After recent reports that BioWare would be having its development team re-assigned, and some even laid off, Baldur’s Gate 3‘s publishing director at Larian Studios has called EA out through a post on social media platform X.
Larian’s Michael Douse spoke out about the layoffs, saying that the way the lay-offs were carried out was bad. Douse also calls out the decision as a short-term cost-saving measure at the expensive of not solving a long-term problem. “To make it absolutely clear, what I hate about the way layoffs are carried out is that they are done *before* decision makers know what do do with a studio, and not as a result of figuring out a direction,” posted Douse on X. “This is consistently true.
It is a short term cost-saving measure at a huge human expense that doesn’t solve a long term problem. (A lack of a viable strategic direction defined at an executive level).
You can probably figure it out if you trust your developers instead of firing them. On a positive note, I’m seeing a slight shift in this direction.
In the low-stakes arena of remasters and remakes, but they are the foundation of something bigger.” Douse also called out EA for being a publisher worth $30 billion, but still being unable to support BioWare with an economic foundation.