2d ago

Former BioWare lead writer reads the runes on EA-Saudi deal and speculates that 'guns and football' are in, 'gay stuff' is out, and the venerable RPG studio may be for the chop

www.pcgamer.com Former BioWare lead writer reads the runes on EA-Saudi deal and speculates that 'guns and football' are in, 'gay stuff' is out, and the venerable RPG studio may be for the chop

Who knows, maybe the Crown Prince is a big Femshep fan.

PC Gaming @lemmy.ca

www.pcgamer.com /gaming-industry/former-bioware-lead-writer-reads-the-runes-on-ea-saudi-deal-and-speculates-that-guns-and-football-are-in-gay-stuff-is-out-and-the-venerable-rpg-studio-may-be-for-the-chop/

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As if I needed yet another reason to not purchase EA games.

I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favourite bigoted country in the Middle East!
- "Bigoted" is putting it lightly and only seems to pander to a certain crowd.

To be fair, Bioware has been on the chopping block for some time. I imagine even without going private EA would've gutted Bioware if Mass Effect 4 wasn't a massive success. In my mind the possibility of Bioware getting shuttered has risen only marginally because that possibility was already high to begin with.
- Yeah BioWare has felt like a kind of zombie studio to me for a while. They managed to coast along on Mass Effect/Dragon Age momentum for like a decade or so, but I can't remember the last time they had a big hit game.
  Plus those type of games are the ones that take quite a lot of time and resources to do well, so I can't see that fitting in well with EA's new "generate endless AI slop until we pay off our debts" business model.
- Uh...Mass Effect 4 wasn't a massive success, and they DID gut the studio.
  This would have been ME5

I actually had a sliver of hope for Mass Effect, you know? It’s all gone now.
- Fret not, anything they aren’t going to actively milk will likely be sold off to try and pay back the $20 billion dollar loan they took to make this purchase.
  
  As far as i understand this deal. No property will be sold. EA will be on the hook for the 20b just like ToysRus. EA is getting nuked and a new name and face but the ip is not going anywhere.
- Nah A.I will fix it.

I honestly hope they just cancel the next Mass Effect. There is a 0% chance it's not gonna be shit.
- Sell the IP.
  
  Telltale (a decade ago) could have made a great story-focused game in the ME universe, Bioware didn't even need to sell the IP for that

BioWare needs to do what the Castlevania creator did. Konami wouldn't give up the rights to Castlevania (or sell it — the Netflix deal was lucrative, after all) and just make their own studio "with blackjack and hookers." Sure, the studio behind Bloodstained was problematic when it came to delivering on certain promises to Kickstarter backers, and sure, the mobile ports were abandoned and the Switch port was (apparently) never fixed... but on PC and Xbox at least, the game was fine. The best of Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow, it's the best Castlevania game not called Castlevania, and it's among the best Castlevania games, too. I'm not sure there is even one that is actually better at everything. They really took all the good parts of Castlevania and, instead of a gimmick like an inverted anti-castle or entering paintings, they just made the castle stupidly huge, almost unreasonably so. The architecture doesn't make sense, but it never did.
It happened with the developers behind Fallout as well. They became Obsidian, and I think InXile got some of those developers. Obsidian went on to make Pillars of Eternity and The Outer Worlds. InXile made a bunch of RPGs too, but I can't name any without looking them up.
BioWare needs to take its talent and go indie.
- They kinda are.. Look up Exodus. Feels like that game will never come out though
  
  That's the issue, isn't it?
  I see this on the internet a lot. People posit things like "wouldn't it be awesome if these fired devs got together" or "Why don't they make good stuff anymore? Wouldn't it be great if somone made a thing like this old beloved thing..."
  ...Except it's already happening. Or happened.
  And there's just so much noise on the internet, it's largely unknown to the folks who'd be interested.
  To be clear, I'm not blaming OP, and I've done the exact same thing myself. But I still find it kind of... sad.
  Anyway, thanks, I am bookmarking Exodus and Archetype Entertainment now.
- BioWare has lost alot of it's talent in the last several years. There's almost no one left that played any hand in the Success of Dragonage or Mass Effect 1-3
- Dead Cells which eventually got Castlevania official support is very good
- InXile was most famously the Wasteland series, the spiritual successors to the original fallout designs (1 and 2). But they also did Tides of Numeria and Bards Tale (I think, but don't quote me)
- InXile did Wasteland 2/3 and Torment: Numenara. All fine RPGs.
  Completely agree that the talent needs to go elsewhere - this deal is the death knell for creative works at EA. I'd be careful about what you promise on Kickstarter, though. Signing up to lots of stretch goals is likely to burden your game with lots of tickbox features that don't make any sense.
  In fact, I'd say that Bloodstained (while generally excellent) would be improved by cropping out some stuff. The crafting, cooking and crop farming could just be chopped out whole, and put all the upgraded gear in the place where you find items. Would swap out some of the enemy and boss count for a bit more variety. And 'hard mode' could have done with some playtesting and a general rebalance, or just be renamed 'infrequent crazy difficulty spike' mode. But someone paid for those tickboxes and so we've got them.
  Letting RPG designers run completely free from publishers can be a recipe for disaster, too. Pillars of Eternity? Excellent. PoE2? Unbelievably unfocussed and sprawling, disrespectful of your time, goes nowhere fast. Could possibly have made two games out of it if someone had told them to chop it in half and then polish the bits, but was a bit of a studio killer instead, could never sell enough to cover the costs.
- and the Switch port was (apparently) never fixed...
  What's the supposed issues on the Switch port? I only owned the game on Switch, and I didn't have any issues playing through it.
- It happened with the developers behind Fallout as well. They became Obsidian
  Ok, well, let's not forget that the only reason Fallout achieved mainstream popularity is because Bethesda took it and applied their Elder Scrolls formula.
  The Outer Worlds
  Which although being more polished than Fallout, was nowhere near as good. They also had some bad writers with an agenda that made sure players couldn't have relationships.
  BioWare needs to take its talent and go indie.
  Bioware has no talent in 2025.

Guns and football seem pretty gay to me..
- I'm a MAN. I'm a MAN who likes to watch MEN play with OTHER MEN. I especially like it when those MEN TOUCH EACH OTHER. It makes me cheer! Sometimes they have to RAM THEIR HOT SWEATY BODIES INTO ONE ANOTHER. Yeah I love that!
  
  Wait, is that why I don't care about sports? Because I'm too straight?
  
  I like it when they get rough with each other. So masculine.

"read the runes" ... people need to stopping believing that money is money. Money is money AND strings attached. It's totally different to get 1 EUR from a friend vs 1 EUR from a brank vs 1 EUR from VC vs 1 EUR of public subsidies. Money NEVER comes without string so one must be cautious they are not getting a noose around their neck while signing a contract.
PS: IMHO NLNet is an example of "good" money. Other examples welcomed. In software in the game "industry" specifically I don't know where one can find non "bad" money so please if you have examples, do share.
- Bad money chases out good, they say.
  
  Fascinating, digging into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law then, thanks for bringing that up!

Mass Effect but now Cerberus is unequivocally the good guy.

I really cant wait for this generation of kids to grow up and start dealing with bills and shit. The moment they learn the true value of money this whole trend of buying lootboxes and packing players will die on its arse so fast.
I just hope theres some fly on the wall footage of the boards faces when they realise.
- You don't grow out of an addiction.
- They’ll just graduate to sports gambling.
- I know plenty of adults who are really bad at money and paying bills.
  
  You rang?
- You think? That generation will have kids who buy the same crap and won't listen to their parents, just like the kids now don't listen.
  
  Im hoping so. We don't have the receipts to show them. Were just grandpa's who yearn for the good old days and we just dont get it.
- Yeah no... the fucked thing is they don't care ... everything is fucked... spending a bit of money on cheap plastic brings you a little bit of joy... why worry about money if you don't even have much? You can't get ahead so at least you can be happy... thats where we are...
  
  Gotta keep the bread and circuses going.
- I know adults who boost their ego with lootboxes. Beating the peasants by spending money that others use for groceries is how they feel superior.
- They will just become packers at Amazon.

It's EA. They could make gay stuff in games without them. But instead they make a deal with the devil and hope they come out on top? They want all the resources of a soulless giant but then they think they're somehow escaping the taint?
It's like musicians making deals that (unfairly, almost amorally) guarantee their songs play across the country... but then they think they're still a normal artist.
Thanks for the representation I guess. Even though we had to collectively pay to make ME a popular franchise. I'm sure it was all about being true to your morals.
- I mean, it's EA. They've been in full on corporate profit mode forever, and any good games that they've put out are in spite of that. I doubt that there are a ton of "artists trying to make art" left at the decision making level of EA.
  
  Yeah a lot of the comments I have seen are outright bizarre, EA won’t change in any noticeable form. It’s maximum profit extraction now and it will remain maximum profit extraction after.

They would never, but they should sell the rights of their rpg franchises

how can football be in and gay stuff out? unless you mean european, like soccer.
- Naw, still too gay. Its gotta be nothing but scenes from top gun from now on.
  
  For the first gif when Tom Cruise throws the football back and the people behind him fall back.
  That’s when next song and dance starts. Top Gun is a musical right?

Les extrémistes religieux vont venir nous faire chier partout où ils le pourront... C'est logique, mais ça casse les couilles !
- Religious extremists will come and piss us off wherever they can... It makes sense, but it's a pain in the ass!
  The problem is that we allowed these idiots to amass so much wealth, that they can just buy and ruin everything they don't agree with. If the US had anything close to an actual anti cartel agency, they would not allow these kind of takeover to protect free speech and american values
  
  American values like what? Imperialism? It is funny Americans (or Europeans for that matter) still act like their countries have free speech😂you only have free speech as long as that speech doesn't go against your interests.
  (no, i am not defending saudi, they are literally an american puppet)

This makes me think of the Ellisons buying Star Trek and Avatar. Why wouldn't they shutter or castrate two notoriously ‘woke’, expensive, questionably profitable franchises?
Same here :(. Though to be fair, the Saudi's political leanings aren’t a perfect parallel.

The last Bioware game I genuinely enjoyed was Dragon Age: Origins, which was the last thing (mostly) developed before the EA buy-up. I'm sure it's scary for the employees, but I suspect this is good for Bioware in the long term.
- Why do you suspect this is good?
  
  Because if they're shuttered, the company/people that make the company have the opportunity to go somewhere else and do something better. I've disliked everything they've produced since they were purchased by EA, so I've come to think the publisher holds them back.
  
  Maybe they get shuttered or are given more creative freedom thanks to the Saudi's ignorance of RPGs and their perception among executives in the business.
  I guarantee you, Saudis really only care about FIFA. Everything else is superfluous.
- I liked Inquisition alot though the behind the scenes scoop was that the development process was a dumpster fire that only came together into a good game cause they got lucky.

Maybe BioWare can make a game featuring guns that shoot footballs...

I'm interested to see the fan response to this.
- I feel like the average video game player has really poor media and political literacy, but maybe it's just the ones who make noise online who fit that profile.
- Sport games sell very well every year and have tons of predatory monetization. The target audience is not very discerning.

I almost certainly will never play another NFL or NCAA game again. Cod can go fuck itself. I'm almost definitely not in the demographic to which they're trying to sell games to anymore. But God damn I know I'm not the only one in this field.

That's kind of an upgrade, at this point.
Bioware has essentially existed to pander to a very small minority for the past decade. I don't think they're capable of making a good game anymore, but at least they won't get any support from anyone for their mediocrity.
- BioWare created the first canonically gay character in Star Wars. Back in the early 2000's.
  Take your bigoted shit out.
  
  canon
  Doubt.

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