shrekfan246:

You forgot Maxis, Bullfrog, and Pandemic.

I really liked Bullfrog too. And Bioware.

But yeah, DA2 and ME3 in themselves were pretty solid evidence that Bioware's gone.

Didn't they just delay Dragon Age 3 to move resources into Old Republic and now they are turning around and laying people off?

Zenimax, see what happens when you release MMO, that is just re-skinned WoW?
Abort TES:Online while you still can, please :(

Screw TOR and screw StarWars, what Bioware should really do is be making BG3 or NWN3

Yeahhhhh I think we all saw this one coming... I jumped ship quite early on :)

The sad thing is not that BioWare will die (it already has, creatively), it's that yet again, running a studio into the ground was profitable for EA.

When the next developer gets acquisitioned, I really hope gaming websites won't be spinning the "this time it will be different" tale. I hope EA will be hounded by the names Origin, Westwood, Bullfrog, Mythic, Pandemic, BioWare in every article and interview, until PR gets so bad they just give up and stick to their sports shit.

blackrave:
Screw TOR and screw StarWars, what Bioware should really do is be making BG3 or NWN3

They can't go back. Already Mass Effect 1 fans are the mainstream of the "old school" Bioware fanbase and are seen as people holding Bioware back by asking for boring nerdy games. Real hardcore gamers who stick around for a long time and have a memory longer than a PR hype campaign seem to be in the minority.

I called it would happen in 6 months ... Guess I was way off.

It was expected, but this still came way sooner than I expected. So it is very unlikely they will invest into fixing what is wrong with the game, it is going maintenance mode like Vanguard.

"It's just an iceberg" they said
"We can plug the hole" they said
"The hole is a feature" they said
"Well MY cabin is dry" they said
"If you leave in the lifeboats you'll never get to see the bottom of the ocean" they said.

But in the end the HMS TORtanic sank.

End of Rine.

------------------------------------------- <------ Rine end here.

heard a group of my friends chatting about TOR like 1-2 months ago about how it was the "greatest single player MMO" they'd ever played

about the same time they stopped playing (think they went on to discuss League of Legends for an hour idk I was Minecrafting)

It's usual for some level of lay-off to occur after a launch like this, but it still bodes as more bad new for Bioware.

How the mighty have fallen :P

Dexter111:
So it begins

Dexter111:
It was apparently around 200 people being let go, that would almost entail a studio closure for others xD

https://twitter.com/georgeb3dr/status/205007250765520898

Rumors near 200ish in layoffs at Bioware Austin. Going past contractors. Good luck to all involved.

The amusement you seem to derive from people losing their jobs is frankly a bit repugnant.

Reservations one might have with EA aside, I don't see how these are good news for anyone.

LiquidGrape:
The amusement you seem to derive from people losing their jobs is frankly a bit repugnant.

Reservations one might have with EA aside, I don't see how these are good news for anyone.

I don't derive amusement from people losing their jobs, but from EA/Bioware and their business practices starting to fail. This is just a rather measurable number to that.

If EA and Activision would go out of business tomorrow over some sort of billion dollars lawsuit or whatever that might be I would also be happy and the gaming industry would be a lot better off in the long run since these are the people for whom "studios" and "employees" are just numbers on a sheet of paper: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-04-free-radical-vs-the-monsters

And let's be honest, they knew what they were getting into when they signed up with EA:

Defunct
Original HQ in San Mateo, California, moved to Redwood City in 1998.
Origin Systems in Austin, Texas founded in 1983, acquired in 1992, closed in 2004.
Bullfrog Productions in Surrey, England, founded in 1987, acquired in 1995, merged with EA UK and effectively closed in 2001.
EA Baltimore in Baltimore, Maryland, established in 1996 as part of Origin, closed in 2000
EA Seattle in Seattle, Washington, founded in 1982 as Manley & Associates, acquired January 29, 1996, closed in 2002
Maxis in Walnut Creek, California, founded in 1987, acquired in June 1997, folded into Redwood Shores in 2004
Westwood Studios in Las Vegas, Nevada, founded in 1987, acquired from Virgin Interactive Entertainment in August 1998, merged into EA Los Angeles in 2003.
EA Pacific (known for a time as Westwood Pacific) in Irvine, California, formerly part of Virgin Interactive, acquired with Westwood in 1998, closed in 2003
Kesmai (known also as GameStorm), founded in 1981, acquired in 1999, closed in 2001.
DICE Canada in London, Ontario, started in 1998, acquired DICE fully October 2, 2006; closed DICE Canada studio hours later.
EA Japan in Tokyo, Japan, closed due to consolidation; moved under EA Partners model
EA UK in Chertsey, United Kingdom, moved to EA UK in Guildford
EA Chicago in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, founded in 1990 as NuFX, acquired in 2004, closed November 6, 2007.
Pandemic Studios in Los Angeles, California and Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, founded in 1998, acquired October 2007 from Elevation Partners, closed November 17, 2009.
Bright Light, in Guildford, Surrey, formerly EA UK, closed in 2011.

That absolutely sucks for everyone who got laid off and I sincerely hope they find new jobs again soon.

That being said, this was absolutely something that EA and Bioware should've seen coming. The cost of SWTOR was pretty damn high, and even hotly anticipated MMOs can see a severe user drop after the first few months. Unless they got extremely lucky, something like this was bound to happen. They overreached and couldn't quite make it, and it's sad to see so many hardworking people lose their job over it.