[Bloomberg] Inside the ‘Dragon Age’ Debacle That Gutted EA’s BioWare Studio

Played about 20 hours of it. The combat was fun at first but I just couldn't keep going. It was really bad.
 
The worst part of all this were those fucking reviews assuring everyone it was great and a "return to form." Really drives home the fact that you can't trust critics or journalists anymore. Bunch of clowns.

GtLJCqsXAAAyNdH
 
The worst part of all this were those fucking reviews assuring everyone it was great and a "return to form." Really drives home the fact that you can't trust critics or journalists anymore. Bunch of clowns.

GtLJCqsXAAAyNdH
Reads just like legacy MSM parroted and controlled headlines.

Consolidated media, folks.
 
This is one thing that has never added up to me.

A large majority of Dragon Age fans claim that they like the I.P., but all everyone speaks about in high regard is only the first game.

I'm trying to think of what other fanbase is similar to this, with a series that continues to exist somehow.
The 3rd game was great. It was definitely not as good as 1, but it was great.
 
It fills me with joy that Jason wrote this article after his post of how well it was performing to own the "chuds".

It never gets old.

Even Jason, the patron saint of "gaming journalism" is a fucking clown.
 
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I'm honestly surprised that EA just doesn't gut most of the team, take the ME Legendary Edition and port it to Switch 2, and then take a skeleton crew and do a Dragon Age Remaster for everything.
 
The worst part of all this were those fucking reviews assuring everyone it was great and a "return to form." Really drives home the fact that you can't trust critics or journalists anymore. Bunch of clowns.

GtLJCqsXAAAyNdH
BioWare flew in a bunch of "journalists" for some preview event, then based on those previews, they sent review codes only to the ones they thought would give it a 9+. I think SkillUp even did a video about it.
 
My guess is, if they had released this day and date on the mighty gamepass they'd still be around. 1.5 million sales PLUS the mighty engagement numbers would've satisfied EA because, as we all know, engagement numbers are the ONLY metric for success.
 
I enjoyed the game quite a bit even if it got repetitive and the decision making was completely shallow. The writing was uneven which I could overlook at parts but holy cow was the virtue signaling that was placed front and center annoying as fuck all. It didn't serve the general rpg consumer who was looking forward to the game and much less anyone else mildly interested. It's a bloody shame as graphically the game was lovely to look at and production quality was there for a premium product. All the bells and whistles as they say but the meat was spam instead of angus.
 
BioWare flew in a bunch of "journalists" for some preview event, then based on those previews, they sent review codes only to the ones they thought would give it a 9+. I think SkillUp even did a video about it.
And no doubt gave them all some kind of scripted tip sheet to all say something similar. And some writers took the pay off.

It's like the political topic I think last year that had dem politicians all saying the same thing word for word. Then a tv channel montaged it showing 10 of them all on cam at once as a comparison and they all said the exact same thing the next day. So not even the same wordage, but the same day too. Crazy shit. And unless someone followed a ton of politicians' feeds, nobody would ever know that a ton of them all say the same canned PR statements to the masses like The Borg. People probably just follow their own state/province/city politician, or randomly just see one on TV, so they'd never know they act like clones. So some party leader comes up with canned statements and literally forwards it to his mailing list of political buddies and says..... Here you go folks. Say this tomorrow to your city.

So if it can happen in politics with planned promotions, it surely can happen in gaming with paid promotions and free hotel and airfare.
 
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My guess is, if they had released this day and date on the mighty gamepass they'd still be around. 1.5 million sales PLUS the mighty engagement numbers would've satisfied EA because, as we all know, engagement numbers are the ONLY metric for success.
what interesting is that obviously not even microsoft was willing to invest in any way in this mess. which's very unlike them...
 
BioWare flew in a bunch of "journalists" for some preview event, then based on those previews, they sent review codes only to the ones they thought would give it a 9+. I think SkillUp even did a video about it.
I think here we are behind this. It's already bad when the publisher select the reviewers. But here we are saying that the reviewer just released the PR from the publisher. There's no other way they all say nearly the same things which is completely wrong.
 
"Tonal inconsistencies" lol jfc.

- The writing was garbage. Holy shit that scene where they browbeat players over the head about pronouns…
- The character design was a cringefest. Looked like a cozy farm game with those characters.
- It was not Dragon Age

The fans have told them time and time again what they wanted from a Dragon Age game and they just flat out ignore it.

This isn't something that should have been difficult to understand.
 
Funny that, for all the words in his article, Schreier doesn't mention the one thing he tried to crow about when the game first launched in his now-deleted tweet. Oh well. I'm sure that's nothing to learn from.
 
Failguard is the entire cinematic universe of why Western AAA of struggling so badly in a microcosm. The lack of vision and direction, the GaaS multiplayer focus, the repeated rebooting of development after 10 years of wasting time and money, the chasing of Fortnite aesthetics, the Marvel quips script writing philosophy, and above all else the overwhelming need to serve an insane political agenda instead of entertaining audiences

What an absolute Harvard Business Review master class in clusterfuck, wew

By all rights, Bioware should be shut down. No other studio has been given as much rope to hang themselves with. They made Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, and now this piece of shit. They have probably lost EA over a billion dollars in the past decade. How the fuck they are allowed to keep existing when EA has killed all the other studios for failing much less beggars belief
 
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The worst part of all this were those fucking reviews assuring everyone it was great and a "return to form." Really drives home the fact that you can't trust critics or journalists anymore. Bunch of clowns.

GtLJCqsXAAAyNdH
Since journalists became 1-acces media and/or 2- political activists they cant be trusted with reviews, awards and so on. And its not a now thing, its from quite some time.
 
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Fun fact: the most diehard Dragon Age fans struggled to support this slop. It wasn't simple mismanagement, the final product was not what anyone - least of all, Dragon Age fans - wanted.
 
And no doubt gave them all some kind of scripted tip sheet to all say something similar. And some writers took the pay off.

It's like the political topic I think last year that had dem politicians all saying the same thing word for word. Then a tv channel montaged it showing 10 of them all on cam at once as a comparison and they all said the exact same thing the next day. So not even the same wordage, but the same day too. Crazy shit. And unless someone followed a ton of politicians' feeds, nobody would ever know that a ton of them all say the same canned PR statements to the masses like The Borg. People probably just follow their own state/province/city politician, or randomly just see one on TV, so they'd never know they act like clones. So some party leader comes up with canned statements and literally forwards it to his mailing list of political buddies and says..... Here you go folks. Say this tomorrow to your city.

So if it can happen in politics with planned promotions, it surely can happen in gaming with paid promotions and free hotel and airfare.


In my country it's very obvious when the governing party instructs the media to start using some buzzwords. Every media, even the "opposition" (which doesn't really exist in the mainstream media) embrace the new terms of neolanguage, with the exact same words as the government.

Whenever you hear stuff like "migrants" (instead of immigrant) or "gender violence" is the politicians using private media to send their message. During COVID this was wild, THE NEW REALITY, you can't get any more dystopian than that.

I gave up arguing with people who can't see obvious stuff like this, and the same with the crowd who still believe in gaming journalism.
 
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His "chuds getting owned" comment will never stop being funny.
Spot on. This dumb FUCK writes this article trying to justify why the game was a massive flop when all he truly needed to say was, the game was a poorly written, woke piece of shit. That would've answered all questions anyone had as to why this game failed and saved him a crap article trying to show how clever he thinks he is.
 
Not going to read an article by that retarded cunt. What happened? I will tell you what happened

They made a game for them not for the fans. Since BioWare is very "diverse" nowadays with purple haired cunts and they/them identifiers, that game was made for them. Simple as that

Sad to see the state of current BioWare and they'll never make a hit again. Studio closure will happen I reckon
 
People here complaining that he didn't point out the 'woke' (cringe word btw) but Jason would lose his job if he does so. And the other elements definetly impacted it as well (the reveal trailer, the cartoon graphics, tonal change).

Also I will never understand why inquisition was acclaimed when it released. By far the most awful 'goty'.
 
Article:
In early November, on the eve of the crucial holiday shopping season, staffers at the video-game studio BioWare were feeling optimistic. After an excruciating development cycle, they had finally released their latest game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and the early reception was largely positive. The role-playing game was topping sales charts on Steam, and solid, if not spectacular, reviews were rolling in. But in the weeks that followed, the early buzz cooled as players delved deeper into the fantasy world, and some BioWare employees grew anxious. For months, everyone at the subsidiary of the video-game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. had been under intense pressure. The studio's previous two games, Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, had flopped, and there were rumors that if Dragon Age underperformed, BioWare might become another of EA's many casualties. Not long after Christmas, the bad news surfaced. EA announced in January that the new Dragon Age had only reached 1.5 million players, missing the company's expectations by 50%. The holiday performance of another recently released title, EA Sports FC 2025, was also subpar, compounding the problem. As a result of the struggling titles, EA Chief Executive Officer Andrew Wilson explained, the company would be significantly lowering its sales forecast for the fiscal year ahead. EA's share price promptly plunged 18%. "Dragon Age had a high-quality launch and was well-reviewed by critics and those who played," Wilson later said on an earnings call. "However, it did not resonate with a broad enough audience in this highly competitive market." Days after the sales revision, EA laid off a chunk of BioWare's staff at the studio's headquarters in Edmonton, Canada, and permanently transferred many of the remaining workers to other divisions. For the storied, 30-year-old game maker, it was a stunning fall that left many fans wondering how things had gone so haywire — and what might come next for the stricken studio. According to interviews with nearly two dozen people who worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, there were several reasons behind its failure, including marketing misfires, poor word of mouth and a 10-year gap since the previous title. Above all, sources point to the rebooting of the product from a single-player game to a multiplayer one — and then back again — a switcheroo that muddled development and inflated the title's budget, they say, ultimately setting the stage for EA's potentially unrealistic sales expectations. A spokesperson for EA declined to comment. The union between BioWare and EA started off with lofty aspirations. In 2007, EA executives announced they were acquiring BioWare and another gaming studio in a deal worth $860 million. The goal was to diversify their slate of games, which was heavy in sports titles, like Madden NFL, and light in the kind of adventure and role-playing games that BioWare was known for. Initially, it looked like a smart move thanks to a string of big hits. In 2014, BioWare released Dragon Age: Inquisition, the third installment in a popular action series dropping players in a semi-open world full of magic, elves and fire-spewing dragons. The fantasy title went on to win the much-coveted Game of the Year Award and sell 12 million copies, according to its executive producer Mark Darrah — a major validation of EA's diversification strategy. Before long, Darrah and Mike Laidlaw, the creative director, began kicking around ideas for the next Dragon Age installment — code name: Joplin — aiming for a game that would be smaller in scope. But before much could get done, BioWare shifted the studio's focus to more pressing titles coming down the pike. In 2017, BioWare released Mass Effect: Andromeda, the fourth installment in a big-budget action series set in space. Unlike its critically successful predecessors, the game received mediocre reviews and was widely mocked by fans. A few months after the disappointing release, the head of BioWare stepped down and was soon replaced by Microsoft Inc.'s Casey Hudson, an alumni of BioWare's early, formative years. Like much of the industry, EA executives were growing increasingly enamored of so-called live-service games, such as Destiny and Overwatch, in which players continue to engage with and spend money on a title for months or even years after its initial release. With EA aiming to make a splash in the fast-growing category, BioWare poured resources into Anthem, a live-service shooter game that checked all the right boxes. One day in October 2017, Laidlaw summoned his colleagues into a conference room and pulled out a few pricey bottles of whisky. The next Dragon Age sequel, he told the room, would also be pivoting to an online, live-service game — a decision from above that he disagreed with. He was resigning from the studio. The assembled staff stayed late through the night, drinking and reminiscing about the franchise they loved. "I wish that pivot had never occurred," Darrah would later recount on YouTube. "EA said, 'Make this a live service.' We said, 'We don't know how to do that. We should basically start the project over.'" Former art director Matt Goldman replaced Laidlaw as creative director, and with a tiny team began pushing ahead on a new multiplayer version of Dragon Age — code name: Morrison — while everyone else helped to finish Anthem, which was struggling to coalesce. Goldman pushed for a "pulpy," more lighthearted tone than previous entries, which suited an online game but was a drastic departure from the dark, dynamic stories that fans loved in the fantasy series. In February 2019, BioWare released Anthem. Reviews were scathing, calling the game tedious and convoluted. Fans were similarly displeased. On social media, players demanded to know why a studio renowned for beloved stories and characters had made an online shooter with a scattershot narrative. In the wake of BioWare's second consecutive flop, the multiplayer version of Dragon Age continued to take shape. While the previous games in the franchise had featured tactical combat, this one would be all action. Instead of quests that players would only experience once, it would be full of missions that could be replayed repeatedly with friends and strangers. Important characters couldn't die because they had to persist for multiple players across never-ending gameplay. As the game evolved over the next two years, the failure of Anthem hovered over the studio. Were they making the same mistakes? Some BioWare employees scoffed that they were simply building "Anthem with dragons." Throughout 2020, the pandemic disrupted the game's already fraught development. In December, Hudson, the head of the studio, and Darrah, the head of the franchise, resigned. Shortly thereafter, Gary McKay, BioWare's new studio head, revealed yet another shift in strategy. Moving forward, the next Dragon Age would no longer be multiplayer. "We were thinking, 'Does this make sense, does this play into our strengths, or is this going to be another challenge we have to face?'" McKay later told Bloomberg News. "No, we need to get back to what we're really great at." In theory, the reversion back to Dragon Age's tried-and-true, single-player format should have been welcome news inside BioWare. But there was a catch. Typically, this kind of pivot would be coupled with a reset and a period of pre-production allowing the designers to formulate a new vision for the game. Instead, the team was asked to change the game's fundamental structure and recast the entire story on the fly, according to people familiar with the new marching orders. They were given a year and a half to finish and told to aim for as wide a market as possible. This strict deadline became a recurring problem. The development team would make decisions believing that they had less than a year to release the game, which severely limited the stories they could tell and the world they could build. Then the title would inevitably be delayed a few months, at which point they'd be stuck with those old decisions with no chance to stop and reevaluate what was working. At the end of 2022, amid continually dizzying leadership changes, the studio started distributing an "alpha" build of Dragon Age to get feedback internally and from outside playtesters. According to people familiar with the process, the reactions were concerning. The game's biggest problem, early players agreed, was a lack of satisfying choices and consequences. Previous BioWare titles had presented players with gut-wrenching decisions. Which allies to save? Which factions to spare? Which enemies to slay? Such dilemmas made fans feel like they were shaping the narrative — historically, a big draw for many BioWare games. But Dragon Age's multiplayer roots limited such choices, according to people familiar with the development. BioWare delayed the game's release again while the team shoehorned in a few major decisions, such as which of two cities to save from a dragon attack. But because most of the parameters were already well established, the designers struggled to pair the newly retrofitted choices for players with meaningful consequences downstream. In 2023, to help finish Dragon Age, BioWare brought in a second, internal team, which was working on the next Mass Effect game. For decades there'd been tension between the two well-established camps, known for their starkly divergent ways of doing things. BioWare developers like to joke that the Dragon Age crew was like a pirate ship, meandering and sometimes traveling off course but eventually reaching the port. In contrast, the Mass Effect group was called the USS Enterprise, after the Star Trek ship, because commands were issued straight down from the top and executed zealously. As the Mass Effect directors took control, they scoffed that the Dragon Age squad had been doing a shoddy job and began excluding their leaders from pivotal meetings, according to people familiar with the internal friction. Over time, the Mass Effect team went on to overhaul parts of the game and design a number of additional scenes, including a rich, emotional finale that players loved. But even changes that appeared to improve the game stoked the simmering rancor inside BioWare, infuriating Dragon Age leaders who had been told they didn't have the budget for such big, ambitious swings. "It always seemed that, when the Mass Effect team made its demands in meetings with EA regarding the resources it needed, it got its way," said David Gaider, a former lead writer on the Dragon Age franchise who left before development of the new game started. "But Dragon Age always had to fight against headwinds." __Placeholder Value__ Get the Q&AI newsletter. You've got questions about AI, we've got answers. Delivered weekly. Early testers and Mass Effect leads complained about the game's snarky tone — a style of video-game storytelling, once ascendant, that was quickly falling out of fashion in pop culture but had been part of Goldman's vision for the multiplayer game. Worried that Dragon Age could face the same outcome as Forspoken — a recent title that had been hammered over its impertinent banter — BioWare leaders ordered a belated rewrite of the game's dialogue to make it sound more serious. (In the end, the resulting tonal inconsistencies would only add to the game's poor reception with fans.) A mass layoff at BioWare and a mandate to work overtime depleted morale while a voice actors strike limited the writers' ability to revise the dialogue and create new scenes. An initial trailer made the next Dragon Age seem more like Fortnite than a dark fantasy role-playing game, triggering concerns that EA didn't know how to market the game. When Dragon Age: The Veilguard finally premiered on Halloween 2024 after many internal delays, some staff members thought there was a lot to like, including the game's new combat system. But players were less impressed, and sales sputtered. "The reactions of the fan base are mixed, to put it gently," said Caitie, a popular Dragon Age YouTuber. "Some, like myself, adore it for various reasons. Others feel utterly betrayed by certain design choices." Following the layoffs and staff reassignments at BioWare earlier in the year, a small team of a few dozen employees is now working on the next Mass Effect. After three high-profile failures in a row, questions linger about EA's commitment to the studio. In May, the company relabeled its Edmonton headquarters from a BioWare office to a hub for all EA staff in the area. Historically, BioWare has never been the most important studio at EA, which generates more than $7 billion in annual revenue largely from its sports games and shooters. Depending on the timing of its launches, BioWare typically accounts for just 5% of EA's annual bookings, according to estimates by Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co. Even so, there may be strategic reasons for EA to keep supporting BioWare. Single-player role-playing games are expensive to make but can lead to huge windfalls when successful, as demonstrated by recent hits like Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3. In order to grow, EA needs more than just sports franchises, said TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz. Trying to fix its fantasy-focused studio may be easier than starting something new. "That said, if they shuttered the doors tomorrow I wouldn't be totally surprised," Creutz added. "It has been over a decade since they produced a hit."


Aside from the well documented clusterfuck of development (started as a single player game which was scrapped, rebooted as a live service game like Anthem, then reworked back into a single player game) some choice bits:
aint reading allat
 
People here complaining that he didn't point out the 'woke' (cringe word btw) but Jason would lose his job if he does so. And the other elements definetly impacted it as well (the reveal trailer, the cartoon graphics, tonal change).

Also I will never understand why inquisition was acclaimed when it released. By far the most awful 'goty'.


Nah, he is comply with this bs. You need to be very silly to believe he is in fear of losing his job for telling the true.
 
In my country it's very obvious when the governing party instructs the media to start using some buzzwords. Every media, even the "opposition" (which doesn't really exist in the mainstream media) embrace the new terms of neolanguage, with the exact same words as the government.

Whenever you hear stuff like "migrants" (instead of immigrant) or "gender violence" is the politicians using private media to send their message. During COVID this was wild, THE NEW REALITY, you can't get any more dystopian than that.

I gave up arguing with people who can't see obvious stuff like this, and the same with the crowd who still believe in gaming journalism.
In America at least, trust in the media is at an all-time low and is still decreasing because it turns out Americans have an abundance of common sense and can figure out when they are being lied to and indoctrinated


I feel for our European brethren though, I know the majority of Europeans still completely trust their media even though it is as bad as American media is these days
 
The Recipe is easy. Stop making woke garbage. For some reason these people have to push their woke ideology in their games.

Isn't this the same game where they are sitting around and a character randomly blurt's out, "So, I'm non binary" Like what the fuck, total forcing their ideas
 
This was an interesting read(I know Scherier isn't liked here and I'm not the biggest fan of him myself, as he seems very pompous, but he does good sleuthing).

I, myself, never had any vested interest in Veilguard. It wasn't anything like I hoped to see after the original teasers involving Solas.

But my wife, an absolutely avid fan of the series, was staunch in wanting it. She didn't care about woke, or whatever. She loved Dragon Age.

So, I put down a pre-order for the Deluxe Edition for her. In the months leading up to the release, she played through every entry in the series to get ready.

She finally had time to play it after the holidays settled in. She didn't make it more than a few hours into the game.

She said it just..didn't feel like Dragon Age...she didn't like the visual style as much, the way they went with choices not mattering, she felt the dialogue felt stilted and off. She didn't mind the combat, she said that felt good.

She's not touched it since snd hasnt even expressed an interest to pick it back up, at all. Mostly spends time on Oblivion.


I don't regret getting it for her--it was never going to appeal to me, but seems it didn't even appeal to her, an avid fan.
 
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Nah, he is comply with this bs. You need to be very silly to believe he is in fear of losing his job for telling the true.
Obviously didn't mean that. But when you're in a mainstream public high paying position where people other than Neogaf users are going to read your article, you can't really say the things people here want others to say. No IGN reviewer or gamespot are going to say that either. You can respectfully say its a bit preachy but thats about it.
 
"Tonal inconsistencies" lol jfc.

- The writing was garbage. Holy shit that scene where they browbeat players over the head about pronouns…
- The character design was a cringefest. Looked like a cozy farm game with those characters.
- It was not Dragon Age

The fans have told them time and time again what they wanted from a Dragon Age game and they just flat out ignore it.

This isn't something that should have been difficult to understand.
You just need to be educated about why what you like is bad.
 
Game made by pussies for pussies. Leave that garbage agenda and return to "by gamers for gamers" mindset next time and your game will sell just fine.
 
The worst part of all this were those fucking reviews assuring everyone it was great and a "return to form." Really drives home the fact that you can't trust critics or journalists anymore. Bunch of clowns.

GtLJCqsXAAAyNdH

All that "positive" headline is why I never trust these types of media when it comes to reviews. They all are nothing but a bunch of hiveminds trying to please their paymaster or defending an ideology.

I just watch Youtubers who genuinely love video games for opinions on the games.
 
Whatever development problems this game had, ultimately the writers and character designers are responsible for the state of the game when it was finished and released.

They're the ones who wrote that incredibly cringey "pulling a bharv" scene.

They're the ones who made a "character creator" that thinks women with large butts and breasts bigger than a b-cup don't exist.

They're the ones who wrote a "thieves guild" that doesn't actually steal when it "disrespects other cultures".

They're the ones who wrote a character whose idea of "flirting" is to commit blatant sexual harassment, but it's okay because they're "non-binary".

They're the ones who think people in a medieval fantasy setting would speak exactly like Tumblr users in 2017.
 
I don't know why are y'all shitting on Bioware. They gave up top scars, something that i have never seen nor even heard in a video game. This is a very unique feature that adds a good amount of depth to every rpg out there, and if i were them, i'd have em in the next Mass Effect game. The imagination at that studio is running wild, lots of talented folks, and i think that we should all embrace their creativity instead of being negative bigots.🤗
 
LMAO I was curious enough about this article to go to actual Bloomberg.com and look for the comments section

As usual, the cowards didn't enable the comments section for this article 😂
 
Man, the transition from origins to this is just heartbreaking. Origins is one of my favourite RPGs, the writing, atmosphere and mature tone and music came together brilliantly. As much as one can be justified for saying they got what was coming to them, as a Dragon Age and rpg fan, I feel sad.
 
Man, the transition from origins to this is just heartbreaking. Origins is one of my favourite RPGs, the writing, atmosphere and mature tone and music came together brilliantly. As much as one can be justified for saying they got what was coming to them, as a Dragon Age and rpg fan, I feel sad.
It worse then sad, it's fucking heartbreaking. 💔 A studio once full of passionate rpg lovers, makers of amazing worlds, spinners of great stories...reduced to this empty shell of a company. Ah well, if the new ME isn't a success I think we can finally say goodbye to them as EA takes them out back.
 
The worst part of all this were those fucking reviews assuring everyone it was great and a "return to form." Really drives home the fact that you can't trust critics or journalists anymore. Bunch of clowns.

GtLJCqsXAAAyNdH


I don't think it can ever be emphasized enough, how much of a fucking crime this should be considered. For them to play Veilguard, and actually have the audacity to claim that it's on par with games like KotoR, Mass Effect 1&2, BG2, and DA:O, was such a shameful and sell out fucking moment for Games Journalism. Yeah not all of them were like this, but a good handful of them were. The next time some armchair "ACK-tually" spouting retard tries to tell you that gaming journalists being influenced by publishers is a myth perpetuated by chuds, you show them this shit right here.
 
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