"What if Larian had shut down after Divine Divinity?": Star Trek Online exec scorns publishers who close teams like BioWare in favour of "AAA veteran" start-ups and AI "magic beans"

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 10:51:01 +0000

Breaking up established game development teams in favour of "AAA veteran" start-ups and "magic bean" technologies is like "setting fire to millions of dollars of property and equipment", in the words of Star Trek Online executive producer Thomas Marrone. He thinks it's "wildly irresponsible and self-sabotaging", and that videogame company shareholders should be absolutely furious about it.

Marrone's comments come in response to EA closing BioWare yesterday, but he takes aim at closures and layoffs across the industry. He notes that many of the most successful teams owe their accomplishments to lessons learned from screw-ups, and suggests that if big game publishers just want "number to go up", they should get out of the game-making trade and pour all their cash into investment funds.

Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed | Category "Star Trek Online"

"What if Larian had shut down after Divine Divinity?": Star Trek Online exec scorns publishers who close teams like BioWare in favour of "AAA veteran" start-ups and AI "magic beans"