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EaglesEye379 on 07 July 2008
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TheRealMafoo said:
EaglesEye379 said:

 You are sort of correct.

Im sure this issue was heavily discussed internally before Bioware agreed all the details to be bought over by EA (much like the Activision Blizzard merger) and if Bioware felt that EA was too aggressive and non-condusive to their developers, they wouldnt allow the merger to go through. So since they merged, I think that EA amicably told Bioware: you decide, we respect your decision and development cycle.

This is because EA wont want to antagonize Bioware or they will have a serious hit on their investment with a renegade developer.

So how I see it is that the ball is primarily in the hands of Bioware heads (Zeschuk, Muzyka etc.) to decide whether its worth their developments costs and hiring a whole new team to make a port and future sequels and whether they can negotiate the details with MS. They dont want to antagonize MS because the 360 is the lead platform and around 30% of the Mass Effect team is Microsoft Game Studios!

 

I am not sure how much of a merger this was. When a company the size of EA "merges" with a company the size of Bioware, it's really a buyout. They call it a merger to make people happy.

I also think EA bought Bioware for there IP's, and not there personnel. Most of the time when these kinds of buyouts happen, there is a mass exodus of employees anyway.

So, back to where we started, no clue what EA will do. Again, this is all just for discussion. I expect it to come out on the PC regardless, and that's the version I will play. :)

There is definitely some truth in what you say about 'mergers' (as I myself work in a financial corporation), but I think its a little different for game studios. Its like making a movie, you hire actors, musicians, lots of programmers, code infrastructure building, graphic designing going on and any lost time is a serious bleed of money. So EA would want Bioware to continue whatever they are doing from day 1 with absolutely minimal hinderance. Im sure when the merger happened, ME2 was already in production.

And come on, you know Bioware's pedigree. Would you really want to see the programmers that made Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights etc walk out on you? It would be pretty stupid of EA to allow that.

Another factor to think about is this: Sonys own view. I personally think its a big risk for Sony themselves to buy into this franchise, as will be much less relevant to bring a ME port so late. If they dont do a port, then its going to be harder to sell ME2 to their fanbase and compete with the 360 and PC fanbase. Not to mention Sony will have to provide their own developers and finances.