Electronic Arts is closing BioWare, the Edmonton studio that spent three decades turning role-playing games into branching, choice-driven stories. The decision came in a memo to employees from EA presidents Cam Weber and David Tinson, reported by Variety. Bloomberg broke the news first on Wednesday, October 21.
Why EA Pulled the Plug
EA tied the closure to a restructuring of its studios business that will cut about 3% of its global workforce. The company last reported 14,500 employees, which puts the cuts at around 400 people. The restructuring is the first big move since EA went private this summer. On August 4 it closed a $55 billion all-cash deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.
The immediate trigger was a new Mass Effect project. A small BioWare team had been working on early development, and EA decided not to go ahead. “We’ve made the decision not to move forward with this development, which means we’re closing the studio and our Edmonton workspace,” the memo said. Weber and Tinson called BioWare “a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre, and we do not take this decision lightly.”
Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier put BioWare’s headcount at about 50 by the end. Mashable noted that EA had already laid off some BioWare staff last year after the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
The strategic calculus in the memo points elsewhere. EA called Battlefield 6 a great success and said its Respawn and DICE studios will work together on a future shooter. Multiple sources told Variety that project is Star Wars: Battlefront 3. The company also promised heavy investment in Apex Legends, and named Marvel’s Iron Man and the next Star Wars Jedi game as its two big launches ahead.
Two Doctors and a Dungeons & Dragons Licence
BioWare began in 1995, when Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, fresh out of medical school at the University of Alberta, put $100,000 each into a game company. The three had already built a medical simulation program together. Their first game, Shattered Steel, started as a demo in the vein of MechWarrior. IGN later called its release a “modest success”, and singled out its deformable terrain and zone damage, where well-aimed fire could shoot weapons off enemies.
The studio’s real turn came when its engine demo caught the eye of publisher Interplay, which saw a fit for its Dungeons & Dragons licence. The result was Baldur’s Gate, a three-year project that the founders worked on while still practicing medicine. It sold more than two million copies. Muzyka and Zeschuk then left medicine for full-time development, while Yip stayed in his practice.
Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic followed, then the original worlds of Jade Empire, Mass Effect and Dragon Age. In 2011 BioWare launched its first massively multiplayer game, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Mashable argued that these games helped pioneer and popularize storytelling shaped by player choices, and that Mass Effect and Dragon Age drove the studio’s popularity in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Decline Under EA
EA bought the studio’s parent company, VG Holding Corp., on October 11, 2007, for $775 million. BioWare became an EA unit but kept its own branding. The later years were rougher. Mass Effect 3 drew complaints over its endings in 2012, and Muzyka and Zeschuk retired from the industry that September. Mass Effect: Andromeda in 2017 got a lukewarm reception and lower sales than earlier entries, and Mashable noted the same slide with Veilguard.
In a post on social media, the BioWare team wrote that it had been “a home for storytellers, developers, and the players who brought our worlds to life.” EA said it will help affected employees look for other roles within the company.
Sources
- BioWare
- Electronic Arts Laying Off 3% of Employees in Studios Restructuring: BioWare Shutting Down, Respawn and DICE to Team on ‘Star Wars: Battlefront 3’
- EA shuts down BioWare, studio behind Mass Effect, Dragon Age
Photo: Photo is by Richard Cabrera (CC BY 2.0)
