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Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director Michael Douse is calling out EA for continually laying off BioWare staff, in this case after the less-than-expected performance of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, arguing that it's the publisher's duty to find a "viable strategic direction" for a struggling studio.
Earlier this week, publisher EA declared its commitment to Mass Effect 5 while stating the project doesn't yet "require support from the full studio." So, it announced that some roles at BioWare had been shuffled around to other EA teams. What the publisher didn't say was that several developers, including writers who had been with the studio throughout the entire Mass Effect trilogy, like Trick and Karin Weekes, had been outright laid off.
"To make it absolutely clear, what I hate about the way layoffs are carried out is that they are done *before* decision makers know what do do with a studio, and not as a result of figuring out a direction," Douse tweeted in reaction to the news. "This is consistently true. It is a short term cost-saving measure at a huge human expense that doesn’t solve a long term problem. (A lack of a viable strategic direction defined at an executive level). You can probably figure it out if you trust your developers instead of firing them. On a positive note, I’m seeing a slight shift in this direction. In the low-stakes arena of remasters and remakes, but they are the foundation of something bigger."
Douse also argues that slimming down teams in the face of a disappointing project only deepens the problem since "retaining that institutional knowledge is key for the next [game]." And you can even point to Dragon Age: The Veilguard as evidence of this. More than a year before the game even shipped, EA slashed around 50 jobs at the studio, which again included veteran technical directors and writers, some of who had been working on storied BioWare RPGs for over 20 years.
"The delta between [venture capital] and unemployed game developer is fascinating because where one falls upwards the other in parallel velocity tumbles downwards," Douse continued. "You can tank an entire multi-billion dollar initiative and head upwards, while an incredibly talented artist, engineer, QA, etc can head into poverty... On a pirate ship, they’d toss the captain overboard. Video games companies should be run like pirate ships."
What’s ahead for BioWare after this news? See everything we know about Mass Effect 5 to find out.
