Bioware and Its Future

[MerchantKing]

1. Bioware and its consequences.have been a disaster for the crpg genre. They have greatly increased the life popularity of rpgs for of those of us who play on consoles, but they have destabilized the genre, have made gameplay unfulfilling, have subjected character building to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in SDG's house to financial suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued "development" of the genre by Larian will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to worse games and inflict greater damage on the genre, it will probably lead to greater degredation and simplificiation, and it may lead to increased development of Visual Novels mislabeled as rpgs even in desktop players.

2. Bioware may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of degredation and simplificiation of the genre, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing crpgs beings and many other games to engineered products and mere corporate slop. Furthermore, if Bioware survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the genre so as to prevent it from depriving the genre of its foundations and good gameplay.

3. If Bioware breaks down the consequences will be very good. But the bigger its influence grows (such as through Larian and Obsidian) the more negligible the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.

4. We therefore advocate a revolution against the Bioware emulation within the genre. This revolution may or may not make use of violence; it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a few decades. We can’t predict any of that. But we do outline in a very general way the measures that those who hate the Bioware should take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against that form of "crpg." This is not to be a marketing revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not the marketplace but the degraded and CYOA oriented standards currently attributed to "rpgs"

5. In this thread we give attention to only some of the negative developments that have grown out of Bioware. Other such developments we mention only briefly or ignore altogether. This does not mean that we regard these other developments as unimportant. For practical reasons we have to confine our discussion to areas that have received insufficient public attention or in which we have something new to say.

 

[Dark Souls II]

Bioware has survived despite not making a single good game in 24 years. They are a cockroach, they will carry on. And the goy will consume the slop.

 

[Cohesion]

Stupid hook nosed gnome - you forgot to create a poll and kingcomrade option.

 

[MerchantKing]

Stupid hook nosed gnome - you forgot to create a poll and kingcomrade option.

I added a poll. You can vote now.

 

[Tyrr]

Some day Bioware will be closed by EA and the comments under the news article will be: "What's a Bioware?"

 

[Cohesion]

Some day Bioware will be closed by EA and the comments under the news article will be: "What's a Bioware?"

Barvware, bigot.

 

[JarlFrank]

those of us who play on consoles

If you happen to be one of those, please leave the Codex.

No consolefag can be one of us.

 

[Yoomazir]

Insider says mass firing might be happening soon.
Also seems the big shots want to course correct current ME development after they saw the Veilguard reception, dunno how they gonna do that...

 

[Tyranicon]

 

[scytheavatar]

If Bioware survives, it makes sense that EA will layoff and gut them. Cause Bioware is facing the same problem every AAA studio is facing, budgets are skyrocketing while sales numbers are not rising if not tanking in recent years. The only way a Mass Effect 4 can make money would be if the budget makes sense.

 

[Skinwalker]

Yes what? Worst poll I've ever seen.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

What future?

 

[Hag]

It'll turn to Biowaste, as it should.

 

[Fedora Master]

You're all far too optimistic.

 

[Chuck Norris]

So Bioware is an Israeli asset too?

 

[NecroLord]

Stupid hook nosed gnome - you forgot to create a poll and kingcomrade option.

I added a poll. You can vote now.

And the poll is anonymous.

 

[Falksi]

I think a lot hangs on the next ME game. Trends are changing, DEI is dying, and publishers either get with that or lose money. Now it's over to them.

 

[Iucounu]

What is Bioware? Just a name. It all depends on the individual humans involved: investors, lead designers, HR...

 

[Machocruz]

All RPG developers afraid of base attributes must hang.

 

[gurugeorge]

Up to a point, I don't think the "cinematic RPG" or companion romances or a bit of streamlining or the introduction of action elements are such bad things in and of themselves, or even in combination; and re. whatever sickness they reveal, that sickness is in something that was already latent in society generally, and such games are just the messenger.

It's a bit like the piracy argument. One might say piracy eats into profits, but on the other hand most of the people who pirate would never have bought the thing in the first place, so (with some exceptiopns, granted) it's not really a loss of profit (in fact if anything it's free marketing if a product is pirated, because it means the thing is probably good, and the pirating helps create a buzz - in a way, it's more like a form of market segmentation at the "free" level).

Analogously, one might think the BioWare schtick "squeezed out" better game styles and game designs. But not really - the market for better (more nerdy/crunchy) game designs was already saturated (there are only so many actual nerds in the world and they were probably already making and playing vidya). And there are still tons of good games being made at the sub-AAA level, probably about as many as when the business was still by and for nerds (e.g. in recent years games like Troubleshooter or King Arthur are examples of good gameplay "classics" that can stand pretty well with older classics., while Kingdom Come Deliverance or even TW3 are examples of the "cinematic CRPG" experience done well).

From the normie point of view, CRPGs are adventure sims and gesamntkunstwerken. That's all normies are interested in, they're not interested in the various failure states on the way to achieving that, the various genres and sub-genres that the drive to that ideal has hived off, that have become for many of us treasured items from our past.

That kind of normie-attracting gesamtkunstwerk will always be what developers who are aiming to make a profit are aiming for within their resources, and whenever a developer approaches some aspect of that ideal more closely, that CRPG will be a breakout hit. If they also add elements that "attract the wrong crowd" that's just an unfortunate side-aspect (and as most of us know, it's something that's been pushed on developers, not something they've necessarily done organically, either for passion or for profit).

You can see this really clearly by comparing and contrasting BG3 and Failguard: the former is a genuine "cinematic RPG" made by nerds who, for all their intellectual faults and kinks, have a love for the genre; the latter is the dire and direct result of DEI hiring policy. With the former, the game is good enough in its basics that most of us here can probably get some fun out of it; with the latter, it's totally hopeless. But note that the former is also a big breakout hit with normies - not just with pervs, but with actual masses of gameplaying normies who will only play a big breakout CRPG now and then.

When? Well, when it gets closer to the criterion I've outlined: of being a gesamtkunstwerk adventure simulator. And the BioWare of old pioneered that.

 

[MerchantKing]

From the normie point of view, CRPGs are adventure sims

Adventure sims were what some of the early AD&D modules were such as some of the Dragonlance modules. Considering some of the Greyhawk modules by Gygax and Arneson, as well as many of the adventuring gear, the need for rations, etc. within the rulebooks, rpgs fundamentally were supposed to be some sort of adventure simulator built on top of a war game.

However, if the normalfag (normie is a normalfag term) viewed crpgs as adventure sims we'd be much better off. The normalfag views crpgs as story games with some stat system and if they watch redditor-made videos on youtube, they think rpgs are about choice and consequences via multiple choice dialogue or some other nonsense. The aspect of BG3 that sold the game for instance was it's marvel movie cutscenes with multiple choice dialogue much like what Bioware did in KOTOR.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

The "future" already died in the '00s. Who cares anymore about the "future".

 

[Orud]

Modern Bioware has done 2 great things for the RPG genre:

1. Ostracized Gnomes from the acceptable "playable races" group.
2. Rightfully called out Dwarf sex as "disgusting". Someone had to finally say it and credit is due to those that did it, even if they were Bioware employees.

Will they survive? In truth, they've died more than a decade ago. It's purely a brand name now.

 

[Serus]

those of us who play on consoles

If you happen to be one of those, please leave the Codex.

No consolefag can be one of us.

Hey! I played on SNES/Super Nintendo in early 90s quite a lot. To my defense I was very young and I din't own it - I was borrowing it from a friend.
Can I stay? Pretty please?

 

[JarlFrank]

Old Nintendo kids are fine