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BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk, who parted ways with the studio not too long ago, has shed a bit of light on what it was like to work under the thumb of mega-publisher Electronic Arts.
"I think one of the reasons that we survived and succeeded within EA was that our company was mature enough and there was enough good people throughout to handle the EA bear hug—something that is well meaning but vigorous," Zeschuk told Polygon. "We needed to be strong to survive that and I think we did and you evolve from that as well."
When asked if negative fan reaction to Mass Effect 3 played a part in his retirement from the games industry, Zeschuk explained:
Everything's a factor. There's nothing that's not a factor, but there's no single one thing. I think the best way I can describe is: Do the same thing for twenty years and it's very, very intense. It's very high pressure. It's very high stress. It's challenging. It's sometimes rewarding and sometimes it's not. And you just get tired of it after awhile. That is probably the easiest way to for me to describe it. Sometimes you just need to change things.
One of the few things I find kind of funny is the responses of the fans, because they sort of respond that they are kind of mad at us for leaving because they think we owe them more games. You know it's sad I wish I could deliver on that, but I don't think I would be as good as I was in that space historically. Like I said, the fire wasn't there.
It's sad to see such a brilliant mind lose interest in the industry, but it's easy to understand how someone like Zeschuk could come to a place like this. After having to work with EA for several years and then dealing with all that ME3 fan backlash can't be fun, and would certainly squash any passion anyone might have left.
