Matt Goldman Quits Bioware

Absolutely correct.

Here's a "reach and a half" -

All the so called important people named above are responsible for the Lost Decade at Biower.  Some more responsible, some less, some probably not at all - but 10 years of dev hell and sub-par games.

Place blame where you will, but surely those "heading development and/or creative process" share much.

If the VO director leaves, probably not a good portent, but if those directly accountable for the last decade are gone, I call it good, and more's the better.

It depends on who is specifically responsible for how the whats and the what fores.  Which we may never know those specifics.  

But I will say a somewhat true to all life afferisms I have run into comes from Bill Bellichick 'Coaches don't win games, players do. Coaches lose game.'  And well if there is this kind of structural problem this suggest that it was in leadership more then anything and the best 'players' cannot overcome bad leadership decisions or improper instructions and leaders wasting time trying to figure out what to do.  The big question then becomes then who was exactly the coaches and who are the players in this analogy?  

How many women at Bioware internally get management promotions? Perhaps, the opportunity for advancement within Bioware was not there for her.

For example, I sometimes wonder why Mary Kirby has not been promoted to management. Is Bioware culturally somewhat of an "old boys club"?

She might not want the beacon of being a "lead" of anything.  Toxicity for what people don't like gets pretty brutal.

I figure it's not going to be easy to replace the lost talent. I mean, who'd really want to work at a company that obviously has massive leadership problems, glorified crunch as "BioWare magic" in the past and now is mostly infamous for how hard their two most recent releases cratered?

Considering the reports and investigative pieces on different studios over the years, I don't see how it would be that much harder for BioWare over other studios to find employees.  Off the top of my head, there is Riot, Ubisoft, Activision, CDPR, Naughty Dog, and probably more. All have had issues where there has been what I would consider bad management and mistreatment of employees.  Right now I think the biggest problem is at Activision because its so persuasive, but its been pretty quiet at EA. 

As far as leadership problems replacing the General Manager with someone outside BioWare could be seen as a sign they are working on fixing their management issues which I think will fix crunch if successful.  The crunch BioWare has done and the circumstances on why it happens is well known in the industry and even what would be considered industry norm crunch.  It was just amplified to be worse with Andromeda and Anthem due to what I would agree would be what seems to be bad management which caused delays.

Would you take on a job where the GM quit after only a short appearance? Would you move cross-country for a job at a business that might go the Maxis route any moment? Into a cold climate. Kinda at the end of the World? Where you need to travel for hours when you want to travel? OK, not every job is at Edmonton, but you get the idea.

If I think management for the problems I am seeing at the studio then I would consider taking the job for the company is wanting to make the changes I think they need.  As far as the job disappearing like Maxis, I have the opinion that can happen with any job unless unionized and even then it can move.  If I am new to the industry or don't have any attachments I am willing to move for a job even if there is risk.  Edmonton is the biggest hurdle and frankly I bet its been a problem for people not native to the area for years.  People have left BioWare in the past for that and probably something for people to consider.  Its probably also something new people might not consider or are willing to put up with to move to Canada or leave where they are.

Edit: As far as length people work at a job, its really not that long on average.  I think its four to five year median for a person staying at one job.

I am not sure about the gaming industry but I know alot of jobs now have the option of working from home. If the video game industry can do this for the most part then it will no longer be a problem if they decide to have game studios in different places. Although I wouldn't be suprised if the video game companies moved on mass to some place where they have to pay very very little taxes and with no workers rights if everyone can work from home in their own countries.

This doesn't mean its not another Christina Norman situation either.  She replaced someone that he forums claimed was irreplaceable and the combat of Mass Effect 2 would suffer.  After Mass Effect 2 she left for Riot and then the complaints were the next person couldn't replicate what she did.