EA always favored Mass Effect over the Dragon Age series, according to former BioWare writer David Gibson.
David Gaider, former senior writer at BioWare, took to Blue Sky to share his experience working at the studio. He said that he would’ve stayed a lot longer at the company, had he not made the mistake of moving away form working on the Dragon Age series.
Gaider mentioned that he had finished work on Dragon Age: Inquisition back in 2014, and he was beginning to feel burned out. It had been a grueling project for him, and he felt that there was only so long he could keep writing stories about demons, elves and mages before it started to become rote for him and a detriment to the project. He ended up deciding to join the former Mass Effect team in Edmonton to work on a project that went on to become Anthem. He termed this as a mistake, as he soon realized that the different development teams at BioWare didn’t get along. As such, the team at Edmonton didn’t want him there.
The former BioWare writer said that it became very clear to him that the Anthem development team didn’t want to make an RPG, and that it very anti-RPG. According to him, his new peers wanted him to create a BioWare quality story without giving him any of the tools he’d need to be able to do so. Realizing that things weren’t going to work this way, he called up his boss and asked to have more say as Creative Director. However, he was turned down without hesitation, which led to him quitting the company.
Lastly, Gaider mentioned that, while he was at BioWare, EA always preferred Mass Effect over Dragon Age. According to him, the company’s marketing team liked it more, because it was modern and had action. According to him, EA never quite knew what to do with Dragon Age, and whenever it outperformed Mass Effect, the latter was defended with excuses. He believes the former was just shy of the axe after Dragon Age: Origins.
