Rumour: EA could sell off BioWare and several franchises
The company had to take out large loans in connection with the acquisition, and that money has to be repaid.
As we recently reported, the Saudi acquisition of EA has now gone through, and the company is thus entirely privately owned, with fairly substantial debt. This is money that will need to be repaid and ideally generate a substantial profit, and now Mike Straw from the reliable Insider Gaming reports a sell-off of less profitable assets could be on the horizon.
Among other things, he speculates BioWare might be on the chopping block, along with its game series Dragon Age and Mass Effect. He also believes we can expect massive layoffs in the near future, a point that Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier has also touched on.
It seems unlikely BioWare could buy itself out on the same terms as some of Microsoft's studios did, since BioWare hardly has the resources to do so. But unfortunately, it's anyone's guess who in today's gaming industry would be interested in an RPG studio that hasn't produced any major hits in a long time.
Is there any major publisher you think could help BioWare return to its former glory?
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