So EA finally did the thing everyone with a working internet connection saw coming from a mile away. About 400 people are out of work, according to Bloomberg, and BioWare, the studio that gave us some of the best RPGs ever made, is now a ghost town in Edmonton. Did anyone at EA headquarters actually play Mass Effect, or did they just look at a spreadsheet and decide the numbers were too small? The memo went out Wednesday, and the whole thing reads like a corporate breakup text written by someone who just discovered the word “priorities.”
BioWare Goes The Way Of The Dodo
The Mass Effect cancellation stings the most. EA is closing BioWare and its Edmonton workspace, and the small team working on early development for the next Mass Effect is done. According to Insider Gaming, the project will not get moved to another internal studio. I have been replaying the original trilogy for the past month, and let me tell you, watching Garrus calibrate some weapons while I read this news hit different.
This is my bias, and I will die on this hill: BioWare made the best games of the 2000s, and EA just closed the studio like a restaurant that stopped turning a profit. Insider Gaming‘s sources say EA even looked into selling BioWare at one point, though the conversations reportedly never went far, and EA has not confirmed any of it. Cool. Great. Love that for everyone who owns a Mass Effect tattoo.
Three Priorities And Zero Controllers In Sight
Deepen Our Core. Expand Our Reach. Transform Our Business. That is the three-point plan, and it sounds like something a consultant who has never held a controller came up with on a flight to Dubai. The memo claims EA is “the number one publisher in Western HD gaming,” which is a fancy way of saying they make a lot of money on sports games and shooters.
“Players have more choices than ever for their time and attention,” the memo says. Translation: people are playing other stuff, and we panicked. It goes on to say competition is intensifying and that some of EA’s biggest growth opportunities sit outside the markets, platforms and business models where the company has traditionally been strongest. The memo even name-drops Asia as an example. That is corporate speak for Asia exists, and we forgot to care for 20 years.
Battlefield Six Worked Out So Naturally Everything Else Dies
Battlefield 6 was “a great success,” according to the memo, and EA says it learned a lot from the launch and the live service. Respawn and DICE are getting married now and will collaborate on a future project. The memo never names the game, but Bloomberg reports it is likely a new Star Wars: Battlefront, and Variety says Star Wars: Battlefront III is in active development. EA also plans to keep investing heavily in Apex Legends over the next few years with brand-new multiplayer modes and other experiences to “expand the universe.”
Meanwhile, the action-adventure side of things gets Marvel‘s Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game, and after that, “fewer simultaneous, large-scale projects.” Fewer projects means fewer jobs, in case you were wondering how that math works. I am not sure why EA needs to announce it is in pre-production on a Fight Night revival while laying off hundreds of people in the same news cycle, but subtlety has never been its strong suit.
The Sims And Skate Get The Squeeze Too
The Sims team gets to focus on Project Evergreen, which sounds like a retirement home for digital people. EA says Project Lotus is “paused,” and by paused I mean canceled, which is how several outlets reported it, so if you were excited about that one, sorry. Skate is scaling down to “a more focused, smaller team” with “a very clear roadmap” that EA believes will build “a healthier and more sustainable business.”
Healthier and more sustainable for whom, exactly? Not the people who just lost their jobs; I can tell you that much. EA says it will support impacted employees “in exploring other opportunities within EA” and treat them “with care and respect.” The memo is signed “Cam & David,” better known as Cam Weber, EA’s president and chief studios officer, and David Tinson, its president and chief operating officer. Care and respect, plus whatever severance comes with them, do not pay rent in Edmonton.
Saudi Money Makes The World Go Round
This whole thing is the first big shoe to drop under EA’s new owners, a group led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund alongside Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, which closed its $55 billion buyout in August. Nothing weird about that at all. Nope. Totally normal. Just a sovereign wealth fund calling the shots on which video game studios live and which ones get sent to the shadow realm. Insider Gaming reports more cuts are expected over the next 12 to 18 months, so if you work at EA and you are reading this, maybe update the resume.
The Global Town Hall in November will surely be a fun time for everyone involved. I am going to go replay Mass Effect 2 and pretend the last 24 hours did not happen. Talk about a rough week for anyone who ever cared about video games as an art form.
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