mandevil2 hours ago
As always, the Onion nailed it perfectly long ago:
https://theonion.com/anthem-developers-assure-players-whiteb...
'“We know the thousands of customers who pre-ordered Anthem have some concerns, but we are confident this collection of words scrawled on a conference room board will be a revolutionary third-person shooter experience when released at the end of the week,” said director Jonathan Warner, who shared a progress update with players by sending out a screenshot of an email chain that ended with an agreement to call the game Anthem.'
https://theonion.com/people-criticizing-anthem-don-t-underst...
"Stop complaining and attacking studios just because a game isn’t everything you want. Developers put too much stock in making games enjoyable and playable as it is. Planning to make something as profitable as Anthem was supposed to be and is a huge undertaking, so at least give them credit for trying. BioWare had 18 months to build a game that would sell millions of copies based on the goodwill they built up, and they hit it out of the park. You may not understand Q4 projections, but they do. Anthem is a game that exists and is funding [EA] CEO bonuses, and by that measure, it’s been a huge success."
brendoelfrendo32 minutes ago
The Onion is funny, but not exactly kind here. I would recommend Mark Darrah's post-mortem on Anthem; he's not an unbiased source (he became an executive producer on the project part way through development, and I think he does try to let himself off easy in his retelling of events), but it's pretty clear that mismanagement--both within Bioware and especially from EA--set Anthem down a track that was hard to recover from. Development goals, gameplay design, and even architectural decisions were constantly shifting until late in development, leading devs to constantly rework the game as new requirements came and went.
burningChrome22 minutes ago
Seems Anthem is gone, but not completely?
From the same post-mortem video:
former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah revealed that internally at the studio, the shooter had code for local play and private server use until a few months before launch. Presumably, it's still there to be "salvaged and recovered."
"Anthem actually had the code for local servers running in a dev environment right up until a few months up to launch," Darrah commented. "I don't know that they still work but the code is there to be salvaged and recovered."
https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/anthem-is-dead-after-t...
activitypea24 minutes ago
The game _was_ forced to release in that financial year, but as Darrah eloquently puts it: "There was no point in delaying because that team didn't have another year in them"
hbn11 minutes ago
Both articles GP linked were jokes pointing blame at the mismanagement
aresant2 hours ago
BioWare shutting down is sad, but it’s really a classic ship of theseus situation.
There are a handful of notables still there but the majority of the teams that made the classic Baldur’s Gate, KOTOR, and Mass Effect disappeared a long time ago through natural turnover and a couple of brutal rounds of layoffs.
The silver lining is that the talent didn't vanish and we have teams like Archetype working on Exodus, Stoic with The Banner Saga, or offshoots like Yellow Brick and Beamdog.
kar11812 minutes ago
The first dragon's age was absolutely ace too.
so-gala-masseyan hour ago
BG1 & 2 were clearly labors of love. You could feel it in the game play. But the 90s were a different time before gazillion dollar budgets and expectations.
zem11 minutes ago
wasn't bg3 pretty universally praised too?
nrjames9 minutes ago
That was developed by Larian, not Bioware.
zem3 minutes ago
ah, didn't realise that!
hbn10 minutes ago
Yes but Bioware didn't make it
AlexandrB41 minutes ago
I think the best way to keep quality up is to stay small. Supergiant Games is a great example of this approach. Once you have a massive publisher and expectations to ship AAA (or, heaven forbid, AAAA) games it's usually just a matter of time.
hx813 minutes ago
It's surprising what a small team can accomplish, but there are some projects that need a large team to be feasible. It would be nice if there was a clear path on how to grow a game studio and continue to deliver quality.
Forgeties7913 minutes ago
It helps when you have a hit like bastion be your financial foundation and you don’t have AAA aspirations though. A lot of those deals with publishers and such are because it’s that or the game never gets made (or worse, never finished). And despite how much folks scoff at AAA’s, idk man, it’s fun to play a tentpole title. It was fun to get excited for Ace Combat this year. I can’t wait for the new Metro game (I would say they’ve exited AA territory).
Hamuko2 hours ago
Is the talent not vanishing backed up by data? The gaming industry has always been an extremely brutal industry, and I wouldn't be surprised if the low wages, long hours and zero job security permanently burn out some of the talent.
aresantan hour ago
I don't have inside knowledge but have followed Bioware (given how many of their games live rent free in my head)
1 - 2017 they cut from 500 -> ~350
2 - 2023 went from 350 -> 200 that included a bunch of very senior people including the OG writer of Baldur's gate Lukas Kristjanson
3 - Early '24 cut down to 100 skeleton crew as the writing on the wall for DA Veilguard sales materialized (sold about 1.5m vs 3m projected)
mjr0035 minutes ago
Note that the 1.5m number given for Veilguard was for the vague term "engagements" rather than sales, so there's additional padding going into that figure.
jonaustin27 minutes ago
And veilguard was an abomination of corporate groupthink based on some perceived cultural zeitgeist. I couldn't finish it the dialogue was so painfully cringe.
ramesh312 hours ago
>The silver lining is that the talent didn't vanish and we have teams like Archetype working on Exodus, Stoic with The Banner Saga, or offshoots like Yellow Brick and Beamdog.
This is generally the case in the games industry. Great dev teams seem to function more like bands than companies. For however you feel about the latest iterations, the first Call of Duty was an absolute revelation to the FPS genre that we never would have gotten without the EA firing of the MoH team.
bathtub36510 minutes ago
And then they moved on to make Titanfall 1 and 2 after the founders were unceremoniously fired by Activision, which were also great games
da_chicken2 hours ago
That is true, but by that logic EA ought to have stopped being a completely awful around 15 years ago. It's especially egregious when you consider why Electronic Arts was founded. Activision's origin and reputation when they were bought out are similarly dark.
The analogy would be more easier to swallow if it wasn't always used as a mask for enshittification.
nemomarx2 hours ago
There's no rule that says it has to be a positive or negative change overall, just that the people involved are always changing. if they had found the right new talent bioware could have pulled it off too maybe, it just wouldn't be the original bioware either way
slg2 hours ago
One of the notable ways BioWare pushed the industry forward was the ability for the player to initiate a romance storyline with any one of a variety of in game characters. That often included the option of romancing characters of the same gender. I point this out because the Saudi Investment Fund bought EA a couple months back and they obviously have very strong opinions on those sorts of relationships. Are these two connected? I don't know, there are plenty of other potential reasons to close a studio, so probably not. But these are now the sort of questions we have to ask ourselves anytime EA makes a decision like this.
flumpcakes2 hours ago
I'm going to hazard a guess and suggest that the Saudi Investment Fund is invested in many things that would not be considered polite in Saudi society.
slgan hour ago
Sure, but when one of these investments makes moves that, perhaps coincidentally, make them more polite in Saudi society, it brings up questions regarding the motivation in a way it wouldn't for some other owner.
pixelpoetan hour ago
I got married in Ultima 7.
slgan hour ago
There's a reason I used the admittedly nebulous phrase "pushed the industry forward" rather than a simpler "introduced" or "invented". BioWare was certainly not the first with this sort of thing, but they popularized it and it was clearly impactful to a bunch of people. For example, you can hear about the impact directly from the mouths of some of BioWare's former employees. [1]
[1] - https://blog.bioware.com/2022/07/15/bioware-developer-story-...
Razenganan hour ago
Richard Garriott is getting Ultima back next year btw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2El7VtPuSzs
pixelpoet38 minutes ago
Yes, I heard about that too! I really hope he does at least one more truly great Ultima, and he can name his price as long as it really is a proper spiritual Ultima 7 / Ultima Online successor.
deadbabe24 minutes ago
People got married in Ultima Online to real people.
pinevale2 hours ago
BioWare hasn't published a successful game in a very long time. Their last releases were Anthem (2019) and DA: Veilguard (2024), both of which tapped into the studio's reputation but underperformed in the long haul. Veilguard was also so "meh" against the backdrop of Baldur's Gate 3 that it probably harmed the brand and the franchise more than if it never came out.
They basically used to make amazing games in the 2000s and never quite lived up to that reputation again. Whether the acquisition by EA was the cause or the symptom of the decline, I don't know.
santoshalper2 hours ago
Don't forget ME:Andromeda (2017). The truth is that it has been almost 15 years since Bioware made an even arguably great game.
ToucanLoucanan hour ago
Andromeda had a lot of good in it, tbf. Their big mistake there IMO was hard-resetting the universe the way they did. Like I was excited for more mass effect but I fell off that game so hard. Mechanically it was solid but I just… didn’t care.
Anthem frankly killed them. A live service looter shooter which were already out of vogue by the time it was released. Obviously made by marketing entirely, no soul whatsoever. They never recovered from it.
krabizzwainchan hour ago
I will always defend Andromeda as not being as bad as everyone said. I enjoy going back and playing it, and they were a few better writers away from having a really good game. I cared more about the Irish redhead copilot than about any one of the actual companions.
pepperoni_pizza14 minutes ago
Yeah, Andromeda has some cool ideas (the whole Remnant thing felt like a very classic Scifi mistery) but it was stuck in classing BioWare cliches with companions loyalty quests and romances, the main character being weird chosen one, the main plot was dumb and it was barely a Mass Effect because of the disconnect from the main universe and missing some of the favorite Mass Effect things (like the Geth).
It might have been successful if it weren't a Mass Effect. Or maybe not, who knows.
keyringlight4 minutes ago
I think a large part of the issue is that the sum total of ME trilogy is a hard act to follow, without aiming to sound hyperbolic it's a very bright light that outshines a lot. Anything trying to be a sequel has a difficult balancing act of being familiar versus being different and bringing new ideas in.
swiftcoderan hour ago
> I cared more about the Irish redhead copilot than about any one of the actual companions
This squares with Joker being a fan-favourite character in the main trilogy
LaurensBERan hour ago
> Mechanically it was solid but I just… didn’t care.
This is a great summary of the entire issue with the game.
I really tried to like it but it didn't inspire any enthusiasm. I didn't really care for the plot, the stakes seemed so low compared to the previous title and none of the races/planets really scratched that explore itch.
taurathan hour ago
Though I think that will absolutely be a factor in future releases for EA for the reason you describe, I think the larger factor was that Bioware wasn't able to succeed in pushing out games that sold well enough, and that is not necessarily entirely on the studio.
AAA games in general have been having massive problems with over-management, where you have hundreds of stakeholders for a game. The second there is proven money in a franchise, massive structures of managers start to meddle in everything, demand day and date release promises, and get involved in everything from creative direction to engineering to resourcing. You end up with thousands of people in the credits for games made by a team of 100 artists and programmers.
The same thing has been happening to big budget movies and prestige TV shows, to the point that everything becomes this sort of neoliberal corporate soup that reflects the culture of the company. Game studios become victims of their own success. In the same way enterprise software becomes consultant feature slop soup, media becomes focus grouped appeals-to-no-one ultra high production value shovelware.
Creative studios stop producing art or meaningful experiences and start producing content.
AlexandrBan hour ago
This is a reach. Not because the Saudis don't want to influence the direction of games, but because Bioware has had such a run of embarrassing flops over the past decade that I'm surprised they stuck around this long. Peak Bioware was probably Mass Effect 2 and it's all been downhill from there.
maxlinan hour ago
[flagged]
john_strinlaian hour ago
>take away bandwidth needed for more important things
in a game that already has romance options, adding a same sex romance option is not taking away bandwidth. and i cannot imagine how it would "soil" an entire franchise. just don't choose the same sex romance option if you don't want to. easy.
collingreen40 minutes ago
They aren't confused about how difficult it is to avoid same sex options in game. They spelled it out clearly - they decided "mainstream appeal" should not even bring up the option and doing so is probably pressure from people they don't like ("activists").
Karens aren't misunderstanding how to mind their own business or live-and-let-live; they are trying to enforce what they see as (or wish were) social norms and don't give a damn about the perspective of the folks on the receiving end of their chirping.
ainchan hour ago
Not sure what what specific claim you're making. Do you think gay romance 'soiled' Mass Effect?
swiftcoderan hour ago
You know, the neutering of same-sex romances in ME: 2 (due to an extended right media campaign), is one of the most universally decried changes, in a game that was otherwise considered an improvement on the formula
JohnMakin2 hours ago
I am still extremely bitter about how BioWare, in my opinion, ruined the dragon age franchise. While not "truly" turn based, dragon age origins and dragon age 2 had the spirit of it, and felt like a party-based tactical RPG. Then out of nowhere, the studio decided to abandon that with inquisition and turn it into an action/adventure style of game. I had never really been so bitterly disappointed with a game release.
After that I knew they were done. ME3 was the last good game they released, imo.
LinXitoW40 minutes ago
Ironically, the gameplay is what meant I only managed to get through DAO and DA2 with a bunch of cheats. Realtime with pause is a horrible monstrosity. It combines the worst parts of action and turn based.
Veilguard was my favority gameplay wise, but the writing... well you know.
hakunin29 minutes ago
Honestly, I've felt this way before (gaming since the 90s), but try watching somebody play RTwP a bit to get a feel for it. It can become very smooth and comfortable. The hardest part is to learn to trust the timings.
unsnap_biceps2 hours ago
They wiffed on ME3's ending.
xen02 hours ago
To be fair, ME3's ending was doomed before that game started.
I'd place it around the start of ME2.
rl3an hour ago
ME2's ending was just terrible. The boss fight was ridiculously cheesy.
In contrast, ME1's ending may have well been a master class in game cinematography and writing.
jasomillan hour ago
The entirety of Mass Effect 1 was a master class in writing, from the opening cinematic to the ending credits, that more than made up for somewhat janky (though nevertheless entertaining) gameplay.
xen0an hour ago
Much of ME2's story is terrible (some of the side character stuff is delightful, but the 'main quest' is a train wreck).
My point was that ME3 was doomed because ME2 utterly failed at bridging the gap between the strong start of an epic that was ME1 and what should have been the conclusion in ME3.
In fact 'fail' may be generous. I don't think it even 'tried'.
iugtmkbdfil834an hour ago
True.. it is genuinely hard to deliver on that kind of a build up.
ishouldbework2 hours ago
At least you can pick the color filter to apply to the ending.
autoexecan hour ago
The studio's biggest sin came before that when they used DLC to paywall off major parts of the story in ME2. Anyone who didn't fork over even more of their cash got an incomplete game and a plot that made no sense.
nfw22 hours ago
they could go from infamously bad ending to one of most creative endings ever by just saying indoctrination theory is correct
bigstrat20032 hours ago
IMO the last good game they released was DA:O. ME2 was such a let down, with them removing the RPG elements from the gameplay and the main story being a mess which railroaded you into working with Cerberus. ME3 was even worse. While it's sad to see Bioware go, they haven't been making good games in quite a long time.
esseph2 hours ago
When Dragon Age 2 came out, Bioware was still running things day-to-day.
By the time of the next Dragon Age game, EA was deep in making decisions.
gambitingan hour ago
I might be in minority but I really enjoyed both Inquisition and Veilguard.
cjkan hour ago
I enjoyed Inquisition and couldn’t stand Veilguard. But I also never played any of the earlier DA games.
taurathan hour ago
I thought Inquisition was quite enjoyable but clearly showing EA's management structure and the story of the game's development and decision chains. It won GOTYs for a good reason because they really did take a huge swing at a massive world and for the most part they succeeded.
Veilguard was very poorly marketed to appeal to a neoliberal crowd as if the characters and identity was the primary draw rather than the core story themes (Wizards v Templars, Societal Order vs Individual Freedom, the capacity for evil and corruption of either side) and the world which was fascinating. I love me some inclusion and well crafted characters, but the focus on it to the exclusion of all else as a queer person it gave me the same ick as a corporate float at a pride parade.
WithinReason2 hours ago
The makers of Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins.
Sad, even though BioWare was dead already.
0cf8612b2e1e2 hours ago
Check the release dates on those games.
santoshalper2 hours ago
No doubt. It's been a very long time since Bioware was a great studio.
ubermanan hour ago
Check the release dates of their best games against the date of purchase by EA and then compare everything after than to everything before that.
LarsDu882 hours ago
Let us not forget MDK2
wellthisisgreat2 hours ago
MDK, MDK2 are truly like nothing else out there.
Art
flumpcakes2 hours ago
Those games are so weird but stylishly alluring. I remember buying a big box of MDK and playing through the game in probably a day or two.
newsclues2 hours ago
Also Anthem!
AdmiralAsshat2 hours ago
It's not like no one saw this coming. Here's a comic from nine years ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/7cxz4a/eas_graveyar...
autoexecan hour ago
For those without reddit accounts, here's an accessible link to that page at old.reddit.com
https://web.archive.org/web/20230610092047/https://old.reddi...
john_strinlai2 hours ago
i enjoyed this comic, similar in theme, posted today:
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcf.preview.re...
sbodnar11 minutes ago
While we may be saying goodbye to BioWare, we can still enjoy the games through services like Good Old Games (GOG) who preserve the titles - BG1, BG2, KOTOR and more can certainly keep living on.
RIP to one of the best game studios.
kobalsky2 hours ago
Talent in western game studios just can't shake the startup mode. Try get a hit, try to get bought, cash out, run away.
Blizzard seemed to defy the stereotype but it died a long time ago, it's just a husk.
The contrast with japanese game studios is impressive.
the__alchemist2 hours ago
*US game studios. Continental Europe has been continuing to put out masterpieces. (Many countries: Poland, Croatia, Czechia, France, etc)
hbn32 minutes ago
BioWare is a Canadian studio
(But purchased by EA obviously)
flumpcakes2 hours ago
Why do you think that is? What would you consider a European masterpiece? And what would you consider something that falls short from outside Europe?
the__alchemistan hour ago
European masterpieces, recentish:
- Talos Principle 2
- Expedition 33
- KCD2
- Anything by Arcane
- Anything by CDPR
- 007 Last light / Hitman
- Blue Prince
Most recently, I'm loving Order of the Sinking Star, and that's from a US team. There's hope!
tsimionescu10 minutes ago
You're forgetting a few major ones:
- Baldur's Gate 3 (German)
- Disco Elysium (Estonian)
- Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2 (same studio as BG3)
BG3 is notable for its gigantic success. And Disco Elysium is one of the best written games ever made, and it showed that you can have a fantastic RPG with no combat system whatsoever, while still having meaningful progression.
flumpcakesan hour ago
> Order of the Sinking Star
I was going to mention this game as a counter point but then realised that if I am doing that it's kind of the exception that proves the rule.
I do wonder why this is, perhaps there's more money in the US to build bigger games with bigger teams and you just get the 'too many cooks in the kitchen' syndrome.
I must admit most AAA games from the US over the last decade have been underwhelming for me.
kridsdale1an hour ago
Baldurs Gate 3 was made in Europe!
AlexandrBan hour ago
The US gaming industry has serious Hollywood envy. There's a constant push to make games "cinematic" and put big name actors in leading roles. This not only bloats budgets but results in barely-interactive monstrosities where gameplay is just a bridge between long, non-interactive cutscenes.
It's ironic because Hollywood is not doing too well at the moment.
autoexec37 minutes ago
I like "cinematic" games, and have never had a problem with long cutscenes as long as they told a good story. Games are a great medium for storytelling and cutscenes are better than delivering plot strictly by having players hunt for thousands of short snippets of text.
I'm far less impressed with big name actors and that seems like a massive waste of money. As long as the acting is good, and the voices aren't obnoxious, I don't care who the actor is. People might see a movie just because it has an actor they like in it, but I don't think that carries over too well to games.
AlexandrB12 minutes ago
It's definitely a balancing act. There are some great cinematic games (Last of Us), but it's also easy to put all the focus on the cinematic aspects and have a bunch of mediocre gameplay as filler in between. I don't understand why more games didn't go the Half Life 2 route and have the conversation/cinematic play out around you without taking control away completely.
rossvoran hour ago
If we are sticking to the CRPG theme. Then the Witcher 3 and Divinity: OG 2, BG3 and Disco Elysium would be the obvious choices. If you told me in beginning of 2010s all of the future hits in this genre will come out outside of US and Bioware/Obsidian will fade away, I would be quite surprised (but maybe shouldn't have, considering their owners and financial situations)
mcmcmc2 hours ago
The Kingdom Come: Deliverance games from Warhorse Studios and the Witcher franchise from CD Projekt Red (both Polish) are excellent and have won a ton of awards
Lots of non EU games fall short, including several mentioned in this thread, e.g. Anthem
antiframean hour ago
> The Kingdom Come: Deliverance games from Warhorse Studios and the Witcher franchise from CD Projekt Red (both Polish)
Warhorse Studios is Czech; Slavs are not all alike.
charm137an hour ago
As many have mentioned, BG3, CDPR's Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 franchise, Remedy's Control / Alan Wake franchise (both original IPs) to name just a few. DICE (within EA) comes from Sweden and it's responsible for EA's core Frostbite engine alongside its Battlefield franchise.
I cannot point to the reasons as to why. Many of these teams are global teams - so a lot of the same problems apply: marketing costs/timelines, release-time crunch etc. The one difference I can point to is that perhaps executive payouts are not overly dependent on total shareholder returns.
4dregressan hour ago
The Witcher 3, Any GTA game
santoshalper2 hours ago
CDPR is probably the flagship studio in Europe. Interestingly, they are probably the modern studio that most resembles Bioware in the 2000's.
izacusan hour ago
Warhorse studios as well. Rebel Wolves. Machine Games. IO interactive.
The list is rather long.
Henchman21an hour ago
Valheim, Enshrouded. Each sit at the peak of the genre, IMO.
loosescrews2 hours ago
Bioware had a string of hits before EA bought them.
ErneX2 hours ago
They lost their way when the doctors left.
esseph2 hours ago
Probably one of the best game studios ever, IMO.
(In no certain order)
- Baldur's Gate
- Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
- Neverwinter Nights
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- Star Wars: The Old Republic
- Jade Empire
- Mass Effect
- Mass Effect 2
- Mass Effect 3
- MDK2
- Dragon Age Origins
- Dragon Age II
- Dragon Age: Inquisition
4dregressan hour ago
I really enjoyed Neverwinter Knights 2.
tsimionescu7 minutes ago
Neverwinter Nights 2 was made by Obsidian, not Bioware.
And I would argue Obsidian was the better studio anyway. Besides NWN2, and moreso its fantastic expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, they also made the excellent Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout: New Vegas, and their own original franchises, Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, and Tyranny.
pepperoni_pizza10 minutes ago
That was Obsidian.
ubermanan hour ago
... and then EA purchased them and forced the frostbyte engine and release cadence expectations and mechanics that worked for FIFA Ultimate Team.
Insanity2 hours ago
Blizzard is owned by MSFT now, so it did get bought out (back in 2022). So it fits the 'startup mode' model that I _think_ you're trying to say?
There's other studios that similar to Blizzard didn't get bought out early and published multiple hit games, like Insomniac Games.
anthonypasqan hour ago
Blizzard has not been independent since 1994, but people on the internet love picking some arbitrary point in time when "Blizzard died" when in reality the timeline and quality of their releases has almost zero correlation with who they were owned by at the time.
bigstrat20032 hours ago
Blizzard effectively got bought out when they merged with Activision. It wasn't technically a buyout, but Blizzard quality was never the same after that.
goolzan hour ago
Yep, and all these years later, we have lost so much. It may seem like such a small thing, but losing real GMs in WoW makes me really sad.
anthonypasqan hour ago
Blizzard has not been independent since 1994, but people on the internet love picking some arbitrary point in time when "Blizzard died" when in reality the timeline and quality of their releases has almost zero correlation with who they were owned by at the time.
Henchman21an hour ago
WoW Forever seems like they're at least attempting to try for the brass ring again. But it has such a "been there, done that" feel that I suspect its more to capture revenue from a new generation.
rubayeetan hour ago
As someone who spent so much time in the universe of Mass Effect / Dragon Age, this is hard. I am almost grieving. The latest games of those franchises (Andromeda and Veilguard) could not live up to the expectations. They deserved a better ending.
I wish I had never seen the new ME teaser / trailer [1] out 5 years ago.
everdrive2 hours ago
It's the new hot business model. Buy a very successful studio then liquidate it.
mosura2 hours ago
Bioware have not been very successful for a very long time.
Even in the good times their ability to create (and hide) black holes was prodigious.
Crusoe1232 hours ago
For EA this is modus operandi for a long time. I remember them buying the likes of Bullfrog, Westwood back in the 90s and then shutting them down a few years later.
HelloMcFly2 hours ago
Bioware hasn't been very successful - creatively or economically - in some time. I loved their heyday more than most, but they're far from what they once were.
mardef2 hours ago
The people who made everything we loved from BioWare left more than a decade ago.
BioWare, in the last 12 years, has released: Mass Effect: Andromeda, Dragon Age: Veilguard, and Anthem.
It's still painful to see the studio go away, but I sadly agree.
Agentlien2 hours ago
I was at another EA studio when BioWare released Andromeda and Anthem. Got to play an early closed beta of Anthem, heard lots of details about Andromeda's development as it was happening. As a huge fan of their games it felt crazy and very sad.
However, The Veilguard to me was amazing. I loved that game and it's my favorite Dragon Age.
hbn20 minutes ago
Veilguard is a serviceable action romp but it's not a Dragon Age game.
HelloMcFlyan hour ago
[dead]
angrydev2 hours ago
EA bought Bioware 19 years ago. Are you saying this was their strategy for two decades?
anthonypasqan hour ago
cmon man, dont let facts get in the way of a narrative. just let gamers whine in peace
jbmchuck2 hours ago
Nothing new under the sun - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
ex-aws-dudean hour ago
You could not be more wrong
They were purchased decades ago
sys32768an hour ago
I am grateful they released the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, which was a sort of penance for Mass Effect Andromeda.
Speaking of Andromeda, I still rewatch videogamedunkey's hilarious review of it titled Mess Effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDjci1ODoBs
bigfishrunning32 minutes ago
I never played Andromeda, and i often think that maybe i should, but there's just not enough time and too many good games to play.
hbn41 minutes ago
Damn, I have a buddy who works for them, he was working on the new Mass Effect. He just lost his mom very quickly a few months ago too.
He hosted a friend and I end of last year and gave us a tour of their offices in Vancouver. Hits close to home.
I had never played any Bioware games but after that trip it inspired me to finally get around to playing through the Dragon Age series, and I marathoned them all over the next few months. It wasn't hard to see the very steep decline in quality. Which is unfortunate cause they definitely had a lot of talent but were being sabotaged internally from executives jerking them around with trend chasing (for as bad as Veilguard was, it's surprising they cobbled something together that's at least somewhat cohesive when it was going back and forth between a single player and multiplayer game), as well as people being put in charge of major creative decisions that clearly had not earned that role.
glimshe2 hours ago
One of my favorite game companies ever. But it had already been "shut down" in practice after the acquisition.
eterm2 hours ago
Yes, the mourning for the company that made KOTOR and NWN was done years ago, it's effectively a completely different company now that's shutting down.
vkou2 hours ago
It wasn't shut down after the acqusiition, it's been dead and just shambling along as a zombie for nearly two decades.
The last impressive things they shipped were Mass Effect and DA:O. That was 19 and 17 years ago.
Everything since has been trend-chasing and running on creative fumes.
philipallstaran hour ago
The good news is that Dragon Age: The Veilguard was made by, and for, modern audiences. The bad news is it sunk the company alongside Anthem.
trentnixan hour ago
"modern audiences"
I can't help but read that in the Critical Drinker's voice.
philipallstar40 minutes ago
My favourite translation of the Bible is THE MESSAGE.
elktown26 minutes ago
Not every topic needs your reactionary grievances. So incredibly pathetic, both of you.
philipallstar2 minutes ago
Thank you for writing that in such a non-reactionary way. How's the view from the right side of history?
jasomillan hour ago
Hopefully this opens the door for EA to sell off the Mass Effect IP to a company that's interested in making something other than a live service game.
swiftcoderan hour ago
Fingers crossed, but it's weirdly uncommon in the games industry.
Apart from whatever the hell happened with Bungie's many changes of ownership, I can't think of many beloved franchises that have been successfully transitioned to new ownership...
ex-aws-dude7 minutes ago
Is that even a thing? I can't think of any case where company sold off game IP other than in acquisitions
barbazoo2 hours ago
> The company is also laying off around 400 staffers, Bloomberg reports, including around 50 at BioWare. The changes follow EA being taken private by an investor group led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners in a $55 billion deal that closed in August.
Never thought that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund would shutdown the company that created so many childhood memories.
science4sail2 hours ago
Sic transit gloria mundi.
I think that a lot of Bioware fans just had nostalgia though - their recent work doesn't seem to have been as well received as their franchise initiator games.
Night_Thastus2 hours ago
Bioware has been dead for over a decade. What we have now has just been wearing its name. Honestly best to just let it go.
random_cat_8745an hour ago
I gasped at the news but in retrospect, I'm not surprised... but as a huge Dragon Age fan, I had a bit of hope of a new Dragon Age game. This is a sad day.
Lerc2 hours ago
May all of those developers go off to create their own IP and, in turn, get acquired by EA.
It's like the cluttered overgrown forest that periodicly burns down to create space for new life.
EA is like a landowner who does no maintenance but loves to buy things that have been maintained because they look so good.
humanlion872 hours ago
Really loved Jade Empire and Mass Effect. But they had lost their touch quite some time ago. Not surprised this was coming
150g227 minutes ago
Industry of Scam. Industry of Spy.
AmazingEveryDayan hour ago
The EA I remember was Racing Destruction Set, Pinball Construction Set, great stuff, lots of freeform playtime. Did they continue releasing that kind of stuff? Yeah I haven't kept up.
wildpeaksan hour ago
Even if it was a long time coming, especially after Veilguard, the loss of a legendary studio is always sad.
Mr_Eri_Atlov2 hours ago
Knights of the Old Republic will forever be one of my favorite games
RIP to an amazing creative group
nozzlegear2 hours ago
I know it's not Bioware, but Kreia from Kotor 2 is still one of my favorite characters from any video game franchise. I wish I could experience those games for the first time again, but as an adult.
Henchman21an hour ago
You may enjoy Kreia's Conundrums: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nziFrCt5o2w&list=PLujAdpHxJg...
akimbostrawman2 hours ago
>RIP to an amazing creative group
i can assure you that the original amazing group has been gone for over a decade. modern bioware has only been good at dragging someone else's legacy through the mud.
make32 hours ago
maybe obvious, but Baldur's Gate 3 is really that level (or better) of a game (recommendation)
serf2 hours ago
game to game, sure. story to story, I disagree.
kotor was one of the first interactive media franchises to showcase that era in the Star Wars universe, and it was an era that's radically different than anything in the movies.
bg3 is a typical DnD setting + sex + lovecraftian elements and flayers sitting in for beholders to spice it up; and they were only there because during dev-time lovecraft was a huge gaming trend.
don't get me wrong; I love both of them, but the BG3 story was the one that ended up feeling like -- for me -- something that would have been a modpack for Neverwinter Nights.
shoobiedooan hour ago
Likewise. The bg3 story felt like a very long, strung out and milked dry "you have sickness x, go the hospital and figure out a treatment" level of depth
panzagl2 hours ago
> they were only there because during dev-time lovecraft was a huge gaming trend.
I guess you have the edition of Deities and Demigods where they were cut...
ninininino2 hours ago
In some ways yes, in some ways no.
To me at least, somehow KOTOR and KOTOR 2 made me care more about the characters and story than BG3.
BG3 has better systems and combat and gear and such, but for many the worldbuilding, story, quests and such of KOTOR have yet to be beaten. Bastia Shan, Carth Onasi, Visas Marr, HK47.
The story of Revan and its twists.
Perhaps its just nostalgia and many KOTOR fans having been at an earlier age when they played those Bioware games compared to DOS 2 and BG3 though. Maybe people who were teenagers playing Larian games feel as attached to the characters and story as those of us who were teens in KOTOR's heyday did.
Mr_Eri_Atlov2 hours ago
Oh it definitely is, but I played KOTOR dozens of times as a kid
ReptileMan2 hours ago
Their last really good game was Dragon Age: Origins. It is nice that they put the studio out of its misery.
ndesaulniers2 hours ago
Many great memories of KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect. RIP
aghuangan hour ago
Always played BioWare's games including Mass Effect.
Such as shame.
pojzon30 minutes ago
I think its safe to say that its pure failed management from EA.
Bad decisions, mismanagement, greed.
Tho not the first aquisition I see nose-diving due to incompetent management.
walrus012 hours ago
This comes not long after Sony basically killed Bungie. Destiny 2 is "done", and Marathon has an extremely low player count and is in the process of dying.
ErneX2 hours ago
Destiny will go on.
serf2 hours ago
by necessity of Marathon having turned out to be a flop.
ErneXan hour ago
Yeah it did not do well, but it’s my favourite game of the year so far.
platevoltage35 minutes ago
"EA is shutting down" would be a much more pleasing headline to read.
shevy-java2 hours ago
People kind of predicted this, didn't they?
I guess in a way it was unavoidable. Still sad though.
I miss many great companies of the 1990s.
AtNightWeCode2 hours ago
One of the few corps I applied for a job at that did not even reply. Also known for being a bit of a crappy employer as well even long before EA bought them. Many other studios was also out of line back then to be fair.
ChrisArchitectan hour ago
koziserek2 hours ago
They wrote on the flipboard: If GTA6 online next month... We'd better shut down the company
seattle_spring2 hours ago
End of an era, but the writing has been on the wall for a while now.
wolvoleoan hour ago
Scummy EA. They really ruin the industry. They kill all the good stuff and promote the crappy yearly FIFA crap.
[deleted]an hour agocollapsed
bluefirebrand2 hours ago
Bioware hasn't released a good game in over a decade, and Anthem was a low point for the entire game industry imo
I'm honestly surprised they lasted this long. Sad to see them go but only because they should have been way better
indy2 hours ago
Exactly, the Bioware that people love hasn't existed for a long time
squidmaster2 hours ago
[dead]
akimbostrawman2 hours ago
Veilguard made Anthem look competent and fun
2OEH8eoCRo02 hours ago
The studio behind masterpieces like Dragon Age Veilguard and Mass Effect Andromeda? Sad day
izacusan hour ago
I believe you forgot the massive hit that was Anthem.
baal80spam2 hours ago
You forgot /s, right?
Anyway - good riddance.
rjh292 hours ago
For a site with users supposedly more intelligent than Reddit, HN's inability to detect sarcasm (or any kind of nuance) is always amusing.
serf2 hours ago
probably not related[0]
[0]: https://www.autismparentingmagazine.com/autism-and-sarcasm/
2OEH8eoCRo02 hours ago
I thought it was so obvious as to be insulting to readers to include it.
dude2507112 hours ago
I a bit like scent trail or yellow paint, isn't it.
akimbostrawman2 hours ago
good day for gamers, bioware has been dead for a decade so it can finally rest in peace.
underliptonan hour ago
There are dozens of better sites to use for something like this than Verge. They have horrid policies with regards to displaying sources, and put half their articles behind a paywall. At least use an archive service.
TheRealPomax2 hours ago
You mean Saudi Arabia is shutting down Bioware?
r0ckarong2 hours ago
Another victim of EA. Bought, ruined, buried.
gazpachotron2 hours ago
[dead]
jdw642 hours ago
[dead]
gfoscoan hour ago
HN commentary on the matter is so different than elsewhere, but I cannot consider the discussion of a higher quality when it completely avoids the obvious stuff right in front of your face. Read the entire comment list, and not a single mention of the forced diversity and wokeness, trans-nonsense that has been injected into the games, which has absolutely turned off the entire audience.
bigfishrunning20 minutes ago
Bioware's downslide predates the "woke" narrative -- i don't remember Anthem being particularly woke, but it certainly wasn't the sort of game they should have been making.
AlexandrB27 minutes ago
I think the core issue is bad writing. All of that other stuff is only a problem because it's written with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face. In many cases the writing reduces characters to their identity group instead of being believable humans with believable motivations.
platevoltage31 minutes ago
It's almost as if your little far-right bubble doesn't represent the entire industry.