BioWare - It's Official: the BioDocs Retire

The company used to be pretty outgoing in their forums and you could get some talk back and forth, but somehow this culture of corporate speak overwhelmed them. You might remember we had our own Bioware Rep frequent these boards until it became company policy to look at independent websites as competition.

He came so late though that what it did was show us some bizarre thinking that consumed the company: there seems to be a belief that their target consumer is someone who will buy Bioware products regardless of style, genre or platform.

And Fool, I myself don't think you were outlining a conspiracy as much as making some broad assumptions. Anyone that's worked for a large company realizes the suits try not let any news get out of their control so you are partially correct I think. However, I think the timing for the announcement was based on the 6 month notice and transition.

Its the kind of announcement that is typical of how the company has become.
 
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Hmmm, just wait until they announce a new facebook game… I guess they learned from Richard…. Build a company sell it to EA cash in…. and start to build a FB game company which you can sell to Zynga….

or iOS or Android app. Whatever the fad is - you have to change with the times.
 
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@Dhruin,

I don't get why you thought I outlined a "conspiracy". You, on the other hand, did seem to theorize a conspiracy with your earlier comment, "when they (voluntarily) sold BioWare to Elevation Partners - a private equity firm co-founded by Ricciatello, I'm pretty sure they knew where it was going."

That isn't a conspiracy as a conspiracy needs to be at least somewhat covert, it's an- well, there isn't really a word for it so I'll make one up- Obviacy.

If you sell your company to a private equity firm it will get on-sold, just about nothing surer, as their raison d'etre is to take 'undervalued' or 'underperforming' companies and sell them off at a profit. The only question was who was going to end up buying Bioware off EP.
 
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The only question was who was going to end up buying Bioware off EP.

hmm, in this case it wasn't exactly a question of whom, but more of when.

Elevation Partner (co-founded by John Riccitiello) sold Bioware (and Pandemic) to EA in 2007.

Now some biography information on John (from wikipedia):
From October 1997 through April 2004, Riccitiello became President and Chief Operating Officer of Electronic Arts. He then left EA and co-founded Elevation Partners (2004), where Riccitiello served as Managing Director. In 2007, Riccitiello was re-hired by EA, this time to serve as CEO.

John became CEO of EA and a few months later he acquired BioWare from his "former" company...
 
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The company used to be pretty outgoing in their forums and you could get some talk back and forth, but somehow this culture of corporate speak overwhelmed them. You might remember we had our own Bioware Rep frequent these boards until it became company policy to look at independent websites as competition.

He came so late though that what it did was show us some bizarre thinking that consumed the company: there seems to be a belief that their target consumer is someone who will buy Bioware products regardless of style, genre or platform.

And Fool, I myself don't think you were outlining a conspiracy as much as making some broad assumptions. Anyone that's worked for a large company realizes the suits try not let any news get out of their control so you are partially correct I think. However, I think the timing for the announcement was based on the 6 month notice and transition.

Its the kind of announcement that is typical of how the company has become.

Fair enough.

What grabbed my attention was puzzle pieces that don't fit. Here we have two executives leaving a company at a time when the company's performance is quite poor on two of three major company projects, and less than good on the third major project. Executives often get pushed out under such circumstances with corporate PR and the executives announcing that the departure was to allow the executives to pursue other interests.

We also have a claim of six months transitional planning with no actual transition to a successor company structure even being announced, and other visible evidence of the six month planning being only a handful of rushed announcements issued over a period of a couple of days.

But it's also true that a correlation between events doesn't establish cause and effect; i.e., poor executive performance followed by departure of the executives doesn't establish that the executives were pushed out for poor performance. Indeed given the possibility suggested by the Wired blog post, the cause and effect might have been reversed — poor executive performance could have been caused by their plans to leave at a time in the near future when their deferred compensation funds would be fully vested. Same with the poorly planned transition (executives distracted by plans to spend a soon to be acquired small fortune).

It seems to me we didn't get the complete story; but the actual complete story could lie in any of numerous possible variations. Ultimately no one but the insiders knows what the actual story is.

At any rate, Muyzuka and Zeschuk made great contributions to RPGs in the not too distant past. I hope BioWare can move in a positive direction from here. One can always hope, as the future isn't yet written. Still I must admit that my current personal plans don't include pre-ordering any future BioWare titles. :)

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Well this was somewhat unexpected. After reading their blog posts, to me it looks like these guys have either lost their passion for videogames entirely or that they were asked to leave due to recent failures (da2, me3, swtor). The latter sounds more likely when I read about all these rumors and theories presented in this thread.

In any case, I have tons of rispect for biodocs for delivering us great rpg titles in the past. After the awakening expansion things began going slowly into south. To me it seemed like the company began to treat their fanbase differently, like keeping a longer distance to people hanging on their forums. I do remember how there used to be real communication between fans and bioware staff. Devs were proud of their work and were never hesitant to chat about their next game. Even biodocs gave somewhat sincere staments back then. Now compare it to all the corporate bs they vomit nowdays.
 
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Don't forget that the BioDocs had leading positions at a stock market company. They couldn't talk freely for years. Everything they said, including these blog posts, had to run through the corporate machine to make sure it's (a) legal and (b) in line with company policy.
So every single word in these statements has certainly been double checked by several departments, especially legal and IR, and negotiated between EA and the BioDocs for weeks.
 
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Former Bioware dev Trent Oster speculates that Muzyka and Zeschuk departure from Bioware was partially a result of negative fan reaction to ME3 and SW:ToR:
http://www.nowgamer.com/news/160981..._was_too_much_for_ray_greg_exbioware_dev.html

Why ppl didn't like those games 100%, why always someone has to complain while those games are masterpieces and why just everyone didn't want to buy the crap? It's not developers, publishers, PR and etc, it's all about customers. Customers suck!

Abandon ship!
 
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I for one am sorry to see them go, these guys brought rpg's back when they were dying out. Yes, not everyone of their games were the best games ever, but they did bring quite a few excellant games that changed the landscape we know. Best of luck to them in their future.
 
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I for one am sorry to see them go, these guys brought rpg's back when they were dying out. Yes, not everyone of their games were the best games ever, but they did bring quite a few excellant games that changed the landscape we know. Best of luck to them in their future.

Since 2008 they tried to kill RPGs by stealthily morphing them into action games all in the name of greed- ie chasing cod sales.

They bungled the transition from RPG to Action badly, leaving a seething, betrayed fanbase, and yet little noticeable uptick in sales from new target console-casuals. This hurt the goodwill and thus the future of all employed, except them, who were already sorted for life from the proceeds of the sale to Elevation.

They sold the company (probably knowingly) which their employees built for a few hundred million to a voracious predator and killer of innovation and thought-based games.

They cut and ran after their 5 year contracts were up, leaving the employees to become EA-spouses if they're lucky (or fired if they're less 'lucky').

Apparently though, people who worked with the BioDocs, described them as unusually honorable and even handed by today's cutthroat corporate standards, so I neither wish them well nor ill.
 
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