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BioWare Montreal Absorbed by EA Motive - Mass Effect: Andromeda - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
BioWare Montreal Absorbed by EA Motive - Mass Effect: Andromeda - MMORPG.com
Mass Effect: Andromeda News - BioWare Montreal is no more. It has been literally merged with EA Motive with remaining employees being moved to the studio to "help develop a new IP". EA Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said, "We're building out a new studio in Montreal, as we've told everyone. And we've hired over 100 people for that studio that are brand new to EA. This is to build the new IP around Jade Raymond's team that she's been building. We brought our BioWare Montreal team into that same facility."
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Dragon Age Inquisition was boredom incarnate. An inferior cast of characters, a lack of compelling choices, poor combat, non-existent class balance, and horrid MMO style questing in a single player game do not a competent RPG make. It was a game without a soul, and the only reason it even gets recognition is because Dragon Age 2 was considered to be even worse.
Mass Effect Andromeda was, compared to Dragon Age Inquisition, one step forward and two steps back. The combat and classes now felt great to utilize, but everything else was flat out worse. The cast went from inferior to previous offerings to straight up tofu levels of bland. The story alternated between laughable and embarrassing. The dialogue frequently felt like it was pulled directly from a soap opera. Quite frankly, the animation issues were only the embarrassing icing on the cake that perfectly visually encapsulated the rest of the experience.
Both Motive and BioWare Montréal were already in the same building before they created this new facility (in EA Montréal old office, BioWare used to share the place with EA Visceral before it was shutdown in 2013)...I think some people are reading a bit too much into this "news".
Man, I hope so. I feel like people came down too hard on Andromeda, would be a shame to see this team gone over it.
I dont think people are understanding what happened here....even thou its spelled out in the release, BW Mont. was absorbed (no confirmed layoffs) and in fact 100 new people were hired to work on a new IP. So to sum it up, no talent lost, and new talent also hired...win win
This announcement is just EA Montréal (which is 3 sub studios: BioWare Montréal, EA Motive and a Frostybe team) moving to new office spaces (in La Maison Alcan). Their is nothing about BioWare Montréal getting merged with EA Motive in those statements.
Local newspaper were pretty clear last year that EA wasn't keeping their La Place Ville Marie floors.
It's semantics, really, but important. The BioWare name is disappearing and perhaps it's the ultimate goal. When people hear the name "BioWare", they are looking for and expecting a specific type of deep roleplaying experience that the most recent games haven't totally lived up to for many people. If they just canned the name altogether and slapped everything under EA's moniker, well, that'd pretty much eliminate people looking for what BW used to deliver.
For the record, I loved both MEA and DAI.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I got no idea what people are talking about when they say that the bioware name is disappearing. Bioware Edmonton is the original bioware studio and it still goes under the bioware brand.
Clearly, some EA CEOs have been indoctrinated...
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Whether Montreal deserved its bad rep or not, the public perception is that it did. This is just a reasonable PR move under the circumstances.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I guess it tells the obvious,money was not so good for the greedy EA execs.
I believe there is more to it that has to do with the massive tax breaks in Montreal.I read that they could claim back as much as 25k per job...well.....
Imagine same building,just move the same people around job to job and get the kickback to be far and above the 25k,perhaps now 75k for that one person if given several different positions within different studios.So Bioware claims back 25k,then Motive claims another 25k for that same person,i could totally see them pulling it off.
So perhaps changes in the tax break structure no longer allow them to do it,so now time to run out of one studio.
Just guessing of course,but obviously moves happen for or because of money issues,they don't just randomly say .."hey let's do this change just because we can".
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
https://techraptor.net/content/bioware-montreal-merge-ea-motive
“We’re building out a new studio in Montreal, as we’ve told everyone. And we’ve hired over 100 people into that studio that are brand-new to EA. This is to build the new IP around Jade Raymond’s team that she’s been building. I was in that studio last month. And it’s a wonderful new addition to our team. And we brought our BioWare Montreal team into that same facility. So they now all sit in one new studio together,” stated Jorgensen.
Bioware Edmonton developed Inquisition and then moved on Anthem. Montreal's only game was Andromeda.