According to a new report, Electronic Arts closed down the venerated RPG studio BioWare to shift resources away from Mass Effect and toward a new Star Wars: Battlefront title.
A new report indicatesElectronic Arts' recent shutdown of BioWare was precipitated by a financial showdown between two big science-fiction titles: the in-development Mass Effect: Universe and an unannounced new Star Wars: Battlefield title, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Unwilling to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on both projects, EA pivoted to putting its resources into Star Wars, despite publicly shying away from licensed games less than two years ago.
The Bloomberg report specifically cites financial pressure coming from the leveraged buy-out of Electronic Arts, which saddled the company with $18 billion in debt that it is expected to pay off that debt through operating profits. Trying to minimize losses and maximize returns, EA cancelled Mass Effect to focus on the less risky and more predictable wellspring of Star Wars with a new multiplayer-shooter Battlefront title.
This decision comes just 18 months after EA cancelled an open-world Black Panther game and shut down developer Cliffhanger Games , and two years after it announced a strategic shift that took the company away from licensed titles. While a new Star Wars: Battlefront may fly in the face of that pivot, it is worth noting that EA's commitment to abandoning licensed titles was never full-bodied, as the company is still developing an Iron Man game based on the Marvel superhero.
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