Support NeoGAF

[Fuz]

Dragon Age and a sequel to the original Mass Effect series (?)

And you're going to buy them anyway

 

[Fuz]

What the games media failed to report is that Activision Blizzard is now suing the California Civil Rights department that caused this "scandal" by bringing unverified allegations and painting the company as tolerant or encouraging of bad behavior:

https://www.axios.com/2022/12/08/activision-lawsuit-california-civil-rights-department

Bobby Kotick himself hit back in a Variety interview with the following statement:

Fuck scrotick, though.

 

[kiphalfton]

And you're going to buy them anyway

Thinking you quoted the wrong person...

 

[AJUMP23]

Doubtful, I'd put money on it being a case like Blizzard where all the..."new blood" devs have managed to kick and scream and kick all the "old bloods" out the door so they can make identity simulator instead of Dragon Age.

You pay the new blood less for the most part, so it does lower cost.

 

[SlimySnake]

The only way videogames can exist the way they do is by having 20 people do pre-production and then scaling up to 300 in under 6 months. So yeah no shit they need to regularly cull.
Apparently you want even more of this rapid production scaling up because games aren't impressive enough for you.

Thats just not true. Efficient studios will always find a way to do things without laying off people every few months. CoD studios produce a new game every year and they dont have to lay off people after shipping a game. FromSoftware, Insomniac, Ubisoft studios and other productive studios are simply run better.

You want to blame artists, devs and qa staff for delays, thats fine. I will always blame management for not finding work for these guys. Bioware hasnt shipped a game since 2019. They are not in pre-production, they should be getting ready to ship Dragon Age.

 

[Fuz]

Thinking you quoted the wrong person...

No, it was just a generic "you", not aimed at you in particular. Your post was the perfect cue for that.

 

[ahtlas7]

bye

 

[iorek21]

Unless the lay-offs mean a lot of blue hair leaving the studio, I don't think it'll change much.

But yeah, Bioware is pretty much dead now.

I still think the next Dragon Age doesn't even exist beyond target footage stuff and prototypes and it's getting cancelled soon.

 

[Buggy Loop]

If I was Bioware I would be scared shitless after BG 3, the bar is so high and the comparisons are impossible to avoid.

 

[Ammogeddon]

BioWare in name only.

It reads like corporate bullshit written by committee.

 

[Madflavor]

Imagine making some of the greatest CRPGs ever made. Baldur's Gate I&II.
Imagine making a spiritual successor to those games in the form of Dragon Age: Origins.
Imagine Dragon Age: Origins being a huge hit.
Imagine you rush out a sequel to that game in a year and a half, and make it more of an action game.
Imagine continuing to abandon the CRPG elements of the games that put you on the map, in favor of going further into action territory with Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Imagine making DA4 and scrapping and starting over the project multiple times, in favor for finally sticking with a vision that wants to make it full blown action, with God of War 2018 as your main inspiration.
Imagine as a result of not having a clear vision and poor management, it's been nearly 10 years since DA:I and you're still in developmental hell for DA4.

Imagine seeing a smaller studio make a CRPG sequel to Baldur's Gate II, as a CRPG, it becomes the highest rated PC game of all time, and sells 5 million copies in 2 weeks.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I have to think that every BioWare employee who was actually passionate and gave a shit is long gone by now. They are a shell of their former self.

ME: Andromeda was supposedly a disappointment because the “A team” were all working on Anthem.

Anthem was a disappointing unfinished piece of shit.

Anthem reboot was canceled.

Lots of high profile departures from Dragon Age 4 team.


Come on, this company is dead.

 

[iorek21]

Imagine making some of the greatest CRPGs ever made. Baldur's Gate I&II.
Imagine making a spiritual successor to those games in the form of Dragon Age: Origins.
Imagine Dragon Age: Origins being a huge hit.
Imagine you rush out a sequel to that game in a year and a half, and make it more of an action game.
Imagine continuing to abandon the CRPG elements of the games that put you on the map, in favor of going further into action territory with Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Imagine making DA4 and scrapping and starting over the project multiple times, in favor for finally sticking with a vision that wants to make it full blown action, with God of War 2018 as your main inspiration.
Imagine as a result of not having a clear vision and poor management, it's been nearly 10 years since DA:I and you're still in developmental hell for DA4.

Imagine seeing a smaller studio make a CRPG sequel to Baldur's Gate II, as a CRPG, it becomes the highest rated PC game of all time, and sells 5 million copies in 2 weeks.

Imagine begining the 2010s as the greatest western RPG studio and finishing it by its last two games not having a MC score higher than Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Valhalla in a franchise that only recently became a RPG.

 

[Dr. Samuel Hayden]

Bioware is done. Next Dragon Age and Mass Effect are never coming out.

ME3 ending put a curse on this studio and they never recovered after that.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Honestly I feel like they might as well just close their doors at this point. With how things have been going for them, I don't think anyone feels too positive about anything.

 

[violence]

Sad stuff when one of the best studios becomes a logo. The Doctors left after that stupid ME3 whining campaign. I also read rumors valve was very aware of it and slowly pulled people off Episode 3 to finish other games. The ME3 whining campaign killed bioware and maybe even episode 3 as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

EA said it was unable to create a new contract and so will let that current one expire on September 27. It's not clear what will happen to the contractors without the EA contract, but it's fair to guess that some jobs will likely be lost over at Keywords unless they find other work.

An industry source said EA has renewed work orders with Keywords Studios since their employees voted to unionize in June 2022. But the source added that, in this instance, the two companies simply couldn't agree to terms. The Keywords contract requirements exceeded what EA/Bioware needed given the change in development approach at the studio.

 

[Wildebeest]

EA are not happy, but since they don't care about releasing buggy, unoptimised or boring games, it is hard to guess what was bothering them about the quality of BioWare's work.

 

[jonnyp]

Bioware is no longer the same company ever since they sold to EA. Really sucks, but seems to be the way of the industry. You can only finance so many titles before running out of money, selling to a major publisher who kills the talent and rides the name recognition.

EA is a devstudio serial killer at this point.

 

[brian0057]

If this were 2008 I'd feel bad for them.
Now I'm just wondering what to make for lunch tomorrow.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Edit: can't be bothered getting into it with you, I think you talk way too much shit about things you don't understand.

I love Slimy... I really do... Sometimes I even agree with his opinions... but you're right on this... bang on the money.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

Hopefully it is all the bad ones......You know who you are.

Employees with the following hair colours are not fired ... brown, black, blonde, red, grey ... that is all.

 

[Putyouinmyoven]

I bet they are

 

[Cyberpunkd]

lol another Bioware game in development hell.

Maybe instead of firing staff who you will ultimately need shipping the game on time, try and hold execs and project managers responsible for your games being in development hell all the time.

Gotta love these companies pretend that by laying off these people they will become a more efficient studio. sure.

This is exactly what it is. Then they will still have to hire in 9-12 months or whenever DA4 will enter the final development phase. Instead now you will have to spend millions and countless hours to training new employees. GG Bioware.

 

[Brigandier]

meh

 

[Honey Bunny]

Very weird timing for layoffs, of some senior staff too looking at twitter. I wonder if they've change direction of the game *again*.

 

[Pejo]

Guys they tried to warn us to not raise the bar, but SOMEBODY did it, they went right ahead and raised that thing.

Now it's higher than it once was. What was Bioware supposed to do?

 

[Harold Lloyd]

I'd like to think higher ups went through everyone's social media and booted everyone with pronouns. Sadly I expect they did the opposite.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Well, if that doesn't tell you that literally nothing has changed about that company, and the cycle of games being stuck in development hell while employees are being pushed to the brink of insanity through crunch and mismanagement will continue, then I don't know what will.

At this point I'm actually rooting for EA to finally put them out of their misery.

 

[Majormaxxx]

Good. Get rid of facial animators, 3d model artists that work on female characters, as well as all writers.

 

[YOU PC BRO?!]

Did they mention anything about…

• Ugly female characters
• Overuse of women in authority positions in-game (Dragon Age: Inquisition was plagued by this)
• Poor narrative/story elements
• Poor writing and inconsistent VA
• Diluted in-game choices (you can be a paragon of virtue or a little bit of a dick)
• In-game choices make no difference to the story
• Uninspired, tedious fantasy world (massive sprawling areas filled with nothing)
• Lack of identity due to ideological leanings I.e. political correctness
• Unwillingness to tackle tough issues (previous instalments did this well)
• Poor enemy variety and AI (terrible ally AI makes higher difficulties almost unplayable)
• Uninteresting objectives (collect or kill quotas)
• Terrible pacing
• Lacklustre facial animation
• Only interesting characters are characters returning from previous entries
• Bland uninteresting villains
• Paywall the true ending of the game behind DLC

 

[The Cockatrice]

Overuse of women in authority positions in-game (Dragon Age: Inquisition was plagued by this)

Bioware is a kid compared to this

when it comes to extreme overuse of women in power. Shame, because the game was great and has a nice lore.

 

[BbMajor7th]

'Agile' is the keyword in all of this - corporate shorthand for cost reduction through restructuring. They've probably paid some major consultancy firm six figures to audit the entire studio and this is the outcome.

 

[Wildebeest]

'Agile' is the keyword in all of this - corporate shorthand for cost reduction through restructuring. They've probably paid some major consultancy firm six figures to audit the entire studio and this is the outcome.

Some consultant firm told them to fire everyone over 30 and everyone who is confident enough to negotiate for a better salary.

 

[Complistic]

The studios been dead for 5 years. It just hasn't realized it yet.

 

[Lokaum D+]

 

[Drizzlehell]

Overuse of women in authority positions in-game (Dragon Age: Inquisition was plagued by this)

I miss the simpler times when literally no one cared about stupid bullshit like this and the thought would never even cross my mind because there weren't any incels around to point it out.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Bioware and EA made up their minds that they’ll make mass effect games and the possibility of new dragon age games I certainly hope they reach the finish line.

 

[drganon]

It's a shame what happened to bioware. I've got zero faith in whatever they put out next.

 

[Calling 911 Melts Beams]

its about time game devs learnt they aint all that important to game dev

most learned years ago that marketing was a better way to spend money

 

[EverydayBeast]

Bioware and EA made up their minds that they’ll make mass effect games and the possibility of a dragon age

 

[balls of snow]

They let go of senior people not just some millenials. Fucked up

 

[Sushi_Combo]

In order to create that bioware magic, they needed to trim the fat. Hope those affected land on their feet soon.

 

[Embearded]

This is what i meant in the other thread about buying publisher vs buying studio.
Biowares most valuable asset was the know how and talent. If this is lost either by leaving the company or by restricting them, the name is all you get.

It's a shame such a great studio is now in this state and i mainly blame EA for that. How the mighty have fallen.

 

[YOU PC BRO?!]

I miss the simpler times when literally no one cared about stupid bullshit like this and the thought would never even cross my mind because there weren't any incels around to point it out.

Yeah, far easier to bury your head in the sand I guess. Some people take issue with their favourite franchises being co-opted, politicised and consumed by ideological activists but c'est la vie.

 

[lh032]

i think bioware is going to shutdown or acquired by someone else in the next 5 years

 

[Drizzlehell]

Yeah, far easier to bury your head in the sand I guess. Some people take issue with their favourite franchises being co-opted, politicised and consumed by ideological activists but c'est la vie.

Do you feel as threatened by real life women as much as you do by fictional ones? That's assuming you even had any contact with one in the past... years.

 

[Skifi28]

Bioware and EA made up their minds that they’ll make mass effect games and the possibility of new dragon age games I certainly hope they reach the finish line.

Bioware and EA made up their minds that they’ll make mass effect games and the possibility of a dragon age

I think I found a glitch in your code!

 

[YOU PC BRO?!]

Do you feel as threatened by real life women as much as you do by fictional ones? That's assuming you even had any contact with one in the past... years.

I'm sorry your feelings were hurt. That must be it though. I'm a bad person, socially awkward and threatened by women. There's no other explanation that fits. Way easier to justify a personal attack if you just make up nonsense as a pretence to character-assassinate someone who disagrees with your flawed perspective. That's okay though, I don't mind, women in Bioware games are still ugly and there is still an absurd over-representation of women in power in their latest games i.e. Inquisition.

 

[Drizzlehell]

I'm sorry your feelings were hurt. That must be it though. I'm a bad person, socially awkward and threatened by women. There's no other explanation that fits. Way easier to justify a personal attack if you just make up nonsense as a pretence to character-assassinate someone who disagrees with your flawed perspective. That's okay though, I don't mind, women in Bioware games are still ugly and there is still an absurd over-representation of women in power in their latest games i.e. Inquisition.

I'm not the one having a problem with the fact that women exist and appear in video games, lol.

It must really suck for you not being able to enjoy so many things when they're not a complete sausage fest.