BioWare Confirms Job Cuts And Structural Changes After 'Dragon Age: The Veilguard's' Commercial Failure
BioWare announced structural changes to its company in the wake of its parent company, Electronic Arts, admitting that the recently released Dragon Age: The Veilguard failed commercially.
In a blog post on its website, BioWare General Manager Gary McKay shared, “Now that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been released, a core team at BioWare is developing the next Mass Effect game under the leadership of veterans from the original trilogy, including Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, Parrish Ley, and others.”
“In keeping with our fierce commitment to innovating during the development and delivery of Mass Effect, we have challenged ourselves to think deeply about delivering the best experience to our fans. We are taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work at BioWare,” he committed.
McKay concluded, “Given this stage of development, we don’t require support from the full studio. We have incredible talent here at BioWare, and so we have worked diligently over the past few months to match many of our colleagues with other teams at EA that had open roles that were a strong fit.”
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This announcement comes after EA shared that Dragon Age: The Veilguard was a commercial failure and failed to meet the company’s expectations by around 50%.
In a press release earlier this month, EA stated, “Dragon Age engaged approximately 1.5 million players during the quarter, down nearly 50% from the company’s expectations.”
Furthermore, this restructuring of the company was previously reported by former Dragon Age: The Veilguard Executive Producer Mark Darrah who noted that EA was relocating BioWare employees from BioWare to other studios within the company.
He said last week, “Mass Effect isn’t ready to suddenly have a team of 250, 300 people working on it.”
“In the past when BioWare was toying with being just one project, like on Anthem, like on The Veilguard, that project was up and running at full speed so it was able to suck in every available resource. It had enough existing infrastructure that it was able to absorb everything,” he continued.
Darrah added, “So, that’s not exactly what’s happening. You see this when you go on to people's social media profiles. People who worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, some of them are moving over to Mass Effect, but some of them are moving into other parts of the EA organization because Mass Effect isn't ready for them."
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It also comes after the Dragon Age: The Veilguard Game Director as well as a Senior Writer quit the company.
Game Director Andrew Busche, who pretends he is a woman and calls himself Corinne, announced his departure to BlueSky, “Well, I suppose you’ve heard… Yes, I’ve made the decision to leave BioWare. I want to encourage everyone not to read too much into this. This was my decision so I could continue making the kind of RPGs you (we) enjoy. Thank you for the outpouring of love and support. You mean the world to me.”
He added in a subsequent post, “Thank you for entrusting me with our dear Dragon Age. It was an honor to be a steward for the franchise, and to play a part in ensuring its continuance. Biggest of shoutouts to the wonderful John Epler without whom I don’t know if I’d have had the fortitude.”
Senior Writer Sylvia Feketekuty, who had been with BioWare for 15 years, also announced she was leaving in December. She wrote on BlueSky, “Hey everyone: sorry I've been quiet on here. Was busy with a big decision, namely deciding to leave BioWare. I'll really, really miss working with everyone there. But after 15 years, it just feels like a good time for a break. (If/when I've got something noteworthy lined up, I'll mention it here!)”
In a subsequent post, she added, “I'll go back to answering your questions/comments (thank you for them!) before shutting the account down. It'll still just be slow. (Because I've left BW, there's likely a few things I can't answer now just because I can't look them up with certainty anymore. But a lot of questions I saw are fine.)”
What do you make of this confirmation that BioWare is restructuring its studio and not all Dragon Age: The Veilguard developers will be moving over to Mass Effect?