Hmm, the bashing of Electronic Arts confuses me.
EA has made great games in the past. Even if you avoid the cookie-cutter Madden games (and everything EA Sports does, which is an off-shoot but still technically EA) there is a library of EA games that have been successful with and without BioWare, like Dead Space (which spawned at least two great-looking games but I've never played the third one).
BioWare was bought up by EA in/around 2009/2010. Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age II, Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and (I believe) Star Wars: The Old Republic all were developed/indev for this acquisition. And all these games did well (and several got MANY awards). While ME:A was a bit of a let-down, and I would like to throw BioWare: Montreal under the bus for this one, I would say that the biggest flaw (so many to chose from) was bad management; it was a rushed project. Anthem wasn't necessarily poorly made (graphically, it was very pretty) and the story was enticing (I still want to rip off Owen Corley's head off and shit down his neck; that's good story-writing!), but it really lacked that zing and sadly, making a Single Player/Multiplayer hybrid hasn't quite turned out the way people thought it might.
Now I've discussed that I thought the game would likely come out in what I thought might be a year sooner; I'm not disappointed in being wrong and that the timeline is to the right/later. Very few of us understand the complexities of making a video game, and technology is certainly always evolving. This long timeline tells me a few things.
1) New Engine - The scripting and testing of these things take time. And we all know what a great engine can do. A great game makes a video game company money. A great engine makes a video game company's future (how long did the Unreal Engine last? The Quake one? My God... the ID/Doom Engine that was cloned more times than a Star Wars Clone Trooper?)
2) New Platform - Honestly this is probably the big one. We all know that Xbox is coming out with the latest and greatest soon... as well as PlayStation. DA:I came out when there was about a year left with the PS/XB platforms, and then did a re-release (thus robbing us twice, I tip my hat off to you profiteers). They are making the game probably in conjuction with the coding and the liscences for distribution (things that I know of in an off-hand manner, but don't understand the layers involved)
3) Story-development - We know that Tevinter Nights is coming out; this isn't a mistake or some way to placate us. The previous books that came out before the games were teasers, not always about the game, but I think they were testing waters to see the level of interest as well as seeing at what we *the consumer* would want. BW has been pretty good at trying to keep abreast with what we want (perhaps not always succeeding, but they certainly do try their damnedest to stay true with their fans; I commend them for that!) so I think a lot of this time is probably going to deal with the richness of the story and the details of the world. This has always been one of BW's strong points (with a hiccup with DAII) and I think that, considering games of the past and the continuing of releasing media for interest, BW is keeping this point near the top of the priority list.
4) Seriously, making games is a pain in the ass! - @Silver Warden makes a good point; people come and go from dev teams all the time, but its usually the director and the producers that 'make' the game (see Justice League movie on what happens when you change the director halfway, especially two big names known to make great movies and having... lukewarm soup). Thousands of people and dozens of companies are involved, things outsourced and projects handled on the side to see if they even work. A good director/producer is a make/break deal, and even then, we don't always end up with grand slams or even home runs (I'm thinking of some past Assassin's Creed games). Despite the obvious rush and some of the sillier things about DAII, it did get a good reception. I think the first thing I'd look at is the dev team.
5) Time Spent ='s Quality Spent - While I wouldn't always say that the longer you spend on a game, the better it is, but it's certainly true that a rushed game generally turns out a flub. So it might take a few years [ :'-( ] for the next Dragon Age to come out; in my mind, this means they are taking it seriously. I haven't heard of an installment for Mass Effect (or God... ANTHEM) in the works, so I assume that DA is the primary focus.
Hopefully, BioWare has learned its lesson about rushing games to put a product on a shelf; and please stop trying to tout another 'clean-up' version of Baldur's Gate? I'm not paying $50 for a nearly-20 year old game with the same engine and graphics that a controller can't handle (thanks, MAD DOG!).