Don’t blame the “CHUDS”…

Money killed BioWare. That is true, and it is also not the gotcha people think it is.

This is a follow up to my last video on EA shutting BioWare down. About 400 layoffs across the company, roughly 50 of them at BioWare, and the next Mass Effect cancelled in early development.

The post going around says it was not Veilguard, it was profit, equity, corporate greed. Money killed BioWare. People are using that line like it settles something.

Here is what I want to focus on. Money killed BioWare is not saying much, and it is not unreasonable, because that is how the entire world works.

AAA holds the dominant share of the market. Same with the major publishers in comics. That does not mean everybody plays or reads everything they put out. It means they are the cash cow, and historically they have been the only ones who could afford to take the gambles. That is what cultivates the culture we are watching right now. People start to feel entitled to that money. Entitled to have a project greenlit and funded all the way through, and if it gets axed then something is wrong with you for not eating the loss.

That is why people are so protective of the mainstream industries, and I do not think it gets discussed enough. It is job security. Those companies are the only ones who can afford to bring writers, producers and developers in on projects with no clear path to making money.

Now add the context. EA was taken private in a Saudi PIF-led buyout, and there is a lot of debt attached to making that deal happen. A private company carrying that is going to be pressured to trim and earn it back. PC Gamer pointed out that the sports and shooter games looked safe, and of course they did. EA FC, formerly FIFA, sits at the top of the charts every single year. How you feel about those games is irrelevant to that math.

But the buyout does not explain BioWare by itself, because the pattern starts well before the Saudis got involved.

Mass Effect Andromeda in 2017 launched behind both Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 in the UK, and the planned single player expansions were cancelled. Anthem moved copies and still underperformed by EA’s own metrics. And Dragon Age: The Veilguard engaged about 1.5 million players in its launch quarter, which EA said was 50 percent below what they expected.

Yes, that is a money thing. It is not an irrational thing.

I will give the other side this much. If the people who were loudest in favor of that game had actually gone and bought it, we would not be having this conversation. If it had sold, BioWare is probably still here. So no, at the end of the day it is not about the wokeness. It is about the money. It just is not irrational.

Expect more of this. Things are getting hyper decentralized. The legacy studios will still be around and people will still look to them for legitimacy, but more people are going to take their own shot because the tools and the reach now exist.

These companies cannot gamble on bad ideas forever. You are not entitled to support and you are not entitled to anybody’s money. They spend, they set projections, they put the thing in the market, and the market either pays for it or it does not. That is voluntary exchange. Companies do not exist to bring your dreams to fruition unless they are a charity.

This seems basic. Apparently it is not.