IF Mass Effect truly is dead, will/should EA/Bioware even announce this?

I don't see a reason for EA to ever announce ME is dead even if that were the case, which I don't think it is.

Personally, I think the fan base should just stop trying to tell Bioware how to run the business end of their business.  It's up to their Board of Directors what they decide to announce and when.  Bioware shouldn't have to coddle their fans all the time... Fans who do seem to be inordinately insecure.  It's like the fan base wants Bioware to raise their hand to ask every time the CEO might even be thinking about taking a P*ss.

I think we'll see changes in the way the information is related over time, as the PR are looking for ways of dealing with the information-saturated world & easily adversarial audiences. It's a hard task.

They made all this effort to cram all the RPG-stuff into the Frostbite-Engine, made all the tools needed for animations and quest-progression. Now they have a working template for the next part of the series. And Bioware showed they can make the bulk of a game of this scale in basically 18 months.
It would be borderline stupid to abandon all this assets.

They did with Command and Conquers series and quite openly announced in advance the studios closures involved in developing that franchise.

This did not happen with ME:A nor Bioware Montreal, so it would strongly go against EA's historic precedent. While also adding to it that ME:A sold way above EA's set expectations, unlike C&C4 Tiberian Twilight.

No company will any proclaim the death of one of their products. Let alone an emotional one like Mass Effect. So I don't expect them to annouce anything unless another Mass Effect game is on the horizon. Let's keep this short and simple. If we hear nothing, there will be nothing. If we hear something, there will be something.

I think ME is OK. People can have their subjectivity and opinion about their products, but as a continued franchise I still think it is OK.

If they have to draw down their development in order to make Anthem and DA successes, go for it. If they think its better to take a year or two to more passively review how they'll make the next game, go for it. There will still be Anthem updates and maybe sequel, and DA DLC/updates and such to care about in the meantime anyway. And I doubt a Next Mass Effect will change engine or jump to so huge new ambitions anyway - lets hope for refinements, polish, and better action made on the 'promise' presented by MEA (and in a way imo, ME3; but that's another discussion and personal view).

I can't say I'm any longer a positive Mass Effect fanatic (been years since that and MEA didn't make it better), but to me its still got life in it, at the very least enough that EA probably won't, and probably thinks it shouldn't have any 'death' announcements. A scaled down Montreal may just mean focused on DLC, support for Edmonton again, that sort of thing, instead of a jump towards following up on some gigantically successful (as in, it wasn't) MEA. For all we know at least.

I think they just want to give the series a bit of time to breathe (hopefully helped by what DLC makes happen, but we'll see) and go back to it. Maybe if there was no Anthem and there was only Dragon Age they'd be faster to a return. Maybe if MEA was a smash GOTY hit they'd be faster to return. Maybe not. But a death announcement is likely premature.

I guess Anthem could be hugely successful enough that the money people decide there's just no way ME should happen again and Bioware should devote almost everything to Anthem. Okay. (Even then, DA is IMO unlikely to be shut down so there's that chance to show people what RPG Bioware/2000s Bioware properties can still do.)

Unless Anthem is a typical RPG BW game with SP, romances, etc... I doubt it'll be the greatest thing ever down the line. People who got into BW games got into them for the stories, the characters, the RP reasons. Anthem is more a MP focused game and since MP is hot currently, they are banking on that for the money. Sadly they won't gain a lot of SP supporters and that's the bigger fanbase than the MP players, also SP was around longer and has more followers too.

Mmgh, I thought it actually worked well with 1.08, and keeping mum about DLC imo tired out and cleared out a lot of less tenacious trolls. If they knew DLC was in works, we'd have far more angst about how it's going be horrible and not like Trespasser and what not. I dunno. I personally prefer short notices, so I am bias.

I don't understand why they're being so tight lipped about the DLC.  Now that the rumor is out there, they do risk people just moving on to something else.  I remember after DA2 came out, and had its less than optimal reception we'll say.  They put out some screenshots that showed some of the areas in Legacy, and said more details coming at a later date.  Started a new conversations because so many people were mad about the reused areas.

That's why I don't think they'll be another ME game five years from now like some people are saying.  If the reception for this game wasn't great to the point where you wanted to keep going while the iron was hot, why would they think people would flock back five years from now.  I doesn't make any sense.  The entirety of the OT was out in five years.  Or like DA:O, they couldn't get DLC and an expansion out fast enough, they were coming out once a month almost, and DA2 got put out quickly just to capitalize on the popularity of the game.

They can't take a five year hiatus on the franchise at this point and think the next game will be successful.

Thing is, assuming that either an announcement or silence doesn't affect their own schedule to any release of DLC, people will still move on to other things while they wait. If they announce the DLC at the last minute, I doubt the people who actually like the game enough to buy DLC in the first place are going to not buy it just because the announcement came later than they might like.