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PaperclipPerfector
1d ago
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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.
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.
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.
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?
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