Another question related to the BioWare shutdown: why do studios always seem

Barring some kind of act of God or some kind of last-second rescue by a wealthy buyer, it really comes down to two main factors as to whether a studio can go independent. If both are present, then the studio has a chance at survival. If either one is missing, any attempt at going solo will likely end in disaster.

Factor 1: The studio needs enough money stockpiled to pay its own bills for a reasonable amount of time.

When Microsoft released Double Fine and Compulsion Games to independence, both studios were given funding for several months of [runway]. Double Fine immediately [laid off 23 people] in order to extend that runway and buy more time. This is because the cost to run the company doesn't pause or go away when you go independent. Building rents, taxes, utilities, employee salaries and benefits, etc. are all costs that must be paid. It's a lot like pulling a living fish out of an existing fish tank. Without a whole new fish tank set up for the fish to go into, it's going to suffocate and die almost immediately. This might mean that they somehow secure a buyer or external funding - an investor, some kind of sale, something to infuse money into the company to pay the bills and keep them afloat while they work their way towards Factor 2 below.

Factor 2: The studio needs a way to earn its keep.

This can be doing contract work for hire co-developing with another team/publisher or developing a new game and releasing it, but the studio must earn enough money to sustain itself and grow. The more people there are working there, the more financially successful the studio must be in order to sustain it. If my team is small and agile, I can be sustainable making smaller quirky games aimed at smaller audiences. However, if my team is large and produces high fidelity content, then my audience must be enormous because my costs are enormous. A team of 50 like Bioware had at the end likely cost around $5-10 million per year to employ total, and that's only their preproduction team size.

The leadup to release and the runway is how much time the studio has to find their Factor 2. If a plane reaches the end of its runway on an aircraft carrier and still can't take off, it's doomed to fall into the sea and die. That has been the fate of so many independent studios that have failed to find their Factor 2. Bioware specifically has a really big operating cost, which severely reduces their Factor 1 and no real Factor 2 lined up. A short runway without any prospects is usually a much worse situation involved than layoffs with a reasonable severance package.

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