Bad newsEA Closed BioWare to Fund a Safer Star Wars Bet, Bloomberg Reports
Bloomberg reports EA closed BioWare because it could not afford both a new Mass Effect and a third Star Wars Battlefront game. About 50 staff were left at a studio that EA had cut for years.
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The reason EA closed BioWare is now on the record, and it is a budget decision. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported on 30 October that EA had room for only one of two sci-fi projects. He cites people familiar with the company’s strategy, and says each project was likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Eurogamer’s summary says one was a third Star Wars Battlefront game, which opened up when an opportunity appeared to work with Lucasfilm. The other was the next Mass Effect.
Executives chose Battlefront 3 because they saw it as a less risky and more predictable bet than a new Mass Effect, according to Bloomberg, even though development had not begun. Eurogamer notes that EA carries $18bn in debt after a leveraged buyout. Polygon adds two other factors from the same report. Dragon Age: The Veilguard fell 50% short of sales expectations, and years of cuts left about 50 employees when the studio closed.
An EA spokesperson said the company had “collectively reached this decision following months of planning, review, and analysis”. The statement quoted by Eurogamer and Polygon does not mention Star Wars.
BioWare announced its closure on 21 October after more than 30 years of games that included Baldur’s Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age and Mass Effect, GamesIndustry.biz reported. Early development on the next Mass Effect ended with it. Bloomberg’s earlier report, as relayed there, put EA’s cuts at about 400 jobs, roughly 3% of its staff, with around 50 at BioWare.
The same staff letter says EA will cancel a planned Sims game and shrink the team behind skate. It keeps Apex Legends, Battlefield, the next Star Wars Jedi game and a new Iron Man game. Polygon notes that EA has bought and shut other studios before, among them Westwood, Origin, Pandemic, Black Box and Visceral.
What is still unknown
Battlefront 3 has no release date in any of the three reports. The sources do not say what happens to the Mass Effect team’s early work, or whether the series continues elsewhere. The strategy account rests on anonymous sources relayed through Bloomberg, and EA has confirmed only the closure and the general reasons it gave.
