BioWare Montreal absorbed by EA Motive. Mass Effect IP returns to Edmonton

Hello, BSN colleagues! 

It's based on someone repeating a small part of a statement the CFO made during the Q&A.

Here's the full CFO statement;

Q: I was wondering, can you tease out what you mentioned earlier on the step-up in OpEx maybe on the R&D side with the new genres. And perhaps how much of the increase is more a timing issue versus a higher run rate for R&D?

A: So we will have a slightly higher run rate for R&D. We're building out a new studio in Montréal, 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 Montréal team into that same facility. So they now all sit in one new studio together. We're obviously investing in Anthem, which everyone got a chance to see at E3. That's out of the BioWare Edmonton team and are very excited -- they're very excited. We'll see some increases around that in terms of spending. And then we're continuing to invest across all of our network and platform activities. I don't see any of those going beyond the targets that we've talked about, trying to keep R&D expense in the 21% to 22% of revenue range, but it is -- the goal is to drive new revenue. And if for some reason we weren't able to drive new revenue, clearly, that would be overspending, but we're very confident that we can drive new revenue around the action genre and continuing live service build-out across all of our products.

Hello, BSN colleagues! I guess I have to post a few clarifications here:

Croatsky I am also an investor. The statement you made in the thread you linked is absolutely wrong. The redditor that came to your "defense" was talking about development costs, not investments. She or he was talking about something completely different. You were wrong.

kino Yes, merging two separate subsidiaries with different tax, debt, etc liabilities would at least be reviewed under Canada's Competition Act; there are also tax incentives that may or may not apply, debt obligations, organizational structure, and other legal considerations. However, my point is that it is probably more beneficial for EA to keep BioWare Corp and Motive as distinct and separate entities. BW Montreal is a division of BioWare Corp. It'd be easier for EA to simply tell BW to order BW Montreal to work for Motive.

Listen, I don't care if you people are dedicated and hopeful but at least take the time to understand how things work.

No, it wouldn't. M&A procedures don't exist for two wholly owned subsidiaries of EA. If EA wanted to fold BioWare Montreal into Motive it would simply dissolve the studio and reassign the employees. That's it. The Competition Act is to prevent monopolization of an industry and promote competition. Since BioWare and Motive are owned by EA this wouldn't be a monopolization of an industry.

How things work...geebus.

We'll take as much time as you took to explain how Croatsky was wrong. Which was none. 

LoL some rando on the internet comes onto a forum and... what... folks are supposed to be impressed or something? 

So much crow to be eaten. That day is coming. Oh it will be one fine one at that.