Electronic Arts Shutters BioWare, Cutting 400 Jobs

Fancy seeing you here, Bullfrog

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Genghis Husameddin

32 minutes ago

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Per Jason Schreier of Bloomberg, publishing giant Electronic Arts is cutting 400 jobs as part of its recent layoffs, and that includes shutting down BioWare—the legendary developer behind franchises such as ‘Mass Effect’ and ‘Dragon Age‘.

This accounts for 3% of its overall workforce, which appears to be part of the cost-cutting endeavours the publisher stated to investors it would begin executing since its leveraged buyout by Saudi Arabia’s investment funding thru PIF, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, as part of saving money on research and development costs. Electronic Arts will continue to pursue its sports titles and development of action-adventure games brandished with large IP such as the next Star Wars Jedi title.

Electronics Arts saw its 55 billion dollar purchase by PIF completed nearly three months back as part of a buyout headed by Jared Kushner, Egon Durban, and other figures within the Saudi government. The publisher inherited 20 billion dollar in debt as part of the loan needed to fill in the total purchase gap, which will likely lead to further layoffs and support for more risk-averse projects.

The developer also put out a statement via Twitter:

BioWare was founded over in Edmonton, Alberta in 1995 by then-newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk, and Augustine Yip as they developed titles that would later be known widely across the western role-playing game sphere. ‘Baldur’s Gate’ would be the precursor to the wildly successful third entry decades later, while franchises like Dragon Age and Mass Effect held their own zeitgeists during the 7th generation of home consoles, still considered fondly by many today.

The next Mass Effect project has been cut and so it seems, anything else from this acclaimed developer.

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