3 minBusiness
EA reportedly closed BioWare to fund Star Wars Battlefront 3
Bloomberg reports that Electronic Arts shut down BioWare after deciding it could afford only one costly sci-fi action game, choosing Star Wars Battlefront 3 over Mass Effect 5.
Electronic Arts reportedly shut down BioWare because its leadership chose to back Star Wars: Battlefront 3 over Mass Effect 5, according to Bloomberg. The report says EA concluded it could only afford to finance one expensive science-fiction action game, and that the Star Wars project was viewed as the less risky bet.
The financial pressure behind that decision stems from the debt EA took on after Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund completed a $55 billion leveraged buyout of the company. Bloomberg reports that EA now carries about $18 billion in debt. Both Star Wars and Mass Effect were expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce, and although Battlefront 3 had not yet entered development, it was regarded as safer than a new Mass Effect entry.
BioWare's recent output also weighed against it. Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem and Dragon Age: The Veilguard all failed commercially. Bloomberg additionally points to internal management politics that hurt the studio's position. BioWare had spent roughly the past five years teasing the setting and story of the next Mass Effect before the closure was announced last week.
The news prompted a wave of tributes from fans and the wider video game community, who praised the studio's games, its current and former staff, and its legacy. A Mass Effect 5 trailer created for internal EA leadership last year and never intended for the public has since leaked online. IGN has verified the footage as legitimate. It features weaponry, powers and alien species from earlier Mass Effect games, along with a glimpse of a sex scene, a relay, space travel, a nightclub and a galaxy map inside the player's ship.
According to Bloomberg, BioWare had around 50 staff working on Mass Effect 5 after EA cut the studio following the failure of The Veilguard. The latest round of layoffs is reported to eliminate 400 jobs across EA, about 3 percent of its total workforce. BioWare's Austin studio reportedly remains open to support various EA games in development. A petition to save Mass Effect is approaching 300,000 signatures, but there is no evidence that EA is prepared to part with the franchise, even while it remains dormant.
BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk, who left the studio in 2012 alongside co-founder Ray Muzyka, several months after the release of Mass Effect 3, described the Saudi buyout as «the final nail in the coffin.» «Once again it's a completely different company now,» he said. «BioWare makes these kind of unusual games that take a long time and they're complicated, and so it's easier just to pump out sports games every year, and that's a better business model in some ways.»
Amazon's Mass Effect television series for Prime Video remains in development despite the closure of BioWare and the cancellation of Mass Effect 5. Star Wars: Battlefront 3 is being developed at Respawn and DICE, though little about it has been revealed.
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