SWTOR wasn't really treated as a true "Bioware" project for the longest time.

First, a little history. The original Bioware studio in Edmonton was the one responsible for the "modern" Bioware titles - Neverwinter, Jade Empire, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect. SWTOR was primarily built by a separate studio in Austin with a separate org chart. The only thing that really tied SWTOR's early development to Bioware was the name on the studio and the general style of game it was. The contributions of Bioware Edmonton to SWTOR were primarily limited to the original staff sent to start the Austin studio and the on-rails space shooter mode in SWTOR. During this era, Bioware and SWTOR were basically associated in name only. There was minimal marketing or promotion for SWTOR from Bioware as a brand.

A few years later, EA corporate started an initiative called "One Bioware" which essentially brought Edmonton, Austin, and the newly formed Montreal studios under the same studio leadership to work on "Bioware" projects. SWTOR is still a "legacy" project - it's getting long in the tooth, it isn't growing, and the technology is old. It wasn't the hot new thing to promote, and the team building it felt the neglect from above. SWTOR actually had a Rennaisance period, with Knights of the Fallen Empire bringing in a huge number of additional subscribers and player growth, but that was mostly ignored by Bioware at large. Dragon Age Inquisition got all the fanfare, then a bunch of people were pulled from SWTOR to support Andromeda and Anthem.

A perfect example is the Bioware 25th anniversary book, 300+ pages of history about all the games and such that Bioware built over their run. Ten pages of the 300+ were dedicated to SWTOR, despite SWTOR having been live for 9 years by that point and SWTOR being the financial engine keeping the entire org afloat. It's strongly emblematic of how it made the dev team feel and how much Bioware as an organization cared about the game.

After 2020, EA was looking to decrease costs. Broadsword had already proven themselves by taking on some of EA's other legacy MMO projects (Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online) and doing well with them. Broadsword made the offer to take on SWTOR, along with hiring as many of the SWTOR dev team as they could take. Many of the veteran team members, weary of the treatment at Bioware, decided to take it. It's hard to blame them - Bioware as an organization never really seemed to understand or appreciate the SWTOR contributions beyond the revenue it generated. Bioware didn't give much acknowledgement to the game or the team, internal or external.

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