Bioware Docs May Have Left Over Negative Fan Reaction

[Cat]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/09/28/fan-negativity-behind-bioware-founders-departure

You have to love games and you put your heart into them to create them. To have the fans creating petitions against the work is pretty hard to take.

So they left because they couldn't take constructive criticism.

[Tessera]

What they couldn't handle were the widespread accusations of them being greedy thieves.

We've been making similar accusations right here on this board for the past six years.

[Cat]

What they couldn't handle were the widespread accusations of them being greedy thieves.

We've been making similar accusations right here on this board for the past six years.

That too, not to mention Bioware going downhill lately.

[Tessera]

They've gone downhill for the same reasons that most other gaming studios have gone downhill:


(1) A decrease in the amount of creative effort being put into the development of their games, in favor of a largely formulaic approach.

(2) An increase of the cash price being charged for their games... despite a corresponding downward trend in overall quality.

(3) The stifling influence that the major gaming publishers exert upon the development of new games (which is primarily responsible for #1 and #2 above).


People have become sick and tired of being charged a premium price for inferior products. It's really just that simple. And although you will find all sorts of specific grievances being expressed by various gaming communities, it still pretty much comes down to the same thing in the end: we're getting very angry about being ripped off by the gaming industry.

I'm glad that BioWare may end up folding some day. They may as well... since it just puts them into the same boat as every other once-brilliant studio that has been butt-fucked out of existence by the major gaming publishers. Think about some talented gaming studios of the past, such as Westwood... Looking Glass... ID Software... Access... Troika... Flagship... and many, many more. In the end, all of those studios were bullied by their publishers into producing inferior products -- even though the creative minds at those studios were capable of doing so much more. In the end, they were driven out of business... because of GREED and an uncaring attitude on the part of the corporate parasites (publishers), who lorded themselves over the developers. "GIMMEE GIMMEE GIMMEE..!!! Nevermind if it sucks... let's just get it into the stores in time for the Christmas sales..!!!"

The founders of BioWare are simply the latest casualties of this ongoing situation. They're joining an already well-established club... whose members consist of creative and gifted minds, who were ultimately fucked up the ass, then milked for every penny that their lords and masters could squeeze out of them... and then discarded. I have no doubt that they themselves would see it very differently... but I don't care, because the history of the gaming industry over the course of the past decade has been enough to convince me that I'm right.

It's just business-as-usual within the gaming industry, folks. And that's why just about every game that has been released during the past decade has been utter, total crap as compared to what it COULD and SHOULD have been. Well, guess what..? A rapidly growing number of irate gamers want to experience ORIGINALITY and CREATIVITY and QUALITY again, in the games that we're expected to pay actual, real-life money for. Weird, huh..?

And that is why the "fans" are not your fans anymore, BioWare. You allowed Electronic Arts to bully you into cashing in quick. So enjoy the money... and get the fuck out of here.

This is why I tell people that The Pirate Bay exists. The rest is up to each and every one of you. Keep getting raped... or turn the tables on the greedy entertainment industry and rape them even harder. It's your choice.

[perez007usa]

Well said!

[Cat]

People been saying there going to be another video game crash one day and I have to believe them because history is repeating itself.

[Cylnar]

The docs cashed in when BioWare was sold. The deals (first to Elevation Partners/VG Holding Corp, then to EA) netted them both something like $35-50 million over the millions they had already earned during BioWare's brilliant non-EA run. They are the original BioWhores. So fuck Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuck. Fuck them right up their greedy Canuck asses.

[Tessera]

There are lots of stories like that, Cylnar.

Think about the now-defunct (and brilliant) gaming studio known as Blizzard North, for example. They were the guys who were primarily responsible for the Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo line of products. Which just so happen to be the biggest selling PC games of all time (Diablo II and WoW in particular).

But when Blizzard was ready to go into full-blown production on World of Warcraft, the execs at Blizzard decided to throw in with Vivendi Universal, an absolutely wretched gaming publisher. Well, the guys at Blizzard North were very non-plussed by that idea. They knew that Vivendi's legendary (and tyrannical) greed would have a negative impact upon their creative freedom. And so, Blizzard North (led by Bill Roper, Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer, and David Brevik) decided to part ways with Blizzard and run off to create a new gaming studio. That studio was named Flagship.

When they left Blizzard, the quality of Blizzard's products went straight into the shitter. Well of course it did... because the most creative developers that Blizzard ever had were no longer working for the company. When Blizzard lost Blizzard North, they lost the very best developers that they had ever had.

But starting a new studio and successfully launching your first projects requires some serious capital. So in order to obtain that much-needed financial backing, Roper and Co. decided to throw in with a publisher who is almost as horrible as Vivendi. They signed on with Electronic Arts. Talk about cutting your own throat.

Well, most of us know what happened to Roper and the rest of Flagship. They were majorly screwed... and despite the promise shown by Hellgate: London, a flawed but still very original and fix-able product, the entire company went bankrupt in less than a year after Hellgate was released. And now... they've all been relegated to the "where are they now" file.

The same thing, on a smaller scale, happened to Troika Games. The three founding members of Troika split away from the once-brilliant studio named Interplay (creators of the original Fallout games), in the hopes of doing something really spectacular. But they needed capital, too... and so, they signed on with yet another wretched publisher: ActiVision.

Those of us who know and love Vampire -- The Masquerade: Bloodlines should be very familiar with the story of Troika. Less than six months after VTMB was released, Troika was forced out of business. They had produced one of the most brilliant and ORIGINAL role-playing games ever released for the PC market. But due to extremely poor backing from their publisher, combined with an unreasonable (in my opinion) push to get the game released by a certain (and equally unreasonable) deadline, VTMB was released prematurely and in an unfinished state. ActiVision then turned their backs on Troika, by essentially refusing to promote and support VTMB properly. Six months later, Troika was no more.

The True Patch Gold Edition which I released for VTMB is a direct consequence of ActiVision's negligence. If they had done right by Troika, then our fan-made patches never would have become necessary.

So when I said that the situation with BioWare is just business-as-usual, I meant it. On this web site, I've been railing against this kind of crap for YEARS. As a matter of fact, the original reason for even launching tessmage.com in the first place was so that I could rant against Blizzard, in my own bully pulpit of sorts. It was only a year or so later that this site eventually morphed into a showcase for my own adult mods, as well as being a discussion area for adult gamers.

This shit is nothing new in the gaming industry... not by a long shot. That's my point. And that's why the best response from the gaming community is to keep hitting these fuckers where it hurts them the most: in their wallets. The best way to punish greed (and the damage it does) is to STEAL THEIR SHIT right out from under their runny little noses. Or at the very least -- DON'T BUY IT.

Just my opinion, of course.  :angel:

[perez007usa]

As I said before, "Well Said".

[beetle]

That too, not to mention Bioware going downhill lately.

Ever since they got bought up by EA. They are now doing things by the EA book.

[Cylnar]

The great tragedy of BioWare is that, unlike Flagship, Troika, Obsidian and countless other dev studios before them, they didn't really need the money. Alone out of virtually all dev houses, they had the power to release a game "when it's done" rather than having to pander to a partner's preordained release schedule. And their reputation for a quality and lucrative product was so good that they never had trouble signing a distributor. They had no need to compromise.

And yet they did. Why? Because the docs got greedy. Perhaps as they grew older they started thinking about retirement, about not having to work 60+ hour weeks during the dev cycle. Growing old in climes more welcoming than Canadian winters, perhaps hip-deep in tequila and cheap Mexican whores in Acapulco or some shit. So they sold out, they cashed in. They got their big payday, and in the process murdered the best development studio to appear in the last 20 years.

So, for a few years now, products bearing the name BioWare have been getting progressively worse as more and more of the dev cycle has been under EA's watch. Virtually any glimmer of brilliance among the dross of BioWare releases of the last three to five years has been from before the sale to EA. They are now beholden to EA's soulless corporate quarterly money-making cycle. Soon you can count on them releasing the latest "Madden Age" or "Madden Effect" each year to cash in.

So yeah, BioWare is dead to me, just like the rest of the corporate video game industry. Fuck 'em. I'll get my games from GoG and/or the Pirate Bay from now on.

[beetle]

Actually, Bioware didn't give into EA. Bioware and another studio were owned by a third studio and EA bought THAT studio and got Bioware and the other studio in the process. Bioware probably had no say in the matter.

[Tessera]

The great tragedy of BioWare is that, unlike Flagship, Troika, Obsidian and countless other dev studios before them, they didn't really need the money.

It isn't just about money. What they also need is the distribution.

The major publishers have effectively monopolized all of the avenues that lead to retail distribution,
and if you want to sell your game in the stores these days, then you basically need to suck EA's cock.

You could try to find some way to distribute it on your own, but you would no doubt run into the same
sort of bullshit that we see all over the place these days: Wal-Mart, Amazon or whomever would tell
you that they already have an exclusive distribution contract with this or that publisher. Which means
that they are legally obligated to NOT accept competing contracts from independent distributors.

How the hell that kind of shit gets past the antitrust laws is beyond me. But then again, I suppose we
can thank Ronald Reagan for undermining those laws so severely that they are basically unenforceable
these days.

...perhaps hip-deep in tequila and cheap Mexican whores in Acapulco or some shit.

Cabo all the way, baby.

[Cylnar]

The great tragedy of BioWare is that, unlike Flagship, Troika, Obsidian and countless other dev studios before them, they didn't really need the money.

It isn't just about money. What they also need is the distribution.

The major publishers have effectively monopolized all of the avenues that lead to retail distribution,
and if you want to sell your game in the stores these days, then you basically need to suck EA's cock.

Correct. For everyone but the old BioWare.

Alone out of virtually all dev houses, [BioWare] had the power to release a game "when it's done" rather than having to pander to a partner's preordained release schedule. And their reputation for a quality and lucrative product was so good that they never had trouble signing a distributor.

Which is why the downfall of BioWare pisses me off so much...when the fall of other great dev studios just makes me sad. BioWare's founders actively participated in (and profited from) its destruction - unlike Troika and others, they were not victims of corporate greed, but active participants. The only ones who suffer are the BioWare employees who joined the greatest independent dev house going...and got sold down the river by the greedy docs. And of course we, the gaming consumers.

[Tessera]

Well, you've placed an interesting spin on it. And for all I know, you might be right.

But it doesn't really change any of the things that we've been saying. We're still
affirming the fact that the influence of the major gaming publishers is undermining
the quality of the games themselves. And pissing off the buying public.

[Cylnar]

Actually, Bioware didn't give into EA. Bioware and another studio were owned by a third studio and EA bought THAT studio and got Bioware and the other studio in the process. Bioware probably had no say in the matter.

BioWare and the second company, Pandemic Studios, sold themselves to Elevation Partners/VG Holding Corp. Unlike us humans, corporate "people" can create their own "parents" known as holding companies, which provide an additional level of "incorporation" and its protection from liability. Just like the basic incorporation of a business keeps its founder(s) and investors from personal liability in the case of the corporation going belly-up (meaning they can lose only the amount of their investments in the corporation and not their own personal homes, savings and other assets in a corporate bankruptcy) so the holding company protected BioWare and Pandemic from the risks that would have been inherent in a full merger or even a full partnership (VG Holding Corp created a protected and limited partnership between the two studios). Elevation Partners provided capital, resulting in a several million-dollar payday for Drs. Muzyka and Zeschuck.

When EA acquired VG Holding Corp from Elevation Partners (which included the docs, plus the head honchos of Pandemic, plus U2's Bono and several other investors) they paid each partner many, many multi-millions of dollars. I think the docs each received something like $35 million from the sale to EA, on top of what Elevation Partners had already paid them initially, plus the salary and bonuses each received from becoming EA executives (in charge of the BioWare division of EA). Pandemic Studios was dismantled by EA since they had no use for it, only wanting the prestigious BioWare name (though its honchos also received a big cash award for their portion of the partnership).

So, as I said above, the docs made their fortune and cashed out. We won't see BioWare's like again until after the current gaming industry bubble bursts, due to the greedy and short-sighted policies of the bean-counters and sellouts.

Well, you've placed an interesting spin on it. And for all I know, you might be right.

But it doesn't really change any of the things that we've been saying. We're still
affirming the fact that the influence of the major gaming publishers is undermining
the quality of the games themselves. And pissing off the buying public.

Agreed. And it wasn't meant to change any of those things, just to illustrate the specific example of BioWare.

[Tessera]

...it wasn't meant to change any of those things, just to illustrate the specific example of BioWare.

Oh really, Cylnar..? Why pretend..? We both know perfectly well what this is about. You want me to have an abortion.  

[Cylnar]

Oh really, Cylnar..? Why pretend..? We both know perfectly well what this is about. You want me to have an abortion.  

LOL...





FROM TESSERA:

LOL... sorry, I couldn't resist. I was watching "Airplane!" over the weekend with Tessgirl,
and that line always has me rolling on the floor. The whole movie does.