User blog comment:StagedDom19/Missing the Main Problem/@comment-2076032-20120709133005/@comment-4807396-20120711075745

The main problems with generating wildly different content based on plot variables are time and money; namely, it would take a crap ton of both to make it happen. Games, like all commercial software, are built to a budget and many developers (Blizzard and Valve being notable exceptions) set deadlines for their game's dev cycles. And very few publishers would agree to risk bankruptcy by throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at a project that won't see returns for another 5 or 6 years; risk-averse development is one of the ugly truths of professional game design. On the topic taking out sidequests based on story decisions, it goes against BioWare's design philosophy to punish players by withholding content; they try to make the content different, rather than having more or less of it. "Story-driven game" doesn't mean "the story dictates the gameplay"; games are not stories, after all. And if you ask me, the majority of complaints against the games are essentially hype backlash, since BioWare has done plenty to generate hype for this game series.