THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)

Fun Stuff => CLIKC => Topic started by: Storm Rider on 11 Oct 2007, 13:54

Title: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Storm Rider on 11 Oct 2007, 13:54
I'll just cut to the chase: EA just bought Bioware.

Or more specifically, they bought the company that owns Bioware and Pandemic (the Mercenaries developer, for those who don't know). So effectively they own both studios now.

I would like to say before everyone starts worrying about this that it should not affect the current Mass Effect game in any way. EA apparently owns the rights now, but Microsoft funded the first game's development, so its release schedule (and presumably exclusivity, although that doesn't really matter to anyone except fanboys) should remain the same.

That's about all I can say since I have to run off to class now, but I thought I should bring that to everyone's attention.

Edited to get the facts straight about Mass Effect.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Dimmukane on 11 Oct 2007, 14:50
I died a little inside.  My dream was to one day to move up to Canada and work for Bioware, but now, not so much anymore.  If EA doesn't excise any creative control, I'll be only partially mollified. 

Fun little tidbit: EA paid the board members of the VG Holding Corp 620 Million in cash.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: LordNagash on 11 Oct 2007, 15:43
How depressing.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Storm Rider on 11 Oct 2007, 15:58
Actually, they paid the stockholders $620 million, but yes. Even for two studios that's a pretty significant chunk of cash. MTV only paid $175 million for Harmonix, which was the other most notable recent developer purchase (aside from Bizarre Creations being bought by Activision a few weeks ago, but I don't think the specific sum was ever disclosed in that one).

Now, despite the obvious outcry from everyone on the Internet, I'm going to say that this could not turn out horribly. EA has recently gotten a lot better about funding ambitious projects and not rushing their development, and their new CEO has (so far, at least) made good on his promise that EA would not continue to churn out a steady stream of mediocre, derivative crap.

Something that I did NOT get correct in my first post is that Mass Effect is in fact a Bioware original IP that they owned, so that goes to EA now. Which means that although the current game is almost positively sealed up in an exclusive deal with Microsoft, the two planned sequels could in fact go multiplatform in the future. This also nets EA the rights to Jade Empire (provided they wanted to do that again, which I find doubtful considering it's largely considered Bioware's worst game to date), as well as the MMO Bioware's second studio in Texas is working on. The conference call specifically mentioned that of the 10 projects currently in development between Pandemic and Bioware, EA will own the rights to 6. We only know what four of those are directly (Mass Effect, the Bioware MMO, and Mercenaries and Saboteur from Pandemic), but the only other project I know of that either studio is working on is the DS Sonic RPG that Bioware is making for Sega. So the other 5 projects (2 of which EA now owns, apparently) are either unannounced or games I don't know about. Also, EA did mention that they own the rights to Neverwinter Nights now, so perhaps one of the unannounced projects is NWN3?

This acquisition does make a lot of sense for EA. They had no real competition in the Western-style RPG market (and Japan is notoriously hostile to any newcomers on the Eastern front), and Bioware is without question the premiere Western RPG developer, especially since Bethesda has a publishing deal with 2K for Elder Scrolls.

Other bits of information I thought were interesting: Both Bioware and Pandemic are apparently working on Wii and DS games (or at least, they are planning on branching out to those platforms in the near future), and the Mass Effect dialog engine is apparently adaptable to other games and was not an alteration of the Unreal Engine 3 code. Maybe Bioware could license that out themselves for all we know. As negative as this news seems on the surface, the potential for a Super Mario RPG developed for the Wii by Bioware nearly mitigates it all for me.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: ackblom12 on 11 Oct 2007, 16:06
One of the other 5 is Dragon Age. I've been waiting eagerly for more news concerning it for a long while now.

This... this is troubling news tough.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Storm Rider on 11 Oct 2007, 16:08
Like I said, I'm trying to stay optimistic. I really do think this could potentially turn out great if EA handles it correctly.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Melodic on 11 Oct 2007, 18:17
EA also owns Valve. Valve still rocks. Despite all criticisms directed at EA, they've got a lot of money and if anything it'll make sure that big projects are well-funded and well-staffed.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: ackblom12 on 11 Oct 2007, 18:28
EA does not own Valve, all they have is a publisher's agreement with Valve. If EA owned Valve they would not have thrown a shit fit when they launched the downloadable games on Steam.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Storm Rider on 11 Oct 2007, 18:41
He makes a good point though. EA doesn't fuck up everything it touches, and since this isn't a sports game or involved with the Sims in any way, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now. If they do grind Bioware into the dirt, however, my rage will be nigh on unlimited.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: ackblom12 on 11 Oct 2007, 19:15
I have had no faith in EA ever since they aquired Westwood, and then immediately disbanded them once they finished RA2.

My most optimistic hope is thatonce the current projects are done, certain members either join up with another developer or start their own company.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Storm Rider on 11 Oct 2007, 19:22
That was years ago, though. Besides which, EALA did a fine job with Command and Conquer 3. According to all accounts I've seen, at least, since I never played it.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Storm Rider on 11 Oct 2007, 20:04
Also, Gamespot just posted a Q&A with the two heads of Bioware about the acquisition, and it's fairly encouraging. It is worth noting, which I forgot before, that the current CEO of EA headed the Bioware/Pandemic merger company back when it was still independent. So on some level they've already interacted quite a bit.

Interview is here. (http://www.gamespot.com/ds/rpg/sonicrpg/news.html?sid=6180866)
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Dimmukane on 11 Oct 2007, 20:43
After hearing more of the facts roll out, I am now not as angry.  But still mildly depressed.  I just hope John Riticello is a good guy.  I don't want to see another industry crash from EA treating all the developers like crap just like Atari did, only this time on a larger scale.  If EA can get enough original IPs out there that are good, I will overlook any previous malcontent I had towards them.  I may end up working for them someday, anyways, I might as well get used to it.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: KvP on 11 Oct 2007, 23:39
Yeah, the internet's blown a gasket. But it's probably a lot better than the rumored Microsoft buyout, at any rate.

We'll just have to take a wait-and-see approach. I can't imagine EA would be stupid enough to mess around with the makeup of Bioware as long as the ME trilogy is still being planned out and backed by MS (unless the first installment fails, which is doubtful to say the least)

The cynical thing to say would be that since Bioware's had so much practice remaking the same game over and over as of late, EA's a perfect fit. But if ME turns out anything like KOTOR I can't say I'd be unhappy.

All that having been said, I remember Herve Caen and Black Isle. Not that EA is as totally inept as Caen, but in situations like these it's natural to fear for the health of the development house.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Storm Rider on 12 Oct 2007, 00:01
As much as people hate on EA, they make far better publishing decisions than Interplay did. Baldur's Gate and Fallout were awesome and all, but everything else they had was SHIT. Like, not just mediocre, but all-out SHIT.

And if anything is proven from their relationships with Harmonix, Crytek, and even Criterion (an internal studio), they're starting to realize that "Wait, when we fuck with the development process the games end up sucking and then we don't make money". Obviously they'll keep milking their sports franchises and the Sims until the end of time, but do we really care about either of those things? I don't know if any of us care about sports gaming, but I'm betting it's not prevalent.

And it's worth noting that EA has more than enough cash on hand to pry loose the Baldur's Gate rights from Interplay's cold, dead hands if they wanted to. I think Bioware's name is big enough at this point, and Baldur's Gate has been dormant long enough that they wouldn't really need to do that, but if you're like my friend and absolutely fucking rabid about Baldur's Gate, then it's certainly a possibility.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Johnny C on 12 Oct 2007, 00:09
Is Saboteur the fucking awesome-looking black-and-white stealth-action WWII game?

Please tell me that's what I'm thinking of.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Storm Rider on 12 Oct 2007, 00:12
Yes. Although apparently at certain points you restore color to areas a la Okami. Except you do it by killing Nazis.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Ozymandias on 12 Oct 2007, 01:01
But it's probably a lot better than the rumored Microsoft buyout, at any rate.

My theory is that MS is saving their money and influence to engineer a purchase of Valve and, more specifically, Steam to integrate into Games for Windows Live.

As for this news, it's not the best news in the world. It's not the worst. EA's a terrible company with some of the worst ethics in the entire industry, but they do have the money to throw at any developer's crazy-ass project.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: bryanthelion on 12 Oct 2007, 03:34
say goodbye to all the dungeons and dragons based games by bioware...

Seriously, I doubt that EA is going to let them make those games anymore. Further, I dont think they'd let any of their developers experiment with their games. They'd just force them to make the same games over and over and over.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Melodic on 12 Oct 2007, 08:17
I will eat my Half-Life 2 shirt if Steam ever goes Windows Live. Hardcore PC gamers do not play Windows Live games, and it's as simple as that. Shadowrun? Dumbed down on the PC (seriously, fixed sensitivity? Just take away my mouse all together), and amped-up on the Xbox (fucking aim-assist!), that's not fun, that's lame. The minute they do that, I stop buying Valve games.

A friend of mine and I were debating the two sides of Windows Live, with TF2 as the staging platform. He is very much pro-Live, and I'm not, and my argument basically boils down as stated above.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: ScrambledGregs on 12 Oct 2007, 13:22
Anybody remember when Square and EA started to work together in the late 90s?? Them was crazy times.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Ozymandias on 12 Oct 2007, 13:35
I will eat my Half-Life 2 shirt if Steam ever goes Windows Live. Hardcore PC gamers do not play Windows Live games, and it's as simple as that.

And that's why I expect it to happen. MS is trying to bring all online PC gaming under their umbrella through Live. Unfortunately for them, Valve has beat them to the punch in a very big way. But, relations between Valve and MS are not bad. Not bad at all. So there is no immediate animosity between them to prevent this type of deal.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: KvP on 12 Oct 2007, 14:27
say goodbye to all the dungeons and dragons based games by bioware...
The right time to complain about this was when Bioware said they were through with D&D, a few years back. They're only working on original IPs now, which constitutes Dragon Age and Mass Effect. A Jade Empire sequel seems unlikey.

But Bioware did own the Neverwinter Nights IP, so it's in EA's court now. Atari owns D&D outright, but you can develop any franchise so long as you own it, even if D&D itself is Atari's. Back when Interplay lost the rights to D&D they still had Baldur's Gate, so they went about making a third Baldur's Gate that didn't actually have anything to do with Baldur's Gate (cancelled, but currently being slowly made as a personal project mod for NWN2 by its former designer), since they didn't have the right to start a new property.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Storm Rider on 12 Oct 2007, 15:19
How could they make Neverwinter Nights without the D&D property, though? Also, I saw in the transcript of the press conference that Wizards of the Coast had ownership of the Baldur's Gate property now. Presumably they bought it from the dead corpse of Interplay. However, if EA wanted to, they could certainly work out a licensing deal with Wizards and make Baldur's Gate 3. However, I don't think that's too likely because EA would probably rather Bioware just make its own universe so they wouldn't have to share the profits with anybody.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: KvP on 12 Oct 2007, 16:16
I'm not sure exactly how it works. I would assume that whoever owns the D&D license has final say as far as new properties are concerned, but standing deals are valid regardless, and the owner of a franchise within the purview of D&D has free reign to use the ruleset. As far as Interplay/Black Isle was concerned, they lost the general D&D license but still held on to Baldur's Gate. BG3 wasn't a BG game (I believe it took place in the Moonsea / Dalelands of the FR and didn't include or reference any BG characters) but they called it Baldur's Gate because had they called it anything else, they wouldn't have been able to publish it.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Storm Rider on 12 Oct 2007, 17:17
Hell, they could just wait until Atari's inevitable collapse and just take the D&D rights from the fire sale if they wanted to. How Atari is even still in business at this point is a mystery to me.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Alex C on 12 Oct 2007, 17:51
I think optimism is a lovely thing and all, but we're talking about EA here. They're a fine company to work with if your games are things built entirely off of licensed physics engines; you run into a production snag and EA effectively just throws gobs of money at the problem until it goes away (you know, by expanding staff, plugging in finished code from previous sequels, that sort of thing). Now, on the other hand, if you're the sort of developer whose games are based in large part on scripts, writing and or taking risks on new ideas/genres, like, oh, say, Origin Systems (dead), Westwood Studios (dead), or Bullfrog Productions (dead), then perhaps their could be some snafus in the works...
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Kelamin on 12 Oct 2007, 18:33
Earth and Beyond, nuff said.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Johnny C on 13 Oct 2007, 00:15
Yes. Although apparently at certain points you restore color to areas a la Okami. Except you do it by killing Nazis.

If EA can throw its marketing muscle behind a game as interesting as every clip of Saboteur that I've seen then I'm satisfied.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Ozymandias on 13 Oct 2007, 00:35
...oh, say, Origin Systems (dead), Westwood Studios (dead), or Bullfrog Productions (dead), then perhaps their could be some snafus in the works...

Origin died when Lord British left and, let's face it, he's not exactly proved himself capable of much since.

Bullfrog is no great loss. Molyneux is a hack.

Westwood's demise is sad, but Command and Conquer 3 was great so... I don't know what to say.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: KvP on 13 Oct 2007, 00:37
I believe Westwood was killed by Herve Caen, the same guy who killed Interplay, when he ran the gaming arm of Virgin into the ground. EA just devoured the corpse.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Storm Rider on 13 Oct 2007, 00:50
That's the thing. Aside from their sports franchises and their blatant whoring of the Sims, EA's actually seemed to clean up their act over just churning out the same crap over and over. Burnout and Need for Speed are two franchises that have nonetheless changed dramatically in their recent iterations, and they're developing new IPs like Crysis, Army of Two, and Rock Band too. Like I said, I think most of the EA hate is overstated, especially since they seem very different now than they did a few years ago. Perhaps Riccitello is the catalyst for that, perhaps it was just a company-wide realization, I don't know.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: KvP on 13 Oct 2007, 01:19
That may be true, but from what I've heard (i haven't actually seen the agreement) there are certain conditions Bioware has to meet by 2010, such as a return on EA's investment and the development of 4-6 games per year (which is 2 or 3 more than their current output) so we can bet on some kind of decline in quality or EA expanding Bioware.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Storm Rider on 13 Oct 2007, 01:25
I think that 2010 is when EA projected that Bioware and Pandemic will have made enough money to recoup the costs of the purchase. I don't believe it's a legal requirement of any kind. And Bioware has two full studios now, and they've said in interviews that they're working on stuff that they are keeping hidden. Considering we already know that they're working on 4 projects right now (Mass Effect, the DS Sonic RPG, Dragon Age, and the MMO), I don't think 4-6 projects is even really a stretch for them at this point.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Dimmukane on 13 Oct 2007, 07:06
Uh, guys...Atari published Neverwinter Nights 2...just so you know.

And according to Gamespot, Bioware are also working on the super secret titles as well, they just won't let us know what they are.  I think all 10 of their supposed IPs are currently being worked on, or at least 8.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: Johnny C on 13 Oct 2007, 09:39
Origin died when Lord British left and, let's face it, he's not exactly proved himself capable of much since.

I dunno, Tabula Rasa looks pretty neat.
Title: Re: They're calling today Black Thursday...
Post by: KvP on 13 Oct 2007, 13:04
Uh, guys...Atari published Neverwinter Nights 2...just so you know.
As far as I know, Bioware loaned it out to Obsidian for development, since they themselves were tired of D&D. But I've been wrong before, obviously.

Quote from: Johnny C
I dunno, Tabula Rasa looks pretty neat.
Now would be another good time to bring up Yahtzee (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2326-Zero-Punctuation-Tabula-Rasa) again.