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It would not be an exaggeration to say that Bioware's games were a large part of my early development as a creator. From Baldur's Gate to Mass Effect to Dragon Age (fuck, I even gave ANTHEM a shot).

It may come as a surprise that I am not terribly saddened by their closing. Bioware as we knew it had been effectively dead for a while, and their last Dragon Age title really showed that the people who made those memorable games were no longer calling the shots.

What I AM sad for is that it didn't HAVE to be this way. It didn't HAVE to be a sacrifice to the Dark Horde that is Electronic Arts. But we live in a world where if a game doesn't promise to make all the money in the world, it's not worth making.

We, as consumers, don't exactly have clean hands, either. We helped fashion this environment where small studios have to sell to massive conglomerates, or risk an even earlier closure if one title doesn't live up to snuff.

Let's be honest with ourselves. Bioware, in a world where they remain free, dies shortly after Andromeda bombs. Hell, they might not even have survived the fallout from Mass Effect 3.

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I don't know if there is a good answer to this. We live in the world we have created. Any path forward has to come from us, because it sure as hell isn't going to come from any executive or studio.