Is Bioware the biggest tragedy of gaming history?

[Simca]

Wow...short memories...

OSI - original makers of (almost) all things Ultima

Sierra Online...

Both of which took far bigger falls than Bioware

Good point, Sierra is actually probably the biggest fall in all of video game history.

[Wynnyelle]

Honestly we lost more with Rareware going to Mircrosoft than anything. I know Microsoft offered a shit ton of money and Tim and Christ Stamper didn't take it then they would have been fools from a business standpoint. In hindsight (which is 20/20), the idea of them joining was horrible... The entire thing ruined the company's reputation as a whole, the best you can explain Rareware before the Microsoft is, they were "The Beatles of gaming".

Completely agreed. It's been a while now, but it still makes me sad when I think about it.

[Window]

Ativision nailing Troika is one of my biggest ones the gameplay / immersion of Vampires the masquerade bloodlines have not found one game to match it
would of loved to see where they would be now if it wasnt for them ( i know they are making a indy game under a new company but still )

[Loaf Lord]

The only big name company that seems to have a consistent track record at the moment to me is Valve. Companies just need to get their act together. I think the problem is that back in the olden days of gaming, developers had to do more with less, so they tried their hardest to make great games. Now that they're filthy rich and have a huge amount of resources, they don't feel pressured into giving it their all when they know that they'll still turn up a profit regardless. Perhaps I'm just tin-foil hattting, but that's how it feels to me.

To be on topic with the OP, I think Rare was the worst tragedy of gaming history personally. Poor Rare.

[Amerrol]

ToR would have been more fun as a single player game with dungeons. Kind of like Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, but with combat roles

This sounds like it would a cool idea, but it might have too much of an affect on the single player. I guarentee you that you would not be able to Force Storm a whole room of enemies dead in 4 seconds. Balance is a good thing is a multiplayer, but it matters a lot less in a single player game. I do like the idea, I'm just afraid of the execution. This could even be a legitimate DLC option for them as well. Just release a new dungeon for 5-10 bucks every few months.

That being said, every game doesn't need multiplayer.

On topic: Rare easily, but plenty of runner-ups to choose from.

[Buu]

Imo untill Dragon Age 2 Bioware was the top RPG developer but CDprojekt Red blew them out of the water with the Witcher series and Inquisition needs to be really awsome to compete with the Witcher 3 and the Cyberpunk game CDprojekt is making.

Mass Effect 3 wasnt bad imo but Dragon Age 2 basically gutted the DA series at least for me... Everything good about the original was removed.

Dragon Age 3 is being rushed to see if sell anything by being released AT LEAST 4 months before Witcher. THAT if Witcher 3 don't get postponed, because you know... CDPR cares about quality, and even releasing unfinished products that they ACTUALLY finish polishing later FOR FREE, their game is supposed to be vastly superior on release.
They will probably rush the DLCs too, because they have to TRY to sell before CDPR give the enhanced edition for free.

[Deleted]

Maaaaaan! Don't Jinx it.... Mass effect 4 HAS TO BE A GOOD GAME!

Also I thought the Tombraider reborn was a bloody good game... Even the hair option was nice. Square enix is in trouble from what I hear, and I want another Tombraider or rather a new title with the awesomness of Tombraider.

[Buu]

Maaaaaan! Don't Jinx it.... Mass effect 4 HAS TO BE A GOOD GAME!

Also I thought the Tombraider reborn was a bloody good game... Even the hair option was nice. Square enix is in trouble from what I hear, and I want another Tombraider or rather a new title with the awesomness of Tombraider.

There is no need to jinx anything.

It's publicly known that EVERY SINGLE GOOD DEVELOPER Bioware had, left the company. All they have now are the parasites that sucked on their talent, and a massive ego that make they believe the good games those gone developers made, were in fact made for them; the parasites without a host.

Bioware is on way to their doom, probably the same way as John Riccietello, their mentor, gone. Keep saying the future is bright, their prospectives are amazing, and the market is about to catch fire for 5 years. Then less than 3 weeks before being fired, saying he screwed up. REALLY, in those five years people warned about the crap he was doing, and he realizes that at THAT POINT?

Bioware could still exist deprived of their former glory image. If they started to charge for their present cheap games (they use a lot of outsourcing, and share developers between two games, not to mention their forum moderators make an amateur QA job, instead of hiring REAL QA people) the low price they worth, people would still buy from them.

But honestly paying for a big pepperoni pizza and receiving a small grilled cheese isn't appealing to many people. Paying for a Grilled cheese and receiving a grilled cheese get more customers. Very few prefer to pay extra and then try to make up excuses on how exclusive that sandwich is.

[Edge-]

Maaaaaan! Don't Jinx it.... Mass effect 4 HAS TO BE A GOOD GAME!

Also I thought the Tombraider reborn was a bloody good game... Even the hair option was nice. Square enix is in trouble from what I hear, and I want another Tombraider or rather a new title with the awesomness of Tombraider.

Not "in trouble" but not thriving either. We'll see if the change in leadership (Yoichi Wada is gone) does anything to improve their financials. Though having 4 million sales of Tomb Raider, over 2 million of Hitman, and over a million of Sleeping Dogs all "fail to meet sales expectations" is pretty fucked up. I don't know what their sales projections are, but they're surely shit -_-

[Nerraw]

Dragon Age 3 is being rushed

I guess delaying the game by a full year is "rushing".

[Celista]

I wasn't aware a company had to continually release games to still be considered a great developer. Maybe your measure for what makes them great is different than mine, but the consistently high quality of games coming out of Valve, coupled with a consumer friendly attitude puts them up there for me. Until they start being assholes and/or releasing shitty games, I don't see any reason to move them.

As for Trion, it's more subjective. I think they've handled Rift in exemplary form with the Rift team being a role model for how a MMO should be run and the game being a very well designed MMO. It's not seen massive success on the scale of WoW or anything, but it's done well since launch and has been a great bright spot in recent years with so many MMO's having big structural issues or developers that weren't that great : / Defiance...yeah I'm not a fan of the Defiance team at all, but I think the Rift team is truly superb.

Agree, Rift is solid. So solid that I'm actually preferring it to wow atm.

SWTOR....sigh. It's sad to see what should have been an amazing game be so horribly mismanaged.

[Faldric]

They have become quite medicore, but the games are still playable. Not exceptional by any means any more but playable. For me the biggest tragedy of gaming is the downfall of Rare. At the current state you might as well consider them dead. From Hero to Zero.

[Edge-]

Agree, Rift is solid. So solid that I'm actually preferring it to wow atm.

SWTOR....sigh. It's sad to see what should have been an amazing game be so horribly mismanaged.

SWTOR is getting better over time (next patch seems to be pretty solid and some of the prior patches have been good...except 2.1 -_-) but I agree on the whole. I honestly feel this game has had the most potential since Vanguard/AoC, two other games that squandered nearly endless potential with horrible management/execution (seriously, I still cry over the potential for Vanguard as one of the most massive MMO's ever made, and AoC having one of the most interesting and deep combat systems to-date. Well, I don't actually cry, but you get the idea.). It's why I didn't pick it up at launch and why I'm still a bit skeptical about the game on the whole.

The game still seems to be slowly turning around on the whole, but it's like every 2 steps forward they take a step backwards. So they're still moving in the right direction, they just backtrack every now and then.

[Deleted]

I seen Dr Greg on some You Tube recently and he didn't look as if he was the survivor of the biggest "gaming tragedy". He seemed real pleased with himself in fact. I mean I'm not sure if you can call a company doing what it always wanted to do under the stewardship if it's founders as a "tragedy". Now what happened to Rare was a bit of a tragedy.

[Deleted]

The biggest? No. A big one? Yes.
But sometimes I think my opinion is biased since I still compare most of their new RPGs / games with RPG elements to BG. And they just can't stand that comparison.

[e] On the other hand: The gaming industry is, afaik, the entertainment industry with the biggest sales volume. So logically, to be able to keep up, making money is the only thing that counts to most developers and especially publishers nowadays.

[jbombard]

SWTOR is getting better over time (next patch seems to be pretty solid and some of the prior patches have been good...except 2.1 -_-) but I agree on the whole. I honestly feel this game has had the most potential since Vanguard/AoC, two other games that squandered nearly endless potential with horrible management/execution (seriously, I still cry over the potential for Vanguard as one of the most massive MMO's ever made, and AoC having one of the most interesting and deep combat systems to-date. Well, I don't actually cry, but you get the idea.). It's why I didn't pick it up at launch and why I'm still a bit skeptical about the game on the whole.

The game still seems to be slowly turning around on the whole, but it's like every 2 steps forward they take a step backwards. So they're still moving in the right direction, they just backtrack every now and then.

I like SWTOR for what it is but the game feels stagnant, they are still overcharging for RotHC, and they don't seem to be providing any new content for players without it. Seems like most of the updates are new item store stuff. It seems like subscribers don't really get value for their sub, they just don't get shit on like F2P players do. That said, if you pinch your pennys you can unlock just about everything important from the GN, including raid access every week so it really doesn't feel like subs are getting much at all. I would love to see them turn it around but it needs to start with rethinking how they treat players and providing real value to subscribers.

It does make me sad, because I am a long time Bioware fan, and really in Dragon Age 1 with them selling additional content *in-game*, I knew it was heading down hill. When the doctors left though, that was pretty much the last hurrah and the ushering out of soul of the company.

[Deleted]

Are you really praising Bethesda? They are not the ones who should get the credit for making Skyrim as great as it has become, the modders are. Skyrim without mods is a terrible and unfinished game which creates more frustration than amusement. They rely on their fans fixing the game for them... They might not be terrible, but they aren't that great either.

A game company that deserves far more credit than both Bioware and Bethesda would be CD Projekt RED for their Witcher games, not only is the game Witcher 2 awesome itself, they also released several content patches for free after its release.

When it comes to Bioware, I have lost pretty much all faith in them. I love Dragon Age Origins, but I absolutely hate Dragon Age 2. Considering them now being part of EA I don't see how Dragon Age 3 could turn out good either, too many of the things that made Origins good has been taken away and replaced with plain crap.

[mizeri]

I dunno, square-enix would be a top contender with bioware, both company made the best rpg's when they were just squaresoft and bioware but the quality declined when they merged with enix and EA.

[zealo]

Why are you praising Bethesda? Are you aware of the state that Skyrim was shipped in with regards to amount of bugs and glitches? The game was rushed badly and the mod community is the only reason for why skyrim is praised as a game as much as it is.

Bethesda have been going downhill since morrowind as well. (read: oblivion and further)

[Thallidomaniac]

Did anyone feel terrible when Ensemble Studios shut down? People keep saying that these companies that go down the "wrong path" is tragic, but what about companies that actually close down?