BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk stated after the announcement of the studio's closure that the acquisition of parent company Electronic Arts (EA) by the Saudi-led Public Investment Fund was the "final straw" in BioWare's fate. He believes this deal has turned EA into a completely different company.
In an interview with 80LV, Greg Zeschuk speculated that the new corporate environment would prioritize sports games, and possibly the Battlefield series as well. The RPGs BioWare specializes in have longer development cycles and more complex structures, making them less directly profitable under a business model focused on releasing sports titles annually.
However, Greg Zeschuk left BioWare in 2012 along with his other co-founder Ray Muzyka and exited the gaming industry. Having lacked internal studio information for a long time, the aforementioned judgment is based on personal analysis and external observations, rather than an authoritative confirmation of the reasons behind BioWare's closure.
There are also unconfirmed reports that EA employees previously worried acquirers would influence game content, with Mass Effect 5 developers allegedly asked to tone down inclusive messaging. As for whether IPs like Mass Effect and Dragon Age might be sold off, there is no definitive conclusion yet; the article only mentions this possibility, citing former developers who stated that EA rarely sells its IPs.