BioWare - The Great Bioware Exodus

[azarhal]

PS: Can't wait for more info on David Gaider & Brent Knowles next game.

More like David Gaider, Brent Knowles and Chris Avellon next game…

And people should keep in mind that Beamdog has like 30 employees...

 

[ChaosTheory]

If I were in the industry, I doubt I'd actually use my name as my handle. Who knows, maybe Joxer is David Gaider?

 

[azarhal]

Who knows, maybe Joxer is David Gaider?

Not enough snark...

 

[Archangel]

I don't necessarily put a premium on niceness (some of the best people I know are spiky and bad-tempered). For me, I'd quite like to hear more from a professional writer at a major studio, and less of the drivel that bored him out the door.

Well Codex is full of devs from different companies...

 

[Ripper]

Well Codex is full of devs from different companies…

Though the balance grows ever finer, there is still more obnoxious nonsense over there than here, so I'm not defecting just yet.

 

[Archangel]

Nobody said you need to defect. I visit both places
And I was lurking Codex for a while while posting here.

 

[rjshae]

Merger/acquisitions tend to work best among small companies. Acquisitions by large corporations often tend to reduce value, not increase it. I would think that is even more true among companies that rely on artistic endeavors, where the individual contributions by employees can be essential to success. EA could perhaps win back some trust by reinvigorating BioWare, rather than sucking out and destroying its core of creativity. But I very much doubt that's going to happen.

 

[Caddy]

And I'm putting my both jewels on the line and saying it's yet another phonegame, regardless of the title and fans' wishes.

They don't make any phone games.

The have some PC games that you can play on your phone though.

 

[Falksi]

Just wondering, what are people's opinions on Mike Laidlaw?

 

[Bedwyr]

They don't make any phone games.

The have some PC games that you can play on your phone though.

Thank you for saying that.

 

[Pongo]

Just wondering, what are people's opinions on Mike Laidlaw?

Less positive.

 

[screeg]

For me, I'd quite like to hear more from a professional writer at a major studio, and less of the drivel that bored him out the door.

Didn't Gaider write a big piece on what it actually means to write for a studio full-time? I never cared for his writing personally, but there's no doubt he's had a lot of success.

 

[azarhal]

Just wondering, what are people's opinions on Mike Laidlaw?

He likes action games.

 

[Ripper]

Didn't Gaider write a big piece on what it actually means to write for a studio full-time? I never cared for his writing personally, but there's no doubt he's had a lot of success.

He may well have done - I don't know much about him. All I'm saying that it would be quite good having a major writer for some of the biggest RPGs as a regular contributor on the Watch. I think it was a poor show that we had one, and some of the house idiots made him feel that life is too short to deal with the BS here.

 

[Moriendor]

Well Codex is full of devs from different companies…

Exactly. If Patrick Weekes is not able to participate in a forum with a level of professional distance, or whatever you want to call it, then that's mostly his problem. He obviously could not stand the heat in the kitchen and decided to leave to pursue venues more worthy of his time. So what? Big deal. That's his prerogative and his call to make.

Just wondering, what are people's opinions on Mike Laidlaw?

Isn't that Mr. Awesomebutton?

 

[RPGFool]

Bioware's story is the story of the RPG video industry in general. Its a tale of conflict featuring a desire to create high quality story/video experiences of great detail and depth; in a death match with the need to successfully monetize high quality products produced by the effort.

Bioware was struggling financially before their acquisition by EA. They needed major capital to continue making games. Meanwhile John Riccitiello had arrived at a solution to accomplish that; namely, get those games out the door and generate income from your work even if you don't think the game has yet reached a necessary state of perfection.

It was a big risk. But the alternative was death by finantial bleeding.

Perhaps not surprisingly Riccitiello's solution was pretty similar to the approach of Obsidian Entertainment's founder, Feargus Urquhart. Both Riccitello and Urquhart insisted that video game parents had to kick every promising game out of the nest, ready or not. Fly or die. Otherwise game developers can only expect the certainty of bankruptcy.

Both Bioware and Obsidian have suffered complaints of buggy and unfinished games.

Bethesda also seems to avoid waiting for a perfect product before kicking the baby out of the nest. IMO Bethesda has done better job in balancing game quality with release pressures than Bioware or Obsidian.

Bethesda seems to have a key ingredient of promotion as part of their success story. They somehow accomplish a lot of successful promotion while avoiding the over-promising trap. Bethesda's massive sales produce sufficient income to cover major production costs.

Bioware has historically promoted well, but has more recently achieved a major problem with over-promising. Mike Laidlaw has awesome promotion skills; but the products he promotes seem to inevitably fall short of his promises. Casey Hudson also managed to promulgate a substantial number of empty promises (albeit while making much better games than Laidlaw IMO)

Obsidian doesn't seem to have invested a substantial amount of capital into promotion. Chris Avellone is a tireless and interesting soft-sell game promoter. To a lesser extent, same is true of Josh Sawyer. But big bucks promotions have never seemed to be a part of Obsidian. Honestly, a bit more here perhaps could have, and could yet, help.

But I digress. Bioware has been a story of struggle, and IMO, a tale of tragedy of near Shakespearean proportions.

Hope remains, albeit continually diminishing, for a turn around in Bioware's next game… And there is probably something to be said for surviving to (possibly) fight another day.

__

 

[Moriendor]

Bioware was struggling financially before their acquisition by EA. They needed major capital to continue making games.

Where did you pick that up? Before the acquisition by EA, BioWare was owned by the Elevation Partners capital group (with Bono of U2 fame on board). They had some strong backing.

The Riccitiello connection is that Riccitiello was a co-founder of Elevation and then the EA CEO at the time Elevation sold them off to EA.
Now let's do a little basic simple maths why Elevation sold BioWare to EA… hmmm… financial struggle would be very low on the list of reasons to be honest .

Also, the acquisition by EA happened very shortly before Mass Effect was released and also Dragon Age Origins must have been in a reasonably advanced state (late alpha, early beta) at the time so fresh capital influx was in visual range.

 

[Caddy]

Where did you pick that up? Before the acquisition by EA, BioWare was owned by the Elevation Partners capital group (with Bono of U2 fame on board). They had some strong backing.

The Riccitiello connection is that Riccitiello was a co-founder of Elevation and then the EA CEO at the time Elevation sold them off to EA.
Now let's do a little basic simple maths why Elevation sold BioWare to EA… hmmm… financial struggle would be very low on the list of reasons to be honest .

Also, the acquisition by EA happened very shortly before Mass Effect was released and also Dragon Age Origins must have been in a reasonably advanced state (late alpha, early beta) at the time so fresh capital influx was in visual range.

Plus they were saving a ton of money on their Edmonton offices. Homeless people lived inside their back entrance.

 

[joxer]

Homeless people exist outside of USA (nonwarzones)?
I never thought that possible. Other countries seem to care about their work potential.

 

[Caddy]

Homelessness in Canada is not a financial issue. It's a mental health issue.