I see a lot of people expressing shock and sadness over BioWare shutting down. And I get it. But here's the uncomfortable truth: The BioWare that made Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR, Dragon Age: Origins and the original Mass Effect trilogy had largely ceased to exist long before yesterday's announcement. BioWare's decline began around the time the doctors left and much like what happened at Blizzard, most of the original talent responsible for building those legendary franchises had moved on years ago. What remained was the brand. The IP. Basically just the name on the building. But a studio's name doesn't make great games. Insanely talented people do. And that's the lesson our industry somehow keeps refusing to learn. The people who built those studios, who poured their blood, sweat and tears into establishing their creative identities were the actual assets. Their experience, their taste, their leadership, their ability to recognize what made a game special in the first place was always the thing that mattered, not the brand. You can't simply replace those people, keep the logo on the door and expect the magic to continue. Yet, that's precisely what publishers have been doing for the past 10-20 years. They've spent billions acquiring studios and IPs, seemingly under the assumption that the creative output would continue regardless of who was actually making the games. And when the original talent inevitably left, the remaining teams were expected to fill shoes that were often impossibly large, without necessarily having the experience, leadership or creative vision required to do so. And... the results speak for themselves. I think we'll eventually look back at the COVID-era acquisition frenzy as one of the most destructive periods in the history of our industry. Publishers were buying studios left and right, paying absurd valuations mostly just to secure IPs... and developers were often all too happy to cash out. At Moon Studios, we got quite a bit of crap for refusing to sell when seemingly everyone else was getting acquired. I remember telling our team back then that I'd seen this movie before. The exact same thing happened in the 90s, when EA went on its acquisition spree. Studios were bought, their founders and creative leaders gradually lost the freedom to make the games they believed in, the original talent became frustrated and left and eventually the studios all became a Ship of Theseus. History doesn't repeat itself perfectly, but it sure as hell rhymes, and that's exactly why I never wanted Moon to end up in that position. And I don't think we're even halfway through the ultimate fallout of the latest acquisition frenzy. There's going to be a very rude awakening for quite a few publishers when they discover that the studios they acquired for billions are worth a fraction of what they paid. And that shoving ideology down peoples throats ultimately came at a cost that they didn't quite grasp. They didn't actually buy the creative vision, the institutional knowledge or the culture responsible for making those studios successful. They bought the names, the buildings, the IPs and whatever teams happened to be there at the time. But those things don't matter at all. You can buy a studio. You can buy its IP. You can even buy its entire back catalogue. But you can't buy the magic that made those games special in the first place. And the sooner our industry understands that, the better.

There’s a pattern we should talk about that has quietly killed a lot of great games over the years. It usually pans out like so: 1) Developers listen to players and think they do them a favor by giving them exactly what they asked for. 2) Players love it - at first. 3) After that, for some 'mysterious' reason, players lose interest and the game slowly dies and nobody is quite sure why that happened. The truth is that players will always push for fewer restrictions. They'll always argue for endless farming, easy power creep, never getting locked out of any content, making things more convenient, removing any sort of gates, etc. etc. And usually, even if you give in to things that will hurt a game in the long run, you get applause, at first. But you also just removed some of the very things that made the game special. Magic in games often comes from limitations. Scarcity, anticipation, effort, friction... all of these things have meaning. And if you remove those out of the equation, you logically remove meaning. Christmas is magical exactly because it happens once a year. If you had Christmas every day, you wouldn’t make it better - you’d destroy what made it special. As a parent, I know how excited my boys are when December hits and they start dreaming about how amazing Christmas will be. They start talking about which awesome presents they'll receive and every day they come up with new things. The parents challenge is then to intently listen and to understand what your kid really wishes for - and after thoughtful deliberation, you turn THAT into their present. You don't give them everything they wanted, you give them what they deep down truly wished for. And that's what makes it magical for them, because you actually spent the time and were thoughtful enough to truly understand who they are. And the same is true for games. When everything is always available, then: - Nothing feels special - Nothing is worth planning for - Nothing creates stories anymore You’ve optimized the fun out of the system. We’ve seen this over and over: You remove keys, costs, or gates and players gleefully cheer you on. But suddenly: - The gameplay loop breaks - The economy collapses - The sense of progression disappears Another example: social friction. The magic of early World of Warcraft was that it was basically the first social network. You had to actively talk to people, organize raids, build relationships and in the process a lot of people created life-long friends. Then players kept asking for features like LFG and developers caved in with the argument that removing friction is good. But suddenly, your friends didn't need you anymore. You weren't seen as an important part of their group anymore, you became an annoying obstacle that could be side-tracked. And losing your friends is a horrible feeling, as it should be. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Players are very good at optimizing for short-term satisfaction. But they are incredibly bad at protecting long-term fun. THAT is the developer’s job. Sometimes you have to stand your ground and say no. Not to frustrate players, but to protect their experience. Because if you give players everything they want… You might be taking away the reason they loved your game in the first place.