{"id":15798,"date":"2026-10-23T15:10:36","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T12:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/?p=15798"},"modified":"2026-10-23T18:31:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T15:01:57","slug":"franchises-like-mass-effect-are-a-prestige-project-for-ea-and-biowares-closure-was-entirely-predictable-analysts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/2026\/10\/23\/franchises-like-mass-effect-are-a-prestige-project-for-ea-and-biowares-closure-was-entirely-predictable-analysts-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Franchises Like Mass Effect Are a &#8216;Prestige Project&#8217; for EA, and BioWare&#8217;s Closure Was &#8216;Entirely Predictable,&#8217; Analysts Say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Games industry analysts told IGN that BioWare was likely doomed well before EA\u2019s $55 billion acquisition, explaining that games like Mass Effect are now considered \u201cprestige projects\u201d for the company, and it\u2019s unlikely the sci-fi franchise, nor BioWare\u2019s other IPs, are sold off.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">On October 21, EA announced a major shift in strategy and a significant internal restructuring that involves the cancelation of a number of projects, the closure of BioWare, and a reported 400 people losing their jobs. The Canadian studio, known for franchises like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, was shut down after more than 30 years of creating beloved role-playing games. Mass Effect fans must now consider that the franchise is dead \u2014 something the leaked internal trailer for Mass Effect Universe made all the more difficult to accept.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Needless to say, Mass Effect fans were gutted by the news, hoping against hope that EA might sell off BioWare\u2019s IP rather than letting them languish in obscurity. But analysts have expressed doubt that outside companies will take on BioWare&#8217;s franchises, even as EA faces down a massive debt incurred by its acquisition.<\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">11 Mass Effect Characters and Moments the TV Show Needs to Be a Hit<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\">&lt;img alt=&quot;It\u2019s official: A Mass Effect show is in the works at Amazon\u2019s Prime Video. Although it hasn\u2019t been said outright, the show will most likely be an adaptation of Commander Shepard\u2019s story from the original trilogy due to that saga\u2019s popularity with fans. A television series is the most appropriate format for adapting the award-winning game franchise into another medium, opposed to say a feature film, since Mass Effect is an extension of many of the space opera narrative conventions popularized by perennial sci-fi TV juggernaut Star Trek, and also because the many episodes\/seasons a TV show affords will allow the creators to use far more of the series\u2019 wide array of fan-favorite characters.<\/p>\n<p>The characters are why Mass Effect fans love the series so much and what will help the franchise connect with a new audience. Now that we know we\u2019re getting a show, let\u2019s take a look at the Mass Effect trilogy\u2019s best characters and moments that the show should adapt. (And obviously we&#8217;re not including main character Commander Shepard on this list as their inclusion goes without saying!)<br \/>\n&#8221; decoding=&#8221;async&#8221; class=&#8221;progressive-image jsx-2277167929 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity&#8221; loading=&#8221;lazy&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/franchises-like-mass-effect-are-a-prestige-project-for-ea-and-biowares-closure-was-entirely-predictable-analysts-say.gif&#8221; data-cy=&#8221;progressive-image&#8221;&gt;<\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">When asked about this possibility, industry analyst Joost van Dreunen said, \u201cmaybe,\u201d but explained that these IPs are likely far too costly \u2014 and far too time-consuming \u2014 for other developers to tackle.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">\u201cIn many ways, BioWare&#8217;s IP is in the same boat as some of the other studios we recently saw being divested. They are all well-known and too expensive for most buyers. Capable publishers like CD Projekt Red already have their hands full with their own projects,\u201d he said. (He\u2019s not wrong; CDPR certainly has a lot on its plate right now, what with The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2 being in active development.)<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">The next Mass Effect was announced six years ago, at The Game Awards 2020, and this time last year Mike Gamble, now former executive producer of Mass Effect at BioWare, celebrated N7 Day to say the game was still in development. He even expressed excitement about the Amazon TV series (which IGN understands is currently still in the works), and insisted EA and BioWare &#8220;remain committed to telling more stories in this universe.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">So what changed? Why cancel Mass Effect 5 now? Van Dreunen told us that, in EA\u2019s eyes, legacy IPs like Mass Effect are likely being viewed as \u201cprestige projects,\u201d and the future looks grim for other development teams still underneath EA\u2019s umbrella.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;Before its buyout, EA had been focusing on building recurring revenue streams, and the focus of its new owners is sports, live service, and new markets like Asia. Even if Mass Effect and Dragon Age were fantastically successful, corporate will insist on predictable cash flow. It makes franchises like Mass Effect a prestige project,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">\u201cConsidering the debt load, I&#8217;d expect to hear about more layoffs in the months to come. The memo already shrinks the skate. team and pauses a project for The Sims. I expect EA&#8217;s town hall in November to bring more bad news.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Van Dreunen, along with fellow analyst Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere, considers BioWare\u2019s closure an inevitable consequence of EA\u2019s current business structure, calling it \u201centirely predictable and precisely what a leveraged buyout looks like once the deal closes. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">\u201cIn this case, EA now carries roughly $18 billion in debt, which costs it about $1.8 billion a year in interest. That is more than its annual EBITDA of around $1.5 billion. EA has told its lenders it will cut $700 million in annual costs to service the debt. In that context, a 50-person team working on a game that is years from launch is the easiest line to cut, regardless of its legacy,\u201d van Dreunen said.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">\u201cThis news is emotive for many adult gamers because of Bioware\u2019s long history of delivering games with deep narratives that connect with audiences, meaning it has a large cultural footprint. It\u2019s a name that has been around for 30 years, so seeing it close is a significant moment for the industry. In particular, the original Baldur\u2019s Gate games, Neverwinter Nights, and KOTOR were genre defining, and the later Mass Effect titles also strongly resonated with audiences,\u201d Harding-Rolls told us.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Harding-Rolls added that the commercial failure of BioWare&#8217;s last game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, played a part in BioWare&#8217;s demise. And let&#8217;s remember that 2017&#8217;s Mass Effect: Andromeda and 2019&#8217;s Anthem also failed to meet EA&#8217;s expectations.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">\u201cUnfortunately, the studio\u2019s recent big-budget releases have not performed well enough commercially,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Ampere data shows that Bioware\u2019s latest release at the end of 2024 \u2014 Dragon Age: The Veilguard \u2014 has sold an estimated 1.9 million units globally across PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam up to the end of September, way below internal targets. The changing nature of high-end gaming and the need to cut costs means that it is likely that Bioware\u2019s future was under discussion before EA was acquired by the PIF and its partners.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">BioWare: Stories and Secrets From 25 Years of Game Development &#8211; Exclusive Book Preview<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Click through for an exclusive preview of Dark Horse&apos;s BioWare: Stories and Secrets From 25 Years of Game Development.\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-2277167929 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/franchises-like-mass-effect-are-a-prestige-project-for-ea-and-biowares-closure-was-entirely-predictable-analysts-say.gif\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">It&#8217;s a point backed up by MST Financial analyst David Gibson. \u201cI think the closing is a combination of factors: EA going private and needing to improve returns and margins to fund large debt, high relative costs in the West (versus Asia, etc.) to develop AAA games, and role playing games like Mass Effect not doing enough sales to be profitable enough,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">\u201cIt appears there were many other games in development using IP which were also scrapped. I would hope a small and nimble studio would acquire some of the IP and make great games that users love and that contain innovation, rather than repeat the same stuff. EA has a history of making a series of games that are just not fun to play or contain innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Whether or not EA ends up selling off BioWare\u2019s IP remains to be seen. Former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah is more optimistic about this possibility than he was previously, but remains skeptical, saying EA could be just as likely to \u201cforget they ever existed and bury them in the vault.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">We have much more on the dramatic news of BioWare&#8217;s closure, including reaction from fans and the video game industry, and IGN&#8217;s Ryan McCaffrey on why BioWare was the greatest RPG developer ever.<\/p>\n<section class=\"author-sign-off\" data-cy=\"author-sign-off\"><span class=\"stack jsx-59817748 jsx-1927875859\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"rounded jsx-444076027 jsx-1730475047 profile-thumb jsx-2141281959 aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-1-1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Virginia Glaze Avatar\" class=\"progressive-image profile-thumb-img jsx-249361588 jsx-2338608387 expand\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/franchises-like-mass-effect-are-a-prestige-project-for-ea-and-biowares-closure-was-entirely-predictable-analysts-say.jpg\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"stack jsx-2509706801 jsx-3630940851\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"interface jsx-1132626198 sign-off-text\">\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\"><em>Virginia (she\/her) is IGN\u2019s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she\u2019s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at <\/em>@TheeMissGlaze<em>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/span><\/section>\n<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/franchises-like-mass-effect-are-a-prestige-project-for-ea-and-biowares-closure-was-entirely-predictable-analysts-say-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/franchises-like-mass-effect-are-a-prestige-project-for-ea-and-biowares-closure-was-entirely-predictable-analysts-say-1.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/franchises-like-mass-effect-are-a-prestige-project-for-ea-and-biowares-closure-was-entirely-predictable-analysts-say-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/franchises-like-mass-effect-are-a-prestige-project-for-ea-and-biowares-closure-was-entirely-predictable-analysts-say-1.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-15798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-49","tag-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15800,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15798\/revisions\/15800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}