I’m Commander Shepard, and this is my favourite bigoted country in the Middle East!
I actually had a sliver of hope for Mass Effect, you know? It’s all gone now.
The team behind the only good Mass Effect game was disbanded almost immediately after its release. I had no hope for the new one.
I had small hope for Andromeda but then they put so much behind either future dlc or sequels and canceled it completely.
Fret not, anything they aren’t going to actively milk will likely be sold off to try and pay back the $20 billion dollar loan they took to make this purchase.
As far as i understand this deal. No property will be sold. EA will be on the hook for the 20b just like ToysRus. EA is getting nuked and a new name and face but the ip is not going anywhere.
They’ll just sit on some of those titles that were never developed any further. Like Command and Conquer.
To be fair, Bioware has been on the chopping block for some time. I imagine even without going private EA would’ve gutted Bioware if Mass Effect 4 wasn’t a massive success. In my mind the possibility of Bioware getting shuttered has risen only marginally because that possibility was already high to begin with.
Yeah BioWare has felt like a kind of zombie studio to me for a while. They managed to coast along on Mass Effect/Dragon Age momentum for like a decade or so, but I can’t remember the last time they had a big hit game.
Plus those type of games are the ones that take quite a lot of time and resources to do well, so I can’t see that fitting in well with EA’s new “generate endless AI slop until we pay off our debts” business model.
Uh…Mass Effect 4 wasn’t a massive success, and they DID gut the studio.
This would have been ME5
Guns and football seem pretty gay to me…
Mass Effect but now Cerberus is unequivocally the good guy.
“read the runes” … people need to stopping believing that money is money. Money is money AND strings attached. It’s totally different to get 1 EUR from a friend vs 1 EUR from a brank vs 1 EUR from VC vs 1 EUR of public subsidies. Money NEVER comes without string so one must be cautious they are not getting a noose around their neck while signing a contract.
PS: IMHO NLNet is an example of “good” money. Other examples welcomed. In software in the game “industry” specifically I don’t know where one can find non “bad” money so please if you have examples, do share.
Bad money chases out good, they say.
Fascinating, digging into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_law then, thanks for bringing that up!
I thought I might be playing it loose applying it to the case of private equity in the creative arts, but it feels right
It’s EA. They could make gay stuff in games without them. But instead they make a deal with the devil and hope they come out on top? They want all the resources of a soulless giant but then they think they’re somehow escaping the taint?
It’s like musicians making deals that (unfairly, almost amorally) guarantee their songs play across the country… but then they think they’re still a normal artist.
Thanks for the representation I guess. Even though we had to collectively pay to make ME a popular franchise. I’m sure it was all about being true to your morals.
I mean, it’s EA. They’ve been in full on corporate profit mode forever, and any good games that they’ve put out are in spite of that. I doubt that there are a ton of “artists trying to make art” left at the decision making level of EA.
Yeah a lot of the comments I have seen are outright bizarre, EA won’t change in any noticeable form. It’s maximum profit extraction now and it will remain maximum profit extraction after.
I really cant wait for this generation of kids to grow up and start dealing with bills and shit. The moment they learn the true value of money this whole trend of buying lootboxes and packing players will die on its arse so fast.
I just hope theres some fly on the wall footage of the boards faces when they realise.
You don’t grow out of an addiction.
They’ll just graduate to sports gambling.
You think? That generation will have kids who buy the same crap and won’t listen to their parents, just like the kids now don’t listen.
Im hoping so. We don’t have the receipts to show them. Were just grandpa’s who yearn for the good old days and we just dont get it.
Yeah no… the fucked thing is they don’t care … everything is fucked… spending a bit of money on cheap plastic brings you a little bit of joy… why worry about money if you don’t even have much? You can’t get ahead so at least you can be happy… thats where we are…
Gotta keep the bread and circuses going.
I know adults who boost their ego with lootboxes. Beating the peasants by spending money that others use for groceries is how they feel superior.
Unfortunately they don’t grow out of it. I have a friend who still spends upwards of hundreds of dollars on games, especially Gacha games. It’s an addiction that i worry won’t be stopped
They will just become packers at Amazon.
Maybe BioWare can make a game featuring guns that shoot footballs…
I almost certainly will never play another NFL or NCAA game again. Cod can go fuck itself. I’m almost definitely not in the demographic to which they’re trying to sell games to anymore. But God damn I know I’m not the only one in this field.
Les extrémistes religieux vont venir nous faire chier partout où ils le pourront… C’est logique, mais ça casse les couilles !
This makes me think of the Ellisons buying Star Trek and Avatar. Why wouldn’t they shutter or castrate two notoriously ‘woke’, expensive, questionably profitable franchises?
Same here :(. Though to be fair, the Saudi’s political leanings aren’t a perfect parallel.
how can football be in and gay stuff out? unless you mean european, like soccer.
Naw, still too gay. Its gotta be nothing but scenes from top gun from now on.
For the first gif when Tom Cruise throws the football back and the people behind him fall back.
That’s when next song and dance starts. Top Gun is a musical right?
Ha, Somehow no.
They would never, but they should sell the rights of their rpg franchises
The last Bioware game I genuinely enjoyed was Dragon Age: Origins, which was the last thing (mostly) developed before the EA buy-up. I’m sure it’s scary for the employees, but I suspect this is good for Bioware in the long term.
I liked Inquisition alot though the behind the scenes scoop was that the development process was a dumpster fire that only came together into a good game cause they got lucky.
Why do you suspect this is good?
Because if they’re shuttered, the company/people that make the company have the opportunity to go somewhere else and do something better. I’ve disliked everything they’ve produced since they were purchased by EA, so I’ve come to think the publisher holds them back.
Maybe they get shuttered or are given more creative freedom thanks to the Saudi’s ignorance of RPGs and their perception among executives in the business.
I guarantee you, Saudis really only care about FIFA. Everything else is superfluous.
Yeah, nothing like an ultra conservative theocratic dictatorship to really expand those creative freedoms…
My point is they will be so unfamiliar with RPGs that they essentially let the studio do whatever they want.
Do you think they don’t have video games over there? What a bizarre thing to say. They’re able to effectively censor all kinds of other media, why do you think RPGs are special?
I think the people in charge have never heard of Dragon Age.
I’m also not saying it’s guaranteed, just a possibility.
