That might be part of it, but it’s ultimately up to leadership to get the right people, direct them well, and create an environment where they can collaborate effectively.

Sort of but games are phenomenally expensive to make at the BioWare end of the spectrum and in some ways that poisons the process because leadership are always trying to guarantee a return often based on poor signals. This causes a lot of development churn, burns people out and results in a bunch of turnover both as people get let go and replaced but also from people getting fed up. One troubled project I worked on had a complete change in creative leadership at least twice and a complete reboot of the direction once. Under those circumstances you lose all the magic and either become a factory rehashing the next series in a franchise or make something quite turgid.

Companies at this scale also see individual developers as cogs which whilst true to a point misses the importance of both the group of individuals and their social fabric have in making a great game.

Which is a long winded way of saying yes it’s the developers that made a commercial flop but that might have been the best result possible in the circumstances. And the buck with setting those circumstances stops with the executive team.