I stopped reading when I got to the agile part, which these days has just become a buzzword for dis-empowering employees and to move even more power towards the company.
Bioware does not exist anymore.<p>Mass Effect on the Xbox 360 will always be one of my fondest gaming experiences of my life just like Halo and Horizon Zero Dawn on the PS4.<p>I am going to buy an Xbox Series S just for playing Starfield - hope they don't disappoint me like they did with Fallout 76.
AAA development seems to be broken. With a few exceptions, mega publishers put a stupendous amount of manhours into delayed and ultimately mediocre games.<p>"AA" seems to be the sweetspot now. Big enough for economies of scale to kick in, small enough to take targeted risks and avoid scaling issues. And I think software advancements (especially gen AI) are going to make that discrepancy even more extreme, as AAAs lose the content volume edge they have over smaller studios.
> We are doing everything we can to ensure the process is handled with empathy, respect, and clear communication.<p>Zero mention of what these employees are getting in terms of severance. Passing mention that there are “other roles in other studios”. Spends the rest of the announcement talking about what it means for the games in development, doesn’t even mention the people involved again
I’ve heard rumors Microsoft was going to buy BioWare from EA, but when that fell through, they pursued Activision instead.<p>It’s too bad. With MSFT they wouldn’t have had to do this.