AngryFrozenWater
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Sir Nose D'VoidOfFunk
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Post by AngryFrozenWater on Aug 24, 2023 18:54:02 GMT
I have read this entire thread. That was hard, because I was interrupted many times by error 502.  Anyway... After seeing all points of view, it looks to me that it is no coincidence that through the years lots of writers and creative leads have been fired. What all these people have in common is that they have a creative vision. So, whenever they defend that creative vision, corporate pushes back. The longer that pushing continues, the greater the chance that people will be fired. And guess what? That won't be upper management. |
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Post by FiendishlyInventive on Aug 24, 2023 18:56:22 GMT
All three also are missing stuff, whether that be unlocking Stasis in LOTSB ME2, or melee combos entirely in ME3. I get ME 2 and ME 3 but what is missing from ME 1? Don´t tell me you miss the Pinnacle Station DLC. Not particularly, I miss the lighting, expressive faces, art direction (Mello exists for a reason but I tend to play on console) and any degree of combat difficulty, LE1 Insanity's a cakewalk, and it's in part because the artificial intelligence's somehow more brain dead than the original. Pinnacle Station's nothing comparatively. |
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Post by Silvery on Aug 24, 2023 20:56:03 GMT
So going off the DA Credit from the fandom wiki there might be no writers left at Bioware who have actually worked on all three Dragon Age games. All info below is from the DA Credit, IMDB, MobyGames, and LinkedIn for context. They fired Mary Kirby who had been with them since 2006. She wrote for all three games as well the Mark of the Assassin, Legacy, Jaws of Hakkon, and Trespasser. She also did the following books: Merrill (short story), Varric (short story), Dragon Age: The World of Thedas Volume 2, Dragon Age: Hard in Hightown, and Short Story: The Wake. For non DA stuff she also wrote for SWOTOR. From this tweet by Karin Weekes-West Luke Kristjanson also got fired. He has been with Bioware since 1996. He has been a writer on basically all their games. Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, MDK2, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR, Jade Empire (lead writer), ME1, Origins, ME2, DAII, Inquisition, and Andromeda. He also was a writer for the following Expansions/DLCs: Tales of the Storm Coast, Leliana's Song, Legacy, and Mark of the Assassin. He also did the following DA books: Aveline (short story), Dragon Age: The World of Thedas Volume 2, Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights, Callback, Genitivi Dies in the End, and Short Story: As We Fly. So that just leaves Sheryl Chee as the only one who has written for all three games as far I can tell. From Googling there is nothing concrete at all regarding if she got fired or not. Her Twitter is set to private and her bio says "ugh" but I have no idea if both of those have been like that.
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Post by AnDromedary on Aug 24, 2023 21:00:28 GMT
It's saddening to see... but at some point you're going to need new writers regardless of layoffs or retirement. I hate that they're leaving, but if there's junior writers there who want to stretch their legs, they're going to need experience at some point. People come and go in this industry. Everyone was ecstatic when Bioware hired Mary DeMarle as lead narrator for ME, so it's not like people who are accomplished writers can't be found out in the market. Im not apologizing for the layoffs. I just think people here need to also stop believing any new writer is going to suck, and that there's absolutely NO ONE who can tell worthwhile stories for these franchises. Oh, I am all for young junior people coming in. But I think there needs to be a healthy amount of overlap. In any field, you want to hire your junior people before the seniors retire (or are laid off in the worst case), so that they can learn from them and be introduced to the processes in the workplace.
A lot of the experienced people already left over the last couple of years but there it could be argued that BW had no choice because these people left of their own accord. So the group of seniors was already quite diminished. That's why I am quite surprised that now they choose to diminish it even more by actively getting rid of some of the last remaining veterans.
You'd think for writers, especially writers of long lasting franchises and characters, a kind of "apprenticeship" overlap of junior and senior people would be particularly important to ensure consistency (both in style and narrative) and the continuation of a smooth workflow. I don't see too many indications of that happening at BioWare. And honestly, the general trend of writing quality from DA:I to Andromeda to Anthem does not exactly fill me with confidence that there is a promising new generation of writers somewhere on their back bench that will now suddenly come to the forefront and shine.
Maybe that's exactly what will happen, who knows, but given what I've seen from the studio in the last 10 years, I remain skeptical.
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Post by river82 on Aug 24, 2023 21:25:01 GMT
The people getting fired—writers, technical directors, web developers, narrative programmers, etc.—are not Bioware's "leadership." Writers, programmers and devs who aren't department leads aren't the ones who decides how things are done. They can give suggestions but looking at things, they were probably ignored most of the time. It's not a writer who decided to hide staff on the SWTOR team while they actually worked on other games to siphon SWTOR budget to other games so EA didn't realize those other games were busting their budget. It was someone high into BioWare power structure. EA probably realized something was wrong when SWTOR 10th anniversary with lots of stuff planned over the year didn't really happen despite the staff and budget booked for it. Hence, putting an EA guy as general manager of the studio and then moving SWTOR to Broadsword, which caused BioWare Edmonton budgeting to fall apart which lead to cutting heads (among the most expensive since it's purely finances). And now I feel sorry for SWTOR fans 
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Post by Croatsky on Aug 24, 2023 21:28:59 GMT
I'd argue a culture(that appears to devalue writing) by sacking experienced talented writers who know the setting isn't likely to be conducive to attracting and retaining good writing talent. Also like any other aspect of game development (sure a junior person with talent can develop a technical skill) but that'll take time and there mistakes along the way. Mistakes can come with any writer, junior or otherwise. And let's not pretend that these same writers didn't also put out some fairly mediocre side quests in Inquisition either. I can also attest that theyve put out some of my favorite characters in the franchise (or gaming). Senior writers aren't infallible just because of how long they've been established with a franchise. I can hate how EA/BioWare have treated these individuals, but also recognize that writers were going to change hands at some point. Let's just think realistically about this. Once DA:D is done and released, that means were likely going to be waiting 4-6 years for the next ME game to launch. When it's Dragon Ages turn again, we could be up to 12 years removed from Dreadwolfs initial launch. You're bound to have some of the senior writers departing, but the work on the games story doesnt falter just because. David Gaider filled in after Mike Laidlaw. Patrick Weekes stepped in after Gaider. Someone else will likely need to step in for these other senior writers as well. My contention isn't with how this firing went down. I'm with you that this definitely fucks over the writing team. I just disagree with others here that everything with this franchises story hinges squarely on these writers. 4-6 years sounds too extreme, I think 3-4 years after DAD. NME is still in pre-production, so they can plan things out way in advance and have smooth sailing development for the most part.
As well Dreadwolf success would also lead to BW being able to hire more people again to make up for recent lay offs. That potentially leads to old staff to get rehired if possible. But this is optimistic outlook, hopefully it does come to that.
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Post by Croatsky on Aug 24, 2023 21:41:45 GMT
askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/726550853176147968/a-lot-of-people-are-probably-asking-you-this-but another cross-post: I wouldn't zero in on the writers alone (they're familiar names, have done great work and writers are undervalued in creative fields for sure tho. and of course the writing is a big part of BioWare games). from what I can see we have two confirmed layoffs of writers thus far. We've also lost a foundation technical director, an associate level designer, a software engineer, an illustrator, a web producer, a gameplay director, a world animator, a ui/ux expert, a producer&dev manager and a gameplay designer, among others not yet named or not known to us. that's a broad and varied range of job roles and they're all important. it seems like the majority of the departments in the company got hit with layoffs. all of those will have an impact as, like some of the devs are stressing on socials, games are made by many people. and its hard for all of them who got laid off no doubt.  So fans have overfocused on writers losing their jobs, afterall.
Also I'm surprised nobody posted the Jeff Grubb report yet, as he states ME team devs have been moved to fill in lost DA team gaps.
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Post by Croatsky on Aug 24, 2023 21:45:11 GMT
- DA:D keeps getting pushed back, now summer 2024 at the earliest.
I think the implication I got is that BW is definitely costing money for EA by not releasing games although they are a fairly small studio
- The reason for the layoffs is that EA's financials are looking bad because Battlefield floundered and they were expecting APEX legends to cover the difference for a while, which it did, but it is now on the decline
- So how are they going to release DA:D with fewer people? They're pulling even more people from NME so it's pushed back further[/li]
Additional note, no hint of mismanagement within BioWare.
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Post by biggydx on Aug 24, 2023 21:45:54 GMT
It's saddening to see... but at some point you're going to need new writers regardless of layoffs or retirement. I hate that they're leaving, but if there's junior writers there who want to stretch their legs, they're going to need experience at some point. People come and go in this industry. Everyone was ecstatic when Bioware hired Mary DeMarle as lead narrator for ME, so it's not like people who are accomplished writers can't be found out in the market. Im not apologizing for the layoffs. I just think people here need to also stop believing any new writer is going to suck, and that there's absolutely NO ONE who can tell worthwhile stories for these franchises. Oh, I am all for young junior people coming in. But I think there needs to be a healthy amount of overlap. In any field, you want to hire your junior people before the seniors retire (or are laid off in the worst case), so that they can learn from them and be introduced to the processes in the workplace.
A lot of the experienced people already left over the last couple of years but there it could be argued that BW had no choice because these people left of their own accord. So the group of seniors was already quite diminished. That's why I am quite surprised that now they choose to diminish it even more by actively getting rid of some of the last remaining veterans.
You'd think for writers, especially writers of long lasting franchises and characters, a kind of "apprenticeship" overlap of junior and senior people would be particularly important to ensure consistency (both in style and narrative) and the continuation of a smooth workflow. I don't see too many indications of that happening at BioWare. And honestly, the general trend of writing quality from DA:I to Andromeda to Anthem does not exactly fill me with confidence that there is a promising new generation of writers somewhere on their back bench that will now suddenly come to the forefront and shine.
Maybe that's exactly what will happen, who knows, but given what I've seen from the studio in the last 10 years, I remain skeptical.
I think one question we're not too sure about is how many junior writers they [BioWare] have under themselves. It was easier to name them back in the day because of how often they'd work on DLC's during BioWare's hayday. Not so easy now given how far removed we are from Inquisition, along with the fact that those juniors have now become senior writers themselves, or Lead Writers (like Patrick).
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Post by Bann Duncan on Aug 24, 2023 21:47:37 GMT
Eh, I think zeroing on writers is perfectly fine because that's BioWare's unique selling proposition, or was anyway until Anthem happened and didn't have a story. (The live action short film had more story than the actual game.)
I didn't hold Andromeda against them because it's not really made by BioWare, but the half-assed writing in ME3 (though not DA:I which had great writing/lore) and Anthem shows at this point BioWare is basically a company making fanfiction of BioWare IP.
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Post by river82 on Aug 24, 2023 21:51:40 GMT
I wish all the former BioWare devs would found a new studio and do AA narrative focused RPGs like BioWare used to before the open wold craze ruined their dev cycles and killed the relevance of their franchises. I would throw money so fast at that new studio. 40h cinematic corridor shooter/fantasy RPG experience with a ton of replay value again, please. Nothing quite like that, but Bioware vets have had a hand in founding Archetype Entertainment, Humanoid Studios, and Thought Pennies. Worth keeping an eye on them, methinks. EDIT: I had forgotten that Mike Laidlaw's rōnin days ended. He's also founded his own studio, Yellow Brick Games. Don't forget Aaron Flynn founding Inflexion which is doing the very exciting Nightingale game set for release early next year 
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Post by river82 on Aug 24, 2023 21:57:06 GMT
askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/726550853176147968/a-lot-of-people-are-probably-asking-you-this-but another cross-post: I wouldn't zero in on the writers alone (they're familiar names, have done great work and writers are undervalued in creative fields for sure tho. and of course the writing is a big part of BioWare games). from what I can see we have two confirmed layoffs of writers thus far. We've also lost a foundation technical director, an associate level designer, a software engineer, an illustrator, a web producer, a gameplay director, a world animator, a ui/ux expert, a producer&dev manager and a gameplay designer, among others not yet named or not known to us. that's a broad and varied range of job roles and they're all important. it seems like the majority of the departments in the company got hit with layoffs. all of those will have an impact as, like some of the devs are stressing on socials, games are made by many people. and its hard for all of them who got laid off no doubt. So fans have overfocused on writers losing their jobs, afterall.
Also I'm surprised nobody posted the Jeff Grubb report yet, as he states ME team devs have been moved to fill in lost DA team gaps.
Bioware has lost the back up studios of Bioware Austin and an additional 50 devs to help them pump out games faster. Considering Mass Effect wasn't in active full development, the team would consist of a skeleton crew so won't actually cover the losses they've sustained. A dev count of about 200 is very small for AAA game development.
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Post by Solas on Aug 24, 2023 22:02:20 GMT
So going off the DA Credit from the fandom wiki there might be no writers left at Bioware who have actually worked on all three Dragon Age games. All info below is from the DA Credit, IMDB, MobyGames, and LinkedIn for context. They fired Mary Kirby who had been with them since 2006. She wrote for all three games as well the Mark of the Assassin, Legacy, Jaws of Hakkon, and Trespasser. She also did the following books: Merrill (short story), Varric (short story), Dragon Age: The World of Thedas Volume 2, Dragon Age: Hard in Hightown, and Short Story: The Wake. For non DA stuff she also wrote for SWOTOR. From this tweet by Karin Weekes-West Luke Kristjanson also got fired. He has been with Bioware since 1996. He has been a writer on basically all their games. Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, MDK2, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR, Jade Empire (lead writer), ME1, Origins, ME2, DAII, Inquisition, and Andromeda. He also was a writer for the following Expansions/DLCs: Tales of the Storm Coast, Leliana's Song, Legacy, and Mark of the Assassin. He also did the following DA books: Aveline (short story), Dragon Age: The World of Thedas Volume 2, Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights, Callback, Genitivi Dies in the End, and Short Story: As We Fly. So that just leaves Sheryl Chee as the only one who has written for all three games as far I can tell. From Googling there is nothing concrete at all regarding if she got fired or not. Her Twitter is set to private and her bio says "ugh" but I have no idea if both of those have been like that. Sheryl confirmed they're still there.
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Post by Croatsky on Aug 24, 2023 22:02:34 GMT
So fans have overfocused on writers losing their jobs, afterall.
Also I'm surprised nobody posted the Jeff Grubb report yet, as he states ME team devs have been moved to fill in lost DA team gaps.
Bioware has lost the back up studios of Bioware Austin and an additional 50 devs to help them pump out games faster. Considering Mass Effect wasn't in active full development, the team would consist of a skeleton crew so won't actually cover the losses they've sustained. A dev count of about 200 is very small for AAA game development. By 2019, BioWare Edmonton had staff the size of 320. This is first time they had to slash significant chunk of their staff. No reason to think BioWare Edmonton is at low as 200 devs staffed, ought to be closer to 270.
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Post by shaqfu on Aug 24, 2023 22:05:30 GMT
Man bioware just can't get a win at all. Feels like the last good press they had was DAI winning GOTY way back when.
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Post by river82 on Aug 24, 2023 22:06:18 GMT
Bioware has lost the back up studios of Bioware Austin and an additional 50 devs to help them pump out games faster. Considering Mass Effect wasn't in active full development, the team would consist of a skeleton crew so won't actually cover the losses they've sustained. A dev count of about 200 is very small for AAA game development. By 2019, BioWare Edmonton had staff the size of 320. This is first time they had to slash significant chunk of their staff. No reason to think BioWare Edmonton is at low as 200 devs staffed, ought to be closer to 270. "According to the Wall Street Journal, EA is estimated to have around 12,000 to 13,000 employees, while BioWare has about 250 people. The company cut approximately 20 percent of its total workforce in the studio." www.techtimes.com/articles/295517/20230824/ea-lays-50-people-bioware-studio-parts-ways-unionized-keywords.htmPeople come and go all the time, they don't always do things in massive ways. I don't think they had 250 but I would wager, and just my uneducated opinion, it was closer to 250 than 320. And factor in that back when Andromeda released Montreal was a backup studio, Austin could be called on as a backup studio, and the amount of help Edmonton can call on has collapsed off a cliff.
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Post by Croatsky on Aug 24, 2023 22:14:39 GMT
By 2019, BioWare Edmonton had staff the size of 320. This is first time they had to slash significant chunk of their staff. No reason to think BioWare Edmonton is at low as 200 devs staffed, ought to be closer to 270. "According to the Wall Street Journal, EA is estimated to have around 12,000 to 13,000 employees, while BioWare has about 250 people. The company cut approximately 20 percent of its total workforce in the studio." www.techtimes.com/articles/295517/20230824/ea-lays-50-people-bioware-studio-parts-ways-unionized-keywords.htmPeople come and go all the time, they don't always do things in massive ways. I don't think they had 250 but I would wager, and just my uneducated opinion, it was closer to 250 than 320. And factor in that back when Andromeda released Montreal was a backup studio, Austin could be called on as a backup studio, and the amount of help Edmonton can call on has collapsed off a cliff. Well this is the source Wiki uses to claim BioWare had 320 employees in 2019, good 7 months after release of Anthem. I did not heard of mass lay offs during pandemic lockdowns.
And it specifically says Edmonton office, not including Austin, while Montreal was way gone by that point.
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Post by river82 on Aug 24, 2023 22:19:05 GMT
"According to the Wall Street Journal, EA is estimated to have around 12,000 to 13,000 employees, while BioWare has about 250 people. The company cut approximately 20 percent of its total workforce in the studio." www.techtimes.com/articles/295517/20230824/ea-lays-50-people-bioware-studio-parts-ways-unionized-keywords.htmPeople come and go all the time, they don't always do things in massive ways. I don't think they had 250 but I would wager, and just my uneducated opinion, it was closer to 250 than 320. And factor in that back when Andromeda released Montreal was a backup studio, Austin could be called on as a backup studio, and the amount of help Edmonton can call on has collapsed off a cliff. Well this is the source Wiki uses to claim BioWare had 320 employees in 2019, good 7 months after release of Anthem. I did not heard of mass lay offs during pandemic lockdowns.
And it specifically says Edmonton office, not including Austin, while Montreal was way gone by that point.
I know. My point is that was 4 years ago and a lot could change. For example, hypothetically a game they're working on is taking much longer than they expected and hypothetically is blowing a big hole in not only EA's budget but their own so they might have to gradually and naturally, in an attritional sense, just not replace everyone who left.
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Post by Croatsky on Aug 24, 2023 22:22:12 GMT
Well this is the source Wiki uses to claim BioWare had 320 employees in 2019, good 7 months after release of Anthem. I did not heard of mass lay offs during pandemic lockdowns.
And it specifically says Edmonton office, not including Austin, while Montreal was way gone by that point.
I know. My point is that was 4 years ago and a lot could change. For example, hypothetically a game they're working on is taking much longer than they expected and hypothetically is blowing a big hole in not only EA's budget but their own so they might have to gradually and naturally, in an attritional sense, just not replace everyone who left. Losing 70 people across 4 years is not something that would go unreported. Also highly unlikely since BioWare kept hiring new people over those 4 years, especially after announcing NME in late 2020 and were looking for people familiar with Unreal Engine 4.
So in those 4 years they ought to have hired more people, not lose more til now.
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Post by river82 on Aug 24, 2023 22:34:41 GMT
I know. My point is that was 4 years ago and a lot could change. For example, hypothetically a game they're working on is taking much longer than they expected and hypothetically is blowing a big hole in not only EA's budget but their own so they might have to gradually and naturally, in an attritional sense, just not replace everyone who left. Losing 70 people across 4 years is not something that would go unreported. Also highly unlikely since BioWare kept hiring new people over those 4 years, especially after announcing NME in late 2020 and were looking for people familiar with Unreal Engine 4.
So in those 4 years they ought to have hired more people, not lose more til now.
There have been plenty of reports of high profile people leaving Bioware, just this year you had Jay and Mac, and junior people leaving don't make it into reports. Whether they hired or not or replaced those people or not is something you're really just guessing at. They wouldn't be full hiring for NME yet it's still pre production. Your conclusion is based on a lot of assumptions. What we can say is that in 2019 it was reported Bioware had 320 people, in 2023 it was estimated by other sources to be 250. And they've lost 50 more people.
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Post by Croatsky on Aug 24, 2023 22:57:19 GMT
Losing 70 people across 4 years is not something that would go unreported. Also highly unlikely since BioWare kept hiring new people over those 4 years, especially after announcing NME in late 2020 and were looking for people familiar with Unreal Engine 4.
So in those 4 years they ought to have hired more people, not lose more til now.
There have been plenty of reports of high profile people leaving Bioware, just this year you had Jay and Mac, and junior people leaving don't make it into reports. Whether they hired or not or replaced those people or not is something you're really just guessing at. They wouldn't be full hiring for NME yet it's still pre production. Your conclusion is based on a lot of assumptions. What we can say is that in 2019 it was reported Bioware had 320 people, in 2023 it was estimated by other sources to be 250. And they've lost 50 more people. High profile people leaving BioWare doesn't translate to losing 70 people and nobody noticing. Also it's not an assumption, BioWare literally put up hiring listing in public spaces, this is not a secret.
Grubb from Giant Bomb mentioned that BioWare has 250 employees after laying off 50 people, but even then he states it's off-hand and we can't say for sure how accurate is his claim.
So if anything it is unclear how many people work at BioWare Edmonton right now, however I would insist to claim 200 people is extremely low estimate. BioWare would have have to have frozen NME development and go all hands on deck for Dreadwolf otherwise, just like they did that in past to save Andromeda and Anthem. Nothing suggests BioWare is shortstaffed to such extreme.
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Post by river82 on Aug 24, 2023 23:28:43 GMT
There have been plenty of reports of high profile people leaving Bioware, just this year you had Jay and Mac, and junior people leaving don't make it into reports. Whether they hired or not or replaced those people or not is something you're really just guessing at. They wouldn't be full hiring for NME yet it's still pre production. Your conclusion is based on a lot of assumptions. What we can say is that in 2019 it was reported Bioware had 320 people, in 2023 it was estimated by other sources to be 250. And they've lost 50 more people. High profile people leaving BioWare doesn't translate to losing 70 people and nobody noticing. Also it's not an assumption, BioWare literally put up hiring listing in public spaces, this is not a secret.
Grubb from Giant Bomb mentioned that BioWare has 250 employees after laying off 50 people, but even then he states it's off-hand and we can't say for sure how accurate is his claim.
So if anything it is unclear how many people work at BioWare Edmonton right now, however I would insist to claim 200 people is extremely low estimate. BioWare would have have to have frozen NME development and go all hands on deck for Dreadwolf otherwise, just like they did that in past to save Andromeda and Anthem. Nothing suggests BioWare is shortstaffed to such extreme. I didn't say high profile people leaving did translate into 70 people leaving and nobody noticing, I said there have been plenty of reports of high profile people leaving Bioware attritionally over the years and the people without a name who leaves don't get reported. While Bioware put up hiring notices, whether they replaced the people who have been lost over the years is not something nobody knows. Jeff Grubb never specified after layoffs. What he said was the cuts from EA trickle down and would impact the bottom studios, like Bioware, smaller size, 250 employees with everything that goes with Bioware. He's also probably parroting the estimate already going around the internet, not giving out new information. Which is why everywhere I look, like this Resetera thread, talking about the Jeff Grub article podcast is talking about Bioware having 250 BEFORE layoffs www.resetera.com/threads/dragon-age-dreadwolf-was-originally-prepared-to-release-september-2023-but-was-pushed-back-to-2024-per-jeff-grubb.757000/ ). All these figures are coming from the same place, Jeff is probably not providing new info here, he's probably taking from Venturebeat which probably scoured linkdin. That's why I've seen nobody assume he was talking about 250 after, that the 250 figure was to show how Bioware was a smaller cog in the EA machine before the cuts. The estimates are not exact, but everyone uses the same estimates for a reason, they're the best source we have right now.
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Post by Croatsky on Aug 24, 2023 23:54:58 GMT
High profile people leaving BioWare doesn't translate to losing 70 people and nobody noticing. Also it's not an assumption, BioWare literally put up hiring listing in public spaces, this is not a secret.
Grubb from Giant Bomb mentioned that BioWare has 250 employees after laying off 50 people, but even then he states it's off-hand and we can't say for sure how accurate is his claim.
So if anything it is unclear how many people work at BioWare Edmonton right now, however I would insist to claim 200 people is extremely low estimate. BioWare would have have to have frozen NME development and go all hands on deck for Dreadwolf otherwise, just like they did that in past to save Andromeda and Anthem. Nothing suggests BioWare is shortstaffed to such extreme. I didn't say high profile people leaving did translate into 70 people leaving and nobody noticing, I said there have been plenty of reports of high profile people leaving Bioware attritionally over the years and the people without a name who leaves don't get reported. While Bioware put up hiring notices, whether they replaced the people who have been lost over the years is not something nobody knows. Jeff Grubb never specified after layoffs. What he said was the cuts from EA trickle down and would impact the bottom studios, like Bioware, smaller size, 250 employees with everything that goes with Bioware. He's also probably parroting the estimate already going around the internet, not giving out new information. Which is why everywhere I look, like this Resetera thread, talking about the Jeff Grub article podcast is talking about Bioware having 250 BEFORE layoffs www.resetera.com/threads/dragon-age-dreadwolf-was-originally-prepared-to-release-september-2023-but-was-pushed-back-to-2024-per-jeff-grubb.757000/ ). All these figures are coming from the same place, Jeff is probably not providing new info here, he's probably taking from Venturebeat which probably scoured linkdin. That's why I've seen nobody assume he was talking about 250 after, that the 250 figure was to show how Bioware was a smaller cog in the EA machine before the cuts. The estimates are not exact, but everyone uses the same estimates for a reason, they're the best source we have right now. Then where does 250 estimate source comes from???
Tech Times article you linked mentions it and sources Wall Street Journal, but article they link to doesn't mention BioWare at all, just general EA cuts. I tried to find where else 250 employees claim comes from and I'm finding nothing. At this point I wouldn't be surprised people are using old BioWare Edmonton staff size numbers and never noticed they employed 320 right before Covid-19 popped up.
I tried to look into Wiki archive edits and before they added 320 employees they had... 800+ hired! Although they counted non-Edmonton staff as of 2010, so it included when SWTOR was still in development and there were bunch of other BioWare studios that would fail even before releasing any games.
At some point Wiki edited BW dropped to 500 employed, but no sourcing and 800+ number got brought back. In fact out of frustration I went to check and Wiki didn't even add 320 employees until February 2021, even though article sourced is from September 2019.
I even went to dig even deeper and BioWare had 300 employees in 2006! 220 employees in 2005. 400 employees in 2007?! 500 in 2008??!! Last ones were sourced directly from original BioWare website, which I think it's scrubbed.
How in the world BioWare Edmonton could have less employees today than they had in 2005???
And again, I can't find anywhere where 250 employees estimate comes from!
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Post by river82 on Aug 25, 2023 0:00:22 GMT
I didn't say high profile people leaving did translate into 70 people leaving and nobody noticing, I said there have been plenty of reports of high profile people leaving Bioware attritionally over the years and the people without a name who leaves don't get reported. While Bioware put up hiring notices, whether they replaced the people who have been lost over the years is not something nobody knows. Jeff Grubb never specified after layoffs. What he said was the cuts from EA trickle down and would impact the bottom studios, like Bioware, smaller size, 250 employees with everything that goes with Bioware. He's also probably parroting the estimate already going around the internet, not giving out new information. Which is why everywhere I look, like this Resetera thread, talking about the Jeff Grub article podcast is talking about Bioware having 250 BEFORE layoffs www.resetera.com/threads/dragon-age-dreadwolf-was-originally-prepared-to-release-september-2023-but-was-pushed-back-to-2024-per-jeff-grubb.757000/ ). All these figures are coming from the same place, Jeff is probably not providing new info here, he's probably taking from Venturebeat which probably scoured linkdin. That's why I've seen nobody assume he was talking about 250 after, that the 250 figure was to show how Bioware was a smaller cog in the EA machine before the cuts. The estimates are not exact, but everyone uses the same estimates for a reason, they're the best source we have right now. Then where does 250 estimate source comes from???
Tech Times article you linked mentions it and sources Wall Street Journal, but article they link to doesn't mention BioWare at all, just general EA cuts. I tried to find where else 250 employees claim comes from and I'm finding nothing. At this point I wouldn't be surprised people are using old BioWare Edmonton staff size numbers and never noticed they employed 320 right before Covid-19 popped up.
I tried to look into Wiki archive edits and before they added 320 employees they had... 800+ hired! Although they counted non-Edmonton staff as of 2010, so it included when SWTOR was still in development and there were bunch of other BioWare studios that would fail even before releasing any games.
At some point Wiki edited BW dropped to 500 employed, but no sourcing and 800+ number got brought back. In fact out of frustration I went to check and Wiki didn't even add 320 employees until February 2021, even though article sourced is from September 2019.
I even went to dig even deeper and BioWare had 300 employees in 2006! 220 employees in 2005. 400 employees in 2007?! 500 in 2008??!! Last ones were sourced directly from original BioWare website, which I think it's scrubbed.
How in the world BioWare Edmonton could have less employees today than they had in 2005???
And again, I can't find anywhere where 250 employees estimate comes from!
Journos copy other journos all the time. If you skimmed the Resetera thread I linked you would have seen someone say it originated from Venture Beat who scoured linkedin, which isn't the most reliable of sources but it's the figure everyone throws out at the moment. And TO BE FAIR, wasn't 2005 about when they were working on Dragon Age Origins, the game that pretty much bankrupted them before EA came in and saved them? Maybe they overemployed. It's worrying though. Okay look, the 200-240 figure doesn't worry me specifically. The fact is it doesn't matter which number, 200-250 employees is VERY LOW to be making AAA games. If they have that few employees going forward I would imagine open world games would be a struggle. Maybe they will focus on more linear, corridor experiences like ME2 or DA2? But Bethesda has 400, Larian needed 400, and I'm pretty certain everyone is astonished at Bethesda for doing what they do with only 400. Big open world RPGs are expensive. Are they doing open world after this? I can't see how they could. Lots of questions. The exact number of employees is not the top of everyone's worries (and Jeff probably isn't going to burn his insider access by asking pointless questions. He'll just grab what someone else reports probably).
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Post by Croatsky on Aug 25, 2023 0:14:40 GMT
Journos copy other journos all the time. If you skimmed the Resetera thread I linked you would have seen someone say it originated from Venture Beat who scoured linkedin, which isn't the most reliable of sources but it's the figure everyone throws out at the moment. And TO BE FAIR, wasn't 2005 about when they were working on Dragon Age Origins, the game that pretty much bankrupted them before EA came in and saved them? Maybe they overemployed. It's worrying though. Okay look, the 200-240 figure doesn't worry me specifically. The fact is it doesn't matter which number, 200-250 employees is VERY LOW to be making AAA games. If they have that few employees going forward I would imagine open world games would be a struggle. Maybe they will focus on more linear, corridor experiences like ME2 or DA2? But Bethesda has 400, Larian needed 400, and I'm pretty certain everyone is astonished at Bethesda for doing what they do with only 400. Big open world RPGs are expensive. Are they doing open world after this? I can't see how they could. Lots of questions. The exact number of employees is not the top of everyone's worries (and Jeff probably isn't going to burn his insider access by asking pointless questions. He'll just grab what someone else reports probably). Journos copying other journos also leads to spreading misinformation, even unintentionally and without malice over trivial facts.
Hence I feel skeptical for 250 number.
Also I did some digging and learned BioWare Austin was formed in 2005 and SWTOR development began in March 2006, so this explains how BioWare managed to grow so fast so quickly. It was pre-2008 crash era of overexpansion within tech sector, so oups! BioWare was lucky EA acquired them.
Also while yes Larian Studio and Bethesda have 400 employees each, do remember that BioWare Edmonton develops two AAA games at once, albeit less so post-Anthem but that's due to grave mismanagement.
Anyway, this digging just left me unsatisfactory.
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