Waypoint Podcast: Manveer Heir (Ex-BW Montreal) Talk EA Woes, Andromeda, Race, and Sexism

If you don't know VICE has a gaming site called Waypoint led by the talented writer/editor-in-chief Austin Walker. They usually put out some pretty great articles and think pieces but also do a weekly podcast. This week they sat down with Manveer Heir who worked for BioWare Montreal for seven years working on Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda. Although, he gained a certain infamy during his time at BioWare on certain forums for his "controversial" tweets. Mainly his attempts to speak about racism and privilege within society and the games industry. Nonetheless I thought he'd be a great guest and he was. I suggest everyone listen to the whole thing as he provides some insight into Andromeda's troubled development and the state of the industry regarding lootboxes and the "death of SP games."

Waypoint Radio: We Talk EA Woes, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Race, and Sexism with Manveer Heir
Highlights (some of which Jason Schrier's excellent article pointed out already) (I still suggest LISTENING to the whole podcast):

-Andromeda was initially a prequel dubbed "Mass Effect: Contact." Not everyone was happy with changing it to a sequel, though many were.

-He was in charge of Gameplay design with Andromeda. In other words, pretty much everything related to how your character moved (jetpack, cover, rolling, dodging, etc.). The decision not to have snap cover wasn't his, but he made it work.

-Mass Effect 3's lootboxes alone were INSANELY successful. ME3's MP alone made EA a lot of money, though he couldn't legally give specifics. The success of ME3's MP is why Dragon Age: Inquisition and every other further EA title had MP put into it. Apparently, one person alone dropped $15,000 into ME3's MP lootbox system.

-Points to Anthem as the future with EA. It's not exactly a type of game BioWare traditionally makes ie linear, story driven. But, EA wants something similar to Destiny. Couldn't talk too much about Anthem since he knew "way too much."

-Confirms that Andromeda was poorly managed. EA has a lot of middle management bloat. They have a really hard time managing their studios hence the reason for so many closures. Confirmed that Montreal was shutdown specifically because of mismanagement, less Andromeda's performance. 

-Stated that "lead writer at the time" (to me this can only mean Chris Schlerf who left mid-development) didn't really listen to concerns about the story from others. One thing he brought up along with others was that they needed to be careful about "colonialism" aspect of Andromeda. He and others were ignored by the writers. Unclear what this earlier version of the story looked like as in the game we received there is virtually no "colonialist" aspect to the story, the entire issue is side skirted by having the Kett just be villains and the majority of worlds uninhabited. 

-Confirms that the team didn't have a lot of experience with making open-world games, really struggled putting everything together and making the open world compelling.

-Also confirmed earlier report from Jason that the game was basically put together in those last two years, that's when the game finally took shape. Although, he says that's not unusual for AAA games, especially open world ones. AAA, open world games "come in hot." So, when they miss they miss big. Not a lot of room for adjustment by the end.

-Many on the team voiced their concerns about the open world design, problem was management thinking their own way. 

-Team understood there were bugs before launch but figured a Day 1 patch and maybe another a week later would fix all that. No one knew the extent of the bugs, especially the facial animations. "Memes killed Mass Effect: Andromeda." Team was pretty disheartened by all the memes after launch.

-Great discussion about diversity, sexism, and racism within video games and how to tackle those subjects. Talked about Manveer's 2014 GDC talk about tackling these issues within the industry and how he gave the talk just before "GamerGate" hit, questioning whether we were too optimistic then.


-Lastly, I spoke to him on Twitter and expressed my love of the podcast but also wished he spoke more about Andromeda's development. I specifically asked why NO ONE has ever talked about Gerard Lehiany (Creative Director) leaving the project. He said: "I wouldn't say he left..."

Which confirmed my long-lasting suspicion that Lehiany was basically fired from the job. Which again, goes to show how mismanaged Andromeda was when the person they hired to lead the project was fired a year or so after.