BioWare closes, and the post-mortems begin

Rock Paper Shotgun's Julian Benson revisits old developer interviews on EA's 19-year ownership and finds two threads. EA changed the studio's culture straight away: audio lead Steve Sim recalled "I need more guys" turning into "I need more resources", and co-founder Trent Oster described an across-the-board 10% budget cut right after the acquisition.

Benson also argues BioWare kept making its own mistakes, starting projects years before settling on a vision. Anthem is the example. David Gaider says it grew out of executive bullet points that no one owned, and Mark Darrah calls the pitch the one EA wanted to hear. Benson concludes that EA was an irresponsible owner and that BioWare never learned from its repeated missteps.

CounterpointEA's own closure letter presents the decision as a way to focus resources on its biggest opportunities, and the company would say Anthem's cost justified tighter control. Polygon's Ari Notis puts far more of the blame on corporate interference than on BioWare's habits.

Previously: EA's memo confirmed BioWare's closure, a pause on Project Lotus and a focus on shooters and sports. — Thursday October 22 edition.

Polygon's Ari Notis argues that The Veilguard, now BioWare's swansong, was a very good game hit by three problems: executive meddling, a profit-driven outrage economy and a crowded 2024 release calendar. He recounts the troubled development, including a cancelled prototype in 2017, live-service elements added at EA's behest and later removed, and a backlash over the nonbinary character Taash.

He grants the facts against it. It sits at 82 on Metacritic for PS5, about 1.5 million people played it in two months, roughly half of EA's expectations, and it was almost entirely passed over at The Game Awards. Notis still calls the smooth action combat and accessible story a fitting end to the studio's career.

CounterpointNotis concedes that critics found the combat system reminiscent of live-service design. Others would say the sales miss against targets and the studio's long record of troubled development, which Rock Paper Shotgun documents, count against his case more than the online backlash does.

Previously: EA's memo confirmed BioWare's closure, a pause on Project Lotus and a focus on shooters and sports. — Thursday October 22 edition.

In an interview with Denfaminicogamer, reported by Eurogamer, Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai said AI will push annual Steam releases well beyond this year's 19,000 (275 in 2010), and that most of those games will be unprofitable. He expects them to mostly reproduce systems from other games, with simple-premise puzzle games the easiest to copy.

Sakurai allows that AI might eventually imitate games like Ico, but says it works from what already exists and cannot produce what hasn't been made, which he sees as where human creators like Fumito Ueda matter. Eurogamer links this to Steam Next Fest, which has more than twice last year's demos, and to indie developers pulling demos for fear of being copied.

CounterpointThe studios in the Vivrato survey covered earlier, which puts AI use at 97%, would say AI is a production tool and not a substitute for design. Sakurai's claim that AI cannot go beyond its sources is also a prediction that boosters of the technology dispute.

Previously: Pedercini's disclosure of limited AI use in Future? No Thanks! drew backlash, and a Vivrato survey puts studio AI use at 97%. — Thursday October 22 edition.

Remap's Patrick Klepek profiles Penguin Colony, the new game from Umurangi Generation designer Tali Faulkner and Origame Digital. It reworks Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness through a sliding penguin whose home has been invaded by Nazis digging under the ice. Faulkner says the game ends in open analogies to Gaza and global indifference to genocide, and that "I don't think now's the time for subtlety or nuance."

Faulkner says the plain politics made the game hard to pitch, even after Umurangi's success, because publishers said their slots were full. Klepek notes that the game works on a surface level too, as shown by his six-year-old playing it and by long lines of children at a festival. Faulkner says it is the first of a proposed trilogy reworking Lovecraft.

CounterpointCritics who think political games work better through ambiguity would say the lack of subtlety is a limit and not a virtue. The publishers who passed would cite their own priorities and portfolios, not the politics, as the reason.

Game File's Stephen Totilo surveys this year's paid and unpaid early access. Anyone who bought the $70 digital edition of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 could play the campaign from October 16, a week before the official launch on October 23. Many offers have crept up: NBA 2K27's $100 version gave up to nine days early, up from seven last year, and Forza Horizon 6's premium edition cost $120 against $100 for Horizon 5.

Other offers include five days early on Gears of War: E-Day for $100 and 48 hours on Control Resonant for PlayStation buyers of the deluxe edition. Sony and Nintendo generally don't sell early access, and Grand Theft Auto VI has no early version. Totilo's point is that the early date works as the real launch, with the official date amounting to delayed access.

CounterpointPublishers would say early access is an optional premium tier. Totilo notes that deluxe editions like NBA 2K's also bundle virtual currency and items, which makes the price hard to read as a charge for early access alone.