BioWare is laying off 50 people

Game development really doesn't work that way, at least not in a studio of any size. Most of them would either spend most of their time sitting on their hands or spinning off in so many different directions you could never pull together a cohesive product. Imagine trying to bring 200 people into a movie studio and saying, "hey, let's make a movie!" - when you have no script, no sets or set designs, no storyline, no characters defined, etc.

Traditionally, BioWare has had ME and DA core teams that plan the next title of each IP. While most of the staff was doing the production work of one title, those core teams would be in pre-prod for the next, so as the production of one game ramped down they would have something else to start on (the next title coming out of pre-prod). It worked really well for a few years, and we were getting regular releases of both IPs.

That ended when they wrapped the ME trilogy and tried to create something new with Anthem - which was little more than an abstract concept with no actual substance for far too long, and I guess we know how all of that turned out. With the trilogy wrapped up, they needed a new IP to put in the rotation with DA and just didn't have anything ready.

This, so much. Dorian's whole story could be summed up as "after-school special" and it was cringe. It doesn't matter that he had to push it through a committee, if the committee of people is all as shallow as that, then it doesn't really matter. I think it's called the Jar Jar Binks effect. I don't play games to be given a heavy handed lecture. 

Because they got tired of idiots asking them "Did you guys abandon Elder Scrolls? Where's Elder Scrolls!?" Because Gamer Caveman brain could not comprehend "we just wanted to do something different this time". 

I was simply suggesting why they may have done this but actually I feel that was an excuse probably used by the people at EA when people raised objections to making it a multi-player game. I wouldn't be surprised if someone said that doing so would hold things up and EA responded, no it won't, just use the Anthem codes.

I was watching a video yesterday by Mark Darrah that I think he first put out several months/years back but the algorithm decided to offer me now. In it he was discussing the development of Baldur's Gate 2 as a direct sequel to Baldur's Gate and how that included being able to use all the expertise they had acquired on the first game in programming the second because essentially nothing changed between the two in terms of game play and engine. Compare that with DAO to DA2 and then DAI with a completely different engine.

He also mentioned how back then programming sequences only ran into hundreds of pieces of data, whereas with later games using the Frostbite engine it could run into millions, making the whole process much more difficult. I can vouch for this having supported a computer student on a project where they had to build a simple game for children to play. This only required a small number of data sequences. Nevertheless, when I play tested it for them, a bug emerged in one section that meant it didn't link properly to the next. I watched as they searched through lines and lines of data, eventually finding the place where one small omission of a data code led to the problem. At this point my respect for people working on major computer games enhanced considerably as I considered the problem must be magnified when searching for a bug in the programming, even more so now I know just how many data sequences were involved.

It also goes some way to explaining why these changes in direction have caused such delays. People say, look at DA2 and how quickly they got that out. That was with a different engine and the switch to Frostbite did end up in delaying the release of DAI, partly I seem to recall in order to allow the multi-player element to be included. They couldn't even use the Mass Effect 3 codes because they were on a different engine. Then, whilst DAI and Andromeda did use Frostbite with an element of multi-player included, that would not be the same as a wholly multi-player game. EA wanted "Anthem with Dragons", which would create fresh problems with realising certain aspects of the setting, as well as game play, which I assume was the reason they dumped Joplin, not just the narrative but the technical work done before that team was redirected to Anthem, and started afresh.

Just film?

I suppose next you're going to tell me that Hamlet was political.

/s

I always find it funny when these topics come up (particularly with BioWare). Like, how tf do you not know by now that this is a fairly progressively-minded studio? Especially when looking at all the various romances across their games.

People also forget this studio has been attacked from both ends on this whole "political correctness/woke" topic. A sex scene from Mass Effect 1 got Fox News in a tizzy, and ended up leading to us having two women having a steamy shower scene while still in their underwear. When they "dolled up" Ashley, when going from ME2 to ME3, some people here found it tasteless.

This shit is just white noise to me at this point. Just make a good fucking game.

I always found the asari lecturing someone on pronoun usage in MEA super cringe.

I mean, of all the races, they picked the one whom gendered language means absolutely NOTHING!

There is nothing worse at a concert than a band lecturing politically five minutes between songs ...

From the headcount graphic it looks like Bioware lost nearly 10% of their headcount in June & July alone. Was the writing already on the wall just a few months ago?

I agree, those inclusions were totally fine. I personally saw nothing wrong with that.