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PaperclipPerfector  21hr ago (text post)   1001 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026

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Anyone interesting in talking about BioWare going kaput? It’s very much a culture war item. I have to think any honest broker would see this is a clear case of go woke/go broke. Andromeda, Anthem, and Veilgard were total disasters. Even if Anthem wasn’t overtly political like the other two, it’s clear that the company started hiring people that were not good at developing video games. It’s really remarkable since market theory should incentivize the exact opposite. But perhaps this closure is the market correcting and other developers will take note.

Separately, I couldn’t help but check in on Jason Schrier’s coverage. He released a YouTube video this week going over the closure. Early in the video he reminds the viewer that EA was recently taken private by Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner. Ah hah! I said to myself, that’s how he will spin this! And sure enough he gives a nuts and bolts overview of the poor sales over the years. And he spends an awful lot of time getting into the nitty gritty on leveraged buyouts and unreasonable meddling publishers.

I’ll remind everyone that when Veilgard came out, Jason posted “Go woke / go to the top of the charts?”. What a hilarious turn of events. The game literally killed the company. It would be funny except for the fact that I think a very large part of the blame for the state of the games industry can be laid at Mr Schriers feet. This guy does nothing but launder the industries perspective as fact and add credibility to the party line.

One thing you will see a lot on Reddit is people blaming publishers and corporate executives for bad releases that are total failures. I’m not one to defend these mercenary executives, but I think the actual rank and file game developers deserve the lions share of the blame. The executives can be blamed insofar as they are the ones making hiring decisions. But the actual developer and artist talent is bad. I’m glad they’re out of a job.

I've got more thoughts on the subject than I can type right now, but I'll throw in there that I've seen reports the leader of Canada's NDP party has suggested nationalizing BioWare.

I’d love to hear your thoughts when you have time.

I also think Canada nationalizing BioWare would be the perfect clown world cherry on top of this cake.

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