Earlier this week EA shut down Visceral Studios, leaving many to wonder about the future of linear, AAA single player games. It's a complex topic, which is why we're grateful that we got to sit down and talk about it with Manveer Heir, a 12-year veteran of the industry who worked on games including Mass Effect 3, Andromeda, and Wolfenstein (2009). We also dig into issues of representation, toxic work cultures, harassment, and talk about how to make the games industry a better place. We're optimistic, we swear—it's just gonna be a lot of work!
I’m not the Andrew Wilson from EA (You can tell by my lack of an Australian accent*, massive beard, and inability to pull off a shark-skin suit jacket.), but I am AN Andrew Wilson and a big fan of the podcast, so I feel entirely comfortable accepting your shout-out on his behalf.
*Full disclosure: I made a long (largely unsuccessful) run at being an actor as a child, including years professional voice training, so it’s really just the beard and outweighing him by 200 pounds.
This was actually a really good and informative episode. I feel like the guest was super honest about everything and did not try to shy around the problems and was not scared to throw shade on people and companies that deserve it. I hope we get similar episodes in the future.
This was a good cast. I was wondering what Manveer was up to since leaving bioware. I guess the answer is dealing with burnout plus nothing he can talk about yet.
Such a great episode. Wish you folks could have gone in on Andromeda’s story a little more. The obvious colonization angle and the lousy attempts to deflect that (by having the Kett beat the MW species to the punch) made me so angry.
I have to admire just not playing an ad instead of cutting the throw to the ad itself (more importantly this was an awesome podcast and Manveer seems like an awesome person).
I was surprised by Manveer’s frankness in this episode. We’re often on the outside saying “man, I wish I could hear the story behind that trainwreck…” and Manveer gives some pretty good insight into why some games turn out the way they do… Not that it couldn’t be guessed, but it’s nice to hear it directly from someone actually involved.
Absolutely agreeing with what @ryland said. Massive chops to Heir for being so open and happy to talk about their experiences in the industry and great guidance on the discussion from Riendeau too.
As Walker says, he knows when he’s got a good one, and he sure does now.
