CEO & Emmy-Award Winner, Genvid. Previously 社長付 (President's Office) at Square Enix Holdings.
New York, NY
Joined February 2010
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Jacob Navok retweeted
"Short term profit" ... bro EA kept BioWare alive for nearly 20 years. I'm not saying they handled the studio well or that it was a good fit but this was not a short term situation. And BioWare was owned by "private equity" between 2005-2007. This is an incoherent argument.
This is private equity, this is what it does.
Buy up businesses, run them into the ground, and rip them apart for short-term profit.
The developers at BioWare know how to run the studio. They know how to make the games we all love. They should be given the first opportunity - and the federal support - to buy it and run it themselves.
And if we want to avoid the Mass Effect effect in Canada, we should be keeping private equity out, not welcoming it in.
pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/…
1. I am not suggesting Bioware died because of culture war issues. I do not know that this is the case.
It is possible that their specific single player RPG products were not good enough.
It is possible the market is too niche to sustain their product unless absolutely exceptional (see BG3.)
Only one thing is clearly true: not enough copies sold to make the return on investment worth it for future titles.
2. Suggestions that the studio should have been sold implies there is a buyer. There is no buyer. Salaries are too high, games take too long. No one is buying big team studios that take years to make games anymore. The market for funding studios of that size DOES NOT EXIST.
In many cases, especially in places like Canada with strict labor laws, it is cleaner to shut down a company than to attempt to restructure.
Jacob Navok retweeted
The crash in the game business nowadays is the first for the new generation of gamers, but only one of several in the history of games. Here are my thoughts from 2000 when a maker of beloved but long-unprofitable games went under.
Jesus christ guys, EA is very simple. If it makes money they will keep paying for it. The studio didn't make money. It didn't make money because not enough people bought their games. You are asking EA to subsidize a loss maker, and that is stupid.
EA's complete misunderstanding of BioWare's RPG heritage and a desire for mass market, microtransaction-fuelled action games has robbed us of one of the industry's greats. bit.ly/4skXwy5
Every unreleased or cancelled game had the potential to be great.
A former Mass Effect 5 developer has said that BioWare had seen what RPG powerhouses Larian and CD Projekt were achieving with their games, and was responding by taking Mass Effect to “the next level.” bit.ly/4Bd9j5s
On average there were 74 games released on Steam a day in 2025. With AI there could be 10x more, or 740 games released on Steam a day.
On average there were 15,000 games released on Roblox a day in 2025.
On average there are 20m youtube videos uploaded a day.
Everyone still uses YouTube, creators make tons of money. Devs still building games and finding success on Roblox, new games popping off all the time.
The answer to AI on Valve is better algorithms for discovery. As I said yesterday, Steam needs to become Roblox before Roblox can become Steam.
Anything else is a dumb take.
Devs shouldn't have to be protecting their games, Valve should be protecting its shopfront:
aftermath.site/steam-indie-g…
Jacob Navok retweeted
Vibe your way to 50K.
The 2026 Epic AI MegaJam begins Nov 12: epic.gm/epic-ai-megajam-2026
ALT Red pill or blue pill meme from The Matrix, about choosing between two paths. Two open hands are held out on a black background. The red pill is labeled “Ship awesome games in a weekend.” The blue pill is labeled “Wait months to prototype.”
I want to be clear I am not celebrating BioWare's death, I think it is unfortunate. My purpose has been to explain the business realities causing it, which is high costs combined with lack of sales.
Jacob Navok retweeted
Today is Minako Aino's birthday! 🎂✨
Celebrate with us in the comments with an orange heart for our amazing Sailor Venus! 🧡
#PrettyGuardianSailorMoon 🌙
There are certainly times where management directives have caused issues at studios; Anthem being one of them. However, Veilguard certainly isn't, and if the devs can't take the blame for their own mistakes, then we are left with a bunch of coddled children.
I dont really understand why everyone white knights game devs so much when they get laid off after massive failure projects. Most of us if we bomb the shit out of things at work get fired, why is it any different as a game dev? Especially ones like bioware who are smugly anti consumer and molested poor dragon age