Except EA acquired Bioware in 2007? The founders who lead all the good stuff left in 2012 and EA appointed a new head after a year of nobody. The creator of Mass Effect left in 2014. The writer of the first two ME games and Anthem left in 2018. The director of Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, and Dragon Age Origins also left in 2018. I'm sure plenty of decisions came directly from Bioware leads, but EA appointing them since 2012 and hovering in the background with their idiot leaders probably influenced a lot.
There was nothing natural about it if you read into what they were expected to do under EA. Of course everyone left, why would they want to work in those conditions.
It does, but based on the way they usually operate, they will do nothing with it. If they wanted to do something, they would have revived Bioware to continue on it or explained with this news that they'll be continuing with it in some other way.
Ok but if EA wasn't so obviously dogshit, they could have potentially continued better under someone else. In 2007, EA was not really like they have been since the early-mid 2010s or so.
what you guys fail to understand is that founders cash out and retire. most of those studio founders eventually reach the point where they want to do something else. they hang on, because they are asked to, they are gone the moment they are no longer contractually bound to stay and it's not just them, a lot of the original DNA moves on as well, what remains most of the time is just a shadow. there aren't any major incentives anymore, as those that remain are now corporate labour slaves and that's very different from working towards an exit that sets you up for life.
They don't. Especially since former Bioware senior leadership have posted Youtube videos explicitly saying they were the ones who pushed to make Dragon Age a live service, not EA.
Check out Mark Darrah's youtube channel where he talks about the mess that was DA 4's development. It gives some really good insights on just how little direction Bioware's senior leadership had with their decision making, and how surprisingly little influence EA had on it.
I know everyone wants to make EA out to be the villain of the story, because they absolutely are majority of the time. But they really had little hand in Bioware's bizarre downward trajectory.
I concur that, from all the information I can find online, BioWare seems to have been a mess for a long time, if not from the beginning, and that things probably just worked out for a while by luck. Apparently, they used to rely heavily on brutal crunch times, had terrible/aimless leadership, and a toxic studio culture. Tbf, they also made their biggest hits at a time when there simply wasn't as much competition. And while I absolutely love the original ME trilogy, it's (at least to me) great mainly for its vision rather than gameplay, which is something you get mainly due to having amazing writers and/or directors. Meaning it's far less tied to a whole studio than to a very few specific individuals - and if they choose to leave, the biggest strength is gone.
BW leadership just seemed bizarrely out of touch. I remember when DA2 came out and people were (rightfully) complaining about the direction of the series. Senior BW leaders, especially Mike Laidlaw, were extremely arrogant and condescending. Like, they could not believe we weren't buying the "awesome-button" spiel. Same thing with ME3's ending and Casey being convinced it was the most brilliant thing ever.
Pointing out that corporate leadership was overworking employees with constant crunch time and making poor business decisions on top, all documented by employees of said company, is shielding corporate leaders and is anti-woke?? Is the "woke" position to just claim that corporate leaders made no mistakes and it failed because???
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u/horrorpunx138 7h ago
I'm no fan of EA but people within BioWare's own ranks, for years, have made some truly awful decisions.