In the wake of Dragon Age and Mass Effect studio BioWare getting shut down and Mass Effect 5 being canceled, co-founder and former general manager Greg Zeschuk says that most executives behind decisions like this have never actually made games before or "know how it works."
BioWare's closure was shocking news, but sadly, layoffs and disruption at EA weren't unexpected after it was announced that the publisher was going private in a $55 billion acquisition deal from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, and Silver Lake. Right from when plans for the deal were first revealed, devs at EA feared for the future, and unfortunately, it's taken less than three months since the deal closed for us to see an impact like this.
In a new interview with 80 Level, Zeschuk, who left BioWare in 2012, describes the acquisition as "the final nail in the coffin" for the Mass Effect studio. While he notes that he "had to break with it emotionally 15 years ago" when he left, he's still concerned about how the games industry treats developers at its core. Mass layoffs and studio closures sadly feel more common than ever, with major waves over the last few years alone, and these can lead to years of talent and experience being lost – experience that studios depend on.
However, he argues that the execs behind those decisions don't usually actually understand that part. "There's this weird belief that you can just kind of recreate great games with random people and AI," he suggests. "It doesn't work."
Pretend to be shocked, but yes, AI is reportedly being pushed at EA – anonymous devs recently noted that while AI tools aren't being mandated, "they'll make it impossible or very difficult for you to do your job without [them]." Managers have been reportedly telling employees that "'this is the future, you have to get onboard.'" Needless to say, you can understand why morale at the publisher is apparently "terrible" right now.
Going back to Zeschuk, he notes that, in general, those in charge on the business end of things very rarely have any actual game dev experience, hence their lack of understanding of how things work. "The other harsh reality of almost all these companies, the people that go down the business track never really come from the development track," he argues. "Because none of these people have ever made a game, like, never really sat and made one, like, from start to finish, even a small thing, they just don't know how it works."
This would align with the reported situation at EA, as anonymous sources have reportedly described execs at the company as out of touch not just with employees but with game development itself. It's not just EA, of course – Xbox fans were quick to question the hiring of new CEO Asha Sharma earlier this year, who'd not got any gaming experience, but instead previously served as Microsoft's president of its CoreAI product.
Back to BioWare and its IP, though, obviously a lot of fans are wondering where things go from here for Dragon Age and Mass Effect, with folks petitioning to save the latter. However, former BioWare staff haven't expressed much optimism about the idea of EA selling the franchise to another studio to take over what had already been started with Mass Effect 5.
Mass Effect 5 studio reportedly toned down inclusivity with EA in mind "so as to not cause offense."
