With the speed at which news comes out in the gaming industry we sometimes miss important or news worthy things. Some of these things we want to talk about in a way that is both easy for you guys and allows us to get all the facts together as some of these stories develop quickly. Sometimes we also just cover topics that we find interesting and want to discuss.
Kotaku publishes story about the troubled development of Anthem, Bioware doesn’t deny it
Source: EA.com
A lengthy article written by Jason Schreier on Kotaku interviewed many former employees from Bioware siting many, many problems during the development cycle of Anthem. Horrible management, “Stress leave” (over stressed so much they would have take a break and might not come back,) rebooting another game in order to keep it alive, and internal politicking (Bioware studios fighting each other, Bioware dealing with other EA studios) that simply seemed to (almost) doom the game.
Ozzy’s Thoughts: The length of the article does not permit me from summing up more but I wholeheartedly suggest you read it from beginning to end at Kotaku. As a Mass Effect fan, I was generally shocked and quite frankly pissed right the fuck off reading this article. Not because of the article, no no, at how horrible and juvenile and just downright rotten Bioware handled Anthem.
When Mass Effect: Andromeda came out and was not as good as a game as its past games (I still like it but it leaves a lot to be desired) I deluded myself thinking “Oh, the reason it wasn’t as good as it could be was because everyone was focused on there ‘WILL GO DOWN IN GAMING HISTORY’ game Anthem. That means Anthem is going to be amazing, hopefully I’ll like it.” The fact that Anthem didn’t actually go into production until 12 months and even then the game wasn’t even finalized and seemingly kept changing everyday shows just how far the company has gone down the drain.
Internally treating each of the (three at the time) studios as separate entities because elitism spread throughout the staff that they saw themselves as the “A Team,” “B Team,” and “C Team?” That is something the fans have been doing and I expect that from them; Fans are not known for being the must ‘adult’ in the room when it comes to something they love. But the ‘adults’ should’ve been the people at the studio. THEY have to deal with rabid fans yelling at them, insulting them, and in no acceptable but seems inevitable way, threatening them. But if it seems that there are no adults in the room, you can do what you want right? Going through managers, executives, produces, and employees like candy. Unable to figure out an engine that EA forced them to use and the studio that made said engine not exactly helping them out. There are so many more things I could write about what else they did in its development and that’s just one of them. I highly suggest you read the article from beginning to end.
I honestly can’t tell who I’m more mad at. EA for being…EA or Bioware for being…I honestly don’t know what the hell to call it. EA has not been on anyone’s nice list for quite a long time so this honestly doesn’t shock me. Bioware however…I guess as a fan of the studio, the one that made me fall in love with a universe and the people in it, keep me engaged in a game I wasn’t entirely involved with (Star Wars: The Old Republic) and just generally making a good story, a good game…just has fallen off the pedestal and hit the ground…HARD.
After reading this article, as a fan, I can honestly say I have no faith behind Bioware anymore, zero. They could develop another Mass Effect or Star Wars and have it released right now and I’d be surprised it could actually turn on without bricking my computer. Dragon Age 4 may be in the works now because of Anthem but that seems to be as a desperate move to keep Anthem alive, so in my opinion if you’re looking forward to DA4, don’t expect anything short of another massive failure all round.
When Bioware immediately responded to this article (and do mean immediately, within minutes of it being published) making it sound like the article was unfair, it did not come off as anything more than petty annoyance.
To quote a line: “We didn’t want to be part of something that was attempting to bring them (specific team members) down as individuals.”
While the article did mention certain higher-up officials, it did not come off in any way as an attack, simply a notice of what’s been happening. The official response did not deny anything in the article and it tried to paint it as ‘bad for all developers’ as if to say ‘if you attack us, you attack us all.’
Another quote: “We don’t see the value in tearing down one another, or one another’s work. We don’t believe articles that do that are making our industry and craft better.”
But that’s exactly what this article did: It showed how bad, nigh on disgusting this studio is running and how it should be held accountable. When they are, the whole ‘industry and craft’ can get better. It won’t change anything over night, and while at this moment in time I 100% don’t believe there response of ‘we’ll fix this’ out of sheer anger at them, hopefully other studio heads and managements will read this article and say “lets not let this happen to us.” My rambling may sound very petty, I don’t deny it, I know company’s need to make money but they shouldn’t do it at the expense of there craft and there people. Something like this makes us all look bad, game company and gamer alike.
