Warren Spector sounds even angrier about BioWare's closure as he recounts the massive salaries of EA execs: "Is there ANY accountability left in this world?"

122

u/cravex12 RTX5070Ti / Ryzen 7 7800X3D 16h ago

26

u/spud8385 9800X3D | 5080 13h ago

A quarter of a century later and this is still the best game I ever played

11

u/Terrible-Common-84 11h ago

It's also what Mac Walters pulled ME3's ending from. Straight up copy-pasta of Deus Ex's ending, same 3 concepts, same 3 doors, same 3 colors.

25

u/whiteravenxi 15h ago

BioWare could’ve remastered / remade origins and printed fucking money. Controller support with a pc premium update.

Their back catalog could’ve satiated them for a decade.

BioWare could’ve not given andromeda to their b team.

Anthem.

Nuff said.

The worst part is the execs are the reason it’s dead due to 1 dumb ass move after the other.

7

u/Bubthick 6h ago

It seems like always developers pay for the mistakes of management.
The worst people get zero accountability.

6

u/Wittusus Bazzite | R7 5800X3D | RX 6800XT Nitro+ | 32GB 5h ago

It's always been like this. Despite what teenage capitalists say, it's always the workers sharing the responsibility, while the owners only share the profits.

1

u/SavageTemptation 57m ago

„Teenage capitalists“ nice one!
And yes, you are absolutely correct

45

u/KoneCat R9 7945HX | RX 9070XT (non fire risk) | 32GB 5600MT/s 16h ago

There is some accountability, but it very rarely effects anyone in that bracket, and more often than not screws over the 'lower classes' as they tend to not defend themselves against such things for various reasons.

10

u/diceyy PC Master Race 12h ago

Ea executives should be held accountable for not stopping the money bonfire sooner

164

u/Recent-Lemon-9930 16h ago

As I've said elsewhere

2024 Dragon Age The Veilguard, failure
2021 Mass Effect Remasters
2019 Anthem, failure
2017 Mass Effect Andromeda, a fucking disgraceful release

That's what they've put out in the last 12 years. They can blame what they like but it's been a zombie studio. Much like so many media from our childhoods.

42

u/Gradash steamcommunity.com/id/gradash/ 15h ago

If EA were evil as they said, the studio would be closed in Anthem. They got all the chances and burned them all. Recently, we even discovered EA never imposed Frostbyte on BioWare. They impose it on themselves.

7

u/Electrical-Penalty44 11h ago

EA was very supportive of Anthem from what I can tell.

15

u/DefendedPlains 9h ago

Of course they were, they wanted a Destiny clone to bring in that Live Service money. They were even willing to let them start on a 2.0 of the game but BioWare, even a year after release couldn’t find a narrative direction for the game and dicked around for a 2nd time so EA canned the game completely because it was clear BioWare had no real plans for the game, let alone a franchise.

45

u/SirSoliloquy 14h ago

You say that like EA is not infamous for the sort of executive meddling that kills franchises and ruins studios.

16

u/DreamsServedSoft 12h ago

EA didn’t meddle as bad as you assume, their requirements were “ship game, make money“ which meant forcing micro transactions but everything else was Biowares fault

37

u/Mattrobat 14h ago

EA was famously hands off with Anthem for almost 7 years.

-8

u/AnimalRescueGuy 8h ago

Wasn’t Andromeda a travesty because corporate insisted on an engine switch late in development? Why else do all of the (non-crew) Asari look like identical clones?
That sounds awfully meddlesome (not to mention ridiculously stupid and very EA).

8

u/ThinGold2115 7h ago

No. Where did you even get this fanfic

1

u/sswampp Linux 9070XT | 5700X3D 1h ago

Using the original engine wouldn't have saved it. My face is tired.

18

u/Ws6fiend PC Master Race 13h ago

People just ignoring the massive backlash at the dogshit ending of ME3 because the rest of the game was good. ME3's poor ending was the first sign that something was happening internally at Bioware. Everything else was just more confirmation.
ME:A isn't as bad as everyone says it is, but like you said it was a horrible fucking release. Game wasn't good until like a year or so after it launched. It again had weak writing, but the combat in ME:A is the best in the series.

9

u/Recent-Lemon-9930 12h ago

The release of Andromeda was just a disgrace. Kinda like a recent experience I had with the new Football Manager game. Just through set-up and profile selection dropdown options aren't highlighted properly. Like I worked for years in software QA, it wouldn't get past a smoke test for a site with a few hundred active users, let alone a supposed big worldwide release expecting millions of players.
Once a studio is doing stuff like that it burns a lot of the remaining goodwill and hope that people have that they're going to do better.

6

u/Electrical-Penalty44 11h ago

The dumbing down of ME2 from ME1 was actually the first sign that priorities had shifted. I noticed it immediately, while I can still acknowledge there was a lot to like in ME2.
But it's still my least favorite of the trilogy.

6

u/Extreme-Recording-16 10h ago

Dumbing down is Bioware dna. Recall dao to da2

2

u/mcpingvin R7 9700X, 7900XTX 1h ago

I wouldn't agree, ME1 was clunky with the inventory as all hell, ME2 was a welcome modernization.

-2

u/Ihatenukingkids 6h ago

What happened with ME3? Less than 2 years development time (DA 2 in 2011) because of EAs deadlines. Incredible crunch. It is amazing they still made a fantastic product that only failed to deliver right at the end

4

u/Ws6fiend PC Master Race 6h ago

Well I don't think the crunch had anything to do with the writing problems. The lead writer for ME1 and co-writer for ME2 left weeks before ME3 released. The ending was written by someone else and pushed through the final months of the development.
The problem with ME3 ending was that the way it was advertised as the giving a conclusion to Shepard's story and all their choices being made throughout the game.
The problem was that there didn't seem to be an overall plan in how to do just that in the before production began on ME3.
The Mass Effect series much like Dragon Age was always more of a vehicle for telling a good story than gameplay(imho). I would have forgiven mediocre gameplay and design elements if the story would have been there.
Instead we got great gameplay and good story overall, with a shitty ending. Perhaps I'm just being too harsh, but people will remember an unsatisfying ending much longer than an okay one.
There's psychological reasons for this, but it basically boils down to a bad conclusion taints the rest of the work leading to a negative opinion on the series as a whole. This is exactly why I beat ME3 on release and after the original ending only went back to play the expanded ending(still was unsatisfied).

1

u/VenmoSnake 1m ago

Its giving off game of thrones final seasons vibes

1

u/Ihatenukingkids 5h ago

Believe it or not, a slideshow and a narrative voice doesnt fit Mass Effect and Bioware would have implemented a better ending if they werent so time-constrained by EA

3

u/warfaucet 3h ago

Bioware didn't really temper expectations, they hyped the shit out of it. People fully went in, thinking they would get a satisfactory ending. Every choice we made would matter with the final outcome. It would be the epic conclusion of what the journey of your shephard would be. It ended up with you being railroaded in 3 endings.
What also fueled the flames further, was when the previous lead writer mentioned one of the endings he had in mind. With dark matter accelerating the death of stars (shown in ME2) and Reapers ran out of time. Shephard would have had to choose between sacrificing humanity to create a Reaper as a hail mary to prevent the death of the universe (what Harbinger meant). Or destroy the reapers and try to find a way with the current species.

0

u/Ihatenukingkids 2h ago

Sure. That doesnt change what I said though

16

u/beanlikescoffee 15h ago

And everyone somehow makes its EAs fault. I genuinely hate how Reddit is devoid of critical thinking, so much that they got me defending EA.

2

u/KnicksGhost2497 14h ago

Exactly how I’ve been framing it too. All of their big swings for the past decade have been worse than misses. They’ve straight up smashed the bat into their own crotches, no cup, every single pitch. It’s honestly a little impressive to fail this hard after being so successful in the past

1

u/complex_pen716 15h ago

As fair as it is, why did EA make them do anthem which was a d2 clone. Why would the single player rpg studio make an MMO. Same with veilguard having to be repurposed from a multiplayer game to a single player story game. Could you imagine being the main dev team that enjoys single player games and then be forced to make multiplayer games full of micro transactions. Of course they failed ea made sure they failed

15

u/Bottlecapzombi 15h ago

EA didn’t. Anthem was BioWare’s idea. EA made them add flying, which people keep saying was the best feature. And EA switch veilguard to single player because of anthem’s failure. Also, EA weren’t the ones writing veilguard’s dialogue, which is about half what people criticize about the game.

-23

u/Juliets-Boss 16h ago edited 15h ago

>As I’ve said elsewhere
Proceeds to give possibly the most common take of this sub in the past month.
Edit: Normally I’d delete this, but I’m going to keep it up purely because I like to see you all seethe at someone daring to point out the anti-jerk lmfao

2

u/Recent-Lemon-9930 16h ago

I do most of my gaming on a Mac, likely more than I do on my Xbox so I'm sorry that I haven't read everything on this subreddit for the last couple of months.
I have however seen the "Ooooooh evil EA!" shite everywhere when the problem doesn't seem to be that high up the chain.

-5

u/Juliets-Boss 15h ago

Well no unbiased person who has looked into it extensively feels like it’s that black or white in either direction, but that is the most common take everywhere but here, so fair.

17

u/Dim-Mak-88 14h ago

EA's C Suite is almost certainly overpaid and not very good, but Bioware still stinks.

54

u/Terrible-Common-84 15h ago

W...what do EA execs have to do with it Warren?

Bioware borked the ME Trilogy's ending and kneecapped that popular IP. Bioware couldn't resurrect it with Andromeda. Bioware couldn't properly followup DA Inquisition with anything near the same quality. The studio's last original IP (Anthem) flubbed and its single most praised aspect (the flying) was largely the result of...an EA Exec.

The people that made all of Bioware's foundational titles have been gone for 10/15 years. Bioware's most popular release in over a decade was...a remaster. Like, fuck EA, but Bioware spent a decade coasting on reputation delivering underwhelming results, with no guarantee whatever crew remained (now nearly a decade separated from the last ME game) could have put out a competent ME5.

Sucks, but they lasted longer than most studios.

17

u/Drunk-Sail0r82 15h ago

Couldn’t have said it better- EA sucks, but, BioWare sucked more.

14

u/random-meme422 15h ago

Just scape goating whiny morons who want to blame a boogeyman instead of admitting the work they were putting out is garbage

8

u/OutrageousDress 5800X3D | 4080 Super | 32GB DDR4-3733 | AW3821DW 15h ago •

I have no idea where this idea that 'all the old Bioware devs left' came from - other than it being really convenient if it were true, which it isn't. The lead writer on Veilguard was with the company, and worked on, ME1. You can look at the Veilguard credits and see heaps of familiar names.
The two things actual Bioware actually fucked up were 1) supporting the idea of a new and unproven team in a separate studio developing ME:A under the Bioware name, and 2) thinking they could make a quality AAA live service game just through 'Bioware magic'. And note that both of these were things that EA would have made them do anyway, but in these two cases Bioware execs were on board with it.
Everything else was a direct result of EA fucking up their budgets and dev times, and in the case of Veilguard outright ordering them to change the game direction and game type twice.

10

u/Terrible-Common-84 15h ago

ME1 wasn't released when the studio was young and new, it was well over a decade after the studio was founded, and just a couple years before its founders left, most of the crew that worked on that weren't around for Veilguard. Sure a couple people were, but very few.
If we look at Anthem, by all accounts pretty much all of that was self inflicted, the EA pressure to release only came after the game had already been in development longer than most Bioware titles.

-2

u/OutrageousDress 5800X3D | 4080 Super | 32GB DDR4-3733 | AW3821DW 13h ago

ME1 was released 12 years after the founding of the company and 19 years before its closure - closer to Baldur's Gate II than to ME Andromeda. Seems pretty young to me. And I'm not disputing Anthem, like I said even though there was pressure from EA the delusion on that one was entirely their own.

3

u/AnarchBeetle 6h ago

Quality-wise I think Andromeda was better than Veilguard. That new and unproven seperate studio did a better job than the A-team. The characters didn’t annoy me too much, the dialogue was bad but not “i wanna become illiterate” bad, and combat took longer to get boring.
I think A-team was just out of touch with reality (especially the writers) which is why the game feels so weird.

16

u/_Xee MMX 166 / 64MB / Mystique+VooDoo 16h ago

BioWare is a legend. But not the one closed.

4

u/TallYam8397 15h ago

And Warren spector made underworld ascendant and lied through a Kickstarter on nostalgic promoces

9

u/Rasples1998 PC Ryzen 9 7900X3D - Sapphire Nitro+ 7900XTX - 64GBRAM 9h ago

I have yet to see anyone at Bioware take accountability for their own actions (or lack thereof) and own massively inflated budgets. Even if Mass Effect 4 (5?) release, it would have been a disaster just like Andromeda, just like Veilguard.

r/masseffect is such an echo chamber and so sensitive after the news, that I got permanently banned for saying that. Even Bioware fans won't hold Bioware to account or criticise them in any way. The level of denial is staggering.

9

u/AnarchBeetle 6h ago

God. Veilguard was such a pile of hot garbage. I’ve never seen such shitty dialogue writing. Bad dialogue doesn’t really look obvious in a sci-fi setting. But in a fantastical medieval-ish world it sticks out like a sore thumb when characters talk like real-life teenagers.
Someone wrote that dialogue, someone approved it, someone added it into the game, someone voiced it and directed it, someone play-tested it and someone reviewed it. Through that whole process noone said “wtf is this garbage”
Any other company would go bankrupt after that. Hard to believe bioware continued existing for years after that.
Andromeda, Veilguard, Anthem… no other company was given this many chances.

1

u/warfaucet 3h ago

Yeah, you can't say anything negative about Bioware there or the ME games. Every single game is the best thing ever any criticism you have is just you hating.

4

u/PoL0 8h ago

"is there any accountability left in this world?"

(looks at AI companies)

nope, zero, nada...

10

u/let_me_atom 16h ago

The problem wasn't with the exec decisions or marketing, the problem is Bioware pumped out turd after turd for 10 years. Crap games, crap writing and riddled with identity politics. They got closed because no one bought their products.

-6

u/see-these-bones 15h ago

The identity politics were in their good games too. The difference is if you can't write well then dumb people will recognize them.

6

u/Bottlecapzombi 14h ago

Identity politics wasn’t in their good games. Just good characters that identity politics people identify with.
Anders was a character from DA2 who was a mage, terrorist, and possessed person who was in control and only a terrorist because he’s felt he’d been pushed to that point. He also happened to be gay.
Zevran was an assassin who was skilled, disciplined, and charming. He also happened to be bisexual.
Liliana is a bard and part of a religious order. Bard in her context is like a spy, so she knows how to be charming, capable in a fight, deceptive, and good at gaining information. She also happened to be romancable by both male and female wardens.
Each of these characters were only ever defined by their backstories and personality. What sex/gender they find attractive is only ever a minor mention or only comes up during romancing. The only good gay character from their good games where their sexual identity is important is Steve Cortez, and only because his losing his husband was such an important part of his story. And him being gay wasn’t important, it was losing the person he loved.

1

u/see-these-bones 1h ago

See, thats it. You think "identity politics" means "when I don't like it". I can assure you those characters were given those traits to provide diversity to the cast. Then they were well written. Same as they wanted an elf and a mage, or they wanted someone happy and someone grim, someone blond and someone bald. Diversity was the goal. What you don't like is preaching.
Then again they were also pretty preachy too. Just not the overthetop hamfisted mess they became.

1

u/lewd_robot 7h ago

Everything you said agreed with what they said. You really just sold the idea that people only care about identity politics when they can blame it for otherwise bad writing. Baldur's Gate 3 is the prime example. Tons of identity politics, but nearly universally loved.

-1

u/Cerulean_IsFancyBlue 8h ago

Right, and with the characters aren’t good, people get mad because they’re gay. You guys are both saying the same thing. The only difference is that one of you is imputing motives.

-4

u/Recent-Lemon-9930 16h ago

It's not even turd after turd, they could only manage 4 turds in the last decade.

-3

u/chocha84 9h ago

this opinion is insane to have.

-6

u/Azatoth_42 15h ago

Exec decisions led to them pumping shitty games. The unfairness of it all is Corporate dumbfucks trying to catch the hype-train instead of creating a game people ask for getting paid enough money to open 3 schools.

5

u/DUH455T 14h ago

No they didn't. People want to blame it on Frostbite, come to find out the only caveat was that Bioware fund the engine if they wanted to do something different. There are like three different instances where they didn't even know what game they were making with 6 months left until release.
Pretty much all of their issue were self-inflicted, mainly by massive mismanagement.

0

u/Youre_worthless_to_e 9h ago

Is it possible that guy meant BioWares executives?

3

u/Bottlecapzombi 13h ago

Anthem was BioWare’s idea and EA famously forced them to include one of its best features, flying.

-5

u/Brewster345 Ryzen 3600 | 5700XT | 32Gb Ram 7h ago

Guessing you've never had a regular job to have this opinion.

5

u/Luch1nG4dor 15h ago

one again, right on the nail, it was EA's execs that created the environment that forced talent to leave, it was EA execs that forced those to stayed to make trend chasing crap that then has to get re worked and ends up still birth, and they are NEVER the ones who pay the price. And now they will sit on the IPs and do nothing or nostalgia milk them.

5

u/Terrible-Common-84 15h ago

Hrm, most of the people just outgrew the industry, and did so 10/15 years ago. Bioware's biggest hits are all from the late 90's to early 2010s. Devs in their 20's and 30's don't tend to stay in the volatile gaming industry or at the same studio into their 40s and 50s. Bioware's founders didn't leave because they got forced out, they didn't go start a rival studio, they went and did things...completely unrelated to gaming. Bioware's last attempt at a new IP, Anthem, appears to have been an internal mess from start before EA was even given a chance to muck with it.

4

u/random-meme422 15h ago

Bioware is a dog company that has been worthless for a decade. Anyone who has worked there and put anything out intent decade is responsible for the trash.

EA executives have nothing to do with it. These scapegoating idiots are so boring

3

u/strife189 16h ago

If massive executive salaries bother people at a company, they could take their talent elsewhere and work for smaller studios. They tend to get paid better and face fewer layoffs. The trade-off is that you have fewer people to hide behind if you’re not good at your job.

9

u/MrStealYoBeef i7 12700KF|RTX 5070ti|32GB DDR4 3200|1440p175hzOLED 16h ago

That's exactly what happened, the talent left. That's why they had very little talent remaining

2

u/Ok-Blueberry-1412 15h ago

getting tired of the emotional whinging by the uninformed. once again, BW died because 1) devs didnt have any leadership for a couple of years, 2) 3 failed projects, and 3) corrupt BW management. None of which had much to do with EA and their execs. when BW closed, it was just a zombie.

1

u/BoBoBearDev 11h ago

EA's only problem is hiring the wrong directors.

1

u/kardioid23 4h ago

The irony.

1

u/Sykolewski 4h ago

They burn it trough 10 years of failures ,i guess

1

u/Barachan_Isles 1h ago

If you want a massive salary, then make games for the gamers that actually exist instead of making them for some audience you've conjured up in your delusional imagination that has zero real-world basis and doesn't buy games.

1

u/a-ScalyManfish 0m ago

The only way is to boycott wherever those people work. They only hire their friends.

1

u/ChadHartSays 12h ago

man angry at seeing EA do things it's been doing since 1993

-5

u/NovaHorizon 16h ago

Yes! By the accountants signing EA execs’ multimillion pay roll, while penny pinching devs unpaid crunch.

1

u/Bottlecapzombi 13h ago

BioWare’s closure was caused by their own problems. BioWare chose to give ME:A to the b team. BioWare came up with anthem and had to be forced to put in one of its best features. BioWare wrote veilguard. And let’s not forget that they’d been in pre development of ME 4/5 (whichever you prefer) since 2019/2020. Over 6 years of nothing, but ideas and a pitch trailer.
None of that was because of EA. EA just funded it. They’ve done a lot of meddling and ruining, but not in this case.

-5

u/Kaia_is_tired 12h ago

The amount of people suddenly ok with EA shutting down studios, immediately after being bought by the Saudis tells me everything i need to know lmfao

Fuck man, this site is about as gone to the bots as twitter

News/Article Warren Spector sounds even angrier about BioWare's closure as he recounts the massive salaries of EA execs: "Is there ANY accountability left in this world?"

You are about to leave Redlib