Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Co-Founder Zeschuk flees SWTOR
Ghost12
Member Posts: 684
http://www.shacknews.com/article/75223/rumor-zeschuk-leaves-star-wars-the-old-republic-dev#
"BioWare doc Greg Zeschuk has left the Austin studio responsible for the struggling Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO to move back to Edmonton and spend more time with his family and think about other projects."
"GamersGlobal's sources also said the BioWare Austin team is afraid it may loses its BioWare identity and become EA Austin amid mounting 'internal pressure.' Subscriptions for The Old Republic have dropped below 1 million, and the game is going free-to-play to try to bring back many of the players that have moved on. While EA has said the game is still above the break-even point of 500,000 subscribers, it has termed the game's performance 'disappointing.'"
The top comments in the comment section:
"The ship be sinking"
---------------
The "spending more time with my family" excuse is code for "this job sucks and Im quitting"
---------------
Or, if you're a politician, "I got caught doing something immoral, so I'm quitting rather than dealing with media crap forever".
--------------
I took it as "Now go home and think about what you've done, and what you can do to make it up to us!"
--------------
"They had the makings of a mighty, independent studio like Valve and Epic. Their decision to be bought by Elevation partners (which then included the current CEO of EA... funny how that all worked out) and then Elevation selling them to EA looks like the beginning of the end. Looking back it seems to me that even EA hasn't been the same since they bough Bioware/Pandemic from Elevation Partners and the Elevation Partners CEO moved into be EA CEO, John Riccitiello.
Or course the hubris of trying to develop a Star Wars MMO (let alone one based on an original Xbox franchise) is what will ultimately do in Bioware as an entity inside EA, I believe. One Doc leaving is only the tip of the iceberg I believe.
If EA thinks the Bioware brand is tarnished and they rebrand the Austin studio, its only a matter of time before Bioware as an entity disappears inside EA.
Of course I could be wrong and Doc Greg probably left because its so FREAKING HOT here in TX and as a Canadian he just couldn't handle it ."
-----------
Comments
I think you'll seen more fallout soon, despite what the fans want to believe this title is really underperforming compared to the lofty expecations expected for it and heads are going to roll.
This really was supposed to be the WOW killer folks, failing at that there's going to be a lot of shock and awe for a while.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
What do you care what the fans think? If they are enjoying the game who gives a crap.
There Is Always Hope!
What do you care what K. thinks? If he enjoys dicussing what is happening to Bioware Austin who gives a crap?
The question is, why would someone enjoy the demise of something people enjoy? The old argument used to be because someone felt they were somehow obligated to save people money. Now that it is going free to play, that no longer applies so people really need to find something better to do.
There Is Always Hope!
Who said I enjoyed it, just was making a comment, something I tend to do once in a while on these forums.
Forum PVP, learn to play.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
"With regard to BioWare Austin, I handed off the leadership of the studio to Matthew Bromberg quite some time ago (back in May). Ray [Muzyka, BioWare co-founder] and I picked Matthew to take over and he's been doing a great job with the studio.
"My time in Austin was always planned to have a finite endpoint (my family was still living in Edmonton throughout my time in Austin) and now that I've handed the baton to Matt, I will be able to spend more time on a wider range of BioWare games rather than focusing on just one as I did with SWTOR."
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/175775/BioWares_Star_Wars_boss_takes_on_broader_role.php
I can only speak for myself but the "enjoyment" (which it really isn't for me . . . it's more a sense of relief) is in seeing a shoddily made product, designed soley with greed in mind, fail. I'm extrememly happy this title is tanking. It serves to hold water to the argument that if this MMO were successful, other companies would be encouraged to cut corners and create the next LCD (lowest common denominator) MMO. This will cause other companies to reasses the quality of their product before they put it out to market. Maybe we'll have less MMOs marketed in the near future (in my opinion that's a very good thing as the market is super saturated), but there will be companies who come up with ideas that warrant laying out the huge expense an MMO requires to design.
It's a shame that people are losing their jobs, however, these same people have eyes and ears and can assess whether or not they're attached to a project that is a dog. And SWTOR had fleas since two years ago. There were innumerable arguments and facts demonstrating this.
Re: SWTOR
"Remember, remember - Kakk says 'December.'"
Apart from the fact that outside this website there are people enjoying the game. So your argument just makes you look selfish and delusional.
Delusional because noone in the history of anything throws money at something with, 'new ideas'. In your scenerio the likely reality, if all these games failed due to your nonapproval, would be noone with investment money would put it into gaming. They'd go find something else with better prospects. I'm sure if that happened you'd come back on here and complain about there not being enough choices at the moment.
This looks like a job for....The Riviera Kid!
You had to go ruin what was gonna be excellent traffic bait with the truth.....
Well depends on when he comes back to working on these new projects, and if Bioware Austin keeps the name Bioware Austin.
Of course, it could just be EA spent a boatload of money on this project, it isn't making them money, and so this is a way of removing him from direction of that game and bringing someone else in, and could be a way of quietly moving Zeschuk out the door. /tinfoil.
----------
Life sucks, buy a helmet.
Traffic bait with the truth?
The truth is, one of the co founders of Bioware is leaving one of the BIGGEST PROJECTS in its companies HISTORY. The truth is, SWTOR is a collosal failure and mess, those co-founders *should* be working overtime there. But like Kyleran said, heads are going to roll.
And then theres EA's PR spin. Who knows if that is the truth. "Taking a vacation"? Taking a vacation while your #1 investment is bombing is rational, right?
Plus, did you see who is taking over? He's an EA suit. A businessman, pure and simple. You know EA's intent for SWTOR. I dont have to spell it out for you.
What do you care what K. thinks? If he enjoys dicussing what is happening to Bioware Austin who gives a crap?
The question is, why would someone enjoy the demise of something people enjoy? The old argument used to be because someone felt they were somehow obligated to save people money. Now that it is going free to play, that no longer applies so people really need to find something better to do.
This is bad, and potentially good for the mmo genre in general. Something many of us care deeply about and are prone to discussing frequently.
Whether or not Bioware is EA Austin or Bioware is important to us.
Bioware could still crawl out with a reputation. A lot of us will never buy an EA Austin game.
This is why most of us stay here at mmorpg. while you can go scurry over to the swtor forums and be praised for supporting the game, this is one of the few places we can come to discuss these types of topics without getting them locked / banned.
So as someone else said, the real question should be why you come to a 3rd party website and care what the people there think? It's fine for you to care what we think .. except that your obvious hope would be to stop us from talking about it, which I have to wonder why you would want to do.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Oh yes. Very good post. Agree 100%.
This is one of the few places where we can vent our opinions. This isnt like the nazi SWTOR forums with dictator Stanley Woo and other crazy mods STILL running around locking every thread that criticizes the game.
------ End of line?
The fact that they let him mod even after the complaints is such a disgrace. This alone tells me that Bioware Austin has truly lost its soul.
Such a disgrace.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
It is more that this was known for some time what was going down. That he was leaving the top role at Bioware Austin and returning to other projects. The issue is most likely a big fat nothingburger in that regard. This wasn't something that happened out of the blue. Since it was a planned move, it makes sense he takes some time off before beginning work on his next project. The more conspiratorial one might be true, but it also might not.
Now what might be something is EA basically doing away with the Bioware brand name. Given EA's track record, people have been calling that for awhile. And putting an EA suit in charge (who has never had any connection to Bioware), well, even if they don't change the name, the link to Bioware is gone.
Now is this a good or a bad thing? Nobody knows. Personally, like the rest of the Bioware brass, I think success went to his head. He began to believe the hype about Bioware, that they could do no wrong. Hubris is not the fault of Electronic Arts. Their sins truly are legion, but Bioware willingly signed with the devil.
LMAO .. cant say I didnt warn yas that Bioware would be destroyed and dismantled by EA .. but many said i didnt know what i was talking about................ lol
deleted
I don't think Bioware has much of a rep left. TOR wasn't an isolated incident. It's the third straight game that etiher flopped, didn't perform according to expectations, and generated a boatload of controversey either way.
The best bet would be when the inevitable destroying of the Bioware name happens (and it will), that the Docs and other Bioware brass go indie again with a new company. That would be a huge risk though.
Lets put it this way...You loose 200+ million of my companys money, and i own the studio..I'm gonna fire everyone and force all the culprits out who were involved in loosing that money. I'm gonna cut the place to shreds and try to recoup any lost cash. then I'm going to turn it the into a dev house with all hand picked yes men who will turn on each other if need be, and keep reporting to me directly.Then I will convert the game we wasted so much investor cash on into -a free to play with a ton of P2W items.
If the dev house fails even with free to play, then we fork out the remainder of the contract cost with LA and we cut losses shut down the game sell the everything and close the studio.
I mean allot of speculation, but I would if by spring 2013 it's not making any money.best we can do is watch and hope all these folks find better jobs and keep making games. it's pretty much over for Bioware.
You're laughing? WTF is the matter with you? This is tragic. Bioware was one of the best gaming companies and now it's been torn to shreds. How is that funny and how is that better for us gamers?
So many people on this site need to get their priorities strait. It makes me sick.
I remember a thread in this forum with a title saying that WoW served itself to Swtor on a plate... LMAO......
i hope that swtor's demise taught BW (and all devs) an important lesson... the only way WoW alternatives work is the f2p way or B2P then free forever. If you want to clone WoW, it doesnt matter what IP is behind it, full price + sub wont cut it as a WoW clone, in addition to the lack of content and the flaws swtor has had. Ill go back to swtor when its F2P.