EA has been known as the grim reaper os game studios after aquisition but with bioware they went one step further, they made it a zombie
if you follow the news, basically every veteran left the company in the last 4-3 years, now two of their last biggest names left, after they had been moved to take care of anthem development going further and reassuring fans, ELE EFFING MAO !
https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/3/2...rk-darrah-leaving-dragon-age-mass-effect

RIP dragon age franchise....you deserved beter.....

Dragon Age was doomed with the first game. When I got to the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ripoff quest I was done.

But then they had to rip off LOTR...

Shame, because the combat was fun.

First Bioware game I ever played was KOTOR.

I think mine must have been MDK II. That was back in 2000-2001 I think.

Not Baldur's Gate?

Nope. Never even heard of it until a couple of years after I played KOTOR. In fact, the main reason I found out about KOTOR was because it was set in the Star Wars universe.

My first Bioware game was Neverwinter Nights. Baldur's Gate came later, for me.

I had some friends who were totally addicted to Neverwinter Nights so I knew it was a very popular RPG at the time.

It would be cool to see more than a handful of major American corporations who don't throw long term sustainability off a cliff, in order to pursue short term profit.

Contrast present day EA with the EA of 1990:



Yes it's basically an anti-piracy notice, but those free market capitalist vibes are strong... and read that second last paragraph.

Vintage EA:



Current year EA:

I don't know if the problems with EA can be narrowed down to this but EA was a privately-held company from 1982-1989 and then it became publicly traded.

As a general rule, once a company goes Public, it loses a considerable amount of creative independence when it comes to product development as it starts to cater to pressure from investors to make products that have "mainstream" appeal.

That game was ahead of it’s time and the concept would still be a money maker. NWN is still running with persistent worlds and if they could update graphics I think the title would soar.

I was done with EA when they trashed Microprose.

Everything they touch becomes corrupt or dies.

I'm pretty sure Chuck Yeager's Air Combat was the first EA game I ever played way back in 1990. Wow, that was freaking 31 years ago.