Bioware Montreal - Merging with Motive Studios

[HiddenX]

TechRaptor reports that BioWare Montreal, the development team behind Mass Effect: Andromeda, is merging with Motive Studios:

BioWare Montreal Merging with Motive Studios

The news was circulating for the past few days that Electronic Arts, the parent company of both studios, would go forward with a merger. Previous reports noted a statement made by CFO Blake Jorgensen during the quarterly EA conference call (transcript here), where he stated that the BioWare Montreal team and the EA Motive team are now in the same studio together.

“We’re building out a new studio in Montreal, as we’ve told everyone. And we’ve hired over 100 people into that studio that are brand-new to EA. This is to build the new IP around Jade Raymond’s team that she’s been building. I was in that studio last month. And it’s a wonderful new addition to our team. And we brought our BioWare Montreal team into that same facility. So they now all sit in one new studio together,” stated Jorgensen.

An official EA spokesperson informed us that the statement is indeed true, and the two teams will be merging.

“The teams in EA Worldwide Studios are packed with talent, and more than ever, we’re driving collaboration between studios on key projects. With multiple major projects in development in Montreal, we are merging BioWare Montreal with Motive Studios. This is an ongoing process, but there are many exciting roles and opportunities for everyone on the team.”

BioWare continues its work on new titles – including the highly-anticipated game, Anthem. What’s coming next for BioWare is very exciting, and we’re thrilled to have Casey Hudson returning to lead the studios in Edmonton and Austin.”

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More information.

 

[rjshae]

Internal re-org.? Seems like a 'meh'.

 

[ChaosTheory]

So... Better oversight on projects and/or less overhead. Anything else to read into this?

 

[Stingray]

So… Better oversight on projects and/or less overhead. Anything else to read into this?

What you have to read into it is that BioWare Montreal is now dead. They killed it off, and merged its remaining employees into EA Motive. The EA press release uses careful wording to avoid sounding negative about anything, but the confirmation is at the end: "we’re thrilled to have Casey Hudson returning to lead the studios in Edmonton and Austin". Note only Edmonton and Austin are mentioned - that's all that remains of BioWare now.

So it's confirmed now, Mass Effect: Andromeda was bad enough to kill an entire studio.

 

[Silver]

So it's confirmed now, Mass Effect: Andromeda was bad enough to kill an entire studio.

Could EA have a better motive?

 

[Stingray]

Could EA have a better motive?

Nope, and they also now have a bigger Motive. :lol:

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

So it's confirmed now, Mass Effect: Andromeda was bad enough to kill an entire studio.

Well, to me, that's a reason why I would buy it.
It would be my first ME game, then, and therefore, my experience would be a lot different than that of the fans.