Bioware is falling apart, apparently

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/09/28/tr...oware-doctors/

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The outpouring of online negativity surrounding Mass Effect 3 and The Old Republic may have proved “just too much” for Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka, who left Bioware and the games industry behind a couple of weeks ago.

That’s the view of former Bioware man Trent Oster, speaking to Now Gamer about the doctors’ exit. “The last time I met up with [Greg], I felt his exhaustion,” Oster said. “Punch out, eject, get the hell out”, was my suggestions to him and it hit closer to the mark than I had realised. I also think the Mass Effect 3 fan reaction and the Old Republic fans negativity was just too much.”

“You have to love games and you put your heart into them to create them. To have the fans creating petitions against the work is pretty hard to take, especially when you’ve spent the last few years crunching overtime to try and ship a game. It can be hard to shut off the overwhelming negativity the internet spews forth, especially when it has your name or the name of your company in it.”

Oster also suggests that the failure of The Old Republic may have spelled the end for Ray Muzyka’s EA ambitions. “I had him pegged as an EA lifer,” says Oster. “My thought was the Ray agenda was to first usurp Frank Gibeau and then later John Riccotello as CEO.”

“I’m sure the internal culture at EA had pinned the Old Republic conversion to free to play as a failure and hung that completely on Ray, so that would have hurt his upward climb. But, I figured he would fight harder. EA upper management must have been even worse than I thought.”

Trent Oster is currently the creative director on the Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition. Greg Zeschuk now plans to pursue “some personal passion-driven projects related to craft beer,” while Ray Muzyka has announced that he’ll be “investing in and mentoring new entrepreneurs, and more specifically, the field of social/impact investing.”

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My thought: you make your bed, you gotta sleep in it. I'm not gonna feel bad for them when every game they've made since DA:O has been a consistent "terrible".

>expecting bio-anything not to rot and fall apart after a few years of misuse.
I shiggy diggy.

EA causing another company to rip itself apart, as usual. :f3:

Am i the only one who feels happy about this? I hope not.
“You have to love games and you put your heart into them to create them."
http://i50.tinypic.com/34dlph4.gif
This part especially got to me, if you need to love games and put your heart into them, then what is hamburger helper doing with them?

Sucks for him, but sheesh, you have to realize that you can't put money-grabbing schemes into your works.

At least he will think twice before doing a pomegranatety rainbow ending ignoring practically everything that made the game what it is (The story and how your choices affected it).

I really want to know wth he though when the ending was in the making, i mean the whole joke and hype of mass effect was the story choices...

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Originally Posted by Malthe

Am i the only one who feels happy about this? I hope not.
“You have to love games and you put your heart into them to create them."
http://i50.tinypic.com/34dlph4.gif
This part especially got to me, if you need to love games and put your heart into them, then what is hamburger helper doing with them?

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I find this to be a GOOD step for the entire industry. Next EA needs to fall through. Then Activision. Blizzard is an acceptable sacrifice for that to occur, at this point; they are no longer a good company, not in the least.

Blade and soul better not dissapoint me, that'll be it for me for online gaming, especially after the C&C blunder. I mean seriously, at least they took notice and put a campaign on there, but I think they missed the entire "SKIRMISH" aspect. The gaming companies are failing beyond me.

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Originally Posted by KhainiWest

Blade and soul better not dissapoint me, that'll be it for me for online gaming, especially after the C&C blunder. I mean seriously, at least they took notice and put a campaign on there, but I think they missed the entire "SKIRMISH" aspect. The gaming companies are failing beyond me.

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B&S is NCSoft though, it doesn't have anything to do with Bioware I didn't think? But yeah, it does looks really good, but I'm having fun with TERA still and they are slowly making it a playable game with patches. Just recently they FINALLY listened and added a bunch of buffs to enchanting, the main one being a modifier that ramps up the more times you fail. I don't care if you think that sounds casual, taking 107 attempts to upgrade an item like my friend did recently is NOT OK, and the item isn't even close to perfect yet at that. We complained that endgame grinding was boring, they made it so BAM grinding was actually good by insanely increasing their droprate and adding an entire new table full of higher tier/top tier drops to the list.

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Originally Posted by Flonne

I find this to be a GOOD step for the entire industry. Next EA needs to fall through. Then Activision. Blizzard is an acceptable sacrifice for that to occur, at this point; they are no longer a good company, not in the least.

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How does companies you don't like failing help the gaming industry in any way? It undermines confidence in the industry and results in fewer games. Better games come out of high competition, not companies falling apart and being unable to make games.

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Originally Posted by Dusk

How does companies you don't like failing help the gaming industry in any way? It undermines confidence in the industry and results in fewer games. Better games come out of high competition, not companies falling apart and being unable to make games.

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So other companies know that what bioware does is retarded and cannot thrive out of extortion.

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Originally Posted by Flonne

I find this to be a GOOD step for the entire industry. Next EA needs to fall through. Then Activision. Blizzard is an acceptable sacrifice for that to occur, at this point; they are no longer a good company, not in the least.

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Ugh. You realise how stupid this sounds right? If intrest in gaming dwindled to the point where EA and Activision can't survive as companies, NO third party can. Then once the major videogame publishers have failed, no banks will lend any money to anyone trying to finance the creation of videogames, and the whole industry goes, and we're left with whatever crappy social games the few remaining people can push out.
You love facebook gaming, right?

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So other companies know that what bioware does is retarded and cannot thrive out of extortion.

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... Just, wow. PLease, tell me more about this "extortion".

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Originally Posted by Lozmaster

Ugh. You realise how stupid this sounds right? If intrest in gaming dwindled to the point where EA and Activision can't survive as companies, NO third party can. Then once the major videogame publishers have failed, no banks will lend any money to anyone trying to finance the creation of videogames, and the whole industry goes, and we're left with whatever crappy social games the few remaining people can push out.
You love facebook gaming, right?


... Just, wow. PLease, tell me more about this "extortion".

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How is mass effect 3 not extortion and lol.

LMFAO@BOLD.

So you're telling me the company rated the worst in the world is the only company that can thrive as a publisher? Now that's stupid.

Don't even get me started about "Bioware/EA" double penetration they did to command and conquer, they are completely naive/ignorant or frankly just don't give a sh`it. The last 3 games that bioware has put their hands onto have become absolute sh`it piles.

Dragon age
Star wars
Mass effect

Did these competitive titles create better games? No, it was runs off of previously "Successful" money makers, which grow stale, feel completely cheated out of, or have unreasonable marketing.

Khaini made a lot of the points I would have. At this point, the entire industry would be better to just do a complete reset, things are rapidly moving in a direction that will end up being such a profit black hole that it WILL kill the industry. Gaming will not die, there are too many people that want games and too much potential profit for that to happen. The highest tier companies dying off will not only inspire the little guys to work harder since there is a new opening in the "power players" field, it will also encourage them to do things the right way.

I'm not against DLC, I'm not against pandering to the fanbase. If used properly they can not only be profitable, they can be POSITIVES. Some examples of bad DLC include day 1 DLC, whatever the pineapple they did to Prototype 2, disc locked DLC (which basically is just saying, "hey, we already finished this stuff and it's all here, but we want you to pay more for it!"), and "shortcut" DLC (unlocking content by paying; some people may like this, but in the end it is not beneficial for them to be doing that UNLESS they simply don't have the time to unlock stuff due to a job). Examples of bad pandering...every thought that has ever passed through Jennifer Hepler's tiny, tiny brain. And no, it's not just because I think forcing lesbian/gay routes down our throats is annoying; some of that is fine, but when you have the option to screw the robot and the alien freak and the dog, something has gone wrong.

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Originally Posted by Flonne

Khaini made a lot of the points I would have. At this point, the entire industry would be better to just do a complete reset, things are rapidly moving in a direction that will end up being such a profit black hole that it WILL kill the industry. Gaming will not die, there are too many people that want games and too much potential profit for that to happen. The highest tier companies dying off will not only inspire the little guys to work harder since there is a new opening in the "power players" field, it will also encourage them to do things the right way.

I'm not against DLC, I'm not against pandering to the fanbase. If used properly they can not only be profitable, they can be POSITIVES. Some examples of bad DLC include day 1 DLC, whatever the pineapple they did to Prototype 2, disc locked DLC (which basically is just saying, "hey, we already finished this stuff and it's all here, but we want you to pay more for it!"), and "shortcut" DLC (unlocking content by paying; some people may like this, but in the end it is not beneficial for them to be doing that UNLESS they simply don't have the time to unlock stuff due to a job). Examples of bad pandering...every thought that has ever passed through Jennifer Hepler's tiny, tiny brain. And no, it's not just because I think forcing lesbian/gay routes down our throats is annoying; some of that is fine, but when you have the option to screw the robot and the alien freak and the dog, something has gone wrong.

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What did they do to Prototype 2? I played it and loved it. Just curious.

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Originally Posted by happylight

What did they do to Prototype 2? I played it and loved it. Just curious.

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Oh, the gameplay is fine, I'm referring to their crappy "unlock more content as more days pass" setup. Most people will be done playing the game entirely before the game is anywhere near "complete".

I felt the game (Prototype 2) to be short, when i wasn't looking the main story was already finished O.o (And yes i did a good amount of side stuff, maybe a little over half) and although the gameplay its cool and all it became boring by the end of the game (Or maybe its just me).

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Originally Posted by FenixR

I felt the game (Prototype 2) to be short, when i wasn't looking the main story was already finished O.o (And yes i did a good amount of side stuff, maybe a little over half) and although the gameplay its cool and all it became boring by the end of the game (Or maybe its just me).

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Unfortunately the Prototype games are like a more extreme version of GTA in that it isn't totally interesting as far as the story goes, and once you've finished it all the random ass-whoopings on unsuspecting bystanders gets old as well.

I liked the first one, but it got old quickly once I finished it in a few hours.

The endings in run-around DLC for Mass Effect 3 has left many lovers of the series furious and scratching their heads. This lack of closure to the series which fans grew so close is one of numerous reasons why Bioware is falling apart.

Update: http://news.mmosite.com/content/2012..._bioware.shtml