Bethesda's Parent Company GOBBLES id Software, BioWare COMBINES with Mythic

[Sabretooth]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/92642-BioWare-and-Mythic-Merge-Mark-Jacobs-Leaves

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/92641-ZeniMax-Media-Acquires-id-Software

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/~3/x747irQ-aR0/ea-combines-mythic-and-bioware-into-a-giant-rpg-robot

http://feeds.joystiq.com/~r/weblogsinc/joystiq/~3/p9dUqU_zghE/

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GamasutraNews/~3/5qgV96Ck6lc/news_index.php

 

WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

[JediAthos]

Just EA consolidating their new toys

[Boba Rhett]

OH SHI

[DarthParametric]

It's Bioware Austin they are merging with Mythic. That was never really Bioware to start with, being essentially an entirely new studio they started up with mostly brand new people to develop TOR.

 

ZeniMax buying id is certainly out of left field. Maybe now Bethesda can ditch the god-awful Gamebryo and move to id Tech 5.

[jrrtoken]

Well, there goes the neighborhood.

 

Maybe Bethesda can actually make realistic facial animations with id Tech 5 now, rather than those zombies that stare into your soul.

 

Either way, that leaves us with one last high-calibre RPG developer which hasn't been assimilated bought out yet. Hopefully AP will sell well and Obsidian won't have to rely on IP loans anymore, so that they won't get too attached to Bethesda or BioWare.

[Miltiades]

I don't think the doctors at BioWare were expecting that. I hope it's not a sign that things will get worse. I've also read people saying it doesn't actually have any upsides, but we'll see.

 

I'm not that into Bethesda or id, but it's strange news indeed.

[Hallucination]

The idea of Bioware merging with an MMO mill revolts Watson.

[mur'phon]

As DP said, it's only the TOR part getting merged, which imo is a good idea considering that Mythic is quite good at MMOs (especially the PvP part).

 

@Pastrami: Bioware is still alive (at least for now), but since you seem not to be too keen on them, CD Projekt Red.

[EnderWiggin]

Wow.

 

_EW_

[jrrtoken]

@Pastrami: Bioware is still alive (at least for now)' date='[/quote']They've been bought out by EA, so they're not truly independent.

but since you seem not to be too keen on them, CD Projekt Red.

Yeah, forgot about them.

[mur'phon]

They've been bought out by EA, so they're not truly independent.

 

True, but I have always thought of Bioware as a maker of good rpg's not revolutionary ones, and as such I'm not sure if their mariage with EA is so terrible.

[DarthParametric]

I don't think the doctors at BioWare were expecting that.

Both are EA VPs and Muzyka is running the newly merged studio, so I'm pretty sure they had an inkling. If you sell your soul to the devil I think you probably know what you are signing up for. It's not like they didn't have plenty of prior examples, what with Bullfrog, Westwood, Origin, etc. Despite EA's protestations of a change in management and no longer planning to merge purchased studios, I think it's probably inevitable that Bioware Edmonton (i.e the real Bioware) will eventually be subsumed into some bland mega-studio. First though you'll probably see their Montreal studio get the chop. I don't know much about that, but I suspect it was started to handle handheld games, much like Austin was started for MMOs.

[Miltiades]

Well, perhaps in their excitement in getting all that funding, and with EA's promises and with BioWare's successes, they didn't think they had anything to fear. But yeah, inevitably, it's going to happen.