R.I.P. Bioware and Pandemic

[Slicksword45]

Cause of death: E.A. (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6180818.html?action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;0)

I pray to god that I'm wrong, but as we know, EA has a habit of dissolving developers it buys.

[Madame Adequate]

Yeah. Command & Conquer 3 just sucked. :rolleyes2

[XxSephirothxX]

I think the thing we should really be worried about is what's going to happen to Bioware's Sonic the Hedgehog RPG.

[Fatal Impurity]

EA rape's everything, mark my words EA is the next Microsoft!

[Laddy]

Aw, crap. EA had to remove two great game developers..... again.

[The Fat Bioware Nerd]

As long as Bioware develops Mass Effect 2 & 3 I could care less about whether E.A. has ownership over Bioware or not. :|

[Rase]

Yes, this obviously spell the doom of anything good coming from these developers. :rolleyes2

Seeing as how both developing houses have made bank on their games, the goal of any business is to make money, and the heads of Bioware and Pandemic are staying in charge, I'd say their titles are still going to be as good as before. while EA will now take some of the profits, I don't see them going in and destroying the games, or even altering them really. If I were to buy a profitable business, I wouldn't change anything about it, as it's already making good money. Just my crazy thinking though.

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

My concern will be that EA will push for, essentially, sequel overkill on series that sell well in an attempt to push up the bottom line. I hope that doesn't happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

[JKTrix]

I'm with Void. I'm not worried about the quality of games that Bioware in particular puts out, just that EA will dilute them with endless sequels and spinoffs.

EA is not a bad company. It's just that 80% of the time, they put the 'company' part foremost, in that they would gladly make a cash-in game in the place of something more substantive.

Press Release (http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071011006083&newsLang=en)

[XxSephirothxX]

I think EA has gotten better over the years in that it isn't really pushing out too many sequels and has been inventing quite a few new IPs. Command and Conquer has remained quality, as has every game Criterion's put out. Of course, Criterion mostly makes Burnout, so hard to judge on the sequel thing there. But it seems to be that the only games they crank out regularly are the sports titles.

Hopefully Bioware and Pandemic will remain strong and make good games. We'll know if the deal's bad if developers start quitting each studio. Right now, it seems like the other big hitter, Ubisoft, might be more prone to sequilitis than EA is. Of course, most people here would prefer their games in general, but that's a different discussion.

[edczxcvbnm]

My most awaited EA game is Spore(where is it already) so good stuff can come out of them as long as they let the visionaries do what they do best and create some new IP.

Bioware should be fine in that respect but there will probably be spinoffs to their games but those would probably be developed by another branch of EA using the engine that Bioware made while Bioware themselves work on something new.

EA has gotten better but they still are not yet great.

[escobert]

I hate EA... wtf. Bioware was nice. dammit...

[Slicksword45]

I have to agree with Void on this. EA pushes things way to quickley.

[Elite Lord Sigma]

As long as the games in question don't get royally screwed over with a slew of sequels/spin-offs/etc., I don't particularly care.

[Heath]

Yes, this obviously spell the doom of anything good coming from these developers. :rolleyes2

Seeing as how both developing houses have made bank on their games, the goal of any business is to make money, and the heads of Bioware and Pandemic are staying in charge, I'd say their titles are still going to be as good as before. while EA will now take some of the profits, I don't see them going in and destroying the games, or even altering them really. If I were to buy a profitable business, I wouldn't change anything about it, as it's already making good money. Just my crazy thinking though.

Colour me crazy too :p At the end of the day, the developers still exist and will still be putting out games, they just happen to be owned by EA now and they'll be taking a cut of the profits. EA want the developers to do well so they can make money off it themselves.