Why Are So Many Studios (i.e., BioWare, EA, Ubisoft, Take-Two etc.) Betting It All On One AAA Game?

A Primer On The Current Situation With BioWare

A reflection of BioWare's misunderstanding of its past or unrealistic owner expectations? ¿Por qué no los dos?

Near the end of January 2025, news broke that EA was restructuring BioWare. A blog post by BioWare's current general manager, Gary McKay, confirmed that many people who worked on last year's Dragon Age: The Veilguard were being relocated to different but equivalent positions in EA but that the studio was still alive and entirely focused on the next entry in the Mass Effect series. The blog post offered hints and equivocations that the number of warm bodies at the studio working on Mass Effect was smaller and that they didn't need a full studio for the project. For those interested, McKay's exact words were that BioWare was changing to become "more agile" and "focused." His statement offered no definitive numbers on how many people were entirely out of work or how many were now toiling away on the next Mass Effect. For that, we would have to wait for a later Jason Schreier piece on how the team at BioWare was down to less than 100 people. Also, please remember that quote about BioWare needing to become "more agile" as we look back at EA's management of the studio in recent history. But hey, the upcoming Mass Effect game is all but confirmed to be using Unreal 5, and a team of BioWare veterans from the original trilogy is still working on it! That must mean things are going to be fine!

After dominating the seventh generation of home console gaming, it's been sad to see BioWare in its current state, but its decline has been happening for years. Much like the "downfall" of The Simpsons, everyone has their theories on when the inflection point occurred when BioWare's fortunes turned. Some are willing to go as far back as Dragon Age 2, more are eager to point to the failure of Anthem, and others are keen to look at events as recent as last year. I won't join the fray, but let's review Bioware's recent history. In June 2023, EA divested BioWare of Star Wars: The Old Republic in favor of a different studio and laid off staff associated with its MMO division. EA's promise at the time was that while painful, this would help BioWare become more sustainable and allow it to better focus on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, later retitled to Veilguard, and Mass Effect. About a month after that, BioWare announced they were laying off 50 members of the Dreadwolf team, and general manager Gary McCay's justifications were that cuts were needed to help BioWare have a "brighter future" and, wait for it, "shift towards a more agile and more focused studio." For reference, the cuts eliminated approximately 20% of BioWare's staff at the time, and Eurogamer estimated this put BioWare's headcount at around two hundred people.

We can talk about what Veilguard should have been all we want; it still likely wouldn't have met CEO expectations.

But 2024 was a fresh start for this pared-down team, and they were committed to releasing a new video game! They even rebranded their next Dragon Age game from Dreadwolf to "Veilguard" as a sign that it was a fresh start for them, and they wanted everyone, be it Dragon Age veterans or newcomers, to get on board. Whether Dragon Age: The Veilguard lived up to expectations or is emblematic that BioWare has lost sight of its roots is a point of continued controversy. I will sidestep that debate entirely, as I have not played the game. Nonetheless, one thing does remain certain: EA management thinks the game underperformed. We can debate all we want about whether Dragon Age is better off with real-time with pause combat or action RPG combat, but none of that matters. EA CEO Andrew Wilson made a public statement this month that Dragon Age: The Veilguard "engaged" 1.5 million players during Q3 2025, which was 50% short of its goal. Now, I don't know about you, and we still do not understand how EA defines "engagement," but expecting Dragon Age: The Veilguard to generate 3 million people's worth of engagement is the definition of unrealistic. I don't care if you think the game lacks the heart of Dragon Age: Origins, 2025 has a very different video game industry than 2009. Considering that the game has been in development hell for years and had several trailers that made it seem like a mess, 1.5 million points of "engagement" looks pretty good. Also, this is a slight tangent, but some publications have run headlines with "EA's CEO said Veilguard failed because it didn't have live service elements," and that's not entirely true. To clarify, his exact words were:

"In order to break out beyond the core audience, games need to directly connect to the evolving demands of players who increasingly seek shared World features and deeper engagement alongside high-quality narratives. In his beloved category, Dragon Age had a high-quality launch and was well-reviewed by critics and those who played. However, it did not resonate with a broad enough audience in this highly competitive market."

Some have drawn the reasonable conclusion that the words "shared World features" are coded to mean "live service" stuff. That's a reasonable conclusion, considering EA has used the terms interchangeably in the past, but it could also mean that he thinks Veilguard should have had an online co-op option like 2023's Baldur's Gate 3. I hate writing this note, considering it makes me come across as a defender of Andrew Wilson, whom I have previously referred to as an Australian automaton programmed to become the next John Riccitiello but with a nicer face, but the reporting on this still stuck in my craw. Regardless, here we are. BioWare has essentially been put into a corner after getting its arms and legs chopped off, and everything is riding on one more game to keep the lights on. The director of Veilguard, Corinne Busche, is gone, and veterans from the original Mass Effect trilogy, like Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley, have taken up their responsibilities. BioWare isn't dead, but there's an uneasiness in my stomach when I read everything that has been reported about what remains of it. This entire situation feels bad and completely unfair. It's not like we haven't seen a developer put it all on the line before. In fact, we are all too familiar with how often this leads to catastrophic consequences for all involved (i.e., Redfall, XDefiant, Foamstars, etc.). God. I love video games, but this industry sometimes makes me want to throw up.

BioWare Is Not Alone And That's Scary

So... what exactly is Ubisoft doing after Shadows? They have over a dozen studios to keep afloat after it comes out. Do they have a plan?

BioWare's present situation is not an aberration. They are one of several game studios that have put all their eggs in one basket, whether by force or design. Let's not stand here and pretend that none of us have been following the looming train wrecks of Ubisoft or Embracer. As the kids say, it's not a bug; it's a feature. Ubisoft seems to be the "big one." We all know that they have a lot riding on the success of Assassin's Creed Shadows, and early previews seem to suggest that the game is an admirable attempt to strike a better balance between Ubisoft's modern open-world glut and guided set-piece-oriented storytelling. However, two things remain in my mind, especially considering all of the recent reports about Ubisoft. First, what is a "success" in the eyes of modern video game CEOs? Like EA, Ubisoft runs its own streaming service, now called Ubisoft+, and they are already advertising that Shadows will be made available on Ubisoft+ for monthly subscribers. EA used the word "engagement" next to Veilguard's 1.5 million number, which seems to suggest they lopped in EA Play numbers with game sales, and the title still didn't meet their expectations. But how did they calculate EA Play numbers? Was it the number of log-ins that booted up Veilguard and downloaded or streamed it? Was Veilguard expected to result in new EA Play accounts? Did players have to sink an unknown number of hours before being logged as "engagement?" With everything on the line for Ubisoft, does Shadows need to drive up an arbitrary number of Ubisoft subscribers AND sell well? Also, which of the two is more desired?

No one honestly knows, and that's incredibly cruel to people working on games with so much at stake. I can't imagine working on a game in a high-stakes environment where I don't know the target I or anyone on my team is aiming for. Ubisoft has a slight advantage over EA because they aren't running a skeleton crew with Shadows. However, that's not to say their prospects are any better. With Ubisoft, we know they really have a lot on the line with Shadows, but that leads me to my second concern. What comes next? Are you rebooting Far Cry again? Can the Anno franchise carry your fortunes for a whole financial year without at least one other AAA game? Are you picking up a sports license? Are we collecting the insurance money on Beyond Good & Evil 2 and finally putting an end to that debacle? Ubisoft isn't one studio like BioWare; it has an entire network to support, which makes betting everything on one game even more dangerous and unsustainable. At least Shadows comes from a franchise with name recognition; anything after it besides Far Cry isn't going to have that luxury. That's part of why I think we have all come to terms with the fact that after Shadows comes out, there will still be layoffs, and Ubisoft might sell out to another buyer.

It sounds like even cozy games are not immune to unrealistic publisher expectations.

And this isn't even the most immediate example of an inevitable video game trainwreck in 2025! Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 already came out, boosted sales of 2 million copies since its release, and met with largely positive reviews despite its director courting and throwing his lot in with chuds on the internet. Personal contrivances aside, the game has been a success, but let us not forget that its developer is owned by Embracer, which finally spun off Asmodee, with most of its debt in tow, this month. Though optimistic about its future, Embracer's leaders admitted that sales are down by 22%, and they still have to pay off $298 million in debt. They made this big hullabaloo about breaking off into three parts, and not only haven't done that as Middle-Earth Enterprises & Friends is still part of the company, but they also still likely need to make cuts to address their debt problem. As they put it, while they still plan to fund new game projects, they also need to "enhance our operational resilience and optimise our business for the future." That's corporate talk for "We still need to lay people off and close studios." Even worse, Embracer admits in their quarterly shareholder meeting that they made a mistake in releasing most of their games at the start of 2025 rather than spacing them out as they think there will be a dip in revenue because they released Heart Machine's Hyper Light Breaker too close to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and both might pose an issue for Tripwire Interactive's Killing Floor 3, which releases on March 25. You can't make this shit up; Embracer is still Embracer.

For an even more tragic example of this phenomenon in action, look no further than Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of The Rings Game. Contrary to popular belief, this is a game project not connected to Embracer, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been rife with dysfunction and faces a dire future. It's a complicated situation, but Tales of the Shire is a LOTR game developed by Wētā Workshop, not to be confused with the related Wētā FX, and published by Private Division. Speaking of which, Private Division had a rough 2024. Not only did its previous owner, Take-Two Interactive, gut them repeatedly, but their current owners were recently revealed to be former employees of Annapurna Interactive. That might not sound bad, considering these are the same employees that left Annapurna after its staff exodus in 2024. Still, it hasn't changed that Tales of the Shire is a game that started at Take-Two with Take-Two expectations and now finds itself under the ownership of people with an entirely different vision and approach. Bloomberg and IGN are now reporting that everyone at Private Division has concerns about their current projects, like Tales of the Shire. As IGN reports, multiple game developers are busy actively developing games they know will do nothing to stave off upcoming layoffs. Most people working on Tales of the Shire understand that the game isn't saving them, but they still need to make it. They are stuck in a Sisyphean torment, and no one in an upper management position is doing anything. WHAT ARE WE EVEN DOING?!

In The Last Ten Years, Has Betting It All On A Single AAA Game Worked?

Almost all of significant names in the gaming industry rely on big games to carry the weight of an entire financial year. This strategy isn't new, but ballooning game budgets and softening consumer spending on full-priced games is making it harder to continue. In a post-Game Pass and post-Steam world, how many full-price games are you buying at launch every year? Even if you feel comfortable saying a number greater than two, that doesn't cover the gamut of every single large tentpole video game studio or publisher, so there's always going to be someone who is feeling the brunt of people erring toward game streaming or holding out for the inevitable sale. Yet, if this is, as I claim, an established business practice, are there examples where things aren't so dire? Going by 2025 releases, there is one where a publishing label has a lot riding on one singular game, and no one seems to think it will backfire: Take-Two Interactive and Grand Theft Auto VI. Take-Two posted a loss in 2024, and when it seemed like shares would drop, they did what everyone thought they would do: they lowered their trump card and said GTA VI would launch in 2025. Despite the NBA 2K franchise showing consumer fatigue and their WWE games continuing to have weird technical struggles, they posted their revenue loss, but their shares still rose by 10%. That is the power of GTA, and it might stand as one of the last non-annualized "sure bet" game franchises outside of Dragon Quest, Call of Duty, or Assassin's Creed. It will sell well, and even if its equivalent to GTA V's online mode is busted at launch, people will still dump a ridiculous amount of money into it. The company has a market cap of $33-34 billion, and if scuttlebutt is to be believed, they spent upwards of $1 to $2 billion to make the game. And no one, you and I included, probably thinks that investment is going to bite them in the ass. Nonetheless, outside of Call of Duty or GTA, who else in the industry is allowed to do that?

Hot take: I think GTA VI is going to make a lot of money. Crazy, I know.

They also have Borderlands 4 coming out in 2025, their first salvo at picking away at the $460 million price tag of buying Gearbox from Embracer. And if rumors of them purchasing the FIFA license are true, Take-Two continues to be bullish on its ability to profit from name recognition. None of that should be seen as a sign that Take-Two is a hero or paragon in the industry. I mentioned Private Division in the previous section, but lest we forget, Take-Two slowly picked apart at Private Division throughout 2024 before selling them to a new buyer. Even after telling the press they hadn't, they shuttered Intercept Games (i.e., the Kerbal Space Program developers) and Roll7. They informed everyone working at Private Division they would no longer support them at the end of April 2024 with barely a month's notice. They also offered no statement on recurring reports of a toxic work environment at Moon Studios (i.e., the Ori and the Blind Forest developer) despite Private Division being the publisher on record for their upcoming work, No Rest for the Wicked. That includes the accused calling the works of his employees "failed abortions." They just let those reports get corroborated as they continued to do business with them.

Not every case of a studio gambling their entire future on one game in 2024 made headlines. Luckily, Tales of Graces f Remastered was one of the happier examples.

2024 also marked the release of Silent Hill 2. Despite Bloober Team not having the track record to justify them being trusted with remaking one of the most essential horror games ever made, things were not a disaster! You could even make the case that the remake replaces the original and is now the definitive experience for anyone interested in exploring the world of Silent Hill 2 for the first time. Does that mean Konami as a company makes any more sense these days? No, and it also doesn't change that their attempts to expand Silent Hill into other media haven't been a disaster. Still, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater looks rad, so they may be taking video games seriously again. A lesser reported example of a company gambling everything on a single game and winning in 2024 was Tose. After struggling to find reliable work for years due to game cancellations, they have since gone on record saying Tales of Grace f Remastered saved them. When looking at the state of Square Enix, it's hard to put them in a category. Like Take-Two, they have staved off shareholder concerns with declining revenue by promising to get a marquee game, in their case, Dragon Quest XII, out to market. And when you look at how FF7 Rebirth hit 40K concurrent Steam users at launch, which demolished previous PC releases in the series, I think they've learned a lesson everyone else learned two years prior. The third-party console exclusive is dead.

This Path Sure Seems Like The One The Industry Is Lurching Toward Come Hell Or High Water

Also, corporate leaders finally figure out how to write these layoff letters without sounding like soulless robots?

We also can't ignore the developers who still have AAA games in their portfolio and have not been subject to repeat articles about their mismanagement. Capcom is about to make a pretty penny on Monster Hunter Wilds, and the same can be said about Sega and Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. I think its a recurring mistake by some to assume that the struggles of BioWare, Ubisoft, Embracer, or even Square Enix are emblematic of the "death of the AAA game." When they exist within a diverse portfolio, AAA games have their place. When you bank on them to keep an entire studio's future alive, it's a coin flip if things work out. Also, it's easy to say that self-published games made by independent studios are the future, but who's paying for people to get loans from banks to make independent games willing to take narrative and technical risks? Also, despite the dwindling number of studios in the video game landscape, it's not just the lone handful of monoliths or corporate overlords that are looking for big and epic video games. The general video game-playing audience expects them. You and me here are not the ones the industry profits off of the most. Barring a massive change to consumer habits and expectations, AAA game production will always exist, and the motive to keep them coming will remain the same.

Sure, the studios that seem the most destined to fail are married to a business strategy that wasn't perfect even during the fifth or fourth generation of consoles. The Ubisofts or Embracers of today were the THQs or Midways of yesterday. Companies in the video game industry have always kind of rolled the dice on "one more game" in proverbial make-or-break moments. The thing now is that it feels impossible to get a lucky roll. With more people relying on digital marketplaces and those marketplaces doing most of their business during sales or promotional events, the pool of people excited or willing to buy multiple games at or above full price isn't what it was five or ten years ago. Even then, the people who do still buy games at launch at full price are more selective or aware of alternate ways to play those games. That makes the odds of pulling off a "studio saver" all the more unlikely. I can only assume the CEOs greenlighting these projects know that because they're constantly complaining to shareholders about how AAA games aren't selling the same way they did in the past. This means producers and publishing labels are knowingly putting studios and teams in these uphill battles that seem primed for failure, and that's downright unfair. What does EA expect a team of less than 100 people at BioWare to do with the Mass Effect universe? Like, honestly?

Sure, the next Mass Effect is being made on Unreal 5, but at this rate, the one after it will need to be made using SDL or Ren'Py

And I don't know if we, as consumers, are guilt-free about the prospects of game studios like BioWare. The average video game player still likes the concept of the AAA game. When you buy a new PC rig or video game console, you tend to boot up a more epic or graphically impressive game to justify your investment rather than an indie platformer or roguelike deck builder. However, while the gaming community expects these games, there isn't enough value or worth put in the people who make them from most in this hobby. On the Giant Bomb Discord, someone relayed a story about how they told a friend who loves Marvel Rivals about the recent news of its director and their team getting fired by NetEase. Their friend's response amounted to, "Yeah, I heard, but the game still works, and that was just the level design team. I don't want new levels, so I'm fine," and their use and play of the game remained entirely unchanged. Before you react viscerally, let's be honest, that person is not alone. And given that we have so many of these upcoming schemes in the future, be it BioWare's subsequent Mass Effect title or Ubisoft's future, it's as if those who do appreciate the people who make games are already signing up for an absolutely nightmarish 2026 or even 2028. It obviously will not be as bad for us as it will be for those working in the industry, but it's already hard to watch the breaking headlines with any video game website. This late-era capitalism is sucking us all dry; the workers, the consumers, the hobbyists, everyone. However, the only solution to stave off the worst outcomes is to buy and consume more. Welcome to Costco; I love you.