BioWare Founders Announce Retirement

[DigitalWolf]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I was always under the impression that EA negiotiated the buyout of BioWare/Pandemic with Elevation Partners, the private equity company that invested into the BioWare/Pandemic partnership.

If Elevation Partners had the majority interest, they potentially could have not even needed BioWare's or Pandemics input on the sale. All they really needed was the majority interest to get the deal through. Now we will probably never know for certain, but something similar happened to AG Edwards. Edwards allowed more than 50% of private shares to multiple investors outside his family and one morning he woke up and found he no longer owned his company.

Well after I read your post I was looking around and saw that EP spent around 300 Million to form a partnership between BioWare and Pandemic (which was called VG Holding Corp).


Then in the aquisition of "VG Holding Corp" it does mention that EP recieved about twice what they invested from EA. Which was 600+ million in cash, another 100+ million in stock options and some mention of a 35 Million dollar loan.


So I guess what you say its likely correct.. but just goes back to why was the partnership with Pandemic made. I think I remember a press release at the time but to be honest I didn't follow BioWare that much at the time.


My comments about the privately owned company were actually inspired by a BioWare employees before the EA buyout. Where one specificly said they were a privately owned company and didn't have to answer to anyone (someone was asking for information... likely about TOR after they announced it).


It would seem pretty obvious (to me now) that after Elevation Partners came in.. BioWare was already not "BioWare". Then EA simply bought VG holdings from Elevation Partners and instantly owned BioWare/Pandemic.

So if I said anything bad to anyone I apologize.. but the point all along to me was.. The moment you allow some outside force to own more of your company than "you"... its no longer your company and this is exactly what happens.

 

[Dumac]

ME3's multiplayer wasn't tacked on, and it was almost universally agreed to be very good to actually great.

Huh? Since when?

And I thought everyone pretty much quit playing ME3 MP once they got enough Galactic Readiness for the single-player portion of the game.

How is the online population now? Lots of people still playing?

 

[exar333]

That says "I am ready for something new" for sure. Nothing to see here.



The last sentence could very well be a little jab. No passion anymore, not interested in games. I can only imagine the lifeblood of creativity flowing out in endless meetings with EA trying to justify this or that.
Small dev houses are not as efficient and streamlined and I can only imagine the amuount of meetings that are a part of that process.

I for one would not be surprised if after 2-4 years you see one or both back with some small to medium company. For right now EA is watching what they do and who knows what clause they have in their contracts about competing.

Definitely agree with the bolded statement.

I disagree with the 'less efficient' comment about small devs. If anything, they are much more efficient. They can be more agile and more tightly-coupled than larger dev operations. The downside is that they can bogged-down more easily in long-term engagements and/or with a larger holding company.

These two were used to being the leaders, and now they are essentially middlemen between their devs and the EA higher-ups/board. That's not the visionary role they had before, and likely caused them to re-think their situation and reduced their level of interest and satisfaction.

 

[Skel]

ME3's multiplayer wasn't tacked on, and it was almost universally agreed to be very good to actually great.

Seeing as how you obviously never tried it you're qualified to say it's "tacked on."

I'm sure if you're into that kind of thing I'm sure it was awesome.. but for those of us that weren't I think it's fair to say it's "tacked on".

 

[Pheran]

ME3's multiplayer wasn't tacked on, and it was almost universally agreed to be very good to actually great.

ME3's multiplayer was actually fun (I played it), but even I agree that it's tacked on. It had very little relationship to the main game other than the character/creature models and level reuse - and pumping your readiness rating.

Real multiplayer would have been the ability for 2 other players to control your squad mates and actually play through the campaign with you - that could have been pretty awesome.

 

[videogames101]

Yet another studio crushed by EA. =/

 

[ArenCordial]

Well, pretty much.

Actually this is incorrect.

ME3 Spoilers - You've been warned.

BioWare either incorrectly counted, counted unreleased DLC war assets, or was talking about the synthesis ending. However if you wanted the Shepard Breath scene you needed to play multiplayer (or Mass Effect: Infiltrator) to get it because you needed an EMS rating of 4000 (5000 if the Illusive Man shoots Anderson).

Fans on the PC went through the data files and determined that the maximum score for an ideal play through was:

Total Military Strength — 7515
Effective Military Strength — 3757.5 (since Galactic Readiness would never rise above 50%)

Just shy of what would be needed.

If you didn't play multiplayer you'd never get to see that scene on your first playthrough. So the BioWare rep was incorrect or lied.

With the extended cut though BioWare lowered the required totals so its now attainable, but the original "perfect" ending could not get achieved without multiplayer.

This is one of the many reason ppl were mad at the ending. Though the following didn't help.

“[The presence of the Rachni] has huge consequences in Mass
Effect 3. Even just in the final battle with the Reapers.” Mac Walters
http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/02/28/mass-effect-3-mac-walters/
Just before release and post the game going gold.

"It’s not even in any way like the traditional game endings,
where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got
ending A, B, or C.....The endings have a lot more sophistication and
variety in them.” Casey Hudson
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...fdsafdhudson-interviewae.aspx?PostPageIndex=2
About 1 month before gold.

Then there's the 16 different endings bit they had to have retailers like Amazon remove. There's probably pictures of that still floating around.

So yeah I'm not inclined to cut them much slack here.

 

[thejunglegod]

I think the ME3 ending makes it into every gaming thread there is on AT.

 

[Wreckem]

In the long tale of EA purchases and closures, BioWare is different.

Previous companies sold out because they had to because of terrible financial situations. Bioware sold out because the people who owned it wanted to make a profit off of their investment and didn't care about Bioware. That was their right, but it was a completely different situation than say OSI or Westwood.

 

[JPS35]

Damn...Godspeed fellas, it was a helluva ride!

 

[Bateluer]

Actually this is incorrect.

ME3 Spoilers - You've been warned.

BioWare either incorrectly counted, counted unreleased DLC war assets, or was talking about the synthesis ending. However if you wanted the Shepard Breath scene you needed to play multiplayer (or Mass Effect: Infiltrator) to get it because you needed an EMS rating of 4000 (5000 if the Illusive Man shoots Anderson).

I believe you are mistaken, I got the Sheppard breath ending without playing a single second of multiplayer. The Galactic Readiness rating didn't actually do anything in ME3 that I could tell . . .I got the ideal ending using my imported ME1 and ME2 save games. MP in ME3 was a gimmick that had no business being in the game at all.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yet the thing to me is that people go on and on about EA. BioWare was a privately owned company. Which means they had no share holders aka no external force on them to "sell". *edit* Nor was there any possible hostile takeover as a privately owned company does not have publicly traded shares... (like EA tried to do with Take 2 Interactive *I think it was Take 2* for around 2 billion .. about the same time they aquired BioWare).


Yet these guys who are obviously intellegent and knew what EA did.. decided to sell their privately owned company for oh with stock options it was a bit over 860 Million USD (you can google the EA aquisition of Bioware.. if you don't remember it when it happened).


From my point of view the "sellers" have to be as much the devil as anything EA did/does.

There was certainly the recent lesson of Mythic, so there could be no claim of confusion from the "real bioware" on EA's motives.

I agree with this. I will grant that EA is predatory and has ruined a lot of franchises. However, I think Bioware deserves an equal amount of blame. No one put a gun to their head and forced them to "sell out" in every sense of the word to EA. They had to know what was going to happen. Personally, I think they (Bioware) just got greedy with the thought of a huge cash cow when they decided to make TOR, and went away from what they were best at--single player games.

 

[blastingcap]

Long live Gabe "I'd rather let Valve disintegrate than sell out to EA" Newell. So long as he has that attitude, may he live forever.

https://www.gamespot.com/news/ea-sought-to-buy-valve-for-1-billion-report-6394880

 

[power_hour]

Long live Gabe "I'd rather let Valve disintegrate than sell out to EA" Newell. So long as he has that attitude, may he live forever.

https://www.gamespot.com/news/ea-sought-to-buy-valve-for-1-billion-report-6394880

Everyone has their price. Right now its easy to take his stance publicly because of the hate for EA. Put him in a room full of lawyers with promise of eternal wealth and lets see how tough he is. Gaming is big business so expect this battle not to be over by a long shot.

Bioware guys are smart. They made their cash and got out. EA is like many other American companies. Profit first, long-term vision last. We are to blame too. We need to stop buying their crap and support Devs who seem to care. Guys like Bioware used to be.

 

[blastingcap]

Everyone has their price. Right now its easy to take his stance publicly because of the hate for EA. Put him in a room full of lawyers with promise of eternal wealth and lets see how tough he is. Gaming is big business so expect this battle not to be over by a long shot.

Bioware guys are smart. They made their cash and got out. EA is like many other American companies. Profit first, long-term vision last. We are to blame too. We need to stop buying their crap and support Devs who seem to care. Guys like Bioware used to be.

Not sure if you're sarcastic or just ignorant. You do realize Gabe was an early Microsoft millionaire who quit because he wanted to do something else with his life, right? He's obviously not money-driven. I don't think he ever dreamed that Valve would be a multi-billion dollar company. He already has eternal wealth, basically. He's already worth ~$1.5 billion (estimated by Forbes)... and growing, as Valve's Steam grows ever stronger. There are also rumors of Valve developing hardware... controllers or linux boxes or otherwise... pretty sure Gabe wants to make a mark on the industry rather than sell out for more bucks he can't use.. he's already so rich what's another million or even billion gonna do for him, compared to actually moving the industry?

In other words, EA can't offer him jack.

I would rather be a billionaire running a popular distro and gamedev company I founded and gladhanding with other industry friends than sell out and lose control of the company I founded just for a few more bucks. I'm pretty sure Gabe feels the same way. And note that Valve is private, so Gabe can do whatever he wants without shareholder pressure every quarter... pretty sure he likes THAT too.

 

[surfsatwerk]

Not sure if you're sarcastic or just ignorant. You do realize Gabe was an early Microsoft millionaire who quit because he wanted to do something else with his life, right? He's obviously not money-driven. I don't think he ever dreamed that Valve would be a multi-billion dollar company. He already has eternal wealth, basically. He's already worth ~$1.5 billion (estimated by Forbes)... and growing, as Valve's Steam grows ever stronger. There are also rumors of Valve developing hardware... controllers or linux boxes or otherwise... pretty sure Gabe wants to make a mark on the industry rather than sell out for more bucks he can't use.. he's already so rich what's another million or even billion gonna do for him, compared to actually moving the industry?

In other words, EA can't offer him jack.

I would rather be a billionaire running a popular distro and gamedev company I founded and gladhanding with other industry friends than sell out and lose control of the company I founded just for a few more bucks. I'm pretty sure Gabe feels the same way. And note that Valve is private, so Gabe can do whatever he wants without shareholder pressure every quarter... pretty sure he likes THAT too.

EA would promise to make him skinny.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Not sure if you're sarcastic or just ignorant. You do realize Gabe was an early Microsoft millionaire who quit because he wanted to do something else with his life, right? He's obviously not money-driven. I don't think he ever dreamed that Valve would be a multi-billion dollar company. He already has eternal wealth, basically. He's already worth ~$1.5 billion (estimated by Forbes)... and growing, as Valve's Steam grows ever stronger. There are also rumors of Valve developing hardware... controllers or linux boxes or otherwise... pretty sure Gabe wants to make a mark on the industry rather than sell out for more bucks he can't use.. he's already so rich what's another million or even billion gonna do for him, compared to actually moving the industry?

In other words, EA can't offer him jack.

I would rather be a billionaire running a popular distro and gamedev company I founded and gladhanding with other industry friends than sell out and lose control of the company I founded just for a few more bucks. I'm pretty sure Gabe feels the same way. And note that Valve is private, so Gabe can do whatever he wants without shareholder pressure every quarter... pretty sure he likes THAT too.

I wish I could share your altruistic view of Gabe, that he is some great friend of PC gaming. That may be true, but I dont think anyone except Gabe really knows his motivations. I am sure he is also a business man.

It is easy for him to thumb his nose at EA now, because Steam is on the top of the heap and making tons of money. If they somehow stop making huge profits, who knows what can happen. I am not saying that it will, but I guess I am cynical enough to think anything could happen if Steam suddenly went south. I mean, who would have thought such a great developer as Bioware would have sold out to EA.

 

[blastingcap]

I wish I could share your altruistic view of Gabe, that he is some great friend of PC gaming. That may be true, but I dont think anyone except Gabe really knows his motivations. I am sure he is also a business man.

It is easy for him to thumb his nose at EA now, because Steam is on the top of the heap and making tons of money. If they somehow stop making huge profits, who knows what can happen. I am not saying that it will, but I guess I am cynical enough to think anything could happen if Steam suddenly went south. I mean, who would have thought such a great developer as Bioware would have sold out to EA.

I wish I could share your cynical vi--no, wait, I don't. I am not that cynical, sorry. I know a lot of techies who do not think the way you apparently do. If they were that smart AND money-grubbing, you'd think they would have wound up on Wall Street instead of slaving away in tech. I'm not talking about ordinary software engineers who got into tech mainly for the money (and there were a lot of them, especially leading up to 2001.. funny how the CS classrooms emptied out in the early part of the 2000s), but for those with passion for it.

 

[thejunglegod]

EA would promise to make him skinny.

ROFL.

 

[blackened23]

EA would promise to make him skinny.

Oh boy. The fat jokes.

No logical argument regarding Gabe can be made without someone chiming in with their jokes about how fat he is.

 

[surfsatwerk]

Oh boy. The fat jokes.

No logical argument regarding Gabe can be made without someone chiming in with their jokes about how fat he is.

Gabe's so fat that when he sits around the house, he sits around the house.