Rumour : EA Bioware Mythic Staffer on Warhammer and SWOTOR Failure

EA apparently have themselves a louse. an alleged, anonymous blog purporting to belong to somebody currently employed by EA’s Bioware Mythic studio has revealed some pretty damning news about why Warhammer Online failed.

And the highly anticipated Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic? Don’t even go there.

The blogger, who says he/she will soon be dismissed from the company in the next bout of lay offs has had the following to say about the impending collapse of Warhammer on line and even Mythic itself.

"Mythic is dying, and it’s not us who killed him but we’re taking the fall. But if you want to know what really went down with Warhammer, I’ll tell you right now. First, the project leaders did not know what they were doing."

"… We shut up and did what we were told, by people too afraid to tackle real problems. It is a culture of fear, especially since (Mythic co-founder and former CEO) Mark Jacobs was fired. Oh, he left voluntarily you say? No, he was fired, and everything placed on his shoulders by those closest to him so they could divide his salary and annual bonus.”

"So what do they all have in common? All of them failed, badly, in Warhammer, and each of them is in a position of authority in the new company, while the rest of us are facing pink slips. How do they sleep at night? They spin around, blame everything on Mark, divide his old salary between them, and never speak about it again. Oh, and they fuck us little guys as well.”

"Almost makes me congratulate them for having the balls, but after watching them work, it’s obvious they don’t have any. They’re cowards running scared trying to hide under the wing of Bioware, now that Rob has become a general manager of EA."

"We shouldn’t have released (Warhammer Online) when we did, everyone knows it. The game wasn’t done, but EA gave us a deadline and threatened the leaders of Mythic with pink slips. We slipped so many times, it had to go out. We sold more than a million boxes, and only had 300k subs a month later. Going down every since. It’s "stable" now, but guess what? Even Dark Age and Ultima have more subs than we have. How great is that? Games almost a decade make more money than our biggest project."

That’s not all though; the mysterious blogger also has some nasty things to say about Bioware’s handling of Star Wars : the Old Republic; which he believes is going to fail, dismally.

"And Bioware? Don’t make me laugh. They’ve spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Shit you not. More than $300 million! Can you believe that?”

"And you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That’s the best they have.”

"The rest of the game is a joke. EA knows it and so does George Lucas, they’re panicking, and so most of Mythic has already been cannibalized to work in Austin on it because they can’t keep pushing back launch.”

"Old Republic will be one of the greatest failures in the history of MMOs from EA. Probably at the level of the Sims Online. We all know it too."

Wow. Some pretty damning stuff, right there. The writer certainly seems to be on the inside track, but there are questions that need to be asked. That $300 million figure seems awfully high – with “official” figures showing the game’s cost to be about a 3rd of that. Bioware’s track record also speaks for itself; they’ve consistently produced some of the best games in the RPG genre.

I’m sure they’re capable of making a success of The Old Republic (even if I’d rather have had Knights of the old Republic 3 myself). I also doubt that George Lucas is “panicked,” because in all likelihood, he doesn’t give two shits about the game.  I can’t say whether or not it’s all real. Is it a bona-fide resentful employee, or a jaded World of Warcraft fanboy trying to discredit other MMO’s?

Source : EA Louse

Last Updated: October 14, 2010