Personally, I think they’ve been dead in the water since the fiasco with the Mass Effect 3 ending and the petulant way they reacted to what was obviously a rush job. They haven’t released a game since that was above average.
At any rate, this is what happens when you sell out to EA. They start forcing you to meet deadlines, games suffer as a result, talent leaves, and then the studio gets shuttered because the people good at making games were pushed out by the parent company, whose only interest lies in appeasing the shareholders.
Except where the death of Bioware was entirely self inflicted and nothing to do with EA deadlines.
Deadlines dont explain a game like Anthem spending 7 years in development to be one of the woest products brought to its market.
Its been well documented the leadership at Bioware just believed they could keep making magic and flip flopped and chased trends resulting in constantly missed deadlines and bad final products.
I loved their old titles but these smaller companies can suck just as bad as the big ones when they lose their identities and Biowares has been gone for a long time.
It's insane 6-10 years to make a game can be excused as being rush and forced to make deadlines. If someone can go from junior high to having a 4 year college degree and start a family in the time it takes you to make a single video game there is a big problem.
I think EA changed their culture. As a result, a lot of the top end talent left for greener pastures. When EA buys a company, it inevitably results in brain drain over time. The type of people who can leave and instantly find a new job anywhere else do that rather than deal with EA’s bullshit. The ones that don’t stick around and games suffer increasingly over time.
As far as Anthem goes, I’d wager the pressure to develop a live service game came from the publisher. And BioWare struggled because they’d never made a game like that before, and I also believe they were forced to use an engine they had no experience with for it as well.
"oh no my plot got leaked so it's ruined! Let me duct tape a worse one together in a week instead of standing by the strength of the original idea boo hoo."
As if no one ever rewatches classic movies. I would have bought it even if I knew the ending and I still didn't, just some vague outlines and avoided huge spoilers.
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u/AMaynard8091 8h ago
Personally, I think they’ve been dead in the water since the fiasco with the Mass Effect 3 ending and the petulant way they reacted to what was obviously a rush job. They haven’t released a game since that was above average.
At any rate, this is what happens when you sell out to EA. They start forcing you to meet deadlines, games suffer as a result, talent leaves, and then the studio gets shuttered because the people good at making games were pushed out by the parent company, whose only interest lies in appeasing the shareholders.