Pandemic of Ware-iness ElevEAted
You don’t need me to tell you the news about BioWare being sold to EA. I think a few people might already know and have a thing or two to say about it (thanks to Shwayder for digging up the links).
When reached for comment, a BioWare forum moderator had this to say:
One anguished community member was quick to point out a paragraph from the 2005 press release when Elevation, BioWare, and Pandemic became one big, happy family:
“Some developers have chosen the path of selling to publishers, and that’s a viable path,” [Pandemic co-founder Josh] Resnick told GameSpot. “We have specifically chosen not to go down that route because it was important for us to maintain our independence. You know we really look for inspiration in companies like Pixar, because they’re able to remain independent from distribution partners and increase their focus on creating great products.”
Independence is a wonderful thing.
All this must be kept in perspective, of course. The reputation of EA as a gaming monolith doesn’t seem to diminish their sales of Madden or a number of other successful franchises. And surely the company has turned out a huge number of high-quality products over the years.
All this sound and fury is more a testament to the emotional bond players have developed toward BioWare, a company known for its amazing games. The angst coming out in forum posts is not in reaction to the particulars over some financial arrangement, but rather over the fear that BioWare will no longer be free to make the quality gaming experiences so many of us love. And there’s really nothing any forum mod or business suit is going to be able to say to ease those fears, because as human beings we thrive on worrying about things that may or may not happen, especially when they are totally out of our control.
The only person in the gaming world who got a great night’s sleep last night was John Smedley, who, after carefully analyzing the situation, came to the conclusion that for once a controversy happened for which he could not be blamed.
(re smeds sleep):
Smedley’s Law States that:
Somewhere on the net in relation to any major online gaming news there is at least X forum posts that lay blame for day Y’s major gaming announcement on soe, and at least min[x/1.5] of these posts will have a minimum part of atleast one of the following phrases in it:
a.) “we all remember the NGE”
b.) “I played EQ for 6 years so I know what..”
c.) “blah blah blah polish blah blah”
where as X = the (current number of SOE titles) % (current employees with a homophone of the word ‘guard’ in their handle)
Also I found this interesting. I know that usually ends up being the way it works, but still interesting none the less.
[...] so everyone will have to play this by ear. Whatever the case, more than a few players reacted pretty quickly to the announcement. GameSpot has [...]