Beginning with Baldur's Gate and running through series including Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age, BioWare has built a reputation as a studio that creates great characters and tells great stories. But David Gaider, who hason just about all of them, said on Twitter that attitudes toward writers at BioWare had soured prior to his departure in 2016.
Gaider said writing is"undervalued" because everyone thinks they can do it, and in the game industry in particular it seems secondary to disciplines that require"real skills" like art or programming. "Even BioWare, which built its success on a reputation for good stories and characters, slowly turned from a company that vocally valued its writers to one where we were... quietly resented, with a reliance on expensive narrative seen as the"albatross" holding the company back," Gaider"Maybe that sounds like a heavy charge, but it's what I distinctly felt up until I left in 2016.
Gaider's comments are particularly relevant at this very specific moment in time, when we have growing concern about the impact of AI on creative endeavors—writing and art, specifically—alongside significant layoffs at media companies like Buzzfeed and Vice, and a strike of roughly 11,500 film and television writers, who are seeking a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.