BioWare veteran warns of uncertain future under new EA owners

BioWare veteran Mark Darrah, known for being a producer across the Dragon Age games, has posted a new video discussing EA's $55 billion private acquisition, saying BioWare's future is very uncertain as the games the studio makes the new company may not be interested in producing any more.

Darrah explains in the new video seen above that EA is now not incentivized to take risks, and the company's focus could now switch to generating as much revenue as possible, especially considering the $55bn acquisition, $36bn is in equity with the remaining $20bn in JPMorgan debt, which EA is required to cover. With looming debt and new owners, Darrah suggests that EA will probably be very hesitant to greenlight the revival of dormant IPs it has under its belt, and may decide to sell off a bunch of them to shave off debt.

The BioWare veteran also suggested EA could close down some of its existing studios, or even sell them off to other publishers. Darrah even went as far as to say that EA could simply sell off all of EA Entertainment to a buyer with "deep pockets," leaving just EA Sports for the publisher to focus on. Ultimately, Darrah says he doesn't know what EA is going to do exactly, but "It's incredibly unlikely that EA stays exactly as it currently is in a private structure, especially carrying £20bn worth of debt".

But what about BioWare?

"For the studios that have more of a track record, especially a track record that maybe doesn't line up with your own political views...you're going to look at that studio and wonder how you make them fit into your new structure. It's hard to imagine that you have BioWare pivot from having very progressive messaging to having the reverse because it's what the government wants. It's hard to imagine that the public perception of a game that comes out of BioWare, even if you do do that, isn't apocalyptically bad," said Darrah