BioWare CEO Casey Hudson has called the studio staff for a general meeting at which he will share his thoughts on the Kotaku investigation. Recall that on April 2, the publication published a material by Jason Schreier, dedicated to the development of Anthem. BioWare’s response to this material caused a strong reaction on the web.
According to Kotaku, yesterday Hudson sent an employee a letter announcing the upcoming meeting. He acknowledged the existence of problems reported in Schreier’s publication — with the organization of the workflow, with creative vision, with the health of team members. He knew about them back in July 2017, when he returned to BioWare and took up his current position. According to Hudson, the studio took steps to ensure that the heads of departments focused on supporting employees and the creative component of projects. However, in his opinion, this was not enough.
Casey Hudson’s Letter to BioWare Employees
Casey Hudson”Hello, BioWare,
I want to share with you my thoughts about the publication of Kotaku and the discussions on it on the web.
The article mentions a lot of problems that arose during the development of Anthem and some of our previous projects.
The article also traces the connection between these difficulties, the workplace environment and the health of our employees. The problems are real, and our first priority is to work on solving them.What really goes beyond the scope is public criticism of specific developers.
Such things are unfair and extremely traumatic, and we should not allow this to happen to any of our employees. That’s why we didn’t comment to the journalist, but made a statement after.When I was offered to return to BioWare as CEO, I took up this post, already knowing that people in the studio have serious health problems, creative vision and organization.
I have actively contributed — and continue to contribute — to improving the situation in these areas, because I love this studio and I want to make it a place where all of you will be happy and successful.I won’t say that I succeeded.
On days like today, I feel like that’s not the case. But the steps we have already taken in these areas include a greater focus on the mission and values of the studio, which makes it clear what we are doing and what defines the high standard of our corporate culture. We have updated the structure of our studio so that the heads of departments focus entirely on supporting the career and well-being of each employee. We clarify their roles for them so that they can achieve greater success than is expected of them. We are also changing the production process for a clearer vision of projects and introducing a longer post-production framework so that people do not experience such pressure and anxiety during development.But I know that we still have a lot to do.
Next week we will discuss this and other planned retaliatory steps in detail. I ask you, as always, to make suggestions on how to make BioWare a better place to work.I strive to ensure that BioWare games meet the highest expectations and that they are born in a working environment that will be recognized as one of the best in the world.
With your help, we will succeed.Please let me know if you want to talk to me personally, I will be happy to meet and listen to you.
Casey.”
This is not BioWare’s first reaction to Schreier’s material.
On the day of the release of the Kotaku investigation, a comment appeared on the BioWare blog, which Hudson mentions. The content and time of publication of this post suggest that the studio simply did not read the investigation and prepared a response in advance. It hardly touches on the topics raised by Schreier, but criticizes the format of investigative journalism itself as “dividing the industry.” The gaming press sharply condemned BioWare for such a position.
Also, according to Schreier on Twitter, yesterday the developers of BioWare received another letter demanding: “Do not communicate with the press.”
You can read the extract from the Kotaku material about the problematic development of Anthem here.
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