[IntotheWest]

Not sure that there are too many video game fans on here, but thought I'd post this quick non-oil/gas story about Electronic Arts (one of the largest game companies) buying Bioware - which itself merged with another games company last year (Pandemic)....Bioware is Edmonton based still. They've been growing quite a bit in the last few years, and it shows not everything doing well in Alberta is related to oil :)

I'm guessing (hoping) they'll keep their main office in Edmonton, and not move it south or to Vancouver (where EA Canada has been growing as well). For those that don't know, Canada has a growing video-game industry, including Bioware, EA, and Montreal's Ubisoft.


EA buying BioWare/Pandemic for $860M

[UPDATE] Superdeveloper scooped up by megapublisher for a staggering sum, deal to close in January; deal covers 10 IPs, including Mass Effect, Mercenaries, and unnamed Wii and DS games.
By Tor Thorsen, GameSpot
Posted Oct 11, 2007 1:57 pm PT
A week jam-packed with Nintendo news was overshadowed today by an announcement that sent shockwaves through the North American game industry. Thursday afternoon, top publisher Electronic Arts announced that it will acquire VG Holding Corp., owner of BioWare/Pandemic.

VG Holding Corp. was formed in late 2005 when esteemed Canadian role-playing game studio BioWare formed the aforementioned "superdeveloper" with Californian shop Pandemic Studios. The union was funded by Elevation Partners, a venture capital firm with rock star Bono on its board, and brokered by then-Elevation board member John Riccitiello, who became BioWare/Pandemic's CEO.

At the time, the deal was seen as a break from the traditional developer-publisher relationship, which sees the former beholden to the latter for funding. However, when Riccitiello returned to his old job as EA CEO, many wondered if the move might presage a takeover bid of BioWare/Pandemic. These suspicions were further raised when EA agreed to distribute the Pandemic shooter Mercenaries 2: World in Flames under its EA Partners program.

When the BioWare/Pandemic deal was announced, Elevation made much of the fact the union represented a "combined investment" of more than $300 million, including future funding. Today, the company got a massive return on said investment, with EA paying $620 million in cash to the stockholders of VG Holding Corp. In addition, the publisher will issue an additional $155 million in equity to unidentified VG Holding employees, as well as assume $50 million in outstanding VG stock options, and will lend VG $35 million to fund the transition.

In return for paying a princely sum, EA becomes the owner of both BioWare's and Pandemic's original properties. Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age are among BioWare's original IP, which does not include such licensed hits as the Dungeons and Dragons-based Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, or the DS Sonic RPG. BioWare is also working on an unnamed massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Pandemic is best known for the Full Spectrum Warrior and Mercenaries series, as well as the THQ-owned Destroy All Humans! and LucasArts-owned Star Wars: Battlefront franchises.

However, EA was relatively cagey about which BioWare/Pandemic games will become EA properties. The announcement only mentioned one BioWare (Mass Effect) and two Pandemic games (Saboteur, Mercenaries) by name. However, it did say the two studios have "10 franchises under development, including six wholly owned games."

Pending regulatory approval, EA's takeover of BioWare/Pandemic will be final on January 2008. Both studios will become part of the EA Games division, run by Frank Gibeau, with Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka continuing to run BioWare, and Andrew Goldman, Josh Resnick, and Greg Borrud staying in charge of Pandemic. The two studios employ 800 people in Los Angeles; Austin; Edmonton; and Brisbane, Australia.

[itom 987]

This news sucks.

[Coldrsx]

^why?

It could mean a larger BIOware office here or who knows...but it isnt all bad. If anything it gives bioware resources it didnt previously have.

[CorporateWhore]

ah, i have several friends who work there...ill see if i can find out if there are any additional rumors because of this.

[IntotheWest]

^ Any idea how many are employed in Edmonton though, versus Austin? They are rated as one of the best companies in Canada to work for (can't recall where I read/saw that though).

They did already joined forces with Pandemic out of LA almost 2 years ago, and Bioware has been in Edm for about 12 years...they aren't leaving.

This is no different than HP acquiring Calgary-based Voodoo a year ago...they're still here, but as well have a much larger resource/marketing arm.

[newfangled]

^ Any idea how many are employed in Edmonton though, versus Austin? They are rated as one of the best companies in Canada to work for (can't recall where I read/saw that though).

They did already joined forces with Pandemic out of LA almost 2 years ago, and Bioware has been in Edm for about 12 years...they aren't leaving.

This is no different than HP acquiring Calgary-based Voodoo a year ago...they're still here, but as well have a much larger resource/marketing arm.

I had absolutely no idea that voodoo was calgary based. I don't know how I missed that, because I remember the millions of press releases for the HP acquisition.

[mersar]

I had absolutely no idea that voodoo was calgary based. I don't know how I missed that, because I remember the millions of press releases for the HP acquisition.

Likely as they didn't really advertise they were. Their main office at one point was a converted house (can't remember the street, but I recall the address was 1313)

As for Bioware it is a pretty big move for EA, but I doubt that they'd be moving anywhere fast.

[Canadian74]

Ubisoft is Canadian?

[itom 987]

^why?

It could mean a larger BIOware office here or who knows...but it isnt all bad. If anything it gives bioware resources it didnt previously have.

It sucks because the name "Bioware" will eventualy get lost within the Electronic Arts umbrella. Edmonton looses a valuable card when it comes to marketing itself to the world. Edmonton looses a piece of its identity.

[Kevin_foster]

This could be good news for Edmonton, but bad for the employees of BioWare. I hear they can be pretty harsh on their employees - I think EA is seen as the Corporate Giant in the Software world. So corporate moves, slashes, amalgamations etc. are very possible - where other software companies probably couldn't care less where their employees are as long as there is a Java shop near by.

I sometimes really (really) wish I would have gotten into software programming. Man - being able to wear shorts and sandals to work, have my own cappuccino maker and having group hugs on the hour, work days comprised of just playing video games on the couch and eating pizza, doing yoga sessions at work and having motivational after-work parties seems A OK with me :tup:

[Coldrsx]

^i know a few people who have worked at EA....while the environment is awesome, the typical 10-13hr days are hellish.

[freeweed]

Ubisoft is Canadian?

They've got a couple of large development shops based out of Montreal. But they're French owned.

[freeweed]

I sometimes really (really) wish I would have gotten into software programming. Man - being able to wear shorts and sandals to work, have my own cappuccino maker and having group hugs on the hour, work days comprised of just playing video games on the couch and eating pizza, doing yoga sessions at work and having motivational after-work parties seems A OK with me :tup:

That hasn't been true in pretty much any software development environment since 2000. And even then, it wasn't the norm. Thanks for bringing back the dot-com memories, though! :haha:

[freeweed]

^i know a few people who have worked at EA....while the environment is awesome, the typical 10-13hr days are hellish.

Game development is soul-sucking, horrible work. The only possible reward is that you just love games so much - which of course, after a couple of years of having your life stolen in order to create them, you won't any more.

EA just happens to be the worst offender. A 10 hour day at EA would be considered short. Unless you had worked them 7 days a week for the past 5 months without a single day off. Then you'd just be part of the team.

I've never met an EA'er who's lasted more than a few years, and without exception, every single last one of them regrets it. How the hell they get away with their labour practices in B.C. is beyond me - you'd think the left-leaning B.C. laws would have better worker protection against unpaid overtime with low-salaried employees.

[IKAN104]

I sometimes really (really) wish I would have gotten into software programming. Man - being able to wear shorts and sandals to work, have my own cappuccino maker and having group hugs on the hour, work days comprised of just playing video games on the couch and eating pizza, doing yoga sessions at work and having motivational after-work parties seems A OK with me :tup:

And I sometimes really wish I had not gotten into software programming. :( At most firms 90% of the work is boring maintenance type stuff and at the video game makers they demand loooooong hours. :koko: No thanks.

[IKAN104]

I have mixed feelings about this take over. Will they keep the name Bioware or will they become just another branch office of EA? Either way, the control of the office shifts to out-of-towners, and that's the part that sucks.

[IKAN104]

EA just happens to be the worst offender. A 10 hour day at EA would be considered short. Unless you had worked them 7 days a week for the past 5 months without a single day off. Then you'd just be part of the team.


They prey on the young hot shots who've just graduated and are eager to make their mark in the gaming world. Newbies like that are generally willing to work long hours to prove their worth and do it all for low pay.

It's when they grow up and realize they've been taken advantage of that they leave and are easily replaced.

[CMD UW]

^i know a few people who have worked at EA....while the environment is awesome, the typical 10-13hr days are hellish.
But that's the industry in general, deadlines are critical. This is also why they have foosball tables, ping pong, sleeping rooms, chill rooms, and sometimes free meals - breakfast, lunch, dinner. This industry does not work on the 9-5 clock.

[freeweed]

But that's the industry in general, deadlines are critical. This is also why they have foosball tables, ping pong, sleeping rooms, chill rooms, and sometimes free meals - breakfast, lunch, dinner. This industry does not work on the 9-5 clock.

Every industry has deadlines. You think IT workers in the oilpatch don't have to deliver to just as critical deadlines as game devs? :koko:

Foosball tables don't change the fact that they're basically sweatshops where a lot of young people waste a tremendous amount of their young lives. Heck, work 100 hour weeks if you want, but jesus - at least get compensated for it! The game industry sure as shit isn't paying these poor saps $150k to sacrifice their personal lives year-in, year-out.

[CMD UW]

Every industry has deadlines. You think IT workers in the oilpatch don't have to deliver to just as critical deadlines as game devs? :koko:

Foosball tables don't change the fact that they're basically sweatshops where a lot of young people waste a tremendous amount of their young lives. Heck, work 100 hour weeks if you want, but jesus - at least get compensated for it! The game industry sure as shit isn't paying these poor saps $150k to sacrifice their personal lives year-in, year-out.
They make a choice to work in that industry and they can also make the choice to leave it. So blah.

[freeweed]

They make a choice to work in that industry and they can also make the choice to leave it. So blah.

Absolutely. And I make a choice to inform as many people as possible as to the true working conditions, because most going in truly don't know about it. ;)

[sync]

EA = suck.

so i think this is bad news.

[Shodan]

EA Buys BioWare: Insider Views

Article from Firingsquad.com - Oct.11 2007

Introduction

Elevation Partners, a huge investment company that counts notables such as Bono among its financiers, bought BioWare and Pandemic Studios two years ago. BioWare Pandemic, as it became known, sold Elevation Partners on the idea that these two independent development houses would be able to take on the publishers and dictate terms like id Software, or to a lesser extent Epic Studios can.

A key figure at Elevation Partners was John Riccitiello, a former Electronic Arts COO who left to co-found the investment giant, and quickly spearheaded the acquisition of the aforementioned BioWare-Pandemic. Earlier this year, John returned to EA as a CEO. What has apparently been brewing since then is his desire to acquire BioWare-Pandemic for the world’s largest game publisher. Today, after weeks or even months of negotiation, the deal was announced.

At 2PM mountain time, the staff of BioWare in Edmonton, Canada, and Austin, Texas, were summoned for a company meeting. The staff, viewing each other on video conference screens, were told that as this meeting was going on an announcement was being made of the sale of BioWare-Pandemic to Electronic Arts. Elevation Partners, which had bought into the vision of a super developer dictating terms to publishers, saw John Riccitiello drive up with a dump truck of money – three quarters of a billion dollars, most of it in cash – right up to their doors. While there was an opportunity for a potentially glorious if uncertain future as owners of a giant independent game studio, Elevation Partners saw the bird in hand and decided to enjoy the almost 100% return on investment over two years, depreciation of the American dollar notwithstanding.

The meeting continued, with most consequences, the reasoning behind the buyout and the positives being spelled out for the BioWare staff as they remained mostly silent and attentive. Employees of independent game developers don’t work at independent game developers because they like conglomerates like Electronic Arts. This is doubly true in the case of BioWare Austin, where at least a third of the staff is ex-EA. The average gamer, if he could sit down with the average game industry employee, would be surprised to see how much similarity of opinion there is about certain game publishers and their practices.

The company line is no doubt something like “BioWare is thrilled at the opportunity to work with the world’s leading game developer. We have been looking forward to blah blah blah”. A dose of reality can be found by hanging out the BioWare offices and overhearing some honest and refreshing opinions. While this precludes me from naming names, I do live in Edmonton and if there’s one thing I know, it’s where the BioWare offices are.

The reaction

Despite the heavy proportion of ex-EA employees in the company, the reaction was generally muted and contemplative. What might have been an otherwise depressing and angry day at BioWare was salvaged by the man at the heart of this story: John Riccitiello. Following the resignation of Larry Probst, John acted quickly and began implementing his vision, including the removal of a central design team that created jobs for itself by, for example, mandating a single interface for all of its team sports games that, while attractive, was a horrible interface.

John Riccitiello is also the man, who in his first interview since taking over of EA, said that ’sequels are boring’. Does that sound like a statement coming from the mouth of a traditional EA executive? I don’t think so, and apparently enough employees at BioWare agree enough to reserve any outcries of doom at least for a while.

The sober, thought-out feeling is that Riccitiello hitched his wagon to BioWare-Pandemic. They won’t be subject to the regular EA hierarchy, they won’t be given design ideas by EA, and they won’t be indulging in sequelitis (though as an aside, the Mass Effect 2 staff would love the opportunity for a sequel). In fact, the chain of communication will be John Riccitiello -> Frank Gibeau (President of EA Games) -> Greg Zeschuk & Ray Muzyka (BioWare co-founders). That’s it.

Our bet is that Riccitiello has done as much as he can at EA proper without bringing about a revolt against himself. The company is quite entrenched in its ways after a decade and a half of leadership from Larry Probst, and that is when it developed the reputation for buying a developer and milking its properties drier than a Sahara rock. Any further changes risk upsetting the shareholders and management who don’t see a creatively empty shell, but rather a highly profitable company that has found the formula for growing money off video game trees.

The BioWare-Pandemic buyout may be a bid to start EA on a new course, one already plotted by Activision: acquire a good developer, finance them, and permit them room to do their own thing, offer leadership and a kick in the ass only if necessary. Presumably the new EA CEO sees the disastrous long-term consequences of creative bankruptcy, and is seeking to remedy them by allowing BioWare and Pandemic the freedom and finances to do something spectacular on a regular basis. Specifically, during the conference John had stated that EA was impressed with BioWare’s Metacritic score, a rating in which EA has slipped in over the past few years, and a statistic which caused on analyst to say the EA brand has been tarnished

The downside, however, is that John has arguably bet his own personal political bank at EA on BioWare and Pandemic. Should they not deliver to expectations, their failure could be an excuse for traditional EA elements to remove Riccitiello and return to EA’s profitable-but-boring sequelitis ways. This, of course, will mean the doom of BioWare in the way that Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, and Maxis were wiped out. With any change comes friction, and there is little doubt that by cutting into the bloat in EA and by bypassing the traditional EA power structure with BioWare-Pandemic, John Riccitiello has created enemies in the company. Like, say, people who think that a slow, unwieldly, but attractive interface in the name of the Almighty Brand is a good idea.

If John Riccitiello is for real, to which we’re giving a tentative nod, and if he can tame the EA Beast, it’s up to BioWare and Pandemic to see his vision through.

The challenge for BioWare will be calming all the ex-EA folk, most of whom are in Austin and left even before the days of the EA Spouse scandal which helped normalize work hours at the company. Then the company needs to work on its delivery schedule, notorious as they are for always being late.