BioWare - Studio Update

HiddenX

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Couchpotato spotted a BioWare studio update:

BioWare Studio Update

Hello Everyone,

Today, we are turning towards the future and preparing for the next chapter in BioWare’s story. As we announced in August 2023, we are changing how we build games to meet the needs of our upcoming projects and hold ourselves to the highest quality standards.

Now that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been released, a core team at BioWare is developing the next Mass Effect game under the leadership of veterans from the original trilogy, including Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, Parrish Ley, and others.

In keeping with our fierce commitment to innovating during the development and delivery of Mass Effect, we have challenged ourselves to think deeply about delivering the best experience to our fans. We are taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work at BioWare.

Given this stage of development, we don’t require support from the full studio. We have incredible talent here at BioWare, and so we have worked diligently over the past few months to match many of our colleagues with other teams at EA that had open roles that were a strong fit.

Today’s news will see BioWare become a more agile, focused studio that produces unforgettable RPGs. We appreciate your support as we build a new future for BioWare.

Gary McKay

General Manager, BioWare

More information.
 
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"In keeping with our fierce commitment to innovating during the development and delivery of Mass Effect, we have challenged ourselves to think deeply about delivering the best experience to our fans. We are taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work at BioWare."

"More agile"

:rolleyes: and 🤮
 
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"agile" is corporate for "we're gonna fire a ton of people"

RIp Bioware, Nothing but name is left. Lists of fired people is longer every hour while they look for new work online.

"we don't need a full team to work on Mass Effect." yeah best to make it indy game lol
 
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Also, they told us a year and a half ago (Aug 2023 article below) that the reason they were laying off 50 people, at that time, was to become "more agile and more focused", exact same wording. Guess that effort must have failed, so now they have to try even harder to become agile and focused by getting rid of most of the rest.

 
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At least they have Mass Effect left, I know that is a big name for games. (never played it personally, but I know some rpg watchers are fans of the series)

Hopefully Bioware can get back to their roots and make games for the rpg core audience eventually, though obviously that is a long shot at this point. Bioware may be going bye bye in the future, unfortunately.
 
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they told us a year and a half ago (Aug 2023 article below) that the reason they were laying off 50 people, at that time, was to become "more agile and more focused", exact same wording. Guess that effort must have failed, so now they have to try even harder to become agile and focused by getting rid of most of the rest.
Of course, because they still didnt find the last 10 ppl in company that would be ideal "focused maraton runners" to produce whole ME.

So company could be very agile:
management & PR - 100 fat overworked ppl
development - 10 focused athletes
work force - 1 AI station creating assets :)
 
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So its the final breath of Bioware. Even though they dont make games I would like anymore, its sad.
 
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Of course, because they still didnt find the last 10 ppl in company that would be ideal "focused maraton runners" to produce whole ME.

So company could be very agile:
management & PR - 100 fat overworked ppl
development - 10 focused athletes
work force - 1 AI station creating assets :)
after game release 1 agile AI fired
 
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Well at least the bigots and haters will be happy that another gaming company that offended their delicate senses has been effectively shut down. Of course there are other reasons but the hate campaign certainly didn't help. Hopefully the new AC will hold up better against the bigots in that regard.
 
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Maybe they didn't help, but they weren't the reason for the lay-offs.
The game just wasn't very good. That's the reason it didn't sell, and that's the reason for the lay-offs.
 
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I don't believe agility is their problem, did someone tell them that? Can we... can we get a memo to them?
Strength - 9
Dexterity - 18
Constitution - 7
Wisdom - 3
Intelligence - 9
Charisma - 3

DM - "upon the table you see a tome, it glows."
Bioware - "Cast identify."
DM - "The Tome of Learning. [increase one stat by 4]"
Bioware - Dexterity - 22.
 
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Well at least the bigots and haters will be happy that another gaming company that offended their delicate senses has been effectively shut down. Of course there are other reasons but the hate campaign certainly didn't help. Hopefully the new AC will hold up better against the bigots in that regard.
Oh, absolutely. It’s entirely the bigots’ fault—surely it had nothing to do with their games being dull, uninspired, or just plain bad over the last few years. How outrageous that consumers chose to spend their money on things they actually enjoy instead of supporting a corporation out of sheer moral duty. Truly, a tragedy for the ages. And the audacity of expecting entertainment to actually be entertaining? Unforgivable!
 
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It’s entirely the bigots’ fault
To be fair, he never said that... i.e. "Of course there are other reasons but the hate campaign certainly didn't help".

It needed to be a blockbuster success and it wasn't plain and simple. A game that got rebooted twice (3 times?) with such a large development team that spent so long on it needed to sell 5-10 million units at launch. I think it ended up in the 2 million range which is nowhere near enough for a game that cost this much. Perhaps in 10 years from now it will recoup a good chunk of the costs but I doubt it will ever break even if you include the opportunity cost of that money being used elsewhere.
 
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