Bioware Edmonton is hiring again

Wow, this thread went places.

Started at the infirmary, strolled past the city dump, through a water treatment facility, and ended at the asylum.

Edmonton has to hire people, duh. They just had an entire studio be absorbed.

The Motive reshuffling is not complicated - there is no Bioware Montreal, and Motive does not somehow belong partially to BW.

All in all, I feel dumber. Thanks for nothing.

Hahah, yeah. Should I make a video? I'm not very good at crying on demand but I can get red in the face.

Tacos with bacon in them. Problem solved.

Tacoes and bacon are both overrated.
And so is the 'merge' of Bioware and Motive. Both companies fall under EA's reign, which is one of the prices to pay to get the benefits of the publisher.

I know, right?

I work for a big conglomerate and it owns, I dunno, a hundred sub-brands of companies acquired over the years. The price they pay is that at any moment they might be full absorbed into the parent company and their brand name might be disappeared (if it doesn't have a strong enough market share or brand recognition, etc.). The benefits they get are big company stability, ability to reach a broader global market, etc.

If they didn't like it they shouldn't have accepted the acquisition offer. (This company doesn't do hostile takeovers.)

I'm sure Bioware knew the tradeoffs when they got acquired by EA.

Your reply confirms it: Bioware is going out of business! 

Also: Half-Life 3 confirmed!

It goes without saying that there is always the possibility that BW Montreal will cease to exist. What I find really interesting, though, is that most of what I read online is about the apparent certain disappearance of BW Montreal as per the remarks of Blake Jorgensen - EAs CFO - and an 'official EA spokesperson'. There are two remarks the Tech Raptor article (link) mentions:

1) "We’re building out a new studio in Montreal, 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 Montreal team into that same facility. So they now all sit in one new studio together." - Blake J. Jorgensen  - Electronic Arts Inc. -  Executive VP & CFO

2) "The teams in EA Worldwide Studios are packed with talent, and more than ever, we’re driving collaboration between studios on key projects. With multiple major projects in development in Montreal, we are merging BioWare Montreal with Motive Studios. This is an ongoing process, but there are many exciting roles and opportunities for everyone on the team.

BioWare continues its work on new titles – including the highly-anticipated game, Anthem. What’s coming next for BioWare is very exciting, and we’re thrilled to have Casey Hudson returning to lead the studios in Edmonton and Austin." - An 'official EA spokesperson'

The thing with point 1 is that Blake Jorgensen doesn't say that BW Montreal is being merged with anything or being split up at all. Anything I'd now state here about what he did say is useless repetition of the bold print in point 1.

But what's perhaps more interesting, is that neither Tech Raptor nor anyone I've seen posting about it since, mentions the question which was being addressed by these words:

"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?" - San Q. Phan - Mizuho Securities USA LLC, Research Division - Director of Americas Equity Research

So Mr. Jorgensen was addressing a shareholder's enquiry into R&D costs. It's a bit out on a limb, imho, to conclude that the answer he gave also signifies the end of BW Montreal and/or the Mass Effect franchise.

O but wait! There's still point 2, right? They talk about merging BW Montreal with EA Motive there! Yeah, they do. They being Tech Raptor who claim they spoke to an undisclosed yet official EA spokesperson who informed them that the statement is indeed true.

Wait a minute... The entire interwebs have a transcript (link, bottom page 12) of EAs CFOs answer to a shareholder by linkage of Tech Raptor but - hold your horses! - Tech Raptor has moar: an undisclosed official contact who says the CFO isn't lying?

Point 1 is what the CFO said, nothing more, nothing less. Well, okay, just a bit more actually: click the transcript link and read it, it's the same conference call in which MEA gets mentioned 3 times as a driver of turnover and sales figures...