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What Actually Put BioWare First in Line
On 21 October, EA told staff it was closing BioWare’s Edmonton studio and ending early work on the next Mass Effect. Around 400 people across EA are losing their jobs, roughly 50 of them at BioWare according to a source who spoke to Bloomberg. The memo landed eleven weeks after EA’s $55 billion take-private closed, led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and carrying about $18 billion of debt.
Most coverage connected the two, and the timing supports it. As an explanation it falls short. Debt tells you an owner has to find savings. It tells you nothing about where the owner looks first. That part was settled years before the buyout was even on the table.
A studio is a promise players keep testing
For about twenty years, BioWare stood for one thing: stories that bent around your choices. You could see the position in what players did without being asked. Mass Effect fans finished the game and started over to try the other branch. They carried save files across three games. No ad campaign produces that, because your choices either change the game or they don’t, and players work it out within an evening.
The catch is that every new release has to earn that position again.
