Anthem developer BioWare released a post today in response to a recent article published in Kotaku regarding Anthem. Written by Jason Schreier, the article discusses issues faced during the development of Anthem. Citing various interviews conducted with people that have worked on the game or adjacent to it, the article puts focus on what it calls "a story of indecision and mismanagement."
BioWare's post, even as a response to the article, mainly revealed what the team plans to do moving forward instead of making an actual comment. BioWare decided "not to comment or participate in this story because we felt there was an unfair focus on specific team members and leaders, who did their absolute best to bring this totally new idea to fans."
In the post, BioWare said that when it comes to the world of entertainment, one of the most difficult challenges is making games.
"Making games, especially new IP, will always be one of the hardest entertainment challenges." A message from our team regarding Anthem's development process. https://t.co/WC7Cui0jQh
— BioWare (@bioware) April 2, 2019
BioWare revealed that it had long put focus on workplace culture, and that "health and well-being of our team members is something we take very seriously." This is in relation to the Kotaku article, which said that developers have left the studio over issues with anxiety and depression. Some of them, according to Kotaku, would take what was known as a "stress leave," with others just looking for a private room, locking themselves inside to cry.
BioWare said that it is studying the different criticisms raised in the Kotaku article and that it will also be looking into feedback coursed through its internal team surveys. BioWare did say that it put emphasis "on better planning to avoid 'crunch time,' and it was not a major topic of feedback in our internal postmortems."
The studio admits that the creative process is indeed difficult and that the challenges and struggles when it comes to making video games are real. However, BioWare will always be ready to receive any criticisms on the games they make, especially those coming from the players.
BioWare does throw a little shade on the Kotaku article by saying that they have never seen the value in putting down one another or even tearing down another's work. BioWare added that they "don’t believe articles that do that are making our industry and craft better."
BioWare ends by saying that they continue to focus on the players and thank the fans for the support.
