Company News Bioware is fucked

[Volourn]

"I will remember Dragon Age when it leaves its vaporware status, mang, and we have actual information on it."

We have lots of info on it. Stop being ignorant.

 

[Trash]

EA destroy everything they touch. I especially remember origin's and westwoods utterly unnecesary demise. I think we can see bio's games turn into generic crap really soon with most of the talent leaving for other company's. After that bio's offices get closed and that's the end of it. Seems to happen to every company EA aquires. This is really a sad day.

"EA plans to release four or five games a year from the studios in each of the 2009-2011 fiscal years."

No surprises here.

Oh well, mass effect and dragon age will probably be the last true bioware games. With all the good and bad points that entails. After that expect utter crap to emerge and the studio to die a quick death. 4 or 5 games a year? It would be funny if it wasn't so utterly sad.

 

[Ismaul]

This is really ugly. But I've got someone telling me that this might not be as bad as we think. I have a good friend of mine that is an artist at EA Montreal (yea I know...), part of the studio making new IPs (currently Army of Two). Supposedly, EA is changing its policies and approach to making games. They will be making original IPs regularly, have a studio dedicated to only finding new game concepts, they decided to focus on making good games first, ... what we would call the good stuff. At the very least that's the assumed plan that they put forward in their internal meetings. I hope they will stay true to those intentions. Still, I'm keeping a wait and see position, even though I'm quite pissed at the move. We might be surprised. However, I don't know if those policy changes apply to bought studios, and how they go about assimilating them into the machine. I don't think it will take that long for us to find out more.

AGE OF DECADENCE IS FOR THE RPG GENRE LIKE THE WATER CHIP IS FOR VAULT 13!

VD, can you hear that? Make it good, for our sake.

 

[Trash]

Supposedly, EA is changing its policies and approach to making games. They will be making original IPs regularly, have a studio dedicated to only finding new game concepts, they decided to focus on making good games first

Yeah, read a interview with a ceo about that. Still, with their track record..... Oh well, one can hope.

 

[Koby]

For the optimists crowd: http://www.firingsquad.com/features/ea_buys_bioware/

John Riccitiello is also the man, who in his first interview since taking over of EA, said that ’sequels are boring’. Does that sound like a statement coming from the mouth of a traditional EA executive? I don’t think so, and apparently enough employees at BioWare agree enough to reserve any outcries of doom at least for a while.

Also - @volly you're a little bit upset and it is showing :wink:

 

[Volrath]

For the optimists crowd: http://www.firingsquad.com/features/ea_buys_bioware/

John Riccitiello is also the man, who in his first interview since taking over of EA, said that ’sequels are boring’. Does that sound like a statement coming from the mouth of a traditional EA executive? I don’t think so, and apparently enough employees at BioWare agree enough to reserve any outcries of doom at least for a while.

Also - @volly you're a little bit upset and it is showing :wink:

This is a disaster. One could arguably make the case that EA is a bit more innovative, a bit more forward thinking, than they were during last generation and the 32-bit generation, but who was in charge during that period where EA earned so many Fuck EAs?

That's right, John Riccitiello!

I guess one can point to an example or two where an EA acquisition has not hurt a company, but can anyone point to one where an EA acquisition actually helped the developer in question? Where their output was faster and their games were superior? Because I cannot.

So yeah, Bioware is fucked.

 

[Volourn]

"Also - @volly you're a little bit upset and it is showing"

Sure. I'm 'upset' about how the retarded 'fans' are reacting. Way more thn the atcual deal. I like BIO games. i like EA games. In fact, I own about 7 xbox 360 games, about half of them are EA.

As long as the companie(s) makes games I wanna play, I'll buy 'em. period. I've said this for years.

 

[MetalCraze]

So Obsidian has a monopoly on RPGs now? Wicked.

Also I too screamed when saw this crap: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!11
What will happen to Dragon Age now? The only rpg from bioware I have some hopes for.

EA destroy everything they touch.

Uh huh. Like some mutated Midas - everything EA touches turns to shit.

We have lots of info on it. Stop being ignorant.

We do? I mean except those Gaider's jokes at bioware forums.

...yes it seems RPG is a zombie genre now
No Troika
Bioware's doing some crap for console retards.
Obsidian went for Alien (Alien?!?!?!) -action- rpg
I don't believe in twitcher. Writing of dialogues is poor there and it's arpg as well

Moddies? Nah. Only BG2 moddies could do something interesting. Since nwn it's only boring crap. Planescape Trilogy? The 1st part will be two times shorter than MotB. That's not serious.

Indie devs?
I only believe in Age of Decadence now. VD, all hopes are on you and your team. And why is it so small?

 

[Oarfish]

Bioware have been producing games with the intention of shipping at least 2 million units per title for some time now. I'm guessing their acquisition by EA will make little difference, the majority gaming culture like their stuff, despite all the faux outrage. Support indies, or pin your hopes on eastern European studios. The mainstream game industry will not be producing the titles you want.

 

[Ratty]

We have lots of info on it.

Yeah, such as the fact that it'll probably never be released. lulz.

 

[aboyd]

Planescape Trilogy? The 1st part will be two times shorter than MotB. That's not serious.

Huh? MotB advertises itself as roughly 20 hours of gameplay. Planescape Trilogy part 1 advertises itself as roughly 20 hours of gameplay. Or at least, that's what was on their Web site last time I looked, about a week ago.

I'm not sure how 20 hours is two times shorter than 20 hours.

 

[MetalCraze]

Planescape Trilogy? The 1st part will be two times shorter than MotB. That's not serious.

Huh? MotB advertises itself as roughly 20 hours of gameplay. Planescape Trilogy part 1 advertises itself as roughly 20 hours of gameplay. Or at least, that's what was on their Web site last time I looked, about a week ago.

I'm not sure how 20 hours is two times shorter than 20 hours.

Actually MotB was advertised as having 20-30 hrs. I spent 25 or something.
PTp1 advertises itself as having 10-20 actually.

But the fact is I simply can't believe that there won't be a game like BG2. BG2 had like 100+ hours of a gameplay experience. With a big meaning of experience. 100+ hours that had something in it. Not like today - 8 hrs with stupid twitching.
Oh why? This is a bad dream!

 

[NiM82]

Moddies? Nah. Only BG2 moddies could do something interesting. Since nwn it's only boring crap. Planescape Trilogy? The 1st part will be two times shorter than MotB. That's not serious.

There's loads of great NWN1/2 modules. What mods were there for BG2? The only ones I recall seeing were of the 'love interest' variety. Don't remember seeing any big quest mods, or new areas for it.

Who cares how long Planescape Trilogy will be. Even if it is only half as big as MotB, that's still bigger than Fallout 1... was Fallout not serious?

Half your time in BG was spent traipsing from one end of an explored map to the other...

 

[kris]

We have lots of info on it.

Yeah, such as the fact that it'll probably never be released. lulz.

EA will probably make sure it is released earlier instead. With their aim to have them release 4-5 games per year it is hard to see them having one this far into development cancelled.

 

[Nedrah]

I surely also long for another game with the scope of BG2. It's a bit like with books - I just tend to get more invovled when I know I will be with the character(s) for some time, as opposed to building a char that I will be using for 20 hours or something.
I'm so far pretty indifferent about that EA deal - sure, it was a tragedy when they fucked up Origin and Westwood, but those companys where awesome at the time, which Bioware is not so much, so different just might equal better. Yeah, we'll see.

 

[Ander Vinz]

EA ain't as bad as i remember, Tiberium wars and MOH airborne were both decent games i thought.

t-s-s-s, it's "fuck EA" thread.
edit:

VD is our only hope for rpg genre now

ha-ha

 

[MetalCraze]

There's loads of great NWN1/2 modules

quality > quantity
And all that great mods doesn't really give me what I want to see in RPG. Even mods that are praised by the community. They lack something. Maybe it's a poor writing. Or only 1 dialogue choice sometimes. But... they lack something to make me play them.

The only ones I recall seeing were of the 'love interest' variety. Don't remember seeing any big quest mods, or new areas for it.

Actually companions was the best part in BG2 (except art of course), without them bg2 would turn into yet another dungeon crawl (bg1). There are actually big quest mods for BG2 (check gibberlings3 or pocketplane). Only a few - yes - but my point was - the writing is awesome there. You clearly see that it was done by some hardcore rpg lovers. And nwn mods? Usage of "OK" word in a fantasy setting is disgusting.
Also I want actually to feel some sympathy for the world game let's me live in. 10-20 hrs is clearly not enough. Even in BG2 with it's dumbed down exploring (compared to bg1, which gave you just another loot/enemies from exploring all that areas anyway) it was interesting to see each place. And to spend some time pointlessly drinking in a tavern.

Who cares how long Planescape Trilogy will be. Even if it is only half as big as MotB, that's still bigger than Fallout 1... was Fallout not serious?

I really doubt that PSTp1 will be on a par with Fallout 1. So here's the point where you must invest into quantity.

 

[aries202]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6180866.ht ... ws;title;1

This is an interview with the good doctors at gamespot.com about this news. They don't say much - other than the usual PR stuff.

As for John R. making as much as 4.9 million dollars from this sale, or take-over, of course it is great for him and for the two doctors at Bioware. However, couldn't it be considered insider-trading?

I also highly doubt that this move would be legal in Europe (or in Denmark). You simply just can't do something like this - that is designed to fill your own pockets instead of doing what is most beneficial to the company.

As I've written elsewhere, I really do think that this is a very bad business move for Bioware, both tactical and strategical, simply because Bioware still
is a solid and stable financial company. If Bioware needed more money, selling out the EA will of course give them money fast, but Bioware also risk being renamed EA Canada or EA Edmonton or EA Bioware. Or worse yet: EA Games simply closes the doors on Bioware the first time, Bioware does not deliver the projected sales figures for a game.

As for John R. finding sequels boring, I hope he surely will let Bioware keep making The Mass Effect trilogy and the Dragon Age Game(s).

/aries101

 

[DemonKing]

According to the firing squad article none of the employees knew about the takeover until it was announced...LOL.

Probably because 1/3 of them were ex-EA refugees.

I can see it now: "Hey guys, you know that evil slave-driving corporate money-making machine you escaped from? Guess what?"

 

[Draikin]

I have a good friend of mine that is an artist at EA Montreal (yea I know...), part of the studio making new IPs (currently Army of Two).

Army of Two is a bad Gears of War clone. That's the kind of "new" IP we should expect from EA.
Tony Hawk -> SKATE
Guitar Hero - > Rock Band
Gears of War -> Army of Two
Knights of the Old Republic - > Paladins of the New Democracy ?

 

[Zomg]

Bioware have been producing games with the intention of shipping at least 2 million units per title for some time now. I'm guessing their acquisition by EA will make little difference, the majority gaming culture like their stuff, despite all the faux outrage. Support indies, or pin your hopes on eastern European studios. The mainstream game industry will not be producing the titles you want.

I was actually sitting here wracking my brain trying to recall what bland moneypaw they had released between Jade Empire and Mass Effect, and then I checked Wkipedia - nothing, that's what. I'm amazed at how few games they've produced. KotOR was a pretty honorable entry on the Disney fluff end of the RPG spectrum, albeit with a AAA license, and JE was the same and a relatively risky proposition that they ended up paying for. They were never going to be the saviors of commercial development but they weren't just zombies flowing to the cheapest buck either. Mass Effect does look bad in the way all AAA games in this cost generation look bad but I haven't seen enough to pronounce it revolting. I think there was a sweetly retarded but earnest culture of craft there.

Edit - Some of the rap Bioware gets is keyed to the problems of the Baldur's Gate games. That's partly because the BGs suck in themselves and partly because of a perception that those games damaged the RPG market and inspired the Black Isle death spiral among other crimes. I think in honest retrospect there was never a chance that good-era RPGs could have survived the successive production cost explosions without almost everything being completely different, so I think '98/'99 era Bioware was complicit in but not culpable for The Shittening.

EA will take them to those places without a moment of self-consciousness.

 

[Micmu]

We have lots of info on it.

Yeah, such as the fact that it'll probably never be released. lulz.

Maybe it will... as Dragon Siege of some kind?

 

[aries202]

According to the firing squad article none of the employees knew about the takeover until it was announced...LOL.

Probably because 1/3 of them were ex-EA refugees.

I can see it now: "Hey guys, you know that evil slave-driving corporate money-making machine you escaped from? Guess what?"

I really do think this is very true - it is also very sad and this make me really really mad :twisted: :evil: Not because of the (hostile?) take-over, but because the epitome of all that's right and well with this world, ray&greg, the good doctors, apparently couldn't help themselves when EA waved a check under their noses for about 600 million US dollars to buy Bioware from them. A business they started themselves more than 20 years ago.

It may well be that they trust John Riccitiello too much, since in this interview

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6180866.html

they say that they know John and think he's a great guy. Well, that may well be. But I hope both ray&greg know that whenever Bioware becomes a financial liability for EA, John R.'s responsibility will be to axe Bioware from the EA familiy, simply because EA needs to make much money to its shareholders. And so once again, free market triumphs over good stories, good games and well made characters as long as ray&greg get their money and get (even more) rich. Not that I don't want them to get rich, far from it. I just thought they had more ethics and moral than to outsell the company and their employers to the evil empire that is EA.

And I don't think it is funny at all, at best it maybe is a bittersweet funny or some ironic twist of fate funny...

/aries202

 

[Kingston]

As Gaider would put it, tough noogies.

 

[NiM82]

quality > quantity

I said there's a load of *good* NWN modules, i.e. ones that are quality and improve on the base game massively. There's masses of shit ones - your right, but I made no reference to them

Actually companions was the best part in BG2 (except art of course), without them bg2 would turn into yet another dungeon crawl (bg1).

Many of the BG2 modders are NWN modders, many of the NPC mods have been ported over. Well written dialogue isn't exclusive to BG2 mods and definitely not vanilla BG2. I suspect the cause of your disdain is that you don't like the new base games as much, which is a fair point (and one I share), but it poisons your view on the potential of modifications.

Regarding the BG2 NPC mods, all the ones I tried felt like they had been constructed by some lonely emo. None added much in the way of choice and consequence, nor did they develop the overall story arc any further. Put simply, they were cheap gimmicks. Regarding the bigger mods, do enlighten me if there is one that adds a new area and story. Last time I checked, all they did was rebalance stuff and move items about to make replaying for the n'th time slightly more interesting. None of which is unique to BG2 either.

I really doubt that PSTp1 will be on a par with Fallout 1. So here's the point where you must invest into quantity.

Where did I say Trilogy would be on a par with Fallout? I cited Fallout as a prime example of why judging a game by it's length, as you had done, was absurd. Nothing more. You seem to be under the impression that quantity can make up for quality, sorry to break your bubble, but a pile-o-shit is a pile-of-shit no matter how big it is. PSTp1 will either be good or bad. How long the game will be is irrelevant, design is everything. Will it be as good as Fallout? Probably not, they are unpaid amateurs working on a free project in their spare time, learning as they go along. Will doubling it's play hours fix that? No. If anything it will make it worse by diluting the good parts. 10+ hours is also exceptionally good value for something that is free