Star Wars: The Old Republic
GameBy BioWare Austin · Released Dec 20, 2011
Documents about Star Wars: The Old Republic
The Real Reason EA Shut Down BioWare
EA's closure of BioWare and the cancellation of Mass Effect are presented as the result of financial pressure and corporate priorities rather than cultural controversy.
- EA's roughly $18 billion in debt from a leveraged buyout, with over $1 billion per year in interest, reportedly drove the company to redirect resources away from BioWare toward a new Star Wars Battlefront game.
- BioWare's team was stretched across Dragon Age: The Veilguard while Mass Effect was years from completion, and a run of underperforming releases (Anthem, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Veilguard) compounded the pressure.
- Veilguard reportedly missed sales expectations by about half, and in early 2025 BioWare was gutted and shut down with roughly 400 layoffs across EA.
26th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards
The 26th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards served as both a celebration of creative excellence and a critical forum for addressing the current instability within the global gaming industry.
- Death Stranding 2 won the Game of the Year award at the 2026 Game Developers Choice Awards.
- Nominees for the 2026 Game of the Year included Donkey Kong Bonanza (Nintendo EPD), Claire Obscure: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive), Ghost of Yote (Sucker Punch Productions), and Split Fiction (Hazelight Studios).
- The Innovation Award nominees featured Baby Steps (Devolver Digital), Ball Pit (Devolver Digital), Blueprints (Raw Fury), Panic Dispatch (Ad Hoc Studio), Ghost of Yote (Sony Interactive Entertainment), and Split Fiction (Electronic Arts).
TWIG #347 Call of Duty Movie, Google's New Court Case, De-Monetization of Real-Money Gaming
The gaming industry currently faces a period of significant strategic recalibration, marked by the failure of high-profile projects and the volatility of emerging markets.
- The gaming industry is undergoing a strategic shift away from over-scoped, high-budget projects, evidenced by Rec Room cutting its workforce by 50% due to poor capital deployment.
- Regulatory crackdowns on real-money gaming in India have created significant market instability, leading analysts to advise firms to prioritize the more predictable U.S. and European markets.
- A growing divide exists between Eastern and Western markets, where Chinese players show strong demand for mobile shooters like Delta Force, while Western titles like Destiny Rising struggle with poor cultural fit and aggressive monetization.
Star Wars: The Old Republic - Creating A True Competitor in the AAA MMO Space
The development of Star Wars: The Old Republic was driven by the ambition to challenge the established AAA MMORPG market through a strategy of product differentiation and massive scale.
- To manage the massive scale of Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare employed a workforce of 30 producers, 75 designers, and 120 engineers, with 40 of those engineers dedicated solely to platform management and infrastructure.
- The project set a Guinness World Record for the largest voiceover project ever completed, featuring six times the dialogue of Dragon Age and nine times that of Mass Effect.
- BioWare transitioned from a discipline-based organization to a matrix structure to prevent knowledge silos, using 'strike teams' to manage up to 40 concurrent development groups.
Companies behind it
As the documents state it.