Everybody loves to dump on EA for wrecking companies like BioWare and escalating microtransactions and lockboxes to ludicrous heights, but is it warranted? Kotaku recently spoke to former BioWare studio boss Aaryn Flynn for the skinny.

“I think there’s this perspective among gamers – angry gamers – that EA comes along and buys studios and ruins them, or EA is forcing microtransactions,” Kotaku suggests. But Flynn isn’t having any.

“I think they are a great company to be a part of because they care very much about the creative process – they care about that – so they want you to be successful, and they will do whatever they can to help you be successful. Every company’s got constraints […] but they are excellent at giving creative freedom for sure.”

Later, Flynn further says there’s “no mandate” in EA to buy up studios and shut them down, as this would be stupid, but that he’s certainly noticed the pattern; he just thinks it’s more about the speed of the industry and turnover in the studios themselves.

And what about lootboxes? Flynn quickly rejects the idea that EA is forcing its substudios to inject lockboxes into every crevice of its games, simply noting that EA’s business plan is “ambitious” and not particular controversial in and of itself.

You can listen to the whole podcast on Kotaku; YouTuber YongYea has some of the salient bits pulled out with analysis if you just want the short version.