It’s no secret that Bioware has been struggling in the last couple of years, from their failed attempt at creating a Destiny-like live-service RPG game, Anthem, to their lackluster Mass Effect sequel, which became the joke on the internet for quite some time.
Even their latest title, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, has been subjected to various criticisms from veteran fans and critics. On top of that, it did not achieve commercial success and failed to meet sales expectations. Many reports have been made about Bioware’s sources of failure, from forced policies from their publisher, EA, to team management flaws deep within the studios.
Recently, David Gaider, former lead writer and creator of Dragon Age, shed some light on other conflicts that existed between various development teams inside the studio. He discussed his experience of a conflict between the two teams behind the Dragon Age franchise and Mass Effect series before he departed Bioware in 2016.
As mentioned, he was mainly on the Dragon Age team as a writer and creator until he moved to the Mass Effect team to take part in the development of Anthem. On platform X, he said the following:
“You see, the thing you need to know about BioWare is that for a long time it was basically two teams under one roof: the Dragon Age team and the Mass Effect team. Run differently, very different cultures, may as well have been two separate studios. And they didn’t get along.”
«The company was aware of the friction and attempts to fix it had been ongoing for years, mainly by shuffling staff between the teams more often. Yet this didn’t really solve things, and I had no idea until I got to the team. The team didn’t want me there. At all.»
The Stories That Were Too Dragon Age!
He then explains the struggles he himself had in working as a former writer at the Dragon Age team in his new role in the Mass Effect team:
“Worse, until this point Dylan had been concepted as kind of a «beer & cigarettes» hard sci-fi setting (a la Aliens), and I’d been given instructions to turn it into something more science fantasy (a la Star Wars). Yet I don’t think anyone told the team this. So they thought this change was MY doing.”
“I kept getting feedback about how it was «too Dragon Age» and how everything I wrote or planned was «too Dragon Age»… the implication being that *anything* like Dragon Age was bad. And yet this was a team where I was required to accept and act on all feedback, so I ended up iterating CONSTANTLY.”
“I won’t go into detail about the problems except to say it became clear this was a team that didn’t want to make an RPG. Were very anti-RPG, in fact. Yet they wanted me to wave my magic writing wand and create a BioWare quality story without giving me any of the tools I’d need to actually do that.”
This situation was part of the reason Gaider decided to leave Bioware after 17 years. He tried to move up in the company and be promoted to creative director but was rejected.
«I had no idea where I was going to go or what I was going to do, but I wanted OUT.”
And what happened in Bioware afterward is just history at this point. In December 2020, Bioware announced that they are working on the next Mass Effect title, about which we really don’t know much.
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Dragon Age: Inquisition
Action RPG Systems
9.5/ 10 Released November 18, 2014 ESRB M for Mature: Blood, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language Developer(s) BioWare Publisher(s) Electronic Arts
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