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Cancelling Mass Effect And Closing BioWare Was An Obvious Thing For EA To Do, Experts Say

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Cancelling Mass Effect And Closing BioWare Was An Obvious Thing For EA To Do, Experts Say

Electronic Arts just confirmed a major shakeup that included the closure of BioWare and cancellation of its upcoming Mass Effect game. Closing the studio and cancelling the project was a horrible thing for the people who worked there and fans who enjoy BioWare games and were looking forward to the next Mass Effect. But taking that action was no surprise whatsoever from a business sense.

Video game analyst Joost Van Dreunen told IGN that EA needed to make drastic cuts to service the $18 billion in debt that it has taken on due to the leveraged structure of its sale to Saudi Arabia's PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity. Interest payments alone on that debt are about $1.8 billion annually, which exceeds how much money EA makes in annual EBITDA ($1.5 billion).

Van Dreunen said BioWare getting shut down was "entirely predictable and precisely what a leveraged buyout looks like once the deal closes."

"In that context, a 50-person team working on a game that is years from launch is the easiest line to cut, regardless of its legacy,” van Dreunen said.

Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis, meanwhile, said the closure of BioWare is "emotive" for people who loved BioWare and its 30-year legacy of making popular and well-liked RPGs, but the math just didn't math.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard failed to meet sales expectations , and Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem were commercial disappointments, too. This contributed to an environment where EA management would look to kill the studio outright.


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