In the wake of Dragon Age and Mass Effect studio BioWare getting shut down and Mass Effect 5 being canceled, co-founder and former general manager Greg Zeschuk says that most executives behind decisions like this have never actually made games before or "know how it works."
BioWare's closure was shocking news, but sadly, layoffs and disruption at EA weren't unexpected after it was announced that the publisher was going private in a $55 billion acquisition deal from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, and Silver Lake. Right from when plans for the deal were first revealed, devs at EA feared for the future, and unfortunately, it's taken less than three months since the deal closed for us to see an impact like this.
In a new interview with 80 Level, Zeschuk, who left BioWare in 2012, describes the acquisition as "the final nail in the coffin" for the Mass Effect studio. While he notes that he "had to break with it emotionally 15 years ago" when he left, he's still concerned about how the games industry treats developers at its core. Mass layoffs and studio closures sadly feel more common than ever, with major waves over the last few years alone, and these can lead to years of talent and experience being lost – experience that studios depend on.
However, he argues that the execs behind those decisions don't usually actually understand that part. "There's this weird belief that you can just kind of recreate great games with random people and AI," he suggests.
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