According to Kieken, the company's current status has granted it unprecedented control over its products, and the only proof that EA requires is the number on the bottom line.

"For the very first time we have control of things that we've never had control of before, things like marketing. Marketing used to be a department we were always negotiating with, but that is part of our group now," he says.

"Ultimately, EA comes to the BioWare boardroom and says. 'Here is the amount of money you have, and here is the amount of money you need to generate in X years. The way you do it is your problem.' So the growth of Bioware Montreal is in the context of the other Bioware studios. It's because we're successful with the Mass Effect series that we can grow a studio. It's all within the Bioware label strategy.

"[The trust] is something very new... I have a lot of respect for John Riccitiello. He is trying to move the company towards a vision that is very smart, with a sort of city-state culture. Basically, you're accountable only to generate revenue. I like that relationship of responsibility."

[...] "Valve, Blizzard and Bioware all had a very similar profile over a decade ago: they were all doing very high quality games that people appreciated a lot, but at a huge cost and really not selling that much. Before World of Warcraft, Blizzard as a company really wasn't doing well. They were very expensive, and their revenue didn't match how expensive they were. Valve, before the huge success of Steam, really wasn't doing well financially either.

"They had the sort of breakthroughs that allowed them not to worry about money any more - they still do, of course, but to a lesser extent. We don't have that yet at Bioware. If we have two games in a row, as expensive as we are, that don't do well at all... we need to be careful."​