“Social media can sometimes make devastating events feel distant or abstract,” the fan group We are Mass Effect says of the closure of BioWare. Their solution to that distance is deliberately physical: a mobile billboard truck circling the streets around EA’s headquarters, in full view of the publisher that shut the studio down.
On 6 November, the day before N7 Day, the #SaveMassEffect campaign parked its protest on EA’s metaphorical doorstep. The truck spent around four hours driving the streets surrounding both EA and EA Sports’ headquarters in Redwood City, California — as close to the property as it could get, organisers stressed, without trespassing.
A Protest Parked at the Front Door
The truck was ordered by We are Mass Effect organisers Kala Elizabeth, Ariel Aguilar and Mer, funded by the community crowdfunding that previously paid for a day-long billboard in New York’s Times Square. Its signage has been updated with a QR code and website address directing passers-by to SaveMassEffect.com, and the group asked anyone nearby to send photos — while explicitly warning fans not to enter EA’s property.
“We wanted to bring the movement into the physical world and make that support visible,” the group told IGN. “We want to remind people that real people have been impacted by the closure of BioWare and the cancellation of the game. For us this has never been just about the IP but the people behind it and their work.”
Key point: Another mobile billboard appears near BioWare’s former Edmonton offices on N7 Day itself, with a final truck planned around The Game Awards ceremony in December.
Why the Movement Will Not Quiet Down
The context is now familiar but no less stark: EA closed BioWare on 21 October and cancelled the next Mass Effect, ending the studio’s story almost three decades after Baldur’s Gate put it on the map. Since then the fan response has snowballed. A petition urging EA to let the franchise live on in some form has passed 300,000 signatures. Save Mass Effect graffiti reportedly appeared outside an EA office building in Madrid, while another display featured tombstones for shuttered studios.
The campaign has even reached parliament, with a Canadian politician sponsoring an official government petition asking Ottawa to help BioWare’s developers buy the studio out from under EA. Detractors warn that no amount of momentum will make the publisher budge — EA continues to sell Mass Effect merchandise for N7 Day even as the games themselves sit on hold.
N7 Day: Shepard’s Voices, a Play Day and Cupcakes
Today’s N7 Day, once BioWare’s annual celebration of the series, is the movement’s biggest stage yet. We are Mass Effect is finishing a video featuring fans, actors and contributors — including Commander Shepard voice actors Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer — and pushing an “N7 Play Day” aimed at boosting Steam player numbers for Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.
There is also a sweeter protest in the works: N7-coloured cupcakes will be delivered to EA’s Redwood City headquarters next week, a deliberate throwback to the community’s 2012 cupcake campaign. A documentary chronicling the studio’s final years was announced this week as well.
From Redwood City to The Game Awards
The trucks are not finished. A mobile billboard appears near BioWare’s former Edmonton offices on N7 Day, and the final one will circle The Game Awards ceremony in December for roughly four hours — putting the campaign in front of the industry’s biggest broadcast of the year.
Elizabeth, who organises and fundraises for the billboard pushes, admitted the effort has taken its toll, joking that she has no plans to crowdfund more billboards “because these were already exhausting”. The group, though, insists the campaign itself is far from over. As We are Mass Effect put it: the point is to stop the closure becoming “another story” the industry forgets — and with cupcakes, convoys and a Commons petition all in play, EA is at least being made to watch the road outside its window.
