7 Video Game Developer Reputations That Died This Generation

5. Bioware

Remember the doctors?

Bioware used to be headed up and spearheaded by medical doctors Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, forming the studio in 1995 with a handful of others, and blessing us with RPG gold for almost 20 years thereafter.

Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect, Jade Empire, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - the vast majority of their output was seismic, establishing genre traits and expectations that thousands of the competition would ape and struggle to keep up with.

Right next to Bethesda, Bioware were THE name in western RPGs, and their legacy still stands.

This generation's output though??

Well, the doctors left in 2012, citing the fact they'd lost their passion for the industry, and leaving the vast majority of the overarching direction to EA going forward, who promptly treated this generation like a testbed for all things anti-consumer.

2012 saw integral Mass Effect 3 character Javik resigned to DLC, Dragon Age: Inquisition was a bizarrely empty-feeling action RPG with repetitive missions and interactions... then it really got ugly.

The promising Shadow Realms was cancelled, Mass Effect Andromeda was a notably, hilariously unfinished game that meme'd itself to death overnight, and Anthem... might end up being the entire company's undoing as a studio with any real agency.