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BioWare Reviews
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Andrew Wilson
18 Ratings
Pros
"Great people to work with, good focus on work life balance" (in 15 reviews)
"Great people, great live work balance" (in 8 reviews)
Cons
"There is little to no help with career progression short of the occasional suggestion of an opening in the same studio" (in 3 reviews)
"Constant change in upper management means a constant change in the studio direction" (in 4 reviews)
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"BioWare Lifer"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at BioWare full-time (More than 10 years)
Pros
BioWare has always had leadership that cares about its people. From the founders, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, to the current GM Aaryn Flynn. The company is focused on creating some of the best games in the world and it shows in its track record of games, including the recent Dragon Age: Inquisition (GOTY).
BioWare's culture is defined by the statement "Quality in the Product and Quality in the Workplace". It is difficult to balance the needs of a project with the needs of the employees, but BioWare has done a good job of it over the years.Cons
BioWare is a company that values open communication/critique. This can lead to stress as everyone's work is held to a high standard. If you enjoy a high performance culture, this might be a positive :-)
BioWare 2016-12-13 12:15 PST![BioWare Logo]()
"One of the over-all, best places I've worked."
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsApproves of CEOI worked at BioWare full-time
Pros
The people, for the most part are collaborative, smart, creative.
The studio is awesome.
The benefits are great.Cons
Transparency seems to be an issue.
Meeting or private space (open floor plan) can sometimes be an issue.BioWare 2018-10-16 09:31 PDTHelpful (3)
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"Time to Think Twice?"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
Doesn't RecommendNeutral OutlookNo opinion of CEOI have been working at BioWare full-time (More than 8 years)
Pros
* Passionate, smart developers who truly care about the products they're making. This sounds trite, but it's true.
* EA really isn't as bad as many people think.
* The studio is attempting to be really innovative with its current and next planned projects. This is a always a double-edged sword. Let's hope it works out for our fans' sake.
* Salaries and benefits are decent. Some specializations could certainly make more money by moving outside the games industry, but overall you probably won't feel like you're being cheated.Cons
* Front-line management is often unfairly expected to do the jobs of two people. They must simultaneously act as advanced individual contributors and as people managers. This leads to frequent burnout by the company's brightest.
* Double standards. Upper management does not practice what they preach. Cronyism. This is clearly evident during promotion and bonus time.
* Several teams have recently been centralized, and are now managed out of EA's HQ in Redwood Shores. This experiment has been a disaster. Remote management of employees can work, but EA is going about it completely wrong, and is causing serious damage to the studios they should instead be supporting.
* Good news is shared. Bad news is hidden. It does not take a genius to figure out what the real state of things is at any given time.
* Hand fulls of employees are frequently still in the office working at 3am. This is worn as a badge of honor, and absolutely should not be.
* There is still too much Us vs. Them between BioWare's Edmonton and Austin studios. This has been going on for years.
* To put it bluntly, open office plans suck. The official story is that it is done to foster collaboration. The obvious truth is that it is a cheaper setup, and allows companies to cram more employees into the available space. BioWare's open office plan is easily among the worst in which I've ever worked.Advice to Management
It will not be simple, but the cons mentioned above really do need to be addressed by the people with the authority to do so. Team health and studio morale is dangerously low these days.
BioWare 2018-07-20 06:56 PDTHelpful (2)
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"Why Bioware is falling apart"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
Doesn't RecommendNeutral OutlookI worked at BioWare full-time
Pros
Was previously a great company but the culture changed.
Cons
This culture change wasn't for the better either. It reshaped the company and a lot of infighting happened because of this.
Advice to Management
Work on getting the company together.
BioWare 2018-05-13 18:47 PDTHelpful (8)
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"A studio barely clinging to life"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookNo opinion of CEOI have been working at BioWare full-time
Pros
- Opportunities to work on famous and popular AAA franchises
- EA's pay and benefits are tops in the industry
- Good facilities with lots of perks
- Inclusive workplace that values and promotes diversity
- There's a sincere effort to ensure work-life balance, but that's the first thing to disappear when a project catches fireCons
- Studio leadership is untrustworthy, unaccountable and obsessed with politics
- Bad creative and business decisions are allowed to survive for years and destroy the projects that get stuck with them
- Sub-studios are the public scapegoats for the Edmonton mothership's failures
- Constant high turnover at all levels, with many replacement hires being temp workers who don't receive any benefits
- After years of high-profile failures, fans and EA have lost faith in BioWare and left its future in doubtAdvice to Management
- Reconnect with what made past BioWare games great and let it be the focus of future projects
- Clean house in the upper management's ranks to bring in fresh blood that won't be distracted trying to settle old grudges
- Give employees a good reason to stay besides the paycheckBioWare 2017-09-23 09:51 PDTHelpful (3)
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"BioWare Austin could be great..."
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at BioWare full-time (More than 5 years)
Pros
It's BioWare! We make amazing games that you and others will actually want to play.
"One BioWare" collaboration between Edmonton, Austin, and Montreal is good stuff.
HR is surprisingly awesome.Cons
Beware the Marketing department. Yeesh, incompetence personified.
Advice to Management
Practice what you preach, RE: accountability.
Salaries, bonuses, and promotions are not in line with industry standards if you're interested in attracting and retaining top talent.BioWare 2016-11-21 15:28 PSTHelpful (1)
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"Was good until it wasn't"
StarStarStarStarStarI worked at BioWare full-time (More than a year)
Pros
Great people to work with, good focus on work life balance. Very progressive in terms of people - very inclusive and goes out of their way to make sure that people feel taken care of. Felt like the top of the management tried to take care of all of the employees as a group.
Cons
Project-level leadership can act petty at times. Management shies from confrontation, which can result in employees feeling blindsided by things. When I was let go, I felt like I didn't really have a good metric of what it was that caused me to be let go - one manager was totally fine with me and gave me good reviews, while his replacement did not.
Advice to Management
Be more honest and straightforward with what you expect from your employees. If there is a problem with performance, try to set more measurable/quantifiable goals.
BioWare 2016-05-11 14:29 PDT![BioWare Logo]()
"Designer"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
I have been working at BioWare full-time (More than 5 years)
Pros
A lot of talented people, a relaxed work environment, frequent meals provided, excellent benefits and options for ESPP and 401k, very little crunch, great work/life balance.
Cons
difficult career progression, low salary
BioWare 2016-04-27 11:24 PDTHelpful (3)
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"Decent perks, no windows"
StarStarStarStarStarRecommendsI worked at BioWare (More than a year)
Pros
There were lots of fun events and milestone celebrations and such. The company definitely spent money on making the employees feel comfortable.
Cons
One entire side of the building has zero windows, and to me that got tiring after a while. I don't care how awesome the work is, if I feel like a nocturnal creature for 8 hrs a day that's not good.
BioWare 2016-02-08 08:28 PSTHelpful (5)
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"There are worse places to work"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsNeutral OutlookNo opinion of CEOI worked at BioWare full-time
Pros
The company values work/life balance.
Management genuinely seems to care about bringing employees into the fold in terms of decision making.Cons
Constant change in upper management means a constant change in the studio direction.
Not the best environment in the world to foster creativity.Advice to Management
In my 6 years there, we had 6 different studio heads who all wanted to do 6 radically different things. Maybe just keep one guy around for more than a year.
BioWare 2015-11-29 09:31 PST
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