{"id":35115,"date":"2018-07-24T20:01:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-24T20:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/322802"},"modified":"2018-07-24T20:01:00","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T20:01:00","slug":"former-bioware-dev-james-ohlen-discusses-creative-freedom-and-burnout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/07\/24\/former-bioware-dev-james-ohlen-discusses-creative-freedom-and-burnout\/","title":{"rendered":"Former BioWare dev James Ohlen discusses creative freedom and burnout"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I think it has something to do with the fact that technology in the gaming sector is constantly on the move, so it’s really easy to get behind the times.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Former creative director at BioWare James Ohlen speaking on burnout in the industry.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A lot of detail goes into goes into designing the soundscape of a game,\u00a0and in a recent interview with Game Informer<\/a>, former creative director at BioWare James Ohlen\u00a0discusses his retirement from games and how liberating it feels\u00a0to\u00a0work\u00a0on new projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ohlen left BioWare\u00a0earlier this month<\/a> after 22 years and was best\u00a0known\u00a0for his work on\u00a0Star Wars: The Old Republic<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Knights of the Old Republic<\/em>, where\u00a0he served as creative director and lead designer.<\/p>\n

After some time passed, he transitioned into narrative directing for Anthem<\/em>\u00a0but notes that his role was not a big one.\u00a0He would eventually pass his leadership to Anthem’s<\/em> lead writer after six months,\u00a0right in the middle of development.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0just wasn’t really in the place where I was like, ‘do I want to go back to doing administrative, director of design type things?'”\u00a0Ohlen explains. “I wasn’t. I was in a place where I needed to go back to being focused on doing creative stuff.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Leaving the expectations of management behind was liberating, especially since it meant Ohlen\u00a0could finally devote time to his own creative endeavors as opposed to keeping track of a larger project with hundreds of devs.<\/p>\n

“I loved my time at BioWare and even when BioWare was a part of EA I had a lot of good times,” he notes. “But just being able to entirely focus on being creative [is great]. I get a chance to work with a lot of people I haven’t worked with before from all over the world.”<\/p>\n

A lot of veteran developers having left BioWare, and Ohlen\u00a0mentions that the desire to leave a studio after such a long period of time stems from wanting to try new things. “Sometimes you just need a change,” he says. “Other times, people want to get more, get back to getting their hands dirty with creative.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

His current project is outside the realm of game development, where he’s writing a book with another former BioWare\u00a0employee. He\u00a0says\u00a0he’d like to go back someday, but the freedom of not having any studio-related responsibilities or expectations does wonders for his creativity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, Ohlen acknowledges that many devs\u00a0leave the industry\u00a0because of burnout and the expectation to always be on top of the curve, not because they’re seeking a change of pace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It is sad that video game creative directors retire at a much earlier age,” he says. “I think it has something to do with the fact that technology in the gaming sector is constantly on the move, so it’s really easy to get behind the times.”<\/p>\n

“Everyone thinks it’s fun and games leading up a video game, but when you’re responsible for that game’s success, it can be incredibly stressful,” he adds.<\/p>\n

“And you have massive teams that you have to keep engaged and excited There’s just a lot of burnout there\u2026 that’s why I’m not going to be rushing to get back in. I just want to have some fun for a little while.”<\/p>\n

He was speaking as part of a longer interview around his career at BioWare and his role on Anthem<\/em> and other previous BioWare titles, so be\u00a0sure to check it out over at Game Informer.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I think it has something to do with the fact that technology in the gaming sector is constantly on the move, so it’s really easy to get behind the times.” – Former creative director at BioWare James Ohlen speaking on burnout in the industry.\u00a0 A lot of detail goes into goes into designing the soundscape […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}