Mike Laidlaw on his time at BioWare and starting new studio Yellow Brick Games:

"I worked on Mass Effect 1 for a while, I wrote a huge swathe of the Citadel that eventually got cut so no-one ever saw it or learned the great history of the haggis that was on sale there. From that I moved onto the Dragon Ages, ended up basically Lead Design and Creative Director for DA:I, DA:O and DA2, and all the DLCs, up until, whatever Dreadwolf turns out to be, which I’m excited, because I won’t be spoiled." [...] "I decided, I guess, to be involved in starting Yellow Brick Games because I’ve been in the industry almost 24 years now, so at this point, for me, it was an opportunity to get back to being able to ‘do’. Instead of always managing, always leading teams, kind’ve having to direct by proxy, a smaller team, a smaller project, and a chance to sort’ve get directly involved again, felt like what I needed to kind’ve shake things up and not feel like I was stagnating. The other big draw for me with the smaller team is, I see it as a real chance to work on, I guess, the best habits of leadership. The ways that you can give direction, be transparent, share with people where things are going and more importantly, why they are going there, the purpose behind the decisions being made. And I wanted to step out of the context I was comfortable with where there was sort’ve this, I guess, known history, known, ‘ohh, this is just how we do things’, but instead to create a new context in which it was going to be required to explain the ‘why’ now. And to me, a new studio was the right place to practise those skills, to try and build something that I hope will be very healthy." [...] "I have a long history working at BioWare, and that sort’ve leaves an imprint on you, but I like the idea of characters [mattering in writing/story of games]."

[source: "From AAA to Indie: Yellow Brick Games Shares Their Story in Making Eternal Strands", in which the Yellow Brick Games leadership team are interviewed on the founding of their studio and their journey to their first project]