As reported by IGN, veteran actors Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer, who voiced the female and male Commanders Shepard in Mass Effect, respectively, directly addressed fans of the series in an October 21 Instagram Live. The two reflected on BioWare, and commiserated over its tragic fate. Here are some highlights from each I pulled from the stream:
“I feel weirdly hopeful, and I can’t explain why. I feel for the employees who are suddenly unemployed. That is the number one thing on my mind. Those beautiful team members who are looking for a new home.
“One of the things that has my heart kind of hopeful is that, when I heard about the sale of [EA] some time ago to [The Saudi Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner], I don’t know that they are fans of these IPs, and if they get the gold that they have in their hands.
“It’s really hard to think about BioWare being shut down, but it was in the hands of ownership that may not have understood what BioWare fully is. And I’m hopeful that maybe, there might be some crazy thing where they decide that. in order to increase their profit margins—which is often their priority—they will release these IPs into the market to sell them, and use that to do what they do, which is increase their profit margins. But maybe, someone could grab hold of these IPs and do something with them.
“I don’t know if that’s possible, but that’s where my heart sits. You never know. Heck, let’s do a community-based Kickstarter—raise the money, take it over, and do it ourselves. Anything’s possible.
“It’s wild to watch the consolidation of the industry. Companies are consuming companies are consuming companies. Now they’re just these big blobs, and the blobs are beginning to implode. It’s not necessarily driven by a creative motive. They’re driven by a profit motive. That’s their motive, they get to have that.
“But when that cell implodes on itself, all those parts of the cell go out into the world, and they get to reseed somewhere. I just don’t feel like it’s done. That version of it is done, but the original version of it was done some time ago.”
“It is very sad news … It is a massive loss for Edmonton, for Canada, and for the video game industry in general. It’s very unfortunate to see. And of course, I feel very bad as well for all of the fans.
“BioWare was an Edmonton company. It meant a lot to the acting community in Edmonton. There was this major videogame company that was producing games right there in the prairies, in our city.
“I’ve been talking to fans, and some people were quite distraught—understandably. The thing is, Mass Effect is going to be around as long as the fans keep it alive … Speaking for myself, as long as people keep tagging me in their cosplay pics, or sending me fanart, or tagging me in their fanart, I’ll continue to [share it].
“We’re still going to be celebrating N7 Day this year … We will come together.
“Next year is the 20th anniversary of the release of Mass Effect 1 … We might not have corporate support behind us, but we’re going to be celebrating the 20th anniversary next year.”
Both actors’ reactions strike me as so characteristic of their respective backgrounds: Hale is one of the voices of videogames (not to diminish Meer’s own extensive resume). She jumped to BioWare’s place in the industry and its current crisis. Meer, a standby of the Edmonton theater and improv scene, fixated on the closure’s effects on this city he clearly loves.
Both are 100% correct about the collective joy and meaning people found in BioWare’s work. That’s something private equity can’t take from us—at least not with current technology.
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As for Hale’s optimism regarding the rights and potential future of the franchise, well, I Want To Believe. Not to obnoxiously needle what seemed like an offhand idea, but I don’t think Kickstarter’s walking through that door. Aside from Double Fine’s Broken Age and the utterly baffling case of Star Citizen, many gaming crowdfunding successes—like Pillars of Eternity and Wasteland 2—still required further, traditional investment to go gold. BioWare and/or its IP would be orders of magnitude more expensive.
There’s also precedent to look back on: EA has not done anything with Ultima in over 20 years. Many people don’t realize this series was foundational to the development of both Japanese and Western-style RPGs, as EA’s poor stewardship has allowed it to almost completely fade from our collective memory.
But I think we’re all still waiting on a hero, a man on horseback, and the only riders with deep enough pockets to intervene here are billionaires, other companies on the scale of EA, or the state. With other publicly-traded companies, you’d risk replicating what BioWare went through under EA. I would love it if the Canadian government stepped in, nationalized BioWare, what have you, but it feels like a pipe dream.
The only semi-plausible happy ending I can picture looks like what happened to The Onion: A benevolent/eccentric super-rich guy steps in to save the day with little concern for profitability. Does anyone know one who enjoys RPGs (or immersive sims, for that matter)?
