Bioware has been subject to lots of controversy over the past year, the once shining Knight in the RPG genre has been reduced to memes, rant videos about facial animations and accusations of chasing money (ahem, Anthem). Fans have attributed this shift in quality to the acquisition of the studio by EA, a massive publisher and development that has been known for squeezing the very lifeforce out of gamers with brick wall microtransactions and DLC.
Unfortunately, if EA had never acquired Bioware, the studio may not even exist today. Speaking at Havencon, current and former Bioware employees, including Dragon Age lead writer Patrick Weekes, Bioware’s lead editor Karin Weekes, and David Gaider, ex-lead writer of the Dragon Age series, all claimed that had EA not acquired Bioware, the studio would have been forced to close down. It’s worth mentioning that the employees noted that EA was pretty hands-off when it came to development.
It sucks to see that Bioware really did just devolve, and no one is really there to blame (besides management I guess?), but either way – hundreds of people kept their Jobs as a result of the acquisition so at least we have some sort of positive.
[source – Reddit]
