Thursday, January 30th 2025
BioWare Reshuffles Staff - Dragon Age: The Veilguard Team Dispersed Across EA Studio Network
Hello Everyone. We are turning towards the future and preparing for the next chapter in BioWare's story. As we announced in August 2023, we are changing how we build games to meet the needs of our upcoming projects and hold ourselves to the highest quality standards. Now that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been released, a core team at BioWare is developing the next Mass Effect game under the leadership of veterans from the original trilogy, including Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, Parrish Ley, and others.
In keeping with our fierce commitment to innovating during the development and delivery of Mass Effect, we have challenged ourselves to think deeply about delivering the best experience to our fans. We are taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work at BioWare. Given this stage of development, we don't require support from the full studio. We have incredible talent here at BioWare, and so we have worked diligently over the past few months to match many of our colleagues with other teams at EA that had open roles that were a strong fit. Today's news will see BioWare become a more agile, focused studio that produces unforgettable RPGs. We appreciate your support as we build a new future for BioWare. Gary McKay—General Manager, BioWare
Sources:
BioWare Blog, PC Gamer
In keeping with our fierce commitment to innovating during the development and delivery of Mass Effect, we have challenged ourselves to think deeply about delivering the best experience to our fans. We are taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work at BioWare. Given this stage of development, we don't require support from the full studio. We have incredible talent here at BioWare, and so we have worked diligently over the past few months to match many of our colleagues with other teams at EA that had open roles that were a strong fit. Today's news will see BioWare become a more agile, focused studio that produces unforgettable RPGs. We appreciate your support as we build a new future for BioWare. Gary McKay—General Manager, BioWare
12 Comments on BioWare Reshuffles Staff - Dragon Age: The Veilguard Team Dispersed Across EA Studio Network
I'm almost interested in seeing how gender identity exists within the reapers, who by nature are composed of insanely huge amounts of people turned into a slurry and built into a warship...but then I know I'm joking. Modern Bioware might actually spend a huge amount of time exploring that.
This was the company that had the chutzpah to actually explore the near sterilization of a "problem" species...that now has large sections about misgendering someone. I...god, it sucks living long enough to see everything I love die.
And if DA:D was there high standards god help us. So far for the wrong reasons.
This is one game out of many that has flopped because of DEV's/ corporate mangagement putting themselves and their ideology into what they are creating.
People just want to play games. They will play games and pay money. Lots of money... just to escape the stressful reality of what is going on in everyday living.
And I'm very much aware of that. I have to so I can keep abreast of the changes in the industry I invest into. As well as to make money in those changes that do happen.
This MindVirus affected my bottom line on several occassions. Pissed me off in others.
The only happy thing about all of this... Is enough people are voting with their wallets and I hope it continues because...
A lot of good DEV's got black listed, frozen out, been silenced our of fear of losing their jobs in the industry because of their differences that was not with the mantra of the MindVirus of Abject Stupity.
A lot of creativity got shafted because of the gatekeepers that want to bestode. "Their Truths on to you and only their message are allowed to enter the Gates of Creativity".
If you want this industry to flourish, keep voting with your wallet and invest your time into independent companies that have the vision of putting out great content without the politics.
As an investor in this sector of the industry, IMHO... You don't need AAA companies anymore. They are too bloated. Both top end managment as well as the overall quality of product being done by developers affected by the MindVirus.
And if they continue to down this road of wasting money. It will hurt their bottom line.
Companies like UbiSoft went all in on forgetting their customer base and forcing their ideology into their games.
They are almost bankrupt.
EA and their spindoctoring announcement, well I speak MarketCopium, so I'll translate what they have said and remove the word salad and market speak for the masses to read.
Dragon Age: The VeilGuard lost hundreds of millions of dollars in their attempt of forcing "The Narrative" to their customer base. We will take those failures what worked on that content... Chose the ones that still retain value and layoff (fire) the rest. We will save money by the layoffs as well as cut out many from our lousy workforce that did not make it by merit. The results will be an increase in profit to show our shareholders that we are doing better than the previous quarter earnings.
Vote with your wallet. As an invester, I do.
Let me then finish squaring the circle. I poked fun because the expectation that the same Bioware who had you potentially capping Wrex is not the same Bioware that tiptoes around gender identities. They were the people who could write a decent game about exploring the reapers as something that might be understandable, not the Bioware that delivered us a three color ending choice or the abomination that was Andromeda.
I don't like people losing their job...but if you're dangerously incompetent then maybe you should. If I ordered a cheeseburger and received a mass of needles wrapped in a used birthday balloon, covered in raw sewage, I'd basically tell the people who handed it to me that they were getting a call from the health board, not keeping them around. That would influence the person who dutifully went out and procured sewage, but at some point everyone has to see what their contributions mean. Heck, that's why so many of the old guard left.
For this exact reason I:
1) Don't want another World of Warcraft.
2) Don't want an Obsidian Fallout New Vegas 2
3) Don't want a Bungie Marathon.
4) Don't want anything touched by Bioware
It's not really fair to expect past successes to mean future successes when post game layoffs basically restart studios each time...but that's more reason to be apathetic to new releases until they are reviewed by someone not in the access media... That's a lot of apathy.
But of course excuses are cheaper.
January 2025: EA's selling Bioware for $70!
(both are overpriced)