Why were they not allowed to take it back to the design board when the design fundamentally changed?
I feel like they were, effectively. There is no reason for them to not reuse assets they created from before flying was added back in after X-mas 2016, that was still 2 years before launch. 2 years is enough to develop a game, especially if the assets already exist.
That’s where the other development issues at the studio come in.
The most common anecdote relayed to me by current and former BioWare employees was this: A group of developers are in a meeting. They’re debating some creative decision, like the mechanics of flying or the lore behind the Scar alien race. Some people disagree on the fundamentals. And then, rather than someone stepping up and making a decision about how to proceed, the meeting would end with no real verdict, leaving everything in flux. “That would just happen over and over,” said one Anthem developer. “Stuff would take a year or two to figure out because no one really wanted to make a call on it.”
That’s not a publisher/owner issue, that’s a developer issue.
Ohgod… that still SCREAMS interference to me… Nobody could be confident in their stance because dissent from corporate mandate meant firing, not a hearing out and debate…
Otherwise, lead devs have many ways to force progress in a certain direction. Only fuckhead exec “direction” comes with such constant blueballing of actual progress.
It’s still a developer management lack of decision making. They don’t get off scot free because they don’t want to make a decision that EA might not like. The result of that… was a piece of shit EA didn’t like. That’s still on the developer.
Unless EA is telling them to change something, decisions are still on them. Like EA saying the demo is terrible and developer management deciding to add flying back in to try and fix. That comes from an EA decision/request rather than the developer being indecisive.
Are you trying to separate the Bioware team between developers and management, and lumping Bioware mangement into the EA side? Because that’s not the discussion here. Bioware management being indecisive is still a developer issue, not an EA issue.
Bioware management doesn’t get a pass for mismanagement of Anthem development just because EA is involved. EA bought Bioware in October 2007.
In that time before Anthem they released:
Mass Effect - 2007
Dragon Age: Origins - 2009
Mass Effect 2 - 2010
Dragon Age II - 2011
Star Wars: The Old Republic - 2011
Mass Effect 3 - 2012
Dragon Age: Inquisition - 2014
Mass Effect: Andromeda - 2017
Are you trying to claim that EA didn’t interfere until we got to Anthem? Or even that it didn’t interfere until the last few years before? Because that doesn’t seem likely. If they were going to, they would have from the beginning.
So then, that really begs the question: Why were they not allowed to take it back to the design board when the design fundamentally changed?
Again, this is not a “developer” problem, but a fucko owner problem.
I feel like they were, effectively. There is no reason for them to not reuse assets they created from before flying was added back in after X-mas 2016, that was still 2 years before launch. 2 years is enough to develop a game, especially if the assets already exist.
That’s where the other development issues at the studio come in.
That’s not a publisher/owner issue, that’s a developer issue.
Ohgod… that still SCREAMS interference to me… Nobody could be confident in their stance because dissent from corporate mandate meant firing, not a hearing out and debate…
Otherwise, lead devs have many ways to force progress in a certain direction. Only fuckhead exec “direction” comes with such constant blueballing of actual progress.
It’s still a developer management lack of decision making. They don’t get off scot free because they don’t want to make a decision that EA might not like. The result of that… was a piece of shit EA didn’t like. That’s still on the developer.
Unless EA is telling them to change something, decisions are still on them. Like EA saying the demo is terrible and developer management deciding to add flying back in to try and fix. That comes from an EA decision/request rather than the developer being indecisive.
Are you trying to separate the Bioware team between developers and management, and lumping Bioware mangement into the EA side? Because that’s not the discussion here. Bioware management being indecisive is still a developer issue, not an EA issue.
I mean… After the buyout, you BET YOUR FUCKING ASS “EA” made every dumbass inept call against them that’s physically possible.
Bioware management doesn’t get a pass for mismanagement of Anthem development just because EA is involved. EA bought Bioware in October 2007.
In that time before Anthem they released:
Mass Effect - 2007
Dragon Age: Origins - 2009
Mass Effect 2 - 2010
Dragon Age II - 2011
Star Wars: The Old Republic - 2011
Mass Effect 3 - 2012
Dragon Age: Inquisition - 2014
Mass Effect: Andromeda - 2017
Are you trying to claim that EA didn’t interfere until we got to Anthem? Or even that it didn’t interfere until the last few years before? Because that doesn’t seem likely. If they were going to, they would have from the beginning.
Nope. That they interfered as soon as they could. Only DA1 and ME1 are nigh universally heralded as great.
I wonder why that might be…