site banner
PaperclipPerfector  22hr ago (text post)   1023 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

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.

While it's certainly true that Veilguard had some atrocious writing which was just there to advocate for the right politics, I don't think Bioware's fall is as simple as "get woke, go broke". Bioware has been sucking for over a decade at this point. ME3 was a disaster, and so was every game since (with the possible exception of DA:I, which seems to have been pretty positively received). But ME3 was released in 2012, years before there was a general trend of game devs making artistic decisions based on politics rather than what made for a better game. Bioware's games may have suffered from political activism (Veilguard certainly did), but they had already gotten bad at making games even before that.

I think Baldur's Gate 3 might be an exception too? I haven't played it personally, but I hear a lot of good sentiment about it despite it sounding like they actually did put activism in there.

They didn't make BG3. That was Larian, Bioware made the first two games.

Larian were the ones who made BG3.

Ah, okay!

Why do you think they got bad at making games though? I’m going to guess it’s because the guys who made kotor and ME1 were a bunch of Gen X computer guys who loved early pc games and were incredibly talented. As the commercial success came and they grew exponentially, they hired a bunch of diverse young millennials and women that wanted to instagram their first day at BioWare. Then trump 2016 happened and it became a moral imperative to use their positions to fight the culture war.

This likely comes across as terribly racist and sexist. So be it. I’d love to hear other people theorize why suddenly all these great developers suddenly became bad at making video games.

I also agree it’s not just the politics that make these games suck. In fact it’s not even the primary thing that makes them suck. But I still blame politics since I suspect whatever is making them suck is downstream of politics.

My only other theory is that “video game designer” became a thing that people went to university to learn how to do right around this time. And all of a sudden there was a “right way” to design all these different game elements. And shockingly, this supposed “right way to do it” actually sucks.

But Kotor and ME1 had terrible gameplay?

My contention is that the veterans, and in particular the competent, non-pushover writers and managers left.

It's kind of similar to Obsidian in that the only thing Bioware really had going for them, which built their reputation, was their writers and they managed to chase those away.

they hired a bunch of diverse young millennials and women that wanted to instagram their first day at BioWare

Less that they hired minorities and women, and more they explicitly discriminated against applicants with wrong politics. As confirmed by Chris Avellone.

Honestly, I don't know. Some of the issues were clearly EA's fault, like rushing DA2 out the door or the troubled development some games had due to being forced to use the Frostbite engine. But EA didn't make them write a terrible ending for ME3 (nor did they force the various dumb writing issues in ME2, for that matter). And the lead writer for ME3 was Casey Hudson, who was also the lead on KOTOR (which was excellent!). So it's bizarre that they messed that game up as badly as they did, and I can't really explain it.

I suspect that your theory is along the right lines for at least part of the cause. I bet that after the EA buyout (and subsequent EA interference), there were a lot of veterans who were unhappy with the changes and left. And they likely got replaced by the kind of millennial devs you mentioned, people who spent their college years steeped in politics and felt that they should bring that to their jobs too. Over time, it seems likely that those younger, more political devs were left running things, and that's why we saw the games devolve into partisanship.

I find it interesting to think about. It’s not just the politics though. Wolverine doesn’t seem to be an overly political game. It’s far more subtle with ugly character art and presenting Wolverine with feminine mannerisms vis a via Jean Gray. The game just obviously stinks and is designed for kindergarteners. Why is it so bad?

There are lots of people who suck at their job though. It almost seems as if they’re deliberately hiring untalented people. Or they’re hiring based on some criteria orthogonal to game development talent. You would think the market would correct this though. But it clearly hasn’t yet.

I fully expect this to continue. God of war lufy is likely going to be the next bomb. Naughty Dog’s Intergallactic is almost certain to bomb. The Last of Us 2 was controversial but sold well, likely because it was a sequel to a competent game. I’m pretty sure there will be Last Jedi effect going on with that one.

People talk about these big budget games being shit because big studios and publishers are risk adverse. That almost seems laughable to me. What could be more risky than continuing the stays quo?

more the second than the first.

Basically, AAA game dev became like film production. Every scene gets blocked, scripted, animated, voice-acted, etc. That takes huge teams with a lot of moving parts and departments, which is slow, costly, and risk averse. It's the difference between the latest big budget Marvel movie and an auteur indie flick.

Unpopular opinion, but Mass Effect 1 was bad actually. The best thing it had going for it was the worldbuilding. The rest of the game was an on-rails shooter with a handful of choice/consequence moments, and otherwise forgettable gameplay. It was a step toward shallow, shorter "RPG" titles, and away from deeper, better written "CRPG" ones.

Mass Effect 1 is a love-letter to a very particular architectural style common to Canadian government buildings in the 1980s that is now largely disappearing.

(Noveria is literally just Edmonton, and the highway to the danger zone is exactly how the roads look after a snowstorm, just with less Geth.)

Other than that, yeah, ME1 was still leaving the KOTOR school of live-action D&D game design and as a result the gameplay was kind of ass. And you couldn't even romance Garrus. And yeah, they did get better in 2, and way better in 3, but by the time they had figured out how to make a fluid third-person shooter that didn't randomly send you 100 feet into the air the only thing you got to pick was what color explosion you wanted.

(Maybe it says something about me that when I first played ME2 so long ago I was actively disappointed that I couldn't romance the only party members you can't, in fact, romance? Or at least, the two that don't get sexual pleasure from headbutting you. I kind of get why you can't do either one of them since their 'routes' wouldn't be meaningfully distinguishable from the plot and loyalty missions, but like...)

It's curious to me that they stumbled so much when EA had their multiplayer push when they already had done multiplayer pretty well in ME3 (even if the integration with the single player was controversial).

I hope AI can make improvements here. It has the potential. Although, my favorite games are all indie, ironically because they have more spirit.

I feel like, in an AAA game I can walk through the most beautiful (and expensive) landscape and barely notice. But there's something about the simplicity and imperfection of indie that primes me, so that a simple detail may stand out and evoke some feeling latent and forgotten.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats