BioWare Founders Retiring!

[Drowsy Emperor]

Rats leaving a sinking ship. Rich rats at that.

[Nepenthe]

On that other side.. it's about 5 years this October that Bioware was picked up by EA wasn't it? Has that timing of potential contract issues?

I think you might be onto something there... Certainly SWTOR, DA2 and ME3 (I think SWTOR most of all) probably would've killed most people's enthusiasm for the job.

 

Since the Docs were running the Bioware label within EA, it's gonna be interesting to see what happens. If it gets rolled into EA games with Aaryn Flynn just continuing as Bio Edmonton and Montreal GM, I suspect it's gonna be something terrible.

 

Weird how they totally broke their habits with the announcements? Confimed Omega DLC (and others) for ME3, ME4 and a new Casey Hudson-led IP there?

[Bos_hybrid]

If and that's still an if, bio gets cut, it's another strike on the RPG genre.(however loose they are within it). Leaving just Obs and CD Projekt. This will make it harder for Obs and CDP to attain a contract from publishers to get money for future RPGs, and while I love the idea of Kickstarter, we have yet to see a successful product come from it.

 

Better to have bio flail about in it's current form. Besides it might hit a bulls eye......

[Spider]

Isn't CDP still a publisher though, and thus funded TW and TW2 themselves?

 

Besides, there are more studios than CDP and Obsidian doing RPGs. Larian for one, Piranha bytes as well. Then there's the ones who make Two Worlds and the Drakensang people. And I'm sure Bethesda wants a word in this as well.

[Bos_hybrid]

Isn't CDP still a publisher though, and thus funded TW and TW2 themselves?

 

To be honest I don't know, CDP never really interested me until the announcement of the Cyberpunk RPG. I always assumed the needed publisher for financing, weren't they taken to court by the TW2 publisher?

 

Besides, there are more studios than CDP and Obsidian doing RPGs. Larian for one, Piranha bytes as well. Then there's the ones who make Two Worlds and the Drakensang people. And I'm sure Bethesda wants a word in this as well.

 

Well for starters didn't the Drakensang devs go bankrupt?

 

Piranha and Bethesda and Reality Pump(Two Worlds2) are a different sort of RPG devs, their goals are open world sandbox rpg. Which is quite different from the story driven rpgs of, Bio, Obs and CDP. Which are both different to the arpgs, from Blizzard.

 

Should of used story driven in the first place, my bad for being unclear. Larian I'm ashamed to admit, I did forget.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Isn't CDP still a publisher though, and thus funded TW and TW2 themselves?

 

To be honest I don't know, CDP never really interested me until the announcement of the Cyberpunk RPG. I always assumed the needed publisher for financing, weren't they taken to court by the TW2 publisher?

 

 

They use other publishers to distribute outside of their territories (Poland and Eastern Europe IIRC), but they're self-financed. CD Projekt RED is a CD Projekt-owned studio.. though I don't know if they have any other internal studios at all, from what I understand CD Projekt mostly handles stuff such as localizations (they did all the localizing for Baldur's Gate I & II in those territories).

[HoonDing]

Besides, there are more studios than CDP and Obsidian doing RPGs. Larian for one, Piranha bytes as well. Then there's the ones who make Two Worlds and the Drakensang people. And I'm sure Bethesda wants a word in this as well.

Radon Labs got bought by Bigpoint and is now making online games.

 

Google Drakensang Online.

[Spider]

They use other publishers to distribute outside of their territories (Poland and Eastern Europe IIRC), but they're self-financed. CD Projekt RED is a CD Projekt-owned studio..

 

From what I could find, it's actually the other way around. CD Projekt is a CD Projekt Red-owned publisher. It all gets a bit... complicated. According to Wikipedia, CDPR started out as a development studio under CDP, but after a merger with another developer, the whole thing got reorganized, so suddenly CDPR was the owner of CDP. I got confused by it all and just left it out in my original reply.

[zombo]

I try to be cautiously optimistic about Bioware, but the timing of both founders leaving does make me suspicious. I'm fairly picky about RPGs. I really only like Bioware and Obsidian. 38 Studios looked promising until Schilling ran it into the ground.

[WorstUsernameEver]

They use other publishers to distribute outside of their territories (Poland and Eastern Europe IIRC), but they're self-financed. CD Projekt RED is a CD Projekt-owned studio..

 

From what I could find, it's actually the other way around. CD Projekt is a CD Projekt Red-owned publisher. It all gets a bit... complicated. According to Wikipedia, CDPR started out as a development studio under CDP, but after a merger with another developer, the whole thing got reorganized, so suddenly CDPR was the owner of CDP. I got confused by it all and just left it out in my original reply.

 

Uh, okay, I admit I didn't know about it. I'll look into that later, but it does sound really weird. (Though it doesn't really change the fact that it's more or less the same honchos.)

[CoM_Solaufein]

Sad news.

[alanschu]

Note: our Computer and Console games forum also has this being discussed in the RANDOM VIDEOGAMES NEWS thread.

 

Kinda sad that they're leaving... wonder how that'll effect the corporate culture.

I'm certain that them leaving will have little effect, since their presence in projects has been diminished in the projects since the EA acquisition. My guess is that they were bogged down in the politics ever since then and were just biding their time as figureheads until they could retire.

This is pure speculation, though.

 

 

I think Greg took SWTOR pretty hard (Ray probably did too). Ray's last public communique was the explanation to the ME3 fans regarding the ending. I wonder if that weighed in on it at all. Though Ray's Facebook was already crazy alive with a lot of politically themed posted, so in retrospect I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised. Greg didn't really surprise me though.

[Calax]

Note: our Computer and Console games forum also has this being discussed in the RANDOM VIDEOGAMES NEWS thread.

 

Kinda sad that they're leaving... wonder how that'll effect the corporate culture.

I'm certain that them leaving will have little effect, since their presence in projects has been diminished in the projects since the EA acquisition. My guess is that they were bogged down in the politics ever since then and were just biding their time as figureheads until they could retire.

This is pure speculation, though.

 

 

I think Greg took SWTOR pretty hard (Ray probably did too). Ray's last public communique was the explanation to the ME3 fans regarding the ending. I wonder if that weighed in on it at all. Though Ray's Facebook was already crazy alive with a lot of politically themed posted, so in retrospect I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised. Greg didn't really surprise me though.

 

Probably. I mean I know I'd hate it when the last three projects I'd made (Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, and TOR) were all... not considered as great as they should have been by my customers.

[Orogun01]

I don't think that they actually had oversight on those last three projects; or at least I hope they didn't. I don't remember seeing much of them when promoting the game, it feels as if they were just a name attached to those projects while other people were the face and leader.

[meomao]

Good luck Docs: you have given me some of my favourite games and you deserve it!

 

Don't know what to think about the politics behind it. But it does not sound like good news. If I had to think about something: EA's Bioware has received a lot of criticism for their last 3 games. Three failures in a row could have pushed the Docs outside of the picture, maybe to protect the "creative" minds behind such pearls like ToR or DA2 (ME3 final is bad but the rest of the game is not that bad).

[Zoraptor]

I'm hardly a volo style fan of Bioware, but it's a bit off describing ME3 as a failure since it did very well sales wise. 'Fan reaction' does not necessarily describe the overall reaction and I imagine a lot of people (Michael Bay, Todd Howard) simply point to their sales as a buffer against criticism- they did have Bioware's two best selling games in their last four releases.

 

I feel a bit sorry for them over TOR though, as that really seems to have fallen into a hole in the MMO market that no one was predicting when it was started*, when everyone seemed to think MMOs were the way of the future, and it didn't do as badly as most make out either.

 

*Which is why I won't have much sympathy for Zenimax if TES: O tanks.

[meomao]

ME3 has sold a lot of copies but I'm not sure that the number of copies sold and the overall reception is what EA and the docs expected. The game received a lot of negative commentary that translated in bad commentary about EA. The negativity, deserved or nor, has nearly killed the franchise. They want to make a prequel: I know I won't buy it (if not for 5 bucks).

 

TOR is a failure no matter how you put it. I don't know if it's good or not: I have not even played it because I do not like MMO in general. But if you publish a game and spend all that money and turn F2P after a few months... well, how can you call it? And let's be honest: it's not only a hole in the MMO market. GW2 is receiveng a lot of praise for being an innovative MMO. TOR received a lot of criticism for being a WoW clone.

 

I'm not a Bioware's hater. I've allways been a supporter of their work. I've bought all their games and I simply love some of them. The BG trilogy remains my favourite series of CRPG. I've defended them many times against troll and biased attacks. But I can't deny that since EA has taken control they are no longer the company I came to admire and that the quality of their work has gotten worse.

Edited September 23, 2012 by meomao

[Hurlshort]

It's funny that you mention Guild Wars 2 when talking about TOR, it is a free to play MMO. TOR is struggling to establish itself, but it is an extremely good game. Like many MMO's, it needs to figure out how to be successful within the confines of a certain budget. For example, they had to cut a chunk of their staff a few months ago, but they were also operating with a much larger staff than many other MMO's.

 

Mass Effect 3 was a critical and commercial success story. To a lesser extent so was Dragon Age 2 (which I hated.) Bioware is clearly targeting a broader audience today, which sucks for many of us, but doesn't actually mean they are failing.

[alanschu]

I don't think that they actually had oversight on those last three projects; or at least I hope they didn't. I don't remember seeing much of them when promoting the game, it feels as if they were just a name attached to those projects while other people were the face and leader.

 

 

Greg was heavily involved with SWTOR and actually had been living down there (away from his family) for upwards of two years working on it. Greg always seemed to be more camera shy than Ray in terms of amount of public appearances.

[meomao]

It's funny that you mention Guild Wars 2 when talking about TOR, it is a free to play MMO. TOR is struggling to establish itself, but it is an extremely good game. Like many MMO's, it needs to figure out how to be successful within the confines of a certain budget. For example, they had to cut a chunk of their staff a few months ago, but they were also operating with a much larger staff than many other MMO's.

 

I know that GW2 is F2P. But it allways been. TOR was launched to be EA's WoW-killer and failed badly at that. I mean, if the game has been that good it would have not lost all that players and Riccitiello would not risk to loose his job and the docs would be probably still at Bioware. Then, I'm not expert in MMOs as I said previously and I can't give personal judgements. I've just read a lot of criticism against TOR and very few positive statements about it. From players and critics alike.

 

DA2 is a rushed and unethical cash grab that ruined Bioware's reputation. To call ME3 a success story in term of critical reception is borderline trolling .

Edited September 23, 2012 by meomao

[Orogun01]

Greg was heavily involved with SWTOR and actually had been living down there (away from his family) for upwards of two years working on it. Greg always seemed to be more camera shy than Ray in terms of amount of public appearances.

Then it seems that they actually failed to adapt to their new projections under EA and should definitively quit while they're ahead.

[Nonek]

Sad to hear, i'm not a zealous fan of Biowares modern games, but they do provide adequate entertainment and distraction for the price. It must be sad for the gentlemen to see their company being so publicly castigated, by what were a generation of seemingly devoted fans however. Still a retirement into the brewing industry's as close to doing what you love as I could possibly imagine.

[alanschu]

Greg was heavily involved with SWTOR and actually had been living down there (away from his family) for upwards of two years working on it. Greg always seemed to be more camera shy than Ray in terms of amount of public appearances.

Then it seems that they actually failed to adapt to their new projections under EA and should definitively quit while they're ahead.

I'm not even sure what conclusion you're drawing here.

 

 

DA2 is a rushed and unethical cash grab

 

I'm remembering why I stopped posting here XD

Edited September 23, 2012 by alanschu

[Malcador]

You take comments about your employer seriously ?

[Hurlshort]

I know that GW2 is F2P. But it allways been. TOR was launched to be EA's WoW-killer and failed badly at that. I mean, if the game has been that good it would have not lost all that players and Riccitiello would not risk to loose his job and the docs would be probably still at Bioware. Then, I'm not expert in MMOs as I said previously and I can't give personal judgements. I've just read a lot of criticism against TOR and very few positive statements about it. From players and critics alike.

 

DA2 is a rushed and unethical cash grab that ruined Bioware's reputation. To call ME3 a success story in term of critical reception is borderline trolling .

 

Critical reception is how it is received by published critics, and ME3 fantastic (it scored even higher on consoles.)

 

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/mass-effect-3

 

TOR has a more mixed reaction from fans, but again it still has a high critical score.

 

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/star-wars-the-old-republic

 

I know many of you don't place much importance on things like the metacritic scores, but the publishers and investors do. They don't hang out on message boards reading user reviews, this is what they have to go on. They also go on sales figures, which all have good numbers there. Dragon Age 2 had a significant drop off compared to the original, by the way, so that is closer to a failure. DA2 was also developed quickly and more cheaply than the original, so if investors and publishers think that score trade off is worth it, then they will turn out another one like it. This is a business.

 

 

Also TOR as a WoW killer was always a ridiculous idea, no one from EA or Bioware ever said it was supposed to compete at that level. The expectation was probably at least a million subscribers in the long run. They initially exceeded that, then they dipped below it. Now they are attempting a new business model in order to right the ship.

 

Read the TOR threads here if you want to see some positive feedback. There are plenty of us enjoying the game.