That was a mistake. 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. - ThreadSky

davidgaider.bsky.social • 2 days ago

That was a mistake.

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.

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wardencommander.bsky.social•2 days ago

Every time I hear about this or see it, it always sounds like the ME team were just a-holes. No great way but to say it bluntly. Nothing to be done.

davidgaider.bsky.social•2 days ago

I wouldn’t say that. Most of them were lovely. We were always competing for very finite resources, however.

wardencommander.bsky.social•2 days ago

Makes sense. I remember seeing dragon age community manager commenting on mass effects page to give congratulations on launching. ME community manager replied with an awkward rude reply. Anecdotal though, clearly, glad to hear it's not what I had assumed.

datasuna.bsky.social•1 day ago

I've mostly heard stories from the Austin team but considering the friction between them and Edmonton team on anthem it makes a lot of sense.

davidgaider.bsky.social•2 days ago

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 Dylan team.

The team didn't want me there. At all.

davidgaider.bsky.social•2 days ago

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.

davidgaider.bsky.social•2 days ago

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.

nichole-louise.bsky.social•2 days ago

marmarris.bsky.social•1 day ago

I don't want to make any assumptions, but I always wondered why ME had so much worse representation than DA, even though the games were coming out at more or less the same time. ME felt like sci-fi for serious gamers and DA was always more queer coded, niche and personal/intimate.

davidgaider.bsky.social•2 days ago

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.

sasquatchsightings.bsky.social•2 days ago

Anytime I see ex-BioWare people talk about Anthem, I can’t help but wonder if that game should have been axed early on - it never felt much like a BioWare game, even in the marketing. Or would you say that the game itself could have been fine, but it was the management of the IP that was the issue?

davidgaider.bsky.social•2 days ago

The initial version I worked on still had some RPG in it, but you could see where the winds were blowing. I think the team leads just convinced themselves it was good and would all work out somehow. Through “BioWare magic”, I guess.

dawidrobaszkiewicz.bsky.social•2 days ago

Could you elaborate on the anti-RPG sentiment? Was it like the team didn't want narrative choices or game mechanics that affected dialogue? Did they even want dialogue choices?

davidgaider.bsky.social•2 days ago

There has always been an element within Bio that quietly resented the idea we could never quite get away from being a studio that "just" made RPG's and that our writing was more celebrated than our action. So, yes: more action, less story, less cinematics, and less dialogue all around.

mario98.bsky.social•2 days ago

Was there ever any pressure put on the DA team to move away from RPGs?

davidgaider.bsky.social•2 days ago

Not initially. Initially Ray & Greg said they were fine with having two different styles of RPGs. After they left, there was pressure to emulate ME more and more because, again, it was the “future”.

davidgaider.bsky.social•2 days ago

I saw the writing on the wall. This wasn't going to work. So I called up my boss and said that I'd stick it out and try my best, but only if there was SOMETHING waiting on the other side, where I could have more say as Creative Director. I wanted to move up.

I was turned down flat, no hesitation.

charleymander.bsky.social•5 hours ago

This absolutely slays me to hear, David. Your writing is what made me fall in love with these games and I almost mourn what could have been for the series I love with you in a CD role there, but I’m super happy to see you thriving and creating with Summerfall. Looking forward to Malys! 💖

davidgaider.bsky.social•2 days ago

That... said a lot. Even more when I was told that, while I could leave the company if I wanted to, I wouldn't have any success outside of BioWare. But in blunter words.

So I quit.

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