EA has quickly regained its place as the number one villain in gaming between the Saudi Arabia buyout and closing down BioWare. Almost 300,000 fans have petitioned to #SaveMassEffect in the weeks since, and one fan even spray-painted the campaign’s slogan in front of the company’s Madrid office. But the most poignant protest against EA’s decades of mismanagement yet is a mural outside its Vancouver headquarters to all the studios it has killed.
“So, with the passing of BioWare, a little something something in me snapped,” u/Xveers posted to the r/Gaming subreddit. “We’ve had EA offices in town for years… decades. But this year, with the timing, I decided that maybe, maybe a little more should be done. So a day of cutting, painting, printing and taping ended with this little display getting set up outside their offices.”
There’s a grave for:
- BioWare (1995-2026)
- Bullfrog (1987-2001)
- Pandemic (1988-2009)
- Origin (1983-2004)
- Visceral (1998-2017)
- Maxis (1987-present, though OP argues 2017)
- Westwood (1985-2003)
Seeing so much of gaming history laid bare like this, surviving as cardboard graves propped up outside of EA headquarters, is a stark reminder of how much of the industry has been whittled away over the last 20 years by one company.
BioWare, Origin, Pandemic: Every Studio EA Has Killed
BioWare, which pioneered the RPG genre with the likes of Baldur’s Gate, was shut down after EA decided it was less risky to invest in a third Battlefront game than the studio’s future.
Bullfrog, best known for Dungeon Keeper and Theme Park, was merged with EA UK after several of its projects were canceled, and veteran talent followed co-founder Peter Molyneux to his new studio, Lionhead.
Pandemic, the dev team behind the original two Battlefront games and Destroy All Humans!, was closed after the expensive cancellation of a Dark Knight game and amid mass layoffs spurred on by the 2008 financial crisis.
Arguably the godfather of RPGs, with Dragon Quest, The Legend of Zelda, and Final Fantasy even citing Ultima as inspiration, Origin Systems saw several of its single-player games outright canceled after the success of Ultima Online, as EA pushed the team towards live-service titles that flatlined.
Visceral Games struck gold with Dead Space, but it was dissolved as EA decided it wanted to move away from linear, single-player games altogether.
Maxis survives today more as a brand, stapled to The Sims as a disembodied creator. The studio was effectively shut down after the disappointing launch of SimCity (2013), with the historic Emeryville headquarters closed for good.
Finally, Westwood Studios, the creator behind Command & Conquer, closed shortly after it was acquired by EA for $122.5 million, where it struggled under the company’s strict release schedules.
BioWare is, unfortunately, the latest victim in a long line of incredibly influential and beloved studios that succumbed to EA’s axe.
