r/videogames • • 8h ago

News / Trailers / Articles Bioware is dead

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u/Ill_Independence2441 8h ago

Inquisition, while contentious amongst modern day fans, is Bioware's best selling game of all time. So technically that was their last great game, at least financially.

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u/SaltyTelluride 8h ago

People view inquisition as a big turning point and departure from what made DAO great. Inquisition had brand recognition and was designed to be more approachable for a general audience, but fans were pretty critical of the game itself following release.

Similarly, RE5/6 had similar complaints from fans about them taking the series in the wrong direction but sold very well at the time. RE6 was so poorly reviewed that people thought it would kill the franchise. I liked the game but it’s an example of another franchise that hit a wall like BioWare. The difference is that Resident Evil identified what made the original games work so well and integrated it into the new games. BioWare did not.

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u/Frequent-Mood-7369 7h ago

DAI was a better received game than DA2 though, which arguably is the weakest game in the series.

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u/cyne-wolf 3h ago

People view inquisition as a big turning point and departure from what made DAO great.

people say that about literally every Dragon Age game that has ever released.

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u/cyne-wolf 3h ago

Inquisition, as far as I am aware, outsold the entire Mass Effect franchise. Just to illustrate the divide here for commercial success.

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u/UtkuOfficial 3h ago

That doesn't exactly mean anything. AC Valhalla is the highest selling game in the series and if anyone calls it great i have a hidden blade calling for them.

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u/Ill_Independence2441 3h ago

Yes but the point is that it was a financial success, so it couldn't have been the start point for Bioware's downfall. As I said, financially it was great. I'd argue Bioware's downfall had nothing to do with their games (though they certainly didn't help). The problem was internally. With the changing culture of their company.

Also to your point about AC, is Assasins Creed or the company behind it dead, or are they alive and thriving and still pumping out games with no sign of significant financial decline?

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u/UtkuOfficial 3h ago

I just wanted to point out financial success doesn't mean a good or a bad thing for a studio. Wrong lessons could be learned from it.

In Bioware's case, they got way too pompous after all the success of Inquisition. They crunched the shit out of their employees and it worked in the end. Made them feel like the chaos in developement was not a bad thing while it killed their studio.

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u/Polite_Suggestion 3h ago

Yeah, this whole thread is full of missing the phenomenon that people have to buy something to find out it's bad. The last Paradox game I bought was Stellaris, which is what it took for me to accept they'd basically switched to the pay model of MMOs. A lot of companies go out with a financial bang, releasing an anticipated project that turns out to be crap.