Comment on Electronic Arts to Cut 400 Jobs, Shut Down BioWare
MrOtingocni@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Pretty interesting that both Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka (the two remaining co-founders by the time of the EA acquisition) both bailed at the same time in 2012. After quite a number of lead developers and writers jumped ship.
So, it took 5 years of trying to tough it out under corporate ownership before they were like ‘this is bullshit, let’s go’.
And BioWare, who made so many great titles, didn’t produce anything particularly noteworthy after that.
David_Eight@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Staying was probably in their contract. Its pretty common when a company is bought out that selling ownership stay for X amount of years after so the company doesn’t just instantly nose dive.
MrOtingocni@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Yup, and there’s a little quid pro quo, too: You have to stay but they make you president in the corporate structure over the acquisition and probably get stock offerings. Kind of expected, but I’m sure it’s nice to be able to say you’re a senior VP or whatever in a much bigger company.
They were just counting down the days for when their contracts were up.
Kind of a shame but also understandable. You put your life, blood sweat and tears, all the overtime, every waking moment, to build something and if the opportunity to cash out arrives they almost always take it. Otherwise they’re just riding the wolf by the ears until they crash from burnout.