Former Dragon Age narrative lead, David Gaider, has recently shed light on the reasons behind his departure from BioWare in 2016, unveiling some unsettling revelations about the treatment of writers at the renowned game development studio.
In a series of tweets, Gaider provided insight into the shift in attitude towards writers within the studio, which is currently working on the highly anticipated Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. Gaider expressed a rather grim outlook, stating, “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.”
These tweets coincide with the ongoing writers’ strike in the United States, organized by the Writers Guild of America to protest against the emergence of “a gig economy inside a union workforce” (via Vox).
