EA: Bioware Friend or Foe?

Nothing to do with youtubers. I have been around long enough to see what EA has done over the years. I am not willfully blind to it.

Okay, don't act all shocked when people see things differently than you.

Westwood, Bullfrog...

A lot of the criticism thrown at Bioware is pretty unmeritted considering the sheer accomplishments of the company. There would be no such thing as modern computer role-playing if it wasn't for the massive success that Bioware's had as a developer. Sometimes that means trying to understand their decision to side with EA, sometimes it means criticizing EA for their abusive behavior towards customers.

None of that means we're "willfully blind" to anything, whatever that means.

Neither am I, but I am not willfully blind to what the other developers and publishers out there are doing either.  Making claims that one place is worse then another isn't accurate.  EA is one of the oldest publishers out there so they are going to be the ones with the most skeletons, but I see plenty of bad behaviors through the entire industry so I am not going to get on a soapbox and criticize one over another.

Fair point, but it is also keen to look at trends/practices of companies as they continue to march on, even with the amount of skeletons EA has because frankly, we should be looking at publishers to improve across the board.

Like, consider for example how it is taking 14 studios just to make the upcoming Assassin's Creed: Valhalla what it is from Ubisoft. Hell, Odyssey took only 10 make, so I guess that is progress to meet demand and growth. Keep in mind, not all of those studios are even under Ubisoft.

Now, outsourcing is nothing new, so when folks were confused to EA/BioWare outsourcing animations for Mass Effect: Andromeda, I couldn't help be surprised folks didn't know that happens a lot, and in the case of Andromeda it was a rush job with in-house tech the team was not prepped for.

Here is the thing, and this is one to also consider; the degree of autonomy from the middle management studios have at EA in aggregate to other big publishers. Activision for years has been touting it's 'pillar' strategy of being propped up by 3 games for over a decade (World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and lately Overwatch, though that third spot has been filled by Hearthstone, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero, and Skylanders). Take-Two has odd relationships with several publishers but is arguably more lecherous with IP control and business practices, such as actually poaching studios for their own teams, along with some other shady shit with 2K in the past with their affiliate dev teams like Gearbox. 

Ubisoft as I mentioned above has a 'all hands on deck' approach with major titles, and while they do minor innovations from time to time (Steep comes to mind) we also see a lot less autonomy from the studios on their dev choices. Skull and Bones, their online pirate game, has been in development hell for a bit, and may finally get release in 2021 now that Ubisoft Singapore is done with Assassins Creed development in-between that time.

And EA, we get corporate mandates and middle management issues, but we are still getting a fair amount of autonomous development that contradicts the three aforementioned publishers. 

Keep in mind, this is not defending EA per-se, but it is pointing out how their corporate culture is similar to their competitors, as you point out. Crunch is still an issue, morale and deadlines, lack of direction, but EA has always been more of a patron-styled publisher since the Andrew Wilson tenure, and whether it is due to legal reasons or not, is already shifting directions from what folks expect from most of their titles. I mean, the fact that Star Wars: Squadrons is touting the lack of microtransactions as a feature is pretty significant there...

Idiotic mandates or no, there is something to gleam from that because regardless of how similar the practices are across the board, the corporate culture and overall control the publishers have with their dev teams is different in each case. I think that is something worth exploring and discussing, though not in a reductive way of saying one is better than another so they must be a good company. 

If you say so.

linksocarina
If you say so.

EA tries to make money, it's a commercial enterprise.

It has had many successes as well as huge foulups.

I'm kind of with Josef Fares in this.

Pandemic Studios (the guys and girls who made Mercenaries and the real SW: Battlefront), and the studio who made Dead Space (F🤬🤬k EA for doing that! 😠)