Electronic Arts’ purchases are a two way street

The news that BioWare and Pandemic studios were both recently acquired by Electronic Arts is a big deal to gamers out there. If it isn’t to you, I question why you are reading this.

Either way, this is a key moment for the future of the videogame industry. Whether that future will be good or bad is debatable.

EA’s acquisitions of two young and promising development companies is likely a response to the merging of Activision and Vivendi Games to form a new powerhouse in Activision Blizzard. What made the moves different is Activision Blizzard was a true merger, EA simply bought intellectual property.

BioWare, the creators of Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Pandemic, the team behind Mercenaries, Destroy All Humans, and Star Wars Battlefront, both have some major projects that they are working on. EA now owns the rights to publish and make profit from future games like Mercenaries 2, Saboteur, and Jade Empire 2. They now have the rights to amazing intellectual property, and two of the best developers in the business.

Worse yet, EA also has the ability to control what BioWare and Pandemic create. Half of the reason these two studios have come to prominence is due to their innovation. If Electronic Arts decides to stifle those creative forces, they may have just wasted their money.

We see EA’s in house studios regurgatate its sports games every year (Madden only sees significant changes every 4 years or so). The Burnout series has started to, well, burn out. EA Sports Big has produced sequel after sequel, with the quality of the games deteriorating over time. Not to mention the Medal of Honor series, which has fallen to superior WWII shooters in Brothers in Arms and Call of Duty, both made by rival companies.

However, there are times where EA has helped those who produce unique experiences share them with the world. Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath was a fantastic, quirky and creative game without a publisher until EA stepped in last second to put the game out on the original Xbox. The Orange Box would have never made its way to the PS3 without EA. Crysis took the PC gaming world by storm, with much due to EA for publishing a game that has such insane hardware demands.

This is where the line is drawn. Does EA force it’s newest development teams to create endless sequels to Mass Effect and Mercenaries, therefore running those series in to the ground much like Burnout? Does EA step back and let BioWare and Pandemic do their thing and just be there to distribute it to a mass audience?

Say what you will about Electronic Arts and their business ethics, but the only way to get the most out of Pandemic and BioWare is to be their publisher, not their developer.

- Drew Quandt | Online Editor