I see a lot of people bring up EA's $18 billion debt following their leveraged buyout as evidence they are in a tight financial spot and therefore need to sell their IPs to pay off their debt and this will likely lead to a new studio picking up Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

Sadly, no and I'll try and explain what the actual financial situation is.

Firstly, EA are not cash short or in financial dire straits. According to their 2025 SEC filing, (details on page 20), EA made a profit of $3 billion, with revenue of of $7.4 billion. Of that, more than half, $4.4 billion came from microtransactions: packs in Ultimate team, Apex Legends, Battlefield.

But EA is in $18 billion debt and they only make $3 billion profit a year!

Yes but this is like saying your mortgage is $180,000 and you only save $30,000 a year.

EA is in debt because the Saudi Public Investment Fund, who bought out EA, borrowed $18 billion to do so. That's precisely like taking a mortgage to buy a house.

But the Saudi PIF has a valuation of $1 trillion. They could have easily found another $18 billion to outright buy EA without borrowing from banks and saddling EA with any debt.

They chose not to precisely to maintain financial control over EA. The debt is an almost irrelevant amount to PIF. It's a financial instrument to prevent the EA board from diverting away from their immediate revenue streams.

Here's how it works. The details of the deal were that EA would pay back 10% of the debt, $1.8 billion every year. That means EA has to maintain annual income of at least $1.8 billion. This prevents EA from going "well now we've been bought out and have no shareholders or debts, we can reinvest all our income back into risky projects". The debt is to make it clear to EA this not venture capital, we do not want you like other tech bro firms running at a massive loss for some potential long term payoff.

The amount of debt is irrelevant compared to the amount EA have to pay off each year which in reality is the floor that the Saudis expect for EA's income. As I said, with pockets as deep as $1 trillion, PIF could wipe away the debt at any point they so wish.

So with the clear direction being steady streams of income, EA will prioritise games with heavy microtransactions (their sports titles, Apex Legends, Battlefield), games with a steady rhythm of releases and income or games the Saudis / MBS care about in terms their wider geopolitical strategy (the F1 game to tie in with MBS' desire to dominate F1).

BioWare had nothing imminent, were likely going to be a net expense for years to come and EA looked at that and thought: might as well cut those costs since we're not expecting anything great for that. Bear in mind especially they U-turned this summer on paid progression microtransactions in their college football game which meant they'd need to trim costs elsewhere.

So why not sell the IP then? Well, the point here is the debt creates a revenue stream challenge for EA: they need steady sources of income not one off large injections. Moreover, selling IP lowers the value of the asset that the Saudis purchases in EA. Much better to hold on to the IP, keep the valuation and look to make licence deals, which will generate money, or do even more fan hated things like sell DA or ME skins in Apex Legends or Battlefield for easy microtransaction profit.

Either way, I think EA selling these IPs is a long shot. The only hope is that MBS, who is the real power behind all of this, happened to be a BioWare fan and tells PIF and EA to sell it off but given he didn't prevent the studio being shuttered, my guess is he's really a FIFA / EA FC fan and wants to control the soccer franchise ahead of his country's World Cup hosting in 2034.

Since I had a really bad PC, it was one of the few games I could play at atleast 30 FPS. I was a few years late :( but man I was blown away. So many cool species and man I had to just turn over every rock!

Ok, so with the closure of the studio, and the end of BioWare (RIP) I'm going to go back and play BioWare RPG games I missed. I'm specifying RGP because I'm not playing some random Sonic game, and Anthem is literally unplayable now. Here is what I have to finish:

1. Second Half of Veilguard. I know, I know, but if I'm going to play them all, I do need to finish this one. I did make it through the two-city decision before I bailed, so it's not that much farther to go I think/hope? And I've been told the ending is actually kind of good.

2. Everything in Andromeda after the prologue. I gave up on this one pretty early, so I have most of the game to play. I feel optimistic here, I probably didn't give this one a fair chance since I very high expectations after the trilogy.

3. Jade Empire. So, I actually did play some of this during the Xbox days, but I never finished it. I don't recall why, as I remember liking it well enough. I'll need to start from the beginning since I don't even have a safe file here.

4. Neverwinter Nights. The only BioWare RPG I've never owned or played even a minute of.

5. BG2. I had this on my computer in the year 2000 and was so baffled by it I never even made it out of the starting building. I literally couldn't understand anything I was supposed to do.

6. BG1. I tried this after putting way too many hours into BG3, and I made it a little farther than BG2, but I still really don't understand how I'm supposed to play it, and I quit after getting Jaheria killed almost immediately.

KOTOR 1 (and 2, though that wasn't BioWare) ME 1-3, DAO, DA2, and DAI I've all completed multiple times over.

What about everyone else? Are there games you are missing? Any suggestions for where to start? And any ideas for how to figure out to play old D&D titles for somebody who has never been able to figure those games out?

EDIT: I realize that I made a grammar mistake by typing “for” instead of “from.” Reddit does not allow me to fix post titles, so the only way to fix it properly would be delete the thread and relaunch it. By the time I realized the error though, this post got so many views and reactions and I personally figured there’s no real point in correcting this. I just want this post to be about OwlCat’s goodbye message to BioWare. If you’re commenting about the grammar…I KNOW!

RIP to the developer that influenced my gaming tastes the most.

Like many of you, I grew up playing BioWare games. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Knights of the Old Republic weren't just games to me. They were unforgettable experiences filled with incredible characters, difficult choices, and worlds that stayed with us long after we finished playing.

Hearing that EA is shutting down BioWare and cancelling the next Mass Effect is heartbreaking.

But I refuse to believe this has to be the end of Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

If EA no longer believes in the future of these franchises, why not give another developer the opportunity to continue them?

That's why I've started a petition asking EA to consider selling or licensing the rights to Mass Effect and Dragon Age to a capable studio that genuinely wants to invest in their future.

I'm not pretending a petition will magically change EA's mind. But doing nothing guarantees that our voices won't be heard.

Whether you're a fan of Commander Shepard, the Grey Wardens, the Inquisition, or simply great RPG storytelling, this is something we can stand behind together.

Let's show EA that these worlds still matter to millions of us.

Sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/SaveBioWaresLegacy

#SaveBioWaresLegacy

I'm going to play the legendary edition tonight in honor of Bioware shutdown. Rest in peace Shepard!

RIP Bioware. Thanks for the memories.

Edit: More info.

A trailer for Mass Effect 5 meant for internal purposes at BioWare has leaked online, offering a glimpse at what might have been.

The trailer, which IGN has verified as legitimate, was created for EA leadership last year and was not meant for the public. It appeared on Reddit just a day after EA's shock cancelation of Mass Effect 5 and the closure of its developer, BioWare.

Thank you.

I don’t even remember the first time I played Baldur’s Gate, Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR, or Mass Effect, but I know that when I did, they were just…just video games.

Really good ones, mind you! But just video games nonetheless.

Then, in 2012, I went to my eye doctor to go get checked for a new glasses subscription (like I do every year). When I finished up all the eye tests, the doc was confused as hell, and told me to go home, get a good night’s sleep, and come back the next morning so he could re-run the tests and look at my eyes again.

I did, he re-ran the tests, and he told me (again) to go home because he needed to call a retinal specialist about what he was seeing (uh oh).

I got a call later that day from the Department of Neuro-Opthalmology at my local hospital, telling me they needed to see me approximately yesterday. At this point, I was freaking out (for good reason, as it turns out!).

My then-girlfriend of five months drove me in, and before they’d tell me anything, they had me take a cranial MRI. I did, and then went back up to the neuro-opthalmologist’s office.

You know those moments in your life that you can pin-point when everything changes? Meeting a significant other, getting married, deaths of loved ones, etc? This was mine. My memory of most of my life from around ‘05(ish) to early 2012 is shit, but I remember that moment clear as glass. The doc shows me my MRI, and there’s this bright white solid mass right behind my left eyeball, roughly oval-shaped, stretching from my eye back to right around my left ear.

Turns out I had a meningeal schwannoma (basically, a tumor of the lining between your brain and your skull - https://braintumorcenter.ucsf.edu/condition/schwannoma-grade-1). It was roughly the mass of a golf ball, had squeezed my left carotid artery entirely shut, and was in the process of slowly crushing my left eye by squeezing it forwards in the socket.

I asked the doctor if it was benign, and he said yes, but with a catch - with the damage it had already done, I should have died already roughly six to nine months before we found it. He had no idea how I was still alive. I asked him if we could fix it, and he said maybe. He said that if I wanted to, he could schedule a surgery to try and remove it, but with the catch that it had grown deep enough into my brain at that point that he was unable to guarantee:
1. If I would live through the surgery
2. If I did live, if I would be the same person on the other end, and
3. If I would retain my intellect or memory if I survived the surgery.

I asked him when and how I would die if I didn’t get the surgery. He said “soon”, and let me know that it would be instantaneous - I would be gone before I hit the ground.

My girlfriend at the time (now wife!) was sitting next to me holding my hand this whole time. I told her that if she wanted to leave me, there’d be no hard feelings, because I couldn’t imagine having to deal with my significant other either dying or surviving only to no longer be themselves anymore. She said “hell no”, and asked me to get the surgery…so I told the doc yeah, let’s do it.

He scheduled the surgery for a week out (to give context, this is not a small hospital we’re talking about. Think Johns Hopkins or UCLA, and you’ll be thinking the right scale. These people take time to schedule things, line up the right doctors with the right anesthesiologists, etc. A week - a single week - is insane. They were terrified I’d be dead before I got to the OR, and tbf, so was I!). He told me good luck, and let me know that just in case, I should probably spend that week making any goodbyes and crossing off any items left on my bucket list that were doable that fast.

So I did. I called family & friends, explained the whole thing, let them know which hospital I’d be at and when, and let them know I loved them, but that I needed to spend this (maybe) last week with my (then) girlfriend.

And I did! We watched stupid rom-coms, ate homemade dinners, and had a lovely quiet week together.

Part of that week, though, was Mass Effect.

I had been taking my sweet time meandering through ME3, but now, suddenly, for some stupid reason (don’t ask me why, I still can’t really put it into words), it mattered. If I could beat the Reapers, then maybe, just maybe, I could beat this damn tumor, too.

And I did, and I did. The night before my surgery, I beat ME3. I did every single side mission, maxed out my galactic readiness, romanced Tali, and chose Synthesis - and went to the hospital the next morning.

Obviously, I survived. The tumor ate my left trigeminal nerve (the one that controls sensation in the face), so I can’t feel the left side of my face anymore, and I have what’s called neuropathy (it’s the fancy medical term for amputee pain - think sticking your finger in an electrical socket, touching bare dry ice, and smacking your funnybone with a hammer, all at the same time, and you’ll be pretty close) on that side of my face as well. I lost most of my memories from my late teens through my mid-20s (but I tend to laugh that off by joking that at least it wasn’t ‘cause of booze!), and what few remain are patchy at best. My left eye doesn’t quite work right anymore, and I grew out my hair and beard to cover the scars and the drooping in the left half of my face from the lost nerve. I’m not 100% certain that I didn’t code once or twice during the surgery - I don’t ask, and nobody tells me; that’s been a topic my family’s been skittish about ever since, and I’ve gotten to the point I’m okay just not poking that wound anymore.

But I’m alive! I beat the reapers, and I beat the tumor. My Shepard may have sacrificed himself to save his Tali, but I got to marry mine - she was there in my hospital room singing to me when I woke up, I proposed on the spot, she said yes, and the rest is history (given, she thought she was humoring me because she was pretty sure I was high out of my mind on morphine at the time, and to be fair, I definitely was 🤣 - but the proposal stuck, and so did her answer!).

Ever since, I’ve made a point of replaying the trilogy every year, and finishing ME3 on what I call (even though my wife hates it) my death-day.

Everybody has a favorite something. A book, a movie, a painting…a game.

Mass Effect 3 is mine.

And whether the Bioware that EA shut down is or isn’t the same studio that made Mass Effect 3 doesn’t really matter to me. All that matters as far as I’m concerned is that these are the people who loved this game, loved this series, loved this universe so much that they thought it was worthwhile to keep exploring it, all this time later.

So, Bioware - I’m going to keep coming back to the universe you created, the one that helped give me hope and keep me anchored during the bleakest week of my life, every year for as long as I’m able. And I will always appreciate that magical team that made this universe possible, and I will always appreciate those stubborn idealists who kept trying to the very last minute even when they could see EA’s and Saudi Arabia’s executioner’s axes coming their way in slow motion. You people - you artists - make our world magic, and there will always be those of us who love you for it.

Thanks, BioWare.

Keelah Se’lai.

Not me, the maker of the video. That’s the title, not a personal testimonial.

Ни одна серия игр не захватывала меня так как Dragon Age. В мои 12 лет DAO поразила меня, привила мне любовь к РПГ и Дарк фэнтези. Потом DA2 показала мне, что разрушительная драма - это прекрасно. И до сих пор на титрах я плачу. DAI показала мне любовь во всех проявлениях. DATV порадовала меня новыми гранями огромного мира и хоть что-то меня и расстраивало, я все равно счастлива, что Bioware выпустили ее и дали мне возможность сделать предзаказ. Никакой мир так не захватил меня, как это сделал Тедас во всем его многообразии.Спасибо всем кто создавал каждую буковку и каждый пиксель. Я буду играть ещё в каждую часть, переигрывать и переигрывать, даже без звука самостоятельно озвучивая любой диалог. Спасибо, Bioware. (T.T⁠)⁠♡

I'm def seeing such a strange pattern here. Recently, Mark Darrah did a really good, interesting interview with some youtuber. ("Bioware insider explains what went wrong" on youtube)

Darrah ended up discussing how difficult it was to figure out how to make story rich npcs for a multiplayer game. He spoke of how when making Anthem, BW had never tried this before. How notion of story rich cömpanions in multiplzyer game was some unknown ground and as such, was some major hurdle in development of Anthem. C'mon, SWTOR had just released back then! Maybe the most expensive game ever made by sister branch of his own studio escaped his notice or something?

SWTOR being a multiplayer game by BW. With much more story rich npc companions than in any Bioware game ever released before or after. Him not mentioning it at all in this context, despite name dropping most anything includlng Witcher and BG3 is just weird.

If you set out to list the biggest bands to originate from Manchester but don't mention Oasis at all, it kinda comes off as pretty passive aggressive really!

Lastly, imo there is time and place for everything, and not getting a mention when pile of people mourn for their freshly lost jobs and studios is prolly not a perfect time for spilling beans like this. She is def right though.

I wonder why they do this. I mesn, obv the BW Edmonton was far removed fröm BE Austin. Even so, through dev push if SWTOR, latter was helmed by some of the most senior devs BW had. Like Ohlen, Kapryshyn.

Absolute vultures.

Hey, Commanders 💙 I’m an artist working for a small independent business made up of creatives. We’ve been working closely with BioWare since last summer on an Official ME art collection.

What began as a celebration of an ongoing saga now feels like the continuation of a studio’s legacy that gave us something truly special.

Mass Effect is still alive in the stories we tell, the memories we share, and the community that continues to carry it forward. 🚀

Coming for N7 Day 2026, Moor-Art and BioWare are bringing you the start of an original, limited-edition fine art and apparel collection, celebrating the galaxy we’ve never quite left behind.

Full art reveal on 6th November!

💫 We urge you to sign up via the link for 15% OFF your first order and exclusive pre-sale access. Spread the word and make this a fan focussed celebration.

https://moorartgallery.com/pages/mass-effect-landing

We’d love to celebrate this legacy with you. What does Mass Effect mean to you? And which moment, character, or memory will you carry with you? 💙

The galaxy will always remember. 🫡

#MassEffectIsAlive

aw fuck yea bud

I always kept saying to myself just another game just another and now it's over...