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[Sentenza]

10 to 1 Greg goes to Obsidian.

Extremely improbable.

Even without the non-compete clause they are probably under right now, and even if he decides to go back to game development, he would probably prefer to invest in funding a new studio than going as an employee under someone else's directions.

 

[Azih]

The Mass Effect franchise has been going in an interesting direction and it's nice that it's doing its own thing figuring out what the best mix of shooter and RPG should be in a squad based third person action game. It's a pretty unique franchise and that's a good thing.

Dragon Age II ruined all the goodwill they built with DA:O.

The Old Republic, much like The Secret World, would have been way better off as a single player RPG.

So... one out of three? Comments from EA about how they're never to make a single player only game again doesn't make me hopeful they'll learn from the example of Bethesda sticking to their guns and making mad cash from The Elder Scrolls sadly.

 

[Mr.Green]

Yeah it's very poetic to blame EA and whatnot but chances are they simply did what any sane person with enough money to retire would do. You have to be pretty fucking masochistic to work in this industry in the first place, let alone when you don't have to.

 

[Clear]

Yeah it's very poetic to blame EA and whatnot but chances are they simply did what any sane person with enough money to retire would do. You have to be pretty fucking masochistic to work in this industry in the first place, let alone when you don't have to.

So true.

I doubt anyone who got into games dev 20 years ago had any idea how this "industry" would change. It was always hard-work, but with the way things have gotten more corporate and cynical on the business-side, while the audience has (at least if the internet is used as a judge) gotten increasingly hard to please, belligerent, and unforgiving, its hard to feel much enthusiasm for the work anymore.

That's how I feel these days anyway. I still love videogames, but, making them for a living? Fuck that, there have to be more rewarding things to do with your time.

 

[wastedyears]

I think Bioware peaked with Baldur's Gate II, and their games have all been going downhill ever since. Pretty much every game they've made post BGII has been dumbed down more than the one before, making games that sell better, but play worse. They've gone from making great, hardcore rpg's to making mediocre action games with rpg elements. Maybe one day they will go back to making the type of games that made them great.

 

[Sentenza]

It's easy to hate on rich people for this sort of thing

Is it?
"Fuck you all, fuck money and fuck this shitty job, I'm rich enough to spend the rest of my life just making beer"?

Actually for me it's very easy to admire.

 

[Shrennin]

Good luck to both Greg and Ray. I've enjoyed many of their games over the years. I'm still hopeful that many of the good people from Bioware can escape EA's manacles and start afresh as a new studio. Probably won't happen but a guy can hope.

Forget a new studio, they should all leave and join-up with Obsidian. That's my dream, anyway.

 

[GungHo]

About the news: maybe these guys could get acquainted with Richard Garriott and bond over anti-EA stories (and design a kickass game while they are at it).

They will call it Savage Animal.

 

[sinseers]

I can't be sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Mass Effect had ended up being very different without the EA buyout. The E3 2006 footage made it look like quite the different game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLOJ-hE527Q&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SvHHO5ksNg

Now that you mention it, I always was annoyed that ME2 and 3 used CG sequences when ME1's claim to fame was utter and complete real-time in game graphics.

 

[sinseers]

They didn't sell BioWare to EA. It was an unintended consequence of a 2005 deal with Elevation Partners, along with Pandemic as VG Holding Corp, that they believed would help the company be stable and independent, economically speaking, as it grew.

Didn't exactly work out.

please elaborate...are you saying that their parent company sold their studio to EA? As I understand it, for a studio to become aquired a sale has to take place first right?

 

[FStop7]

I don't know what the budget for The Witcher 2 was (I assume quite large), but I feel like that game was everything a modern Bioware game has aspired to be in the last decade. It had great story and characters, a fully realized world, and fun action oriented combat that's challenging.

I think if I'm going to look for any large scale RPGs from here on out, CD Projekt is my go-to developer above any other at the moment.

ME1 was done when the buyout happened. The first big change was the announcement of a PC version when Bioware had previously said it would be 360 exclusive. The EA influence is pretty apparent in ME2 and 3.

 

[Rad-]

BG2 is the closest thing to a perfect game I have ever played. For that game I just have to tip my hat to the doctors.

 

[eot]

I can't be sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Mass Effect had ended up being very different without the EA buyout. The E3 2006 footage made it look like quite the different game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLOJ-hE527Q&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SvHHO5ksNg

I'm not even sure what you're implying. That EA made them take out more direct squad controls or something? First of all Microsoft published Mass Effect and EA had nothing to do with it until the PC version in 2008. Secondly, that E3 demo was a just that, something they put together just for E3 and they even said after the game came out that, at the time, those were the only conversations in the game they had designed to that level of fidelity. It's pretty obvious from playing the game that it was rushed, so it's not strange if pre-release footage of the game looked quite different from the final version, because they started showing it long before they'd finalized the design (which they probably did quite late, which is why it needed more time). I'm just inferring that of course, but still.

 

[Empyrean Heaven]

Time to cure some cancer, boys.

 

[nel e nel]

Sure, that's what they're saying. It isn't necessarily the truth though. What Tycho from the Penny Arcade tweeted (1, 2) makes sense.

Rampant speculation isn't necessarily the truth either.

I think it's also worth noting that very few companies look for outside investment if things are going swimmingly for them.

 

[TedNindo]

There goes another one. Can't say I didn't expect this. The direction Bioware was forced into at EA was obvious from the start. The better games they made the last years were finished before EA got a hold of them or were already under development.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I'm not even sure what you're implying. That EA made them take out more direct squad controls or something? First of all Microsoft published Mass Effect and EA had nothing to do with it until the PC version in 2008. Secondly, that E3 demo was a just that, something they put together just for E3 and they even said after the game came out that, at the time, those were the only conversations in the game they had designed to that level of fidelity. It's pretty obvious from playing the game that it was rushed, so it's not strange if pre-release footage of the game looked quite different from the final version, because they started showing it long before they'd finalized the design (which they probably did quite late, which is why it needed more time). I'm just inferring that of course, but still.

I was talking more about the squad mechanics/being able to control your entire party. Also, all of the weapon customization stuff. While Mass Effect may have ended up as it did, I suspect EA was a big part of the "streamlining" of Mass Effect 2 into it becoming yet another third person shooter.

 

[Kimaka]

Even if I don't like Bioware's current direction, Kotor was the game that got me into WRPGs. It's been fun, Bioware.