According to Deadline, EA emailed staff on Wednesday that it is cutting roughly 400 jobs and shutting down BioWare, the 30-year-old studio behind Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Baldur's Gate, with a Mass Effect in early development also cancelled. The closure is the latest cut from EA's $55 billion private takeover last year.
Here's the whole arc in one sentence: buy a company for $55 billion, take it private, and treat the most beloved part of it like a line item you can delete. The email doesn't say "we're cutting 400 people." It says the company is "focusing on more profitable projects," which is what a spreadsheet says when it's about to eat a legacy.
Then comes the eulogy, which is the part that should make you sick. "For more than 30 years, BioWare has been more than a studio. It has been a home for storytellers." Right, and Anthem was a key stop on the tour. The farewell reads like a tombstone written by the people who sold the cemetery. "Thank you for being the most meaningful part of our story" is the most on-the-nose PR line since "we're so excited to share."
The machine doesn't kill the studio, it retires the studio, with a press release and a gratitude loop, so the layoffs feel like a funeral instead of a liquidation. Nobody's being fired. They're being remembered. The only thing that's not a line item anymore is the studio itself.
YOUR TURN: Is a 30-year-old studio a legacy or a line item? Pick one, because EA already did.
PAPER TRAIL
- The layoff and shutdown report: Deadline
- BioWare's farewell statement: X
- Rival coverage: Reuters
- Rival coverage: The Verge
- Mass Effect 5 cancellation: Windows Central
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