EA Games Buys Bioware

I was sorry to read the newspaper and find out that Bioware, makers of such Dungeons & Dragons computer games as Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, has been bought out by EA. In theory, it could mean more money to develop a better RPG for the computer, but that's just a theory at this point. I wish them luck.

Unfortunately, I don't expect much. Neverwinter Nights is now with Obsidian and Atari in the form of Neverwinter Nights 2. I have it, but I don't have the computer capability to play it. Another thing I hate about these companies. They seem to make games for these super systems that they have, but many people don't.

RPG's will live on in the computer game world. Fact is, they are big business. Do some number crunching, and you realize just how much money they make. What made Bioware special was they put out quality products. BG kicked the door open, but NWN rearranged the place. Suddenly, you had these persistent worlds on the net that you didn't have to pay a monthly fee to be a part of.

There was a lot of creativity out there too. Before I played the game that came with NWN, I actually downloaded somebody's version of Palace of the Silver Princess (The old B3 Mod for Basic D&D). Good stuff there.

They guys at Bioware just had a big payday, I would suppose. Congratulations to them for that. But, EA does not impress me with their tactics. I'll spare you the political rhetoric, but they did make a mess out of the online Sim Racing community by getting exclusive rights to the NASCAR license.

If they had made the game right, I suppose it would not have mattered. As it was, they ran the company that did make it the right way out of business by getting the exclusive rights. Then, they released what many consider a pile of crap called NASCAR Sim Racing. In less than a year, the landscape changed because of that, and not for the better. And, no, the community did NOT embrace that game.

Instead they went in a different direction with a more attractive game that's harder on the computer. Had EA not come in and screwed that up, the company that was doing it the right way could have continued their progression and continued to make the community happy as they had been. EA wasn't content to be one license holder for NASCAR, hey had to monopolize things, and do it half ass to boot.

They basically killed it for me as far as being involved. In a way, they did me a favor, but it a way I'm still pissed off at them.

Nothing EA does would surprise me. Could they suddenly want to tack a crack at the D&D license? I'm not familiar enough with this to know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me. I know Wizards has D&D 4.0 coming out and has not made any licensing deals for it yet, or so developers have recently said. With that in mind, anything is possible. Considering what EA has done to Sim Racing, I can only imagine the huge dump they would take on role playing games if given that chance.