Aw man. Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect, and OG Dragon Age saw me through some of my formative gaming years and it’s been a shame to watch since. I didn’t even bother with Veilguard.
Larian is our big shining hope for this kind of game now, it seems.
This meme was a prophecy.
I can still remember that feeling of anticipation when “Westwood” came on the screen. I haven’t felt that in decades 😔
Thank God. I was worried a Saudi Kushner Mass Effect would create some kind of paradoxal tear in reality, like the damn pocket universe in Superman.
Give it another 5 years and a different, more inept developer
My theory is that EA is actually secretly ran by Hollywood in a bid to get people back to watching movies and TV.
It’s ran by Saudis, they don’t like queer things.
Game companies are reading the tea leaves.
AI bought all the ram
AI bought owns all the GPU
Any Game can be decoded and rewritten in fresh code via AI for the tiniest fraction of a salary. It will eventually be able to do it with performance.
New IP could maybe, possibly be generated by some designer/artist types for the cost of a couple salaries.
The client is in the enemy’s (our) hands.
All games must go back to Gaming as a Service
We won’t pay for gaming as a service.
No new affordable tech is coming to drive the industry, all games will need to shift to online only, AI may get good enough to make games for pennies.
The only part of gaming that survives this is indie developers that push past making shovelware with AI. AAA is cooked.
We’ll build our own BioWare! With blackjack! And hookers!
But unfortunately without the IP
Let’s just use AI and say that it’s fair use.
oh no… what a surprise… ea shuts down a studio they aquired…
Man, I remember being so fuckin stoked for the original release of Nevereinter Nights. You will be missed.
I remember being excited for the original Neverwinter Nights that was made by Stormfront and SSI
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_(AOL_game)
It may also have been the first graphical MMO.
Same. It was the first major title I recall with a native linux release. They famously didn’t deliver it on release but got it out eventually. Met a lot of good linux gamers on those forums while we waited.
Good lord everything EA touches turns to shit. Mass Effect is one of my all time favorite series and I credit it with breaking me out of just playing JRPGs. I was really looking forward to the next entry in the series, but the trilogy (there is no Andromeda in Ba Sing Se) will always be in my top games of all time and has enough of a conclusion to leave me satisfied
I’d love to see Microsoft buy EA, then close it
EA was bought by the Saudis along with Trump’s son-in-law. This Bioware closure likely isn’t the first we’ll see.
They closed studios they acquired since they started acquiring game studios…
Yes, but the Saudi deal is a new wrinkle. It’s VC bullshit at its worst. EA was bad before, but it’s nothing compared to what’s coming.
They had announced their next game. I find it just a little curious that it happened now, so soon after de deal was finalised.
Or EA buy XBOX and close it. (˶ˆᗜˆ˵)
That works too!
they could buy steam instead and close it 😃😃 what whys everyone looking at me like that
ill never forgive EA for destroying westwood studios and maxis,
FUCK EA
Fuck. Now I have to add Bioware to the pile.
yoyo they found 21 missing people off of that music video. its really a song of hope.
Didn’t the song out a bunch of people who went missing on purpose and ruin their lives?
from the article:
It wasn’t always plain sailing for the families afterwards – kids don’t run away from happy homes – but maybe things had changed when they went back or they were older and able to cope better.
i don’t know the specifics, but that sounds like what they’re trying to say very gently. i wouldn’t go so far as to say it ruined their lives, but in our experiences (two of my cousins and one niece ran away when they were teenagers) if their lives were ruined it was the shit that caused them to run away that did it.
i know, small sample size, but most people expect their lives to be ordinary. it makes it easy to fall into the logical trap that everyone has the same experiences
Absolutely. Incredible what came from that campaign. The song still fit the tone I wanted for the meme.
Damn it. What’s the first one again? I instantly remember the feeling playing this game, but I can’t remember…
Thanks for the memories!
EA is exactly the republican party. Destroy everything they touch with loads of bigotry and sheer incompetence.
Are EA bigots? They have always been the epitome of amoral capitalism in the gaming world to me
Many game companies were bigots. shrugs. Another example is Ubisoft, founded by 5 brothers (no cooties eh), very toxic environment from my experience.
Given their new owners, it wouldn’t be too far off to call them bigots now.
Valid point
“Woke” was actually a problem with DA4 with how piss poorly the writers handled it, it was embarrassing. Absolutely not bigots
The bigotry is probably a new thing for them then because at least back in the day they didn’t give a fuck as long as it made money. Bioware games usually had LGB(perhaps not T, don’t remember any) characters, often as romance options and I recall racial justice being a theme in both Mass Effect and Dragon Age games.
But I suspect the new owners don’t really want their games to infect anyone with the gays™
Ah, I didn’t know about that one because I could never get into Inquisition myself. Though it seems to have been well received enough as a game that perhaps I should try it.
Part of me wonders if Krem received less hate than some other Ts in media because the Internet hate machine mostly seems to have it out for MTF rather than FTM folks or because he genuinely had good writing rather than being shoehorned in
Typically MTFs are seen as “misogynistic perverts” and FTMs are seen as “misunderstood lesbians”
Neither are an accurate picture but one is far easier to sympathize with.
I wish it wasn’t so hard for people to see them as “folks just living their lives and not affecting mine in the slightest”
Good news is that EA self-destructed in the Saudi deal so a few guys at the top could fill their pockets one more time. The debt they loaded EA with will be paid by selling everything. There is no other way. EA can no longer operate and their IPs will go to different studios. Let‘s hope one or two of them treat the franchises a tiny bit more carefully. Maybe. Or it will all be AI slop. Time will tell. But the way I see it EA is toast.
Generals 2 was in the make. There was a promo gameplay video. They fucking canceled it. I’ll never forgive them for it.
Litteraly everything they touch, they kill. Either they cancel it or it becomes a pay to win gambling platform which lacks actual content. Enshitification Assholes.
EA has bought so many good game studios and forced them to make shitty games and then closed those studios because the shit games that they forced them to make didn’t turn a profit, i played Red Alert 2 so much and had so much fun and knowing we’ll never get anything like that again makes me want to launch all these life sucking corporate ghouls into the void.
I just replayed all of the mass effect games and dragonage games about a year or 2 ago, once Saudi Arabia bought EA I was like, welp, there goes that. (PIF can suck my DIF)
Now with Bioware being closed, glimmer of hope a new powerhouse independent studio pops up.
Honestly, is Andromeda worth playing? That’s the only one I haven’t finished but do have it downloaded
It has a different feel than 3 does, but I liked it as it’s own thing.
I definitely recall the ship bugged me a little more, the beginning you’re forced to navigate it and that bugged me. There are a lot of good aspects to it. If you like the series it definitely deserves a play. When I was playing and reading reviews I felt many reviews were overly critical and not really accurate. More popular to bash it, etc.
I’ve eventually managed to play it through to the end, there’s some enjoyment but it’s such a forgettable experience to me. Maybe I’ve misunderstood it, one day i’ll give it another go. It has very little to do with the original trilogy, in anything except name and some references. Combat isn’t too bad but the story is not that compelling
As an FYI, I’ve been having a blast with Tempest Rising, it’s not exactly like Red Alert but it’s definitely got that old school C&C vibe to it.
I played it and it is good but i grew up playing Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 so that might be why it doesn’t click with me, it’s too much like Red Alert 3 and apart from Tim Curry (R.I.P.) it didn’t take long for me to be bored of it.
Tiberium Wars was kinda the last game from EA in this genre that i would call good and i won’t even bother mentioning the garbage that EA made afterwards.
TR did get some updates so i might revisit it and see how it clicks.
I second that. Frank Klepacki delivered some very good tracks on that title too!
Well now I’m definitely getting it!
You didn’t like Generals?! /s
I spent so much time modding Generals and it was fun BUT it had a problem that’s present even today that if you play longer it would get slower and slower and eventually crash, there might be a fix but i haven’t bothered to check for the past 20 years.
Hence my /s
The mass-unit slowdown was terrible, sadly because the mods were epic
I remember saying this when they were acquired and Anthem wasn’t even a sperm in Daddy EA yet.
Time to rename EA to Saudi TM Gaming
Perhaps they can make a game about dismembering journalists.
All aliens must wear hijab or be executed. /s
I mean, the Quarians were basically hijabi
The T stands for Trump!
Scopely Premium
Neverwinter Nights. Dragon Age Origins. Mass Effect. Knights of the Old Republic. It may all be considered unc slop now but man Bioware at its peak was some good times in gaming.
Calling those games unc slop is laughable, considering the comparative quality of modern games.
Gen Z really is the saddest generation.
Uh… You’ve met boomers before, right!?
i keep having trouble with this because most of the people in my newest band are boomers. i have to remind myself that i’m very fortunate to find people who don’t fit stereotypes
You’re right, it’s good to separate the individual from the group. We obviously shouldn’t specifically blame every single person in that age group, but we know the generation, in general, took most of the wealth and opportunity, then pulled the ladder up behind them, denying it to the following generations. They also voted for most of the current politicians and policies that are keeping inequality high.
So you play a mono-type I guess?
Sorry
So I guess this means that we’ll never get that KotOR remake then…
Lmao I like how everyone was saying this was going to happen like a year ago. So predictable.
A year ago? People called it eight years ago with the Anthem disaster that Dragon Age 4 would be the studio’s last chance. BioWare was already dead, this is just the merciful last bullet.
Anyone that cared about RPGs was pushed out by greedy losers.
Any good old style rpgs old style out there? I haven’t found anything since Icewind dale…
