Former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah has suggested that Electronic Arts may consider selling off dormant intellectual properties such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age to help address the company's significant debt. This comes in the wake of EA's decision to shut down the Mass Effect and Dragon Age studio, BioWare, as part of company-wide restructuring that will result in approximately 400 employee layoffs.
Darrah, speaking on his YouTube channel, noted that while EA owns the IPs outright, the current lack of internal development on games related to these franchises could make them candidates for sale. "Now, here’s nobody working on a game, or games, within the EA organization, and chances are there never will be, which might make them more likely to sell off those IP," Darrah explained. He added that EA might also choose to "just try to forget that they ever existed and bury them in the vault," but indicated that a shift towards revenue generation could make IP sales more attractive.
This speculation follows comments from former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider, who earlier this year expressed doubt about the franchise's future following the commercial performance of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. BioWare's most recent title failed to meet EA's commercial expectations, and subsequent layoffs left a reduced team focused solely on the next Mass Effect game.
While EA currently lacks internal teams to develop new games for these specific BioWare IPs, the company could theoretically seek external studios for such projects, similar to how Konami has partnered with various developers to revive its Silent Hill series. Lucasfilm Games has also indicated a more flexible approach to partnerships, citing recent successes with studios like Bit Reactor and Fuse Games.
Beyond the developments at BioWare, EA also announced a pause in work on the new Sims game, downsizing the team responsible for the new Skate title, and confirmed the development of a "social-first open-world” football game.