What's shaking at EA (Bioware)?

Recent Bioware history.

We know David Gaider left and joined some phonegame porting company.
Then soon after Christopher Schlerf, IIRC another writer left back to USA, don't remember if disclosed a goal.

And now, senior editor Cameron Harris, leaves not only Bioware, but won't work in the industry any more (sorry for linking social netwroks, I can't fight vanity of those people):
https://twitter.com/camharr/status/705875418117582853

I've decided to exit the video-game industry to return to Seattle for new opportunities there. I'll be leaving BioWare in mid-April.

Is something horribly wrong happening at Bioware we don't know about? I mean… Something more wrong than the "wrong" we're aware of?

Or are these people just trying to send a message "I'm sick and tired of working for EA" but to avoid being sued won't say it loud?

It's hard to draw any conclusions. There could be some crisis, but it could also just be a normal course of events. It's a stressful industry, and relationships between creative people are often fragile.

Naughty Dog, one of the most successful studios (which is famous for being a great place to work, with a non-interference policy from Sony) had a similar spate of high-profile departures last year. My guess is that it was simply the rising talent that produced Last of Us clashing with the established Uncharted team. I'm sure that sort of thing happens all the time.

Eh, anyone here living in Edmonton? We could send someone as a mole to infiltrate and apply for ajob there. It's not that hard, think of it like roleplaying as Sam Fisher.

Originally Posted by Ripper
My guess is that it was simply the rising talent that produced Last of Us clashing with the established Uncharted team.

Last Of Us? Uncharted? Never heard… I guess it's either phonegames or consolegames…

In such cases departures are expected, why would a decent developer work on inferior hardware if their talent can blossom on PC?

Originally Posted by BoboTheMighty
Eh, anyone here living in Edmonton? We could send someone as a mole to infiltrate and apply for ajob there. It's not that hard, think of it like roleplaying as Sam Fisher.

All the people who left were Americans that decided to return home after having worked at BioWare Montréal for a few years except for David Gaider. Outside of Schlerf, whom I'm pretty sure was fired going by how they removed his name from the ME:A team blog page, the rest probable looked at the 30% they lost over the last year because they were paid in Canadian dollars…

The only exception is David Gaider who left because he needed a change of scenery after 17 years in the same company.

Originally Posted by joxer
Last Of Us? Uncharted? Never heard… I guess it's either phonegames or consolegames…

In such cases departures are expected, why would a decent developer work on inferior hardware if their talent can blossom on PC?

Last of Us is an awesome game, probably the best so far for PS3/PS4.

Maybe it is. But I can't check if that's true so I'll leave it at doubt.
An example… So much fuss was created over GTA5 where because all the praise over internet I've expected a nearmasterpiece just to discover it's a pathetic excuse of racing simulator with "meh" story probably interesting to some audience because there is no censorship and utterly horrible helicopter controls.
Sorry, but until I see the game under my 8 fingers that are not thumbs, I just cannot trust anyone.

So far the best… Better said, the ONLY awsome consolegame I've seen is Valkyria Chronicles. Everything else I've tasted is either plain mediocre or has such unforgivable sins that make it worse than average PCware and hard to suggest friends to buy it.

I live in Edmonton, been by the Beamdog studio twice, sent them pizzas twice during releases. Someone change the title of this thread and lets talk about how cool Beamdog is, seeing EA in the title just makes me sad. EA hasn't been an influence on me or my purchases in about ten years, now, That will never change so long as their products require the Origin platform.

It's settled then. Carnifex will get a new suit and say he heard there was an opening as senior editor at BW. After two years of office backstabbing and climbing through corporate ranks, he'll become new EA CEO and get rid of Origins.
Then we'll get a real sequel to Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

She was "only" a senior editor. If you look at ME3 it had five editors (not including her). I don't think the sky is falling if one editor calls it quits.
The departures of the lead writer and development director, which are both positions filled by a single person, are much more significant incisions and both came at a somewhat odd time for a game that was still a good ways from being anywhere near finished.
Losing or laying off an editor, however, now that the game must already be approaching early beta status, could actually be considered a part of the regular downsizing towards the end of development.

By the way, why do you even care, Joxer? Isn't ME:A one of those evil season pass scams you're not gonna buy (but then still preorder, of course) anyway?

Development Director isn't a single person position per game at BioWare. Going by ME3 credits, there is one per office working on the game (in ME:A cases that means 3, there are some people in Austin working on it), one for the whole game and one for the franchise. You can never have enough managers.

Going by Linkedin, Jason Barlow moved from development managers to development director for ME:A on June 2015, 6 months before Wynn left too.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
I live in Edmonton, been by the Beamdog studio twice, sent them pizzas twice during releases. Someone change the title of this thread and lets talk about how cool Beamdog is, seeing EA in the title just makes me sad. EA hasn't been an influence on me or my purchases in about ten years, now, That will never change so long as their products require the Origin platform.

I don't think Beamdog is cool, they did ok job with EEs but nothing magnificent. Will see after SoD is released. Yes, unlike you, I'm very skeptical of Beamdog

Originally Posted by wolfing
Last of Us is an awesome game, probably the best so far for PS3/PS4.

He's Joxer trolling he's heard of the last of us as I brought it up to him before in another one of his anti console rants.

For an informed gamer he like to pretend to never have heard of quite a few games.

It's his way of dismissing stuff he thinks isn't worth discussing. I haven't played it yet either.

But back OT, all these departures at this time indicate to me that someone near the top must really be pissing these middle management types off.

Or it could be domino effect of long timers deciding to pull the plug. Happens in offices, a bunch of people stay for years then something happens and/or one of those people goes and others follow suit over the space of 12 months. I really don't know in this case but that's something I've seen in my corporate experience.

Yeah, usually something triggers it.

Still not sure why it is even called Bioware, anyways best of luck to all that leave.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
By the way, why do you even care, Joxer? Isn't ME:A one of those evil season pass scams you're not gonna buy (but then still preorder, of course) anyway?

I didn't see any word ME4 will contain scamware.

1. I'll preorder it if there isn't any word about scamware and the preorder is discounted by at least 10%.

2. I will not cancel preorder if they decide to offer season pass after I preorder, but will still not buy the scamware*. Maybe. Dunno how exactly to refund a preorder on Origin. Will cross that bridge when and if…

3. If they split the game in two episodes, naming first part as vanilla/base and second as season pass, I will not buy at all.

When it comes to Mass Effect I'm #1 fan.
But it doesn't mean I'll accept getting scammed. Nor means I will stop calling season pass as scamware.


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*
If you're refering on me buying Fallout4 and TheWitcher3 although both have season pass then try to remember that I preordered them both BEFORE there was any word about season pass.
While I love both FO4 and TW3, to this day I haven't bought any of DLC for those two. When and if I ever do, it'll be when those DLC are heavily discounted.

Also didn't buy any DLC or season pass for DA:I, didn't buy the final release either, maybe I do when they put the complete product for 10 bucks but not before.

About FarCry4 I bought the game only when they placed it on sale with such pricedrop on season pass where you got season pass for 0 (zero) $.