BioWare Lays Off 50 Employees - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 September 2023 / 3,594 Views
BioWare general manager Gary McKay in a blog post announced in a transition to "a more agile and more focused studio" that "approximately" 50 employees will be laid off.
"In order to meet the needs of our upcoming projects, continue to hold ourselves to the highest standard of quality, and ensure BioWare can continue to thrive in an industry that’s rapidly evolving, we must shift towards a more agile and more focused studio," said McKay. "It will allow our developers to iterate quickly, unlock more creativity, and form a clear vision of what we’re building before development ramps up."
He added, "After much consideration and careful planning, we have built a long-term vision that will preserve the health of the studio and better enable us to do what we do best: create exceptional story-driven single-player experiences filled with vast worlds and rich characters. This vision balances the current needs of the studio—namely, ensuring Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is an outstanding game—with its future, including the success of the next Mass Effect.
"We’ve chosen to act now in part to provide our impacted colleagues with as many internal opportunities as possible. These changes coincide with a significant number of roles that are currently open across EA’s other studios. Impacted employees will be provided with professional resources and assistance as they apply for these positions.
"While it’s unlikely that everyone will find a new role within the company, we are committed to supporting our staff as they navigate this change. Our sincere hope is that they can continue their exemplary work at studios who stand to benefit immensely from their talents."
BioWare remains focused on its commitment for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and is "working to make this game worthy of the Dragon Age name."
A veteran team led by Mike Gamble will continue its "pre-production work on the next Mass Effect."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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So in order to meet the needs of two major projects in Dragon Age and Mass Effect, they are laying off employees?
Spare me the PR spin, what si actually going on behind the scenes at Bioware? Because it doesn’t sound like a studio that’s in a good place.
I'm honestly surprised that EA, a company notorious for closing studios, has continued to put up with Bioware for this long. Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is supposed to release next year and they're still having major issues? If Dragon Age ends up being a complete dud, I wouldn't be surprised if EA pulls the plug on the studio.
Bioware has a special place in my heart and I really hope they're somehow able to pull it off.
I think Mass Effect Legendary Edition bought them some time. If that had flopped, EA would likely have pulled the plug on Bioware and bought in an outside studio to quickly finish up Dreadwolf.
Typical corporate BS. Some executive probably got a promotion or a raise for making the "hard decision" of laying off 50 people he didn't even know then cracking the JW Blue with his suit buddies for a "brilliant" move.
In corporations, it's all the same, usually there's not any great planning, just higher ups playing chess with offices and employees, and patting each other on the back for making good moves with no obvious benefit to the longterm strategy, but they all pretend like it is a good move because it's cutting costs so they can buy something else later."
"The product is going to miss the internal projected date? Thank god we cut costs earlier to make the upcoming Autumn quarter look less brutal. Also, fire more people to punish the studio. Who's the Engineering Lead? Jackson you say? Too many breaks. Cut off Jackson's foot!"
or, you know, a bunch of the people they hired ended up being useless and were fired, that happens also
my IT team at the big company I work for has 20 percent turnover, mainly because we have to hire people and then fire them, when they don't work out, it is hard to judge their work ethic and skills before hiring them
Good for your IT business, but it’s a shitty thing to compare the people at Bioware who got let go to your shitty employees who didn’t make the cut. That has nothing to do with this situation. Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past twenty five years, you should know how EA operates by now.
This wasn’t about new hires not working out and getting let go. BioWare isn’t that big of a company, and this cut was a significant chunk of the studio. Some of the people let go had been there for most of the company’s history, including writer Mary Kirby who had worked at Bioware for over 17 years.
By any chance were these 50 employees the ones responsible for preventing Anthem's codebase from completely imploding on itself?
outsourcing the jobs to the lowest bidding studio like did with facial animations
EA : "Our net income was only 402M this quarter, time to fire some people"
Reading this, at the same time when BG3 is all over the news, hurts. How the mighty have fallen
Those cocksuckers.
We never gona see dragon age or mass effect again, this studio always had shit leadership
Yeah, their owners.
You cant blame always ea, the doctors left and after that it was downhill
EA mandate for 'GaaS' has meant they have rebooted DA4 twice and made Anthem. I can't always blame EA but I'm certainly blaming EA here.
Man... rip Mass Effect and Dragon Age, I just know the games are gonna be awful and that really sucks, man.
