David Gaider (former lead writer and creator of Dragon Age) says BioWare "quietly resented" its writers

[lycanwarrior]

If true, it's no wonder Bioware now looks no different from every other AAA game developer now.

 

[Tweed]

Writing for a AAA game doesn't require any skills though. "Faggot here, troon there, current political thing shoehorned into a two dimensional plot."

 

[agris]

bioware learned the wrong lessons from Baldur's Gate: part 120820482508914

 

[cvv]

Yea but these two statements do not connect at all. They're, like, two different things.

The first is "writers used to be competent and now every dumb cunt can be a writer".

And the second: "Bioware used to value their writers and became famous because of them and now EA thinks writers aren't important."

How the fuck do these two relate?

 

[Tyrr]

Bioware was just polite. Most other people did it openly.

 

[Fargus]

Is his musical "rpg" still in development? I'm sure the writing will be amazing there. You go girl.

 

[Camel]

If true, it's no wonder Bioware now looks no different from every other AAA game developer now.

Gaider timed his tweet to coincide with the Hollywood writers strike. Interesting how he decided to burn the bridges with BioWare.

 

[Feargus Jewhart]

Yea but these two statements do not connect at all. They're, like, two different things.

The first is "writers used to be competent and now every dumb cunt can be a writer".

And the second: "Bioware used to value their writers and became famous because of them and now EA thinks writers aren't important."

How the fuck do these two relate?

They relate a lot.

BioWare started thinking anyone can write and it's super easy. Hence, anyone could become a writer and now their writing is dogshit because they treat it as if anyone can write and it's not a big deal.

 

[Nano]

They relate a lot.

BioWare started thinking anyone can write and it's super easy. Hence, anyone could become a writer and now their writing is dogshit because they treat it as if anyone can write and it's not a big deal.

It seems to me that Obsidian has the opposite problem. In their heyday their writers were valued less than they are now (hence them not being able to retain any of their 2000s writers), but their writing now is just as dogshit as Bioware's.

 

[Feargus Jewhart]

They relate a lot.

BioWare started thinking anyone can write and it's super easy. Hence, anyone could become a writer and now their writing is dogshit because they treat it as if anyone can write and it's not a big deal.

It seems to me that Obsidian has the opposite problem. In their heyday their writers were valued less than they are now (hence them not being able to retain any of their 2000s writers), but their writing now is just as dogshit as Bioware's.

Well, if they let anyone in to write and got rid of the good writers ... Then changed that suddenly writing is prestigious.Then what they're doing now is grandfathering in bad writers.

 

[Roguey]

Anyone can tell that looking at Anthem.

They could have laid off most of the cinematics team and still had narative-driven games, but that's a risk and not trend-chasing.

Yea but these two statements do not connect at all. They're, like, two different things.

The first is "writers used to be competent and now every dumb cunt can be a writer".

And the second: "Bioware used to value their writers and became famous because of them and now EA thinks writers aren't important."

How the fuck do these two relate?

Read the entire thread.

Writing is one of those disciplines which is constantly undervalued. It's something that everyone thinks they can do ("I can write a sentence! I know what story is!"), and frankly the difference between good and bad writing is lost on many, anyhow. So why pay much for it, right?


In games, you even see this attitude among those who want to get into the field. "I don't have any REAL skills... I can't art, I can't program, so I guess I'll become a writer? It's better than QA!" As if game writing didn't require any actual skill which requires development.

Even BioWare, which built its success on a reputation for good stories and characters, slowly turned from a company that vocally valued its writers to one where we were... quietly resented, with a reliance on expensive narrative seen as the "albatross" holding the company back.

Maybe that sounds like a heavy charge, but it's what I distinctly felt up until I left in 2016. Suddenly all anyone in charge was asking was "how do we have LESS writing?" A good story would simply happen, via magic wand, rather than be something that needed support and priority.


At the end of the day, you can say you like good writing - whether it's in a game, a movie, an online article, or whatever - but if you don't value it enough to prioritize it and support it... and, yes, pay writers what they're due... that's not what everyone else is hearing.

He's not denigrating Bioware's hiring choices, just the overall dismissive attitude towards writers.

 

[Camel]

I’d say BioWare writers deserved resentment after 2014 and their last bestselling game DA:I.

 

[Orud]

They relate a lot.

BioWare started thinking anyone can write and it's super easy. Hence, anyone could become a writer and now their writing is dogshit because they treat it as if anyone can write and it's not a big deal.

Case in point: Casey Hudson, someone with a programming background and director of Mass Effect 3. Thought he should write the ending along with the lead writer, instead of the lead writer along with the rest of the writers (which was how the rest of the games were written).

David Gaider is simply calling everyone at Bioware that's not a writer a dumb cunt when it comes to writing.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Very rarely do games have good stories so most of these writers can shut the fuck up.

 

[Absinthe]

That's quite bold of those guys, considering that Bioware's art direction, engine work, combat system, encounter design, AI, and scripting left a lot to be desired. I wonder how much of it's really some kind of elitism and not just resentment at not getting enough of a say in design direction or resentment at disagreeable decisions made by writers.

I can see why in DA2 the other guys might be pissed that they don't get a smaller scope narrative, with the ambitious scope forcing them to cut more corners and reuse more shit and then get to put on their resume "I helped make the DA2 dumpsterfire" which is going to, if anything, discourage people from hiring them at other places. Meanwhile the writers tend to take less reputational damage there (Hepler is a notable exception) because it usually won't be the writing that people take fault with but all the other half-baked shit the writing necessitated.

 

[Roguey]

That's quite bold of those guys, considering that Bioware's art direction, engine work, AI, and scripting left a lot to be desired. I wonder how much of it's really some kind of elitism and not just resentment at not getting enough of a say in design direction or resentment at disagreeable decisions made by writers.

I can see why in DA2 the other guys might be pissed that they don't get a smaller scope narrative, with the ambitious scope forcing them to cut more corners and reuse more shit and then get to put on their resume "I helped make the DA2 dumpsterfire" which is going to, if anything, discourage people from hiring them at other places. Meanwhile the writers tend to take less reputational damage there (Hepler is a notable exception) because it usually won't be the writing that people take fault with but all the other half-baked shit the writing necessitated.

The writers didn't control the scope of DA2, that was the project director, Mark Darrah. Whenever there was a conflict with leads, he'd have final say (and writers could lose, as was the case with Orsino becoming a mandatory boss).

 

[HammyTheFat]

After Dragon Age Origins and every subsequent 'rpg' they pooped out I resented bioware "writers" more and more as well, so I can sympathize with the executives.

 

[Tyranicon]

There's two universal truths about the games industry and media in general.

1. Writers without a famous name or connections are at the bottom of the hierarchy.

2. Most writers suck.


Newbies always ask "how do I break into games without any other useful skills other than writing?"

The answer I got when I started out, and the one I'll parrot now is:

"Write a book, do solodev, or get used to being treated like trash."

 

[Absinthe]

Ironically DA2's Kirkwall-centered scope was already a massive reduction compared to the original globe-trotting vision, but the whole 10+ years timeframe of DA2 simply did not work. That could've been cut down on immensely and the game would've been better for it. The timeskips were simply incredibly bad, and the initial year where Hawke pays off some kind of contract to get into the city was also handled extremely poorly. A lot of these things could've been reworked with a bit of better writing direction.

There's also a noticeable writing mistake with the fact that DA2's protagonist is called Hawke (last name from father's side) by everyone but wield noble status as the head of House Amell (mother's original last name). DA2 should've given up on name-your-own protagonist fakeouts and just made Hawke the protagonist's first name (which it effectively is). Hell, the whole Hawke-as-a-noble bit is just handled damned badly, so perhaps that was what they should've given up on and had the protagonist just be a fast-rising up-and-comer from a more normal family.

 

[Orud]

The writers didn't control the scope of DA2, that was the project director, Mark Darrah. Whenever there was a conflict with leads, he'd have final say (and writers could lose, as was the case with Orsino becoming a mandatory boss).

That goes for most games that I know about. The writers are there to craft the glue between the levels and only that. They don't decide on the order of levels, what levels/area's will be built and what the overall plot outline will be.

 

[Infinitron]

Anyone can tell that looking at Anthem.

Yes, I'm reminded of Gaider's words in that Jason Schreier article about Anthem from 2019: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...lone-from-bioware.113374/page-56#post-6078428

The story started changing drastically, too. In early 2015, veteran Dragon Age writer David Gaider moved over to Anthem, and his version of the story looked a lot different than the ideas with which they’d been experimenting for the past few years. Gaider’s style was traditional BioWare—big, complicated villains; ancient alien artifacts; and so on—which rankled some of the developers who were hoping for something more subtle. “There was a lot of resistance from the team who just didn’t want to see a sci-fi Dragon Age, I guess,” said one developer. Added a second: “A lot of people were like, ‘Why are we telling the same story? Let’s do something different.’”

When asked for comment on this, Gaider said in an email that when he’d started on the project, Anthem design director Preston Watamaniuk had pushed him in a “science-fantasy” direction. “I was fine with that, as fantasy is more my comfort zone anyhow, but it was clear from the outset that there was a lot of opposition to the change from the rest of the team,” he said. “Maybe they assumed the idea for it came from me, I’m not sure, but comments like ‘it’s very Dragon Age’ kept coming up regarding any of the work me or my team did... and not in a complimentary manner. There were a lot of people who wanted a say over Anthem’s story, and kept articulating a desire to do something ‘different’ without really being clear on what that was outside of it just not being anything BioWare had done before (which was, apparently, a bad thing?). From my perspective, it was rather frustrating.”

He's still sore about this!

 

[gaussgunner]

BioWare "quietly resented" its writers​

If only they'd had the balls to speak up loudly.

 

[Absinthe]

Newbies always ask "how do I break into games without any other useful skills other than writing?"

The answer I got when I started out, and the one I'll parrot now is:

"Write a book, do solodev, or get used to being treated like trash."

Back in the old days, making an impressive mod worked too. Sometimes it still works.

The story started changing drastically, too. In early 2015, veteran Dragon Age writer David Gaider moved over to Anthem, and his version of the story looked a lot different than the ideas with which they’d been experimenting for the past few years. Gaider’s style was traditional BioWare—big, complicated villains; ancient alien artifacts; and so on—which rankled some of the developers who were hoping for something more subtle. “There was a lot of resistance from the team who just didn’t want to see a sci-fi Dragon Age, I guess,” said one developer. Added a second: “A lot of people were like, ‘Why are we telling the same story? Let’s do something different.’”

When asked for comment on this, Gaider said in an email that when he’d started on the project, Anthem design director Preston Watamaniuk had pushed him in a “science-fantasy” direction. “I was fine with that, as fantasy is more my comfort zone anyhow, but it was clear from the outset that there was a lot of opposition to the change from the rest of the team,” he said. “Maybe they assumed the idea for it came from me, I’m not sure, but comments like ‘it’s very Dragon Age’ kept coming up regarding any of the work me or my team did... and not in a complimentary manner. There were a lot of people who wanted a say over Anthem’s story, and kept articulating a desire to do something ‘different’ without really being clear on what that was outside of it just not being anything BioWare had done before (which was, apparently, a bad thing?). From my perspective, it was rather frustrating.”

He's still sore about this!

Preston Watamaniuk had pushed him in a “science-fantasy” direction.

“I was fine with that, as fantasy is more my comfort zone anyhow,"

He clean failed to process the existence of the science part, I see.

Well, part of his frustrations also seem to stem from dealing with people who can't quite spit out what their problem is, which is a pretty common flaw among non-confrontational people, you know, the kind who interpret being nice as avoiding anything upsetting or confrontational and clean fail to understand what healthy communication is actually about (the ability to talk out your disagreements and problems in a frank and productive way), so they'd tell him something is wrong but not quite what the problem is or what they're thinking. He'd have more of my sympathy if I didn't strongly suspect him to be the same type himself.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

No kidding. As production values (and cost) rose astronomically, "Bioware" withered proportionally.

Is it any wonder now that DA4 will just be a God of War clone?

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I also resent BioWare writers.