David Gaider, the former lead writer and narrative designer on BioWare‘s hugely popular Dragon Age series, has claimed that the developer ‘quietly resented’ its writers. His comments come in wake of the ongoing Writers Guild of America strikes
Gaider, who also worked on the likes of Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn and Knights of the Old Republic, is now in charge of his own development outfit, Summer Fall Studios. However, he’s taken to Twitter to reveal how things changed during his time at BioWare to the point where the studio viewed its own writers as a burden.
Writing is one of those disciplines which is constantly undervalued. It’s something that everyone thinks they can do. 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.
BioWare is currently working on Dragon Age Dreadwolf and is also developing the next instalment in the Mass Effect franchise.
[Source – GamesRadar]