It was said before that Bioware is just a label now. Accurate enough. But in their and EA's defense if everyone followed Codexian hopes and dreams for RPG's we'd be back in the late 90's with small market games and sales volumes. Then we wouldn't have games funded like Witcher 3 at all. Its worth tolerating some of these "please the masses" games so we can have the occasional outstanding AAA RPG title.
I'll agree with this insofar as we still get the occasional AAA, Witcher3-like gem of a game. All it really means is that there's more chaff to discard.
For my money, though, Bioware's always been ham-fisted when it came to their storytelling. If you weren't THE SUPER GOOD HERO you were the absolutely vile renegade. It's one of the things that made their stories stand out. And I found that to be a good thing. Where that approach went off into the abyss was when they felt the need to bludgeon me over the head with their sexual politics. Idiocy, so far as I'm concerned.
But despite never really getting on board with the mechanics, I loved the Mass Effect series. ME2 in particular is right up there with the best games I've ever played.
Between their in-house politics and their inability to make a game without preaching them, and EA's overarching influence, though, Bioware's lost me completely. I got back on board with Bioware with Dragon Age Origins, because despite its abundantly obvious shortcomings, that was one helluvan addictive game, I found. I played that thing to death. But the expansion, Awakening, only exacerbated all of the glaring flaws I'd noticed in Origins without even attempting to correct anything, so I felt the writing was on the wall at that point. I gave DA2 a shot, but again... Bioware was heading in the absolute wrong direction, so that was it for me.
Am disheartened by the fact that they're just shilling for this cause or that brand, now, and I am sorry to see what they're doing and how it's likely to end, because for a long time they were my absolute, 100%, buy-it-because-it-had-Biwoare-on-the-box developer, but it's not like I didn't see this coming. EA's ruined too many good developers for me to have ever believed this would turn out for the best. Same with Microsoft and InXile/Obsidian, frankly. Maybe the situations are different, but I doubt it. I think we'll see one, maybe two good offerings out of those studios and then things will... change.
*shrugs* Is the way the industry seems to work, but I'm not
glad to see the state Bioware's in right now. I'm certainly not glad that they've decided to make games that I wouldn't prod with a 10' pole. Thankfully, the diversity in gaming has never been greater, so there's no worry on my part that "my games" won't be made by somebody, any more. Besides, my backlog is already quite large, and I have little problem replaying old favourites.