BioWare is laying off 50 people

And so it begins.

I took a lot of flack on here for my negative comments about the state of Bioware and my fears regarding Dreadwolf.

Now we learn that the workforce is being stripped down to the bare bones, and some of the senior writers/content-makers given the boot shortly after learning that SWTOR was being farmed out to another company.

If this isn't an clear indication of EA preparing to put the final nails into Bioware's coffin I don't know what is. Frankly I'd be amazed if Bioware still existed at this time next year. Sure the Mass Effect and DragonAge franchise might continue for a bit under the EA moniker, but they will be pale shadows of their former selves - likely little more than cheap, hacked out cash grabs and mobile games.

For examples take a look at the last two titles in the Command & Conquer franchise after EA had assimilated Westwood.

Jos @sjosz
In a bit of personal news, after over 14 and a half years at BioWare working with so many fantastic people on so many fantastic things, I was laid off earlier this year. After taking some time to rest, I'm starting my next adventure with the wonderful team at Sucker Punch!

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Earlier this year? 

Whether the redundancies were at Austin or Edmonton, so far as the decision to reduce the workforce on Dragon Age was concerned, it could not have been recent one. The reason I say this is that, according to sources, Dreadwolf was originally meant to have come out this month. This being the case, marketing should have started back in the Spring of this year. In fact everything pointed to that, particularly the timing of the comic series that was meant to be a direct tie in to the game. You will recall that for some reason the final issue of this was delayed, which was announced around the time Mark Darrah was brought back to the studo. I did wonder at the time if it had something to do with the release of the game and that perhaps originally the last page of the comic had a reference to the upcoming game, even perhaps the date of release because this should already have been revealed by Bioware. However, there was a problem with the game, so the comic had to be changed.

Having established that the game could no longer be released in 2023, management had to decide how they were going to deal with this further strain on finances and justify the situation to EA. Apparently they felt the only option was to reduce the workforce if they were going to be given the time needed to produce Dreadwolf to the standard needed for it to be a success. I would imagine the last few months have been spent breaking the news to the team but the latter were told not to disclose anything until Bioware had made a public announcement about it. That's the way I see it anyway.

I mention this because I noticed a You Tuber commenting on it suggested the delay was a reaction to the successful launch of BG3. Whilst I am sure they have been watching the development of BG3, which has been ongoing for some considerable period with early access, the delay of the game would have to have been decided upon much earlier if it was originally scheduled for release this autumn, because of the associated marketing that would have been needed.

I haven't been able to follow the conversation here too closely. Almost every time I pop over I have no idea how the conversation relates to the topic of people being laid-off.

Laying off 50 people is hardly stripping Bioware to bare bones.  The games been in alpha for what...a year now with a release date of a 18 months away.  I don't think they would have let those people go if they really needed them.

I've been hearing about that nail in the coffin since DA2.  If it happens, it happens.  Prognostication is meaningless at this point.  The game is as likely to do just well enough for Bioware to keep plugging along as it being really good or really bad.  There's value in the Bioware brand and EA knows it.  Am I happy with the situation?  Of course not.  Having to wait more than a decade for a sequel is torture...and from my point of view it was totally unnecessary as they could have made incremental improvements to DAI, focused on story, and had another 2 installments.  Bioware's need to reinvent the wheel with every game is simply a terrible strategy...especially given how fickle fanbases can be.   But it is what it is...and I've come to terms with their relative success moving forward.

I think it is more the fact that many of those being made redundant are among the most senior of employees and the press release was talking about making the studio fit for the future beyond the release of DA:D. Now it is true that by now most of the narrative should have been finalised for Dreadwolf and the current delay may be more connected with technical issues involving game play, etc, so those from the writing team who have been made redundant are no longer needed for this game. However, what about the future? Surely, if the focus is going to continue to be on narrative driven games with rich characters, wouldn't they want to retain the most experienced employees with a proven track record of doing this? So, there does appear to have been a lot of corporate speak in the press release which didn't mean very much.

I felt the key word in the whole thing was "time". Sources have since revealed that all the indications that the game should have released this September were correct. The game was originally planned for an Autumn 2023 release but something caused this plan to be revised and this decision had to have been taken in the early part of the year before the scheduled marketing of the game began. Whatever the issue was, the team needed more time to resolve it but funds were running low, so their only choice was to slim down the team and save money, particularly among those who cost the most but were not immediately needed to finish the project. So, it may not be stripping to the bare bones, but it has meant losing some very experienced and long standing employees of Bioware.

Yes C&C Remastered was pretty darned awesome, it was a labour of love and I've played it to death, just as I played the original games back in the 90s.

But the key thing is that it was created by members of the original team. If EA employees had done the deed it would have been barely functional on release, filled with bugs, stuffed to the brim with microtransactions and core mechanics utterly dumbed down. They'd probably have given us 10,000 Tiberium/Ore at the start of every mission, had all units auto-heal and done away with base building in favour of instantly-spawned-in tanks and infantry, and gaining access to Mammoth Tanks would have required buying 'C&C Coins' for real money, and there would have been 20 different variations in 20 different colours.

The hit's keep coming and they don't stop coming, huh.

Jon Renish tweet

Terminated BioWare Employees Sue for Better Severance

On August 23 of this year, Edmonton video game studio BioWare ULC terminated 50 employees without cause. In most recent court cases of termination without cause, Alberta Courts have awarded at least one month of severance pay per year of service, with the full value of all benefits included; the severance that BioWare offered to these employees was significantly less than this amount. Several of those ex-employees attempted to negotiate with BioWare for adequate severance, but BioWare refused to increase its severance amounts.

Seven employees, with an average of 14 years at BioWare, have refused to accept BioWare's low offers, and have filed a Statement of Claim with Alberta's Court of King's Bench, requesting fair severance pay and including a request for punitive damages for what they say is unreasonably poor treatment by BioWare.

"In light of the numerous recent industry layoffs and the fact that BioWare's NDAs prevent us from showing any of our recent work on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in our portfolios, we are very concerned about the difficulty many of us will have finding work as the holiday season approaches," said one of the terminated employees, "While we remain supportive of the game we worked so hard on, and of our colleagues continuing that work, we are struggling to understand why BioWare is shortchanging us in this challenging time."

R. Alex Kennedy, counsel for the seven employees, says that even in cases where BioWare has contracts that discuss termination, BioWare may have included illegal provisions: "There are many situations where employers include termination provisions that are not enforced by the Courts," he said, "and I think we see that in this case too. BioWare attempted to reduce its obligation to these employees well below what the courts typically award, including by eliminating benefits from its termination pay - that appears to be contrary to the Employment Standards Code."

In Kennedy's opinion, these employees deserve generous severance pay: "These people are artists and creators who have worked very hard and for a very long time in a difficult industry, producing big profits for their employer. Their termination without cause en masse like this calls for a response. Employers here can terminate anyone at any time without cause, but with that right comes a responsibility to the people they put in that situation."

Devs need to unionise. Hopefully the employees get adequate severance. I'm not going to be on the side of multi-billion dollar corporations in this.

This is utterly bewildering. I know 'different countries' etc, but here, companies can't even enforce non compete clauses against employees that resign (except in very specific cases where the employee is in possession of competitive advantage information of a technical process or patent), let alone ones made redundant. It breaks my brain to think that the NDA would be enforceable in a confidential job application setting.