That's something which we always forget. It never was the company that built our favorite games. It was the people that were there when it was built. And very frequently people move around. But companies want consumers to associate the product with the company, when it never was. It was the people. We should be following people, not companies. But that's harder. Much easier to just remember the company brand name. And it's too bad that companies also don't want to encourage that. Because then their employees would actually have more influence. They want to keep the illusion that talent and hardwork can just be bought with a salary. Nope. It's very rare and very particular.
Something experience in several companies told me:
It's not only the people, those talented individuals, but the convergence of them and the will of a company to build the product that will make them greater, at a given time when the market is ready for that. And it's not easy to get all 3 components right.
Many people are talented, especially in the technical field. But they need focus, and they'll only thrive in a good environment. Remove the focus and everyone will create wonderful things in a corner. Remove the good environment and they'll either suffer from burnout or leave the company.
There are fewer good leaders who are able to provide this. But there only need to be a handful in the company, so that's usually fine. Of course, they need to get enough freedom to lead their projects, and for big projects where several of them work together, they need to be on the same page.
And finally, there's the vision at the management level. And the compromises they must make when they're only a subsidiary.
I don't know if I still have much hope for Bioware, really, and it pains me. Many talented people left, they acquired a lot of know-how, even created other companies like Archetype Entertainment (a subsidiary of WotC..). But did they keep the recipe? I hope they'll also remember that it needs more than talent to make magic happen again