All game companies want to make money of course, but there are different levels of sacrifices they make when it comes to artistic integrity or creative freedoms. EA clearly does not care about those things, and while Bioware probably still does they're going to be somewhat limited by EA.
A self-owned developer can find whatever balance between profitability and artistic quality it likes (as long as it stays in business, obviously).
It could be said that EA and other large publishers don't care about quality, but it's actually more accurate to say that they CAN'T care about it.
They answer to their investors who want the biggest margins possible and don't (usually) care about artistic quality, especially if it comes at the expense of better profits. Likewise, risks - such as trying new things or innovating on existing genres - are to be avoided at all costs, because investors don't want the company to be gambling with their money. And when it comes down to it, investors tend to get antsy about anything other than big projects with big returns because small projects that return a small profit still tend to drive share prices down, and you know how well investors take to that.
While yes, EA has also undertaken a number of boneheaded policies that have made things worse than they have to be, they - and every other big publisher - can't really escape that underlying problem no matter how well intentioned they might actually be. This isn't limited to the computer game market either; it affects tabletop games (including tabletop RPGs) just as much.
