5129 réponses à ce sujet

[Aulis Vaara]

What a stupid idea.

[Laughing_Man]

Wow. Dem glassdoor reviews, never saw them before. They certainly are illuminating.

[AngryFrozenWater]

Gamers are passionate about the games they play and developers are passionate about the games they create. As strange as this may sound, this is the core of the problem. I'll come back to that later.

"After great consideration, we are closing down the BioWare forums..."

To me it appears to be more than a consideration and looks more like a power struggle that went on for years, as can be evidenced by Chris Priestly's post where he mentions:

"Sadly, DA2 and the endings of ME3 weren't enjoyed by everyone (I'm not bring this up more, you know what I'm talking about if you were here) and things turned much more negative than they had been in the past. Still BioWare and its fans worked to keep these forums going. It wasn't easy. There were people in the studio, some quite powerful, who wanted the forums closed. Yet, there were also those, like me, who wanted the boards to stay open and after much discussion, they remained."

Below I'll try to understand how this could happen and how Bioware alienated from their fans.

Bioware fans love their games and want to have the best experience. They, much like the developers, want the next game to be better than before and the forums were a platform to allow discussion about that. But such a platform requires more than forum software, servers and technical admins.

DA2 was not well received by many forum members at the time, because of the many flaws it had. You can also hear that many others believed that the game was worth playing, because of the many qualities it had. The details don't matter. Fans of both sides are passionate and they will make their point across with that same passion.

Your can argue that developers are professionals. There is no reason to believe that they are not. They are most likely the best in the industry. They are professionals trained in their specific line of work: writing stories, software development, animation, and so on. Being a professional says nothing about their level of expertise in moderation, though. In the end these developers are just as passionate about the work they do as about the games they create. They also have an interest in the company and in their own careers. There is nothing wrong with that. They are human, like anyone else.

And there lies the problem. The moderators at the time were developers, who with the best intentions tried to moderate passionate discussions, in which they had a personal stake.

Bioware fans often loved the interaction with these developers and maybe Bioware learned something from those discussions to help create better games. As far as we know that was the intention. The problem with that is that fans will take sides with the developers, whenever it suits their passionate arguments. And that does not create fair discussions when these developers moderate a discussion between fans that criticized the game and the ones who defended it. The moderators have to be viewed as a third party, because they, as developers, have a personal stake in the discussion.

That is were things went wrong. Both the fans and moderators became frustrated. The developers left the forums one after the other, until they were finally replaced by faceless moderators with abstract users names, who were outsourced, outnumbered, and had no connection with the games and their fans, nor were they allowed to communicate in any way. There was no consistency in their moderation and fans had to report simple things like obvious trolling, before any action was taken.

A solution is to have volunteer moderators that represent the community. There are many forums of game companies that run well with volunteer moderators, even ones with large communities. That still allows developer interaction, but they don't have to worry about moderation, because it is not their task. A good volunteer moderator takes care of that instead.

Woh, now. Isn't that radical? Not if you believe that these voluntary moderators can be trusted to do their job.

Bioware has tried to use volunteers from the community to moderate the forums before, but always had their developers along side. That is not a great idea, because the problem remains. If one believes in those community volunteers then the company has to trust them and watch how that goes. That didn't happen, and thus the conflicts remained. As a result many left (burned out or not) and because Bioware doesn't trust their community no new volunteers were recruited.

Make no mistake. There are highly intelligent and talented individuals to be found in the community, who could be trusted to moderate. There are no doubt ones that have moderated before on (large) forums elsewhere and have the skills and experience to make it work. There are communication courses available, or courses how to handle aggression, group dynamics, etc. Let these volunteer moderators do those courses. Believe in them. Back them up. Encourage them. Trust them.

Of course that solution didn't happen. The community murmured and grumbled, because no one was in control. Bioware was not in control of the very thing they advocate: Interaction with the gamers to improve their products. If the company has those intentions, but opts not to invest in it then don't be surprised that it escalates.

Then ME3 came and again the fans were divided about some aspects of the game. The ending was controversial. It doesn't matter which fans were right or wrong. It happened. And Bioware has learned nothing from what happened after the release of DA2. So the discussions became heated like never before.

Closing the off-topic forums was a duct tape solution. The periods between releases are long and some people hang out there during that time. In my opinion the off-topic forums were closed in the hope that these people left in those periods. Less people on the forums means less critique and less to worry about for Bioware. That turned out to be a mistake. If people spend years together on forums then friendships grow and then leaving your friends is no option. Talking about different interests is then common and to be expected. But if the main forums lose their appeal, because the moderation has gone to hell then do not be surprised that people try to find a more or less safe place in the off-topic forums. If you then close the off-topic forums then you have fought the symptom, but not cured the problem.

In an environment where moderation already failed and was largely missing altogether, the decision to close the off-topic forums was more fuel to the fire. And the people that left because of that, are likely to never come back. They don't want to be punished again for something they didn't do.

I don't want to point any fingers, but I have to. To be clear, Bioware has done absolutely nothing to constructively reverse the situation, other than damage control and lobby to close the forums altogether after DA2 and ME3 and now before ME:A. That's the easy way out and the cheapest solution.

The solution that I mentioned has not been tried by Bioware yet. Because it requires trust in the community, which Bioware doesn't have, and it requires investments, that Bioware believes are not worth it.

Having a healthy community is worth the investment, because happy fans are great at advocating the company and their games. One may not like a game like the Witcher 3, but nobody can deny that their fans love the company with a passion that no one has seen before. CDPR believes in their customers, they not only listen to their customers, they implement what they hear in everything they do, with surgical precision. It is not only marketing, they do what they preach. They do it, because it makes them money. And they are highly successful. I don't think I have ever met a TW3 fan, who doesn't see flaws in the game, but these fans are still passionate about it. The trust in the company is deep. There were no riots when the last game in the series was announced. Every fan knows that the story was going to end and they expected it to end. Nothing grumbles and murmurs about that in their community.

CDPR did have its ups and downs. Although TW1 was received well by the press, most players found out that the game was in a terrible state at release. Most fans had to admit that there were many flaws. Instead of giving up, the company worked for about a year on an enhanced edition that was regarded as an upgrade that ironed out the many bugs, improved the gameplay, re-recorded the voice acting for several languages, and provided additional content. That edition was for free to the customers of TW1. The game was still not perfect, but trust in the company was restored. The disgruntled fans were turned into advocates.

But didn't ME3 do the same with the EC? To many it provided additional "closure", sure, but for many others the ending was disconnected from everything that came before it and providing more of the same doesn't change that. So the EC fueled the fire once more.

If Chris Priestly is to be believed then there would have been two attempts to close the forums. One after ME3 and a final successful one before the release of ME:A. If the some "quite powerful" people mentioned by Chris are against the forums, then I'm not surprised that BW never properly invested in the forums. In my opinion closing the forums was orchestrated to prevent criticizing that game in the future. You can read about that here.

Closing the forums is in stark contrast to the claim that Bioware listens to their community. They direct their fans to easy to control social media sites and to ones that don't allow in-depth discussion. That's like listening to the fans with fingers in your ears. As long as their telemetry data sets are providing the answers to aid development, there is no need to listen anyway. Anything can be sold with a solid hype marketing campaign with buzz words which gives new meaning to terms like "innovation" and "iconic". They love to co-operate with a paper magazine, to provide an exclusive article as an extension of the marketing campaign; they love to shake your hand at an annual convention; they love to hear the praise in a 140 character one liner; and they love to get 10,000 likes for an announcement of a trailer to be released many months from now; they love to bow and wave to the crowd. And above all, they love the money.

[Kantr]

Reddit isn't a high and mighty bastion of non-toxicity either. PokemonGo sub is toxic and NoMansSky had death threats against a mod due to a conspiracy theory about the leaks

[Boomshakalakalakaboom]

Omg, look at him. Seeing Trump always puts a smile on my face. The bad comb-forward, orange skin, goggle tan lines and super white teeth--it's all very much grin worthy.

[Lord Bolton]

Why contain it? Let it spill out into the streets. People need to know.

 

By the way, have you guys seen the Glassdoor page for Bioware (http://www.glassdoor...iews-E22998.htm? What a hoot. Sounds like the place is circling the drain.

 

A choice review from an ex-employee:

 

 

And it's not the only one. All of the reviews posted over the last year say the exact same thing.

Interesting read, thanks. (Fun fact: CDPR's reviews aren't any better for some reason)

 

 

 

Unless you were hired when the company was founded there is zero chance for advancement. Lots of weird politics, nepotism and unfathomable decision making. Management is clueless about building anyones careers but their own. Production always seems like its their first project ever. Get in, get a credit and get out. Innovation is rejected from a place of jealousy and insecurity as the old guard (the 1%) are easily th…

 

Review from Edmonton's studio. So that's why their Dragon Age series is so inconsistent and each game looks completely different in terms of style design.

[Sifr]

Reddit isn't a high and mighty bastion of non-toxicity either. PokemonGo sub is toxic and NoMansSky had death threats against a mod due to a conspiracy theory about the leaks

 

Reddit is the internet equivalent to Walter White.

 

Just as bad as 4chan at times (if not worse), but people don't notice because it lives in a fancy house in the suburbs.

[panzerwzh]

Interesting read, thanks. (Fun fact: CDPR's reviews aren't any better for some reason)

Good that means CDPR is bad enough to prevent EA get their dirty hands on them. In CDPR, I trust!

[Addictress]

To be fair, as much as I hate Bioware right now, the employee reviews at pretty much all video game companies will be negative like these ones. The entire video game industry is like this...

There is definitely a major defect in the decision-making at Bioware but I just don't think the Glassdoors reviews are statistically sound data.

[Sifr]

To be fair, as much as I hate Bioware right now, the employee reviews at pretty much all video game companies will be negative like these ones. The entire video game industry is like this...

There is definitely a major defect in the decision-making at Bioware but I just don't think the Glassdoors reviews are statistically sound data.

 

Yeah, regardless of where you work, it's not exactly easy to generate warm and fuzzy feelings about the company that might have unceremoniously shown you the door. Not surprising a couple of those reviews might be negative, depending on the circumstances of how they were let go.

 

But even the odd bit of personal bias does not invalidate some valid points, that hint to poor management in certain companies, based on multiple accounts from former employees.

 

As it is, there does seem to be a consensus that some people high up in the Bioware chain seem to get their knickers in a twist when it comes to any and all forms of criticism, even that which is meant to be constructive and can help them avoid the same pitfalls in the future?

[neonmoth]

It's truly insulting to me when people declare as "fact" that BioWare sucks and point to Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age II and Inquisition as "evidence" for their declaration.

Guess what? I love those games. BioWare is one of my favorite developers. I guess I'm part of the problem. I'm an idiot for liking the modern BioWare.
 
The old cliche: "Why do you care what others think?" I care because perception is reality. If enough people believe something, then it might as well be "true". And the narrative that has persisted here for years is that BioWare is "dying" and their games "lack the soul" that they once had. This place has become more of an enemy than an ally. I don't object to torching the place, although I'd prefer to rebuild it afterward.

Meh, I love those games too. If you dig deep enough you'll find many staunch defenders of those titles here on bsn. Many people actually joined these boards after each game was released and there is plenty of excitement and love to keep you going, at least imo. 
 
I get it's hard to deal with negativity that can be prevalent here and there but you can dose it to yourself. If it gets too much, then retreat to your safe haven. Or find it amusing. Or, if the critique has some substance, participate. I have enjoyed lots of heated discussions in here, or had a laugh at trolls' attempts to rile people into reaction.
 
I can only think that people who are happy about closing this forum are those who only ventured into stinky threads and who choose to associate this forum only with ongoing wars. But there is so much more. And yes, I will mention it one more time. There is a wealth of knowledge here. However much you hate bsn peeps, surely you cannot be happy about losing that part of the forum :/
 

EDIT: And now that I think about it, this forum is considered a joke in many corners of the Internet. People laugh at this place. Some of you should think about why they laugh.

I am not going to. People outside of bsn are scary. ;] 

[AngryFrozenWater]

To be fair, as much as I hate Bioware right now, the employee reviews at pretty much all video game companies will be negative like these ones. The entire video game industry is like this...

There is definitely a major defect in the decision-making at Bioware but I just don't think the Glassdoors reviews are statistically sound data.

There is reason to believe such a thing can happen within EA. In the period between 2004 and 2008 it was well documented that EA employees were treated badly. At that time Bioware was not part of EA. Now it is. There is no reason why history couldn't repeat itself. Statistics be damned.

[Addictress]

Yeah, regardless of where you work, it's not exactly easy to generate warm and fuzzy feelings about the company that might have unceremoniously shown you the door. Not surprising a couple of those reviews might be negative, depending on the circumstances of how they were let go.

But even the odd bit of personal bias does not invalidate some valid points, that hint to poor management in certain companies, based on multiple accounts from former employees.

As it is, there does seem to be a consensus that some people high up in the Bioware chain seem to get their knickers in a twist when it comes to any and all forms of criticism, even that which is meant to be constructive and can help them avoid the same pitfalls in the future?

My concern is that, on the one hand, Origins, ME1-2, etc, achieved legendary status presumably due to a combination of attributes discerning gamers with veteran taste approve of, but somehow, there is also a far larger population lurking out there in best buy stores with crap taste, willing to pay for tossing out those refined attributes, and some higher-ups in Bioware share that crap taste, and won't ever listen to the discerning, cultured minority gamers ever again.

[Addictress]

There is reason to believe such a thing can happen within EA. In the period between 2004 and 2008 it was well documented that EA employees were treated badly. At that time Bioware was not part of EA. Now it is. There is no reason why history couldn't repeat itself. Statistics be damned.

But I still like The Sims 4. So maybe it's not EA.

[Sifr]

Meh, I love those games too. If you dig deep enough you'll find many staunch defenders of those titles here on bsn. Many people actually joined these boards after each game was released and there is plenty of excitement and love to keep you going, at least imo. 
 
I get it's hard to deal with negativity that can be prevalent here and there but you can dose it to yourself. If it gets too much, then retreat to your safe heaven. Or find it amusing. Or, if the critique has some substance, participate. I have enjoyed lots of heated discussions in here, or had a laugh at trolls' attempts to rile people into reaction.
 
I can only think that people who are happy about closing this forum are those who only ventured into stinky threads and who choose to associate this forum only with ongoing wars. But there is so much more. And yes, I will mention it one more time. There is a wealth of knowledge here. However much you hate bsn peeps, surely you cannot be happy about losing that part of the forum.

 

I'm a huge fan of DA2, was happy with the Extended Cut ending of ME3 and I enjoyed DAI. But even I'm not blind to the many flaws and pitfalls that each of those games had in them, even if I overall enjoy them and have played them repeatedly.

 

Even if any of those games or the characters within were your own personal baby, rage-quitting the forum and trying to set it on fire for the insurance money because someone was mean about them is a bit of an overreaction. You'd think after all this time some might have developed thicker skin when it comes to criticism, because it's not like they are the only creators who've ever endured this.

 

You are creators. Your work will be criticised. Learn to deal with it.

[Andraste_Reborn]

My concern is that, on the one hand, Origins, ME1-2, etc, achieved legendary status presumably due to a combination of attributes discerning gamers with veteran taste approve of, but somehow, there is also a far larger population lurking out there in best buy stores with crap taste, willing to pay for tossing out those refined attributes, and some higher-ups in Bioware share that crap taste, and won't ever listen to the discerning, cultured minority gamers ever again.

 

This is where I appear in the conversation to point out that I have been playing BioWare games since Baldur's Gate and I loved Dragon Age: Inquisition. In fact, it's my second-favourite BioWare game after Baldur's Gate 2. So am I part of the discerning, cultured minority, or the majority with crap taste? Or am I some kind of mythical unicorn?

 

(In case it affects your answer: I love Origins and DA2 about equally. Just not quite as much as DAI.)

[Addictress]

It's the niche hipster mentality, I know

But seriously, sometimes the hipster is right.

[Bummlmitz2]

Bioware is dead, and it has been for years. The thing that has limped on with Biowares name is akin to a wounded animal that needs to be put down out of mercy. 

 

This, pretty much. Good riddance, "Bioware".

 

PS. Someone please preserve those modding threads.

[Addictress]

This is where I appear in the conversation to point out that I have been playing BioWare games since Baldur's Gate and I loved Dragon Age: Inquisition. In fact, it's my second-favourite BioWare game after Baldur's Gate 2. So am I part of the discerning, cultured minority, or the majority with crap taste? Or am I some kind of mythical unicorn?

(In case it affects your answer: I love Origins and DA2 about equally. Just not quite as much as DAI.)

I think maybe the attributes you like in games are simply not the attributes that I like in games. For instance, story, writing, design, and direction. Perhaps there are other attributes besides those that BG, Origins, DA2 and Inquisition all equally excelled at.

[LadyAly]

Very Very sad about this decision. 

[Hazegurl]

Interesting read, thanks. (Fun fact: CDPR's reviews aren't any better for some reason)

https://www.glassdoo...ews-E644250.htm

 

I agree, though I will say that most of the cons for CDPR aren't remotely the same as the cons for eaware. Most of them say they hate the crunch time and there's too much pressure to finish work, apparently they have an all vegetable canteen (that alone would drive me nuts), and the pay is only good enough to live in Poland but not vacation anywhere else, and middle management is full of young people who don't seem to know what they're doing, one employee mentions problems if you don't agree with them but they don't mention if this an upper or middle management issue.

 

The strangest complaint is from someone who has an issue with them speaking a combo of English and Polish so they feel left out. And I have to wonder, why move to Poland to work without learning how to speak the language? This person been there for three years. Plenty of time to learn unless Polish is massively difficult to learn.

 

Seems like the common complaint is about the crunch time periods during production. Those must be sweat shop level brutal.

[Patricia08]

I am really going to miss this place and i will really miss all of you a lot i had a lot of fun talking to all of you ( maybe not all but quite a lot haha ). So Goodbye everyone and thank you all for the help and the fun and for just being here. I salute you all .   

[Dermain]

It's the niche hipster mentality, I know

But seriously, sometimes the hipster is right.

Only in the mind of the hipster.

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

Why contain it? Let it spill out into the streets. People need to know.

 

By the way, have you guys seen the Glassdoor page for Bioware (http://www.glassdoor...iews-E22998.htm? What a hoot. Sounds like the place is circling the drain.

 

A choice review from an ex-employee:

 

 

And it's not the only one. All of the reviews posted over the last year say the exact same thing.

 

Oh, my god, it turns out BioWare employees are saying some of the same things are wrong with management that we are. You'd almost think BioWare was being badly mismanaged for the last 4-5 years.

[Dovakiin_N7]

Yeah but they can just block them and pretend everything is fine.

Looking at it now. Literally no support and all anger at the decision. Pleasently surprised because we are told by a few here that non BSNers are happy.

It seems that , Bioware is about to taste the TOXICITY of the open internet.