bioware is officially dead as a studio

[zanzabar]

the founder Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka are "retiring." this marks the end of the studio as they had not done any dev work since mass effect 2 and SWTOR.
http://www.giantbomb.com/news/greg-z...-bioware/4373/

[Hornet331]

1333887726592.jpg

funny that this now becomes true.

[Stevethegreat]

the founder Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka are "retiring." this marks the end of the studio as they had not done any dev work since mass effect 2 and SWTOR.
http://www.giantbomb.com/news/greg-z...-bioware/4373/

One more studio passing away under EA's grip. I never joined the EA-hate bandwagon (for one or more reasons) but it's comically true how accurately close they act compared to their stereotype.
The list of her victims is too long to even recount, btw does anyone here remember Origin?

[zanzabar]

1333887726592.jpg

funny that this now becomes true.

i was looking for that one, or the one with the dice panels at the end to post with it.

[MrToad]

Thus ends... Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka, after being joined with The TranscEAndent One, walk into the Grey Waste to join the ranks in The Blood War...

5 BioWare games are in my personal top 10, with PS:T in #2 (although PS:T is not a BW game without the Infinity Engine it wouldn't have been the same...)

Today the realms are truly forgotten...

[Greg83]

i find this is more a result of the optimizations of gpu's and cpu's themselves to benefit the most used engines and fixed logic processing in see4 etc form.
thus resulting in no need for many engines. same game plays. different images. cause it just costs too much to make a game engine for a single game then it does to just use their engine. cause its even of benefit to use their engine from the performance of the game itself standpoint.

you mass produce a product, the costs reduce. no one can compete from any other angle when the hardware itself is optimized to make the most common uses faster then the uncommon

so why would it even matter if the studio died. they were buying the same game engine anyway and couldn't make a profit from it being divided from the studio that made the engine.

[El Mano]

It's hardly surprising. EA destroys all what they touch.

[SKYMTL]

Thus ends... Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka, after being joined with The TranscEAndent One, walk into the Grey Waste to join the ranks in The Blood War...

5 BioWare games are in my personal top 10, with PS:T in #2 (although PS:T is not a BW game without the Infinity Engine it wouldn't have been the same...)

Today the realms are truly forgotten...

So sad but so true. There isn't much that moves me anymore (especially in this industry) but somehow the loss of Bioware hits where it hurts.

[paulbagz]

No more Neverwinter Nights?



-PB

[zanzabar]

No more Neverwinter Nights?



-PB

the IP is not dead, bioware is now EAs rpg brand. we can only hope that the older IP dose not come back.

[Greg83]

if you loved them so much, you should have paid more for their games , not less. they cannot compete against EA's engines in the production costs nor performance on the gpu categories. steam and those prices made games and their engines a high production , many games per engine only feasibility in costs.
these employees already had to work overtime for no pay and minimum wages. what more did you expect.
and they failed to cover hte r&d costs through demand for their product. failed themselves as a business with the demand for their gaming engine. that not even EA could afford to keep afloat. cause it had no way to make other games for consoles and pc alike from the performance of that engine on all platforms via other games based around that engine.

its like the gpu industry. low demand, expensive product to cover r&d. this studio with demands for their games to keep afloat. looks like it would have needed $300 per game sold. if we all had disposable income and no worth in money like back in the day when the studio was made. then their would have been demand to buy the games. now 55% of us were forced into piracy, to remain entertained or we'd have killed somebody for our UN poverty level charity being stolen by our provinces to fund your Minimum wage and you thinking that $50,000 in university entitled you to 3 million more in your life then the average people. while getting the damn job you wanted from it

Common law 3 violated, financial fraud causing loss of physical quality of life. ours, and now yours too , but only so far in your toys! not physically.

[jimba86]

no chance of jade empire sequel..

Damm EA..I liked you once,but now i hate you..

[GoldenTiger]

i was looking for that one, or the one with the dice panels at the end to post with it.

LOL, that was epic.

[Greg83]

they purchased the studio to keep it a float in this market. but EA couldn't even afford it. it was no fesable if it was fesable ea would have kept it going just for the no bad PR. you want EA to go under trying to keep a company alive, you were not investing in enough to cover its R&D costs really.

is this a secret society here about ignoring the evidence and just ignoring anyone who freely expresses them selves with a mind. supporting human rights violations and violating my birth rights to not be treated any different for my freedom of expression. a corperation too i might ad, as its invested in by the public and cannot violation any of its members rights without opening itself upto lible and loss of this website

you might get your game , made by smarter people at EA now, on one of their engines. so what's the big deal about you guys killing a company you had not invested in to keep afloat. EA lost all its investment in this company and you wanted them to loose even more so you just had no games at all to play?

Evidence
EA gives bioware : 620 million in cash and an additional $155 million in equity q4 2007
They created one new engine, they sold their old engine rights to third parties for only these 2 games
"Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (2008)
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate (2009)"

They used their Eclipse Engine in 2 games since 2007.
Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening
They bought rights to engines not ea's for the remaining 5.
and in 2011 they said EA doesn't tell us what to do.
All their faults and their customers.

[Hornet331]

It's hardly surprising. EA destroys all what they touch.

the midas touch of

[zanzabar]

what do engines have to do with anything. bioware had games on the UT engines and on odyssey. NWN 2 was also made by obsidian and had nothing to do with bioware.


if you look at what bioware made, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioware#Games , it was all great and then affter 2007 when they lost creative control they started to put out crap with the last real bioware game sonic chronicles and then they still had parts of dragon age with the bioware touch, the rest was not RPGs. bioware was profitable the entire time they were dealing with EA as an exclusive publisher and then a subsidiary. what happened was EA wanted them to make more money by being inclusive with cashuals and to expand from RPG to action to draw more soft core console players in. what they ended up with was destroying their image and loosing their core market, and that will lead to low sales or not being related to the original company like how DICE is EA shooter now.

[Greg83]

and in 2011 they said ea doesn't tell us what to do. so if they didn't have creative control why didn't ea dump free engines upon them that would have worked?
could it be because the people didn't have the disposable income anymore to wastefully spend on games. and all of them had to limit their engine uses for games to not reach $300 each with the loss of mass production and demand since.

its not something that any of us are gonna put our money back into again when the disposable income comes back. living off of coupons and 4500 in debt from food costs alone since then and having only $50-$75 a month for food isn't fun. games have no meaning in life anymore. while paying $474 for a single 10x10 bedroom in rent and increasing, doing laundry at 9pm-7am to make uses of non peak hydro. waiting for weekends to have a daytime cooked meal
and no, no food banks are free. the products in the store is cheaper and more enjoyable. potatoe chips and french fries and $3 nuggets all month
oshawa mp got 70 billion in federal transfer tax, gave 42 billion to General Motors, 17 billion the UOIT. and we had the highest unemployeement rate in the country for the year. 3 billion to public services. 350 million for new buses, then an increase again higher then the TTC for transit on it. and then bragged about giving $500 thousand dollar for new business start ups.
while the only corps keeping us alive. are walmart and metro and their coupons and low prices, on the stuff in high demand , what we can afford.
all to keep GM pensioners with a pension and keep telling people and education will get you work. when GM shut down a whole planet, moved to mexico. the employees destroy his business image with being overpaid and no cars selling or accessiable. and pensions got a pat on the back after their stock market gambling went wrong.

while we those w/o work, are support by the UN charity of nations with social security, having it robbed 3/4 from welfare, 1/2 from disabled, 100% from old aged. who all got $24,000 each for basic poverty in canada from the UN. to subsides minimum wage, in a country who cannot afford product.
and only a minority buying their toys and games, at the cost of their society and whining when its fall apart. and 55% of canada is now out of work, robbed of UN charity just like African nations by its own peoples to subsidies the minimum wages, to work as slaves for them in service jobs like mc donalds and law cutting and security gaurds to protect them from having to do anything for themselves and the people they violate every common law of their country upon for toys

[zanzabar]

and in 2011 they said ea doesn't tell us what to do. so if they didn't have creative control why didn't ea dump free engines upon them that would have worked?
could it be because the people didn't have the disposable income anymore to wastefully spend on games. and all of them had to limit their engine uses for games to not reach $300 each with the loss of mass production and demand since.

its not something that any of us are gonna put our money back into again when the disposable income comes back. living off of coupons and 4500 in debt from food costs alone since then and having only $50-$75 a month for food isn't fun. games have no meaning in life anymore. while paying $474 for a single bedroom in rent and increasing

bioware said in 2011 at E3 when talking about DAII they they EA did not tell them what to do, but in the same interview they said that we really like "hit A for awesome" in DA2. then EA had been restaffing the management and HR since the start of 2008 so even without explicit control when you have control over personnel it changes things. just look at the games before and affter, they did all RPG with their IP, once EA starts messing with the staff and creative they do all TPS and action.

[kuroikenshi]

the midas touch of

ROFL

if I did not have a sig I'd reckon I'd put this as "EA....the Midas Touch of "

[Vardant]

No more Neverwinter Nights?



-PB

There's a F2P "MMO" in the works. Although that one is being developed by Cryptic, so it looks like EA doesn't actually have the IP rights to NWN.

[Tao~]

Dragon Age : Origins came out in 2009, and it was a very good RPG. And not all studios have done badly under EA- Criterion is one example. There is still hope (although it goes down with every senseless mechanical extensions to original IP that BioWare disses out every alternate year)

[Vardant]

While I personally like what Criterion did and is doing under EA, I'm seeing more and more people having a problem with them mixing too much Burnout with NFS. Just let them make something else in between... If they make them work on yet another NFS, people will definitely turn on them.

[Buckeye]

Didn't these two guys just retire.

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/25901/...try/index.html

[zanzabar]

Didn't these two guys just retire.

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/25901/...try/index.html

they are supposed to have a non compete, and they are not retiring from tech just gaming.