from EA's disastrous grasp, which is founded on lies and greed. 6 months recovery and rest time for the doctors and they'll be back up and running a new studio re-igniting those original Bioware values :)

From your fingers to the Doctors' eyes.

I think someone else might be close to the truth of it... they probably have a non-compete they have to fulfill before they can get back into games. Hopefully they will.

And hopefully next time they'll steer clear of EA.

Originally posted by NaughtyP

When EA comes knocking on the door with millions in cash, it is the death knell for your company. You will filthy rich, but your company will be Doctor Doom'ed.

 

I wonder if they come wearing Grim Reaper outfits.

I've already given up on Bioware. They will never be a great company so long as they're a part of EA, and they'll never get rid of EA as long as they are Bioware. It's a done deal, completely over. I haven't bought a game from them in many years and I have no intention of ever changing that. I say good riddance to the doctors, I wish it happened sooner. True, they were behind the beginnngs of Bioware when they were great, but it's also true that the sellout to EA would never have happened without them. Now years later they're rich as can be off making beer or whatever, essentially tossing their company's name and its playerbase to the dogs for that extra yacht.

To hell with everyone involved, at least when they get my money they'll be the first to feel the drop in temp.

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

I've already given up on Bioware. They will never be a great company so long as they're a part of EA, and they'll never get rid of EA as long as they are Bioware. It's a done deal, completely over. I haven't bought a game from them in many years and I have no intention of ever changing that. I say good riddance to the doctors, I wish it happened sooner. True, they were behind the beginnngs of Bioware when they were great, but it's also true that the sellout to EA would never have happened without them. Now years later they're rich as can be off making beer or whatever, essentially tossing their company's name and its playerbase to the dogs for that extra yacht.

To hell with everyone involved, at least when they get my money they'll be the first to feel the drop in temp.

 

QFT. I remember when Bioware first sold out and I went "wtf, why? They are doing great.". And then Muzyka was high up somewhere at EA, yeeeah, not obvious what happened there.

Originally posted by Grixxitt
The doctors in question will likely come back to the industry as soon as the no-compete clause expires on the Bioware sale contract.

Yup, blogged that on Gamasutra last night.  Both Canada and California recognize non-compete clauses when they come with the sale of goodwill in a merger&acquisition contract.  I wrote the article, tweeted the link to the docs saying I didn't really expect they could send me a comment back -- they were saying "thanks" "thanks" "thanks" or something to every tweet -- and not a peep back to me.

So go fig.  That sounds like a pretty loud "no comment."  ;)

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ShavaNerad/20120919/177911/The_countdown_to_Bioware_II_begins_today.php

Article started out well, but it turned into a blind confidence in a company that doesn't exiat anymore.

Ever since EA took over Bioware the evidence is clear that their games have all been dog crap.

So having confidence in them is.... foolish.

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

Originally posted by mmoDAD

BioWare makes single-player games.

This again?!?

Retort: Blizzard made single-player games before making WoW. The guys that made UO made single-player games before UO.

BW attempted to branch out and made an MMO they thought everyone would love. They were wrong, but not because "they make single-player games".

 

It was obvious from all the hype and mis-information in the pre-launch hype that SW:TOR had an excelent chance of failing.

I had friends that wanted to play it so I joined them there. So I know how much of what the pre-launch claimed as new and innovative was simply an overuse of what other games had. An overuse that actually harmed instead of helping the player experience.

I also find it funny that many of the people that have boycotted SWG over the years and stood up before the release of SW:TOR stood up shouted how much better it would be than SWG.  Now these people wish for the return of the November 2011 version of SWG. Maybe if they had not boycotted SWG SW:TOR may not have happened or would have been designed along better lines.

its not about bioware. bioware always did what they could to do a great game. its about ea who set limits on their great work and kinda destroyed some of their cool ip's.

Originally posted by KyngBills
I'll believe these two are "retired" from the Gaming world about the same time I see that 1st pig fly...There is a long story here...This is just the tip of the iceberg...Oh and the iceberg's name is SWTOR...

Like I've said once before, we already have cat copters, Pigs flying might be closer than you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HnwhGgsgXc

Originally posted by Blindchance
Could it be they had enough of what EA does to Bioware ?

Probably, but they did sell their company to EA. So how can one only make EA to be the devil here (it probably is tho).

After seeing Bullfrog, Origin, Westwood, and Mythic, all game companies I enjoyed the products of, get destroyed by EA, this comes as no surprise. It really is a shame.

Ten years ago, I was a huge fan of Bioware games: the BG series was one of the funnest AD&D RPGs ever released on the computer, and that is after having played many of the SSI ones. Then there was NWN. I did not like the original campaign that much, but the expacs were all great. I of course loved the GM tools and the modability of the game.

KoToR was great, though slightly flawed in execution. The last decent RPGs they released were DA Origins and ME1.

As OP says, they paved the way to other studios making great games on their engines as well. For the Infinity engine, there was Torment, the IWD series, and for the Aurora engine, there was NWN2 and KoToR2.

But even DA Origins and ME1 started showing lesser quality, so unfortunately this studio has been really going down the pan for a long time, even before EA got on board. EA is just helping to accelerate it.

I am starting to think that it is virtually impossible to make a good RPG with exclusively making money as the main objective. BG1 and 2 were made with such love, the sort of love I have only been seeing in indie-developed games recently. What would have been wrong with Bioware going the non-movie route and sticking to their old premise of using 2D or simple 3D graphics?

I think the move to make RPGs more like interactive movies is the wrong route and is costing us players really great games because it is obvious that the movie-making aspect is what is so costly. I would prefer simpler graphics, less cutscenes and blah blah, and better storylines, more challenging play, and better choices. Less flash and more bang!

"game development and it comes down to profit vs. art. According to Mr. Pachter, some developers, including many Japanese developers, or even American developers such as Rockstar, will take their time developing their game until they feel it is essentially as perfect as can be. As awesome as these games often end up being, the potential return-on-investment is not nearly as strong as it would be had those developers stuck to shorter development cycles and produced more titles in the same period of time, but that's fine with these developers."

 This has also resulted in many Pc gamers staying away from anything EA even more now, you can put the Dice Pc gamers with them now, they'll not be stung again by buying BF4 now that Dice has suffered the same death at the hands of EA. This will affect EA in the long run. They have two decades of eating up single successful game development companies and spitting out what's left.  Now EA fast food game development is in overdrive. Best thing Pc gamers can do for their hobby is when it comes to EA close your wallet!

"In short, I’m confident in the talent at BioWare to continue making games worthy of the BioWare brand"

 When the inspiration that drew the talent to Bioware is gone, they'll slowly disappear one by one to other opportunities where their talents can take their time and be better respected and their creativity breath, instead of the suffocation EA is on their ability to manoeuvre and apply their talents imho.