Bioware must be hating Jason Schreier.
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It’s another great article written by Jason Schreier. He pretty much have an open door to Bioware at this point.
Some of the quotes are damning to read. It is not surprising after the massive disappointment of Bioware’s previous titles, and it seems the company is seriously lacking in proper leadership. I don’t foresee them being in business for too long before EA will give them the axe, and this time it will not be entirely EA’s fault. Blame has to be given to the developer on this as well.
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Good article that. I still need to read the Anthem one. I was very excited for Dragon Age 4. I loved Inquisition. I will remain hopeful that someone with some common sense will steer the new one in a proper Bioware direction.
A good read but long (about 11 000 words) so read it when you have a fair amount of time to spare.
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Yeah, it is why I have been putting it off.
It seems that everything EA touches turns to crap.
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Most of the time yes, but this seems to be more Bioware’s own failings rather than publisher influence.
Yes and no. Everything since EA started with bigger influence has been problematic. The forced change of gaming engine prolonged the development times, the forceful introduction of multiplayer and probably more. Only two I can think of now.
I think for instance we would have had a much better Mass Effect game if they stuck to the Unreal engine. They would have been able to build on what they’ve been doing for the past decade rather than copying assets from Dragon Age. Also, for the last couple of games, development times might have been reduced had they not been forced to work on Frostbite which might not have caused them to pull developers from other projects.
This is only my opinion so I could be wrong of course since I have only limited information, but this is what I can deduce from the past couple of years.
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That is true, them being forced to use Frostbite was a big factor affecting development.
The EA influence has been very clear since post DA Origins. Their games have significantly changed to try and appeal to a broader market to please EA’s $$$ chasing goals.
The Bioware magic hasn’t been the same since.
It’s very easy to just simply blame EA, because EA bad right. Not in this case.
Jason has written extensively on three BioWare games, all three stories share the same themes. There is a fundamental lack of leadership and direction from within the developer, the people that made the “BioWare magic” happen has long left the company, their games has never been focused or had any clear direction for many years now. And yes, Frostbite has been a pain to work with.
Again, EA is probably not without blame, but at the moment BioWare is their own worst enemies. The blame for Anthem, for the last Mass Effect and now Dragon Age 4 is squarely on the shoulders of BioWare.
Read the Anthem article, read this one, and read the chapter from Jason’s book about Dragon Age: Inquisition. Only then will you truly see that “BioWare magic” is nothing but an excuse for bad leadership and bad direction.
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Another former BioWare developer who worked on Joplin called it “some of the best work experiences” they’d ever had. “We were working towards something very cool, a hugely reactive game, smaller in scope than Dragon Age: Inquisition but much larger in player choice, followers, reactivity, and depth,” they said. “I’m sad that game will never get made.”
This makes me sad as well, I hope they don’t try do some online focused EA cash grab, maybe there is hope that consumers are going to start punishing bad game development I hope the trend we saw with fallout 76 becomes more and more prevalent in terms of consumers just going screw that