Electronic Arts just confirmed a major shakeup that included the closure of BioWare and cancellation of its upcoming Mass Effect game. Closing the studio and cancelling the project was a horrible thing for the people who worked there and fans who enjoy BioWare games and were looking forward to the next Mass Effect. But taking that action was no surprise whatsoever from a business sense.
Video game analyst Joost Van Dreunen told IGN that EA needed to make drastic cuts to service the $18 billion in debt that it has taken on due to the leveraged structure of its sale to Saudi Arabia's PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity. Interest payments alone on that debt are about $1.8 billion annually, which exceeds how much money EA makes in annual EBITDA ($1.5 billion).
Van Dreunen said BioWare getting shut down was "entirely predictable and precisely what a leveraged buyout looks like once the deal closes."
"In that context, a 50-person team working on a game that is years from launch is the easiest line to cut, regardless of its legacy,” van Dreunen said.
Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis, meanwhile, said the closure of BioWare is "emotive" for people who loved BioWare and its 30-year legacy of making popular and well-liked RPGs, but the math just didn't math.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard failed to meet sales expectations, and Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem were commercial disappointments, too. This contributed to an environment where EA management would look to kill the studio outright. He said EA was likely already considering big changes for BioWare prior to the acquisition even closing.
“Unfortunately, the studio’s recent big-budget releases have not performed well enough commercially," he said. "The changing nature of high-end gaming and the need to cut costs means that it is likely that BioWare’s future was under discussion before EA was acquired by the PIF and its partners.”
Avi Lewis, a Canadian politician, has called on the government to help save BioWare by providing "federal support" to the workers to buy it back.
"This is private equity, this is what it does," he said. "Buy up businesses, run them into the ground, and rip them apart for short-term profit. The developers at BioWare know how to run the studio. They know how to make the games we all love. They should be given the first opportunity--and the federal support--to buy it and run it themselves."
The new Mass Effect game was revealed in 2020. Since then, the game remained in "early development" until its cancellation this week. BioWare released two games after the new Mass Effect was announced, including Mass Effect Legendary Edition in 2021 and Dragon Age: The Veilguard in 2024.
A trailer for the next Mass Effect game leaked after BioWare's closure was announced. While that game is not going ahead, the Mass Effect TV show for Prime Video remains in development.