After recent reports that BioWare had several developers re-assigned, and some even laid off, Baldur’s Gate 3‘s publishing director at Larian Studios has called Electronic Arts on the same.
Larian’s Michael Douse spoke out about the layoffs, particularly how they were carried out. He also calls out the decision as a short-term cost-saving measure at the expense of not solving a long-term problem.
“To make it absolutely clear, what I hate about the way layoffs are carried out is that they are done *before* decision makers know what do with a studio, and not as a result of figuring out a direction,” posted Douse on X.
“This is consistently true. It is a short-term cost-saving measure at a huge human expense that doesn’t solve a long-term problem. (A lack of a viable strategic direction defined at an executive level). You can probably figure it out if you trust your developers instead of firing them. On a positive note, I’m seeing a slight shift in this direction. In the low-stakes arena of remasters and remakes, but they are the foundation of something bigger.”
Douse also lambasted EA for being a publisher worth $30 billion but still being unable to support BioWare with an economic foundation. He posted about how layoffs like this affect “institutional knowledge” that is often lost when developers who have lost their jobs leave the industry.
“It is possible not to lay off large parts of your development teams between or after projects,” he posted. “Critically, retaining that institutional knowledge is key for the next. It’s often used as an excuse to ‘trim fat’, and to an extent, I understand that under financial pressure, but doesn’t that just highlight how needless the aggressive efficiency of giant corporations is?
“I’d understand it if they were pumping out hit after hit – perhaps you could argue it’s working – but clearly, the aggressive streamlining (layoffs) aren’t. It’s *nothing but cost-cutting* in the most brutal sense. It’s *always* people lower down the food chain that suffers when it’s *clearly* a strategy higher up the food chain causing the problem. On a pirate ship, they’d toss the captain overboard. Video game companies should be run like pirate ships.”
Earlier this week, BioWare general manager Gary McKay revealed that the studio was going through a bit of a restructuring for its developers to better work on the next Mass Effect. According to McKay, a core team at BioWare is working on the title, including Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard didn’t perform as well as EA would have liked, and as a result, BioWare has been seeing some trouble since the game launched. Earlier this month, the game’s director, Corrine Busche, had left the company to work on a new CRPG.
For more details about Dragon Age: The Veilguard, check out our review.
To make it absolutely clear, what I hate about the way layoffs are carried out is that they are done *before* decision makers know what do do with a studio, and not as a result of figuring out a direction. This is consistently true. It is a short term cost saving measure at a…
— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) January 31, 2025
It is possible not to layoff large parts of your development teams between or after projects. Critically, retaining that institutional knowledge is key for the next. It’s often used as an excuse to ‘trim fat’ and to an extent I understand that under financial pressure, but…
— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) January 30, 2025
