The gaming community has become increasingly disgruntled with EA over the past few years. Shutting down BioWare, the beloved development studio behind Mass Effect, was the straw that broke the camel’s back, causing an uproar on social media platforms and leading some fans to take action in the real world.
Gamers feared for the future of several development studios following EA’s buyout involving Saudi Arabia’s private investment fund, Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, and private equity firm Silver Lake. A former EA manager foresaw the closure, but players were still appalled when it became official in October. Despite recent failures, BioWare was the studio that developed some of EA’s most iconic video games, such as the Mass Effect trilogy, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and the Dragon Age series.
It was painful to see BioWare being shut down, especially knowing that the studio had been working on Mass Effect Universe, the next installment in the series, for over half a decade. As more news about the canceled game surfaced, fans’ discontent only grew. Each new detail that came out seemed to fuel their fire, leading to petitions and protests, both offline and online.
Fan builds tombstones for each studio shut down by EA
For Halloween, a displeased fan decided to set up a graveyard outside the EA offices in their town. The graveyard wasn’t created only to honor BioWare, the last to be affected; it was created in memory of the several development studios shut down by Electronic Arts. There were tombstones for Bullfrog, Pandemic, Visceral, Westwood, Origin, and Maxis (heavily restructured), as the creator said they ran out of time to make more. These studios were behind beloved games, such as Destroy All Humans!, Star Wars: Battlefront, Dungeon Keeper, Ultima, SimCity, Theme Park, Spore, and many more.
Each tombstone featured the studio’s logo, establishment and closure dates, a meaningful quote, and “RIP” at the top in large print. The quote for BioWare is: “It had to be Me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.” This is an iconic quote from character Mordin Solus in Mass Effect 3, but it also represents the legacy of the studio that helped define what modern RPGs are.
This is just one of the many examples of fans trying to make their voices heard. In Madrid, someone spray-painted “Save Mass Effect” right outside of the EA office building — no doubt a player who prefers Renegade runs.
While in New York City, fans chose the Paragon route and bought a “save Mass Effect” billboard in Times Square. The reach of fan outcries is more expansive than many would’ve thought. However, even if EA has noticed the protests and pleas, it remains silent. EA sees Star Wars as a more reliable franchise for a sci-fi action game, so it’s unlikely that it will go back on its decision. Nevertheless, it is beautiful to see the gaming community come together and fight for what they believe in.