Mass Effect will not continue.
To the surprise of nobody. Who thought Saudi’s and Kushner bought EA because they you to 'ship a same sex NPC.
I guess, players refused to play games which lack contrast and expose them to the same politics they are already experiencing in their daily lives. Maybe all the newer games needed for success was an integrated mini game about the character doing their taxes.
Who was EA sold off to?
The Saudis and Jared Kushner, but mostly the Saudis. It’s a private equity fund, and they used a leverage buyout for the sale, which means they basically took out a loan against the thing they’re buying in order to fund it. There’s a lot of debt to pay interest on, and cost cutting was inevitable.
A.I is the reason.
Electronic Arts hasn’t made a good game since “Mail Order Monsters”
If u don’t put respect on NFS underground I don’t think we can be friends
I feel like they need to drop the ‘Arts’ from their name.
That’s been true for maybe 30 years. 20, anyway.
As soon as they started talking about accelerating innovation, creating new “intellectual property”, and increasing shareholder value, the “Arts” were definitely over. And probably before then.
Or prepend it with an F
Pretty interesting that both Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka (the two remaining co-founders by the time of the EA acquisition) both bailed at the same time in 2012. After quite a number of lead developers and writers jumped ship.
So, it took 5 years of trying to tough it out under corporate ownership before they were like ‘this is bullshit, let’s go’.
And BioWare, who made so many great titles, didn’t produce anything particularly noteworthy after that.
Staying was probably in their contract. Its pretty common when a company is bought out that selling ownership stay for X amount of years after so the company doesn’t just instantly nose dive.
EA making sure I boycott them by cancelling any games I am interested in and enshitifying the rest (Looking at you Skate 4 and the upcoming Fight Night game)
If you weren’t already boycotting them I have a tough time believing you’ll stick with it now
It’s E.A.!
Weird, given that there’s also a Mass Effect TV show in the works. Unless that got axed in the last couple months
Probably just sold the rights to another company.
If it’s anything like the Halo TV show, expect some low budget slop with a 10:1 marketing:production budget.
Oh, I can see it now. The plot is clear!
In this timeline, the Geth are actually cyborgs who look like humans. They are attacking Eden Prime at the behest of their mysterious master. Saren is the first human spectre and helps Commander Shepard escape from Eden Prime before the planet is exploded by Sovereign.
Saren and Shepard then go to New York to contact the Council, reporting a strange intelligence supporting the Geth. But then, the duo is attacked by a Geth ambush team! After managing to defeat the Geth fleet in orbit, Saren boards Sovereign and makes it say who the mastermind is, but gets brainwashed!
After this, Shepard chases Saren through a series of mass relays, eventually reaching Ilos. That is where Saren reveals the awful truth - the enemy turned out to be a Prothean VI hidden deep underground. The VI, named Vigil, commands Sovereign, and seeks to destroy the entire galaxy if not stopped! In a moment of lucidity, Saren pilots Sovereign into Ilos, destroying the planet and Vigil for good!
The final scene shows Shepard, distraught over the loss of his friend, just before the Council sends him an email that he is the new human spectre, in Saren’s honor!
I hate how plausible this is.
I can imagine shill comments about the show as well.
“Haters are whining about this show over nothing. Shepard becomes a spectre, Saren dies at the end, Sovereign goes boom. What more do you people want?”
“The retelling of Virmire is way better than the OG. It turns out that Liara only needed to mind meld with one of the workers in the facility, and compel that worker to initiate the self-destruct sequence. Like, duh. Is Game Shepard just stupid?”
“People keep complaining that the Citadel is only seen at the end. New York is actually within budget. I liked the Empire State Building scene with TIM tbh.”
“TIM is at his best in this show. His sword is so cool!”
“Reimagining the Geth as the Borg was a master-class move. Geth-Jenkins was the best! Maybe he’ll come back as Legion in the next season?”
“People keep complaining that the Citadel is only seen at the end. New York is actually within budget. I liked the Empire State Building scene with TIM tbh.”
“Plus they go to Vancouver and London in the third game, what makes the time spent in New York any different?”
“Reimagining the Geth as the Borg was a master-class move. Geth-Jenkins was the best! Maybe he’ll come back as Legion in the next season?”
“If they just had the robot faces, you couldn’t see the actors properly emote. This is much better for the format of TV, the performances can shine and deliver the emotional nuance of the Geth.”
I’m still mad about that abomination of a show.
This one hits close to home. Bioware games were a big part of my youth. I can’t remember how often I replayed bg2, but I still remember the joy when I actually properly beat it for the first time. I’ll never forget the thrill when I explored the dwarven tunnels in Dragon Age or the magic of Mass Effect’s masterful world building.
Fuck EA.
When I was in college there was a girl I knew who ranted and complained when BioWare was bought by EA. She was right.
That was my first exposure to understanding what EA is.
Bioware was dead shortly after EA bought them.
it’s dead as soon as leadership starts targeting acquisition. internal priorities change and it’s not on a quality product, it’s on pumping the numbers to look favourably regardless of truthfulness
or maybe I’m just bitter because I see this happening at my own workplace. we just launched a new website, and pretty much every claim about our culture and process and priorities is a lie. it used to be true. it hasn’t been in a couple years, and it sure as fuck isn’t right now.
before, actually. as soon as bioware execs started sniffing the asses of potential buyers. it wouldn’t have mattered which of the game giants sucked up the pieces, the outcome would have been the same. the corpo-culture would chase the talent away and the studio would fade away.
Worth remembering that most of that list predates EA. Baldur’s Gate, KOTOR, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire and the first Mass Effect were all made before EA bought BioWare in the 2007 deal that also brought in Pandemic, which EA shut down about two years later. The EA years are mostly the later Dragon Age and Mass Effect games, Anthem and Veilguard.
Dragon Age’s inception was long before EA too. I remember them talking about it in the Neverwinter Nights community forums.
Back then very little was known beyond the title, the fact it would be an original IP and that the “Dragon Age” title would be about a literal calendar “age of the Dragon” rather than indicating the presence of actual dragons.
Hard to say how much of it was conceived then, but they were probably already writing stuff.
Canadian studio based out of my home town of Edmonton. Fuck you, EA.
I remember falling in love with Kotor and Jade Empire on my original Xbox.
Was super disappointed we didn’t get sequels on the Xbox 360. The first Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins made up for it though. Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 2 were a let down. More action then RPG.
I have so many memories about the hype for Dragon Age: Origins. Reading about it in high school, drooling over screenshots. All via Games for Windows magazine. I was probably the only person subscribed to it lol.
