Bioware's Closure was Closure

Let me start this by saying,

the people who lost their jobs across all of EA's studios as a result of these layoffs did not deserve to lose their jobs. They were good at them, and even if they weren't, they still deserve to be able to provide for themselves and their families.

When the news dropped about Bioware being closed down, I felt a bit odd. Articles across the games media had headlines of shock: this legendary, influential studio, shut down out of nowhere!!!!
Of course, it's true that these words (legendary, influential) are apt to describe Bioware, but I think they're also what surprised me about my own reaction.
You see, I saw all the outpourings of love for Bioware, for Mass Effect, for Dragon Age, everything that people remembered and were so influenced by, and I found it hard to share in it. I didn't feel that something in that moment had been lost, because I don't think it was lost in that moment. It's been gone for a long time, and it's only now that it's sunk in.

Influential

My engagement with Bioware games has primarily been through Mass Effect. I did try Dragon Age Inquisition, but... I never really clicked with the world of Dragon Age for whatever reason.
I'm not here to do a retrospective on Bioware's games, others more eloquent than me have done a far better job at that, but most people can agree that the influence of how these games interacted with relationships, romance, storytelling, and choices is wide-reaching.
I reckon you'd be hard-pressed to find a person working in the industry who wouldn't attribute some inspiration to a Bioware game.

Legendary

The history of how Bioware was managed doesn't paint a flattering picture, and re-reading Jason Schreier 7 years later, it feels pretty clear that the Bioware of legend, the one everyone was mourning after this closure... it died then, not with an immediate closure, but with gradual loss of the people who made it what it was.
Mass Effect Andromeda's production caused a lot of this, Anthem's even more, plus heavy layoffs in its aftermath, and I could go on. The Bioware that just closed isn't the one that made SWTOR, or Mass Effect 2, or Dragon Age Origins, or your favourites in their catalogue.

Is the studio the name, or the people?

When Heart Machine recently laid off basically everyone at their studio, they issued a statement that had the quote "Right now, I'm not sure yet how or if Heart Machine survives.", and it has been stuck in my head ever since, because... It didn't.
Heart Machine was all those people they let go, they were the studio, and now they're gone, it is no longer a living studio. If they make a comeback and hire in a bunch of different people, is it really still the Heart Machine that existed before? I don't think it is.

I don't know if they intended in that statement for it to come across that way, but I think that's how some people see game studios and IPs.
Already on social media, there are people begging EA to give the IP for Mass Effect to someone else, they're pining over cinematic trailers for a game that was in pre-production, and I just... I don't get it.
The games you loved were special because of the people who worked on them, and those people are now either unemployed, retired, or working somewhere else. Whatever you loved about those games, go watch the credits, figure out who actually did it, and play the games they've made since.

Bioware didn't die on 21st October 2026, but we got closure from its closure.