Anthem - EA’s next PR disaster after BF 5

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That's true. With that said, Dragon Age 2 took place in a setting not seen in the first game and only mentioned in the DLC expansion. I'm assuming they didn't plan out Kirkwall's layout, civics, history, etc, when they were planning Ferelden and the lore seen in Origins, based solely on how poorly thought out the end result was in Dragon Age 2. That year deadline might not have been the only reason the series went to shit but it did not help anything.



Last time I looked on the official Bioware forums, they constantly talk about that and all sorts of degenerate garbage. If your wondering why Bioware games are now cringey dating sims with awful gameplay, part of that is because EA knows they need to appeal to the people who make up their official forums.

Don't believe me? Take a look at this as an example, and imagine a whole community made up of people like him.

View attachment 658579

I already knew what that was before even looking at the thumbnail, let alone clicking on it.

Only on the Bioware Social Network (They don't call it a forum!) would someone make an analysis of what a character's sweat tastes like.
 
Remember when being banned from the Biodrone Forums also got you banned from their Origin launcher, thus essentially making it impossible to play your games when you get banned from the forum?

Good times.

Have they ever changed how that works?
 
Okay guys, that was years ago, I'm sure they learned that it's painful and moved on from making things this awkward in their games....

https://youtube.com/watch?v=PgT-uWQHZG4
...oh.

FaU.gif

"Did you recognize my voice when I said 'Freelancer'?"
 
That's because Frostbite was purpose-built to make Battlefield-style games, and because Mirror's Edge Catalyst was made by the same studio, so they had familiarity to tweak it to work for Mirror's Edge.

The problem with EA's obsession with forcing the engine on all their other studios is that Frostbite frequently lacks features necessary to make games in a non-FPS genre, and those studios are forced to develop the engine themselves, with what I assume is some token level of assistance from the experts at DICE. So the engine becomes increasingly unstable as more and more cooks are shoved into the metaphorical kitchen.

There's a lot of hype over how bad Frostbite is.

To make a list of developers using the engine:
Popcap - works fine
Ghost - works fine
DICE - works fine
Sports studios - works fine
BioWare - waaaah Frostbite is shit and hard to use, all our talent left years ago but that's unrelated

Hm.

So there's a lot of whining from current day Bioware, the Bioware most will agree is a fucked to death husk of its former self.
 
I expected Anthem to be a shitty clone of a shitty game (Destiny) and wouldn't have even bothered with the demo or beta or whatever except other people I play with wanted to try it. I came away with the impression that, except for suffering through 5FPS in the hub in the beginning (and what a lifeless hub it is) the game was actually a fairly competent clone of a shitty game.

I guess I'm surprised because I thought the whole thing would be a dumpster fire, but I'm not impressed. It's really sad that the same company (in name) that created Baldur's Gate, KOTOR and DAO has to stake its future on this derivative cash grab. I'd say I wonder what the excuses will be when it doesn't make enough money to please shareholders but we've heard it all before.
 
I expected Anthem to be a shitty clone of a shitty game (Destiny) and wouldn't have even bothered with the demo or beta or whatever except other people I play with wanted to try it. I came away with the impression that, except for suffering through 5FPS in the hub in the beginning (and what a lifeless hub it is) the game was actually a fairly competent clone of a shitty game.

I guess I'm surprised because I thought the whole thing would be a dumpster fire, but I'm not impressed. It's really sad that the same company (in name) that created Baldur's Gate, KOTOR and DAO has to stake its future on this derivative cash grab. I'd say I wonder what the excuses will be when it doesn't make enough money to please shareholders but we've heard it all before.

I think the issue is that companies don't have faith in the player base sticking around. Remember one summer when PUBG was the biggest game in the world and by the end of the year every kid in america is doing Fortnite dances?

I don't want to make it seem like I'm defending shitty business practices, but devs can't be sure that games will retain an audience long enough for them to milk it as they see fit. That's why I believe we've seen such a rise in the "pump and dump" marketing schemes. Enjoyment of the game doesn't matter after the purchase is made, because even if you return it, some schmuck in a meeting room gets to add the initial transaction to the launch day sales. So essentially the gaming industry has devolved into a marketing battleground, where generating hype is the only thing that matters. I'm not surprised this is the route they took with ANTHEM, cus it's a sweet looking game with the right buzzwords to get dummies to preorder.

The sad part is that this strategy is all a short term game, when they'd be making more money in the long term by winning the support and trust of their own consumer base.
 
Okay guys, that was years ago, I'm sure they learned that it's painful and moved on from making things this awkward in their games....
Hell if you think that was bad, did you watch the video Ponderous Pillock posted? (Start it at 2 min). I know Bioware's drank the SJW Kool-aids and their writing has been going downhill for like a decade now, but holy fuck was that atrocious and saying it gave me cancer/aids isn't a strong enough description. To those who played the demo; how noticeable was that stuttering/juddering effect while flying around? The video makes it look awful and puts me right off.

While everybody hates EA for killing their favourite studios, i can only hope they have the mercy to pull the trigger on Bioware soon and put it out of it's sad existence.
 
I think the issue is that companies don't have faith in the player base sticking around. Remember one summer when PUBG was the biggest game in the world and by the end of the year every kid in america is doing Fortnite dances?

I don't want to make it seem like I'm defending shitty business practices, but devs can't be sure that games will retain an audience long enough for them to tard cum it as they see fit. That's why I believe we've seen such a rise in the "pump and dump" marketing schemes. Enjoyment of the game doesn't matter after the purchase is made, because even if you return it, some schmuck in a meeting room gets to add the initial transaction to the launch day sales. So essentially the gaming industry has devolved into a marketing battleground, where generating hype is the only thing that matters. I'm not surprised this is the route they took with ANTHEM, cus it's a sweet looking game with the right buzzwords to get dummies to preorder.

The sad part is that this strategy is all a short term game, when they'd be making more money in the long term by winning the support and trust of their own consumer base.


I think that is more of an issue with games becoming more and more multiplayer focused. Most AAA games have online interactions in some capacity,I'm not just talking about online store, I think publishers don't have faith that well crafted linear single player game. It always to to be a combination of Always online/open world/RPG/"choices matter" game. I think AAA games is going the way of Massive movie studios where 1 movie has to make up all the income for the year. They also have the mindset of if they don't have 100% of the market share they have non of it. Just like how desprate E.A was for a few years to turn Battlefield into a C.O.D Killer or just find one in general.

Honestly i just hope this game is just inoffensive.I most likely going to play to because of friends so i just hope it Average or at least funny to laugh at.
 
To those who played the demo; how noticeable was that stuttering/juddering effect while flying around? The video makes it look awful and puts me right off.

When I wasn't in rubberband hell, there wasn't any stuttering in flight. But every time I went out in the sandbox zones there was basically a 50-50 chance of the rubberbands. This is during the first demo weekend, I dunno if they fixed it for the second. I know they said they were going to, but, well. Game developers and promises. I didn't get to play during the second weekend to see if it was fixed.
 
Hell if you think that was bad, did you watch the video Ponderous Pillock posted? (Start it at 2 min).
Watching this video is like watching a movie grade cinematic and then suddenly getting punted to Oblivion tier faces.
 
Remember when being banned from the Biodrone Forums also got you banned from their Origin launcher, thus essentially making it impossible to play your games when you get banned from the forum?

Good times.

Have they ever changed how that works?
They have in that the Bioware Social Network was closed entirely and never replaced. It became too spergy for Bioware community managers. Imagine that for awhile.
 
Funny how Bioware shut down the forums 6 months before they released ME: Andromeda.
 
I never got anyone's attachment to Shepard anyway beyond as a self insertion power fantasy thing. They're just a bland blank slate.
Shepard is a professional (wo)man of action. He's not the most powerful personality but he gets the job done. He's a space Navy SEAL with years of combat experience. Seeing him in a scenario taken straight out of fanfiction is awkward and weird. This is also why Andromeda sucks. No one takes anything seriously. We went from a group of taciturn commandos to a bunch of fucking teenagers.
 
I never got anyone's attachment to Shepard anyway beyond as a self insertion power fantasy thing. They're just a bland blank slate.
Shepard got fans because even though they weren't a heavily defined personality by themselves you would still end up with something rather believable and consistent going down either the renegade or paragon path (or mix it the right way and you get Paragade and Renegon). As a result, Shepard would come alive in a way you guided and you'd see them handle problems in a tough way throughout the trilogy. This especially comes into play with how the voice acting came through in the series as time went on.
 
I saw someone else linked the article about the EA stock crashing, but I wasn't sure you'd seen this one.
‘Portfolio-balancing considerations’ trump production completion for EA game launches, executives say

EA will launch “Anthem” in 2019 to coincide with its fiscal fourth quarter.

The hard-hearted realities of investor demands on quarterly results determine when videogame publisher Electronic Arts Inc. releases new titles such as its forthcoming “Anthem,” not when the product is actually completed by developers, executives said Tuesday.

After a report last week of a monthslong delay for the key EA title “Anthem,” originally set for release in fall 2018, executives admitted Tuesday the game will debut in early 2019 instead, but said it was not due to delays in the development of the game. The real reason: The company determines game launches by the numbers, a measured calculus of the top and bottom line, and the ability of EA to meet expectations that Wall Street and investors set for financial performance.

“We’ve chosen to launch ‘Anthem’ in Q4, and the date is really determined by portfolio-balancing considerations, not for product-readiness reasons,” EA Chief Executive Andrew Wilson said on the earnings call. “It doesn’t make sense to launch ‘Anthem’ right up next to [another AAA title] and when you think about ‘Anthem’ as a brand new [intellectual property], we also believe it makes sense to give [‘Anthem’] its own launch window so that we can give it the focus and attention it deserves and give it free air.”

Wilson went on to say “Anthem,” which the company launched with massive fanfare at a videogame show last year, was on track with its “development milestones” and that executives were “really confident in its ship date.” While it’s possible EA executives were trying to play down problems in its BioWare unit, Wall Street’s thirst for results — and the lengths companies go to please investors — can’t be dismissed.

Investors sent EA stock EA, +16.05% up 6.3% in late trading following the company’s fiscal-third quarter earnings. EA stock has gained 42% in the past year, with the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.07% rising 25%.

Heading into the company’s earnings, investors were watching for executive commentary around “Star Wars: Battlefront 2,” which had a rocky release during the quarter. On the call, executives said that the “Star Wars” title did not sell as well as expected — “It was a learning experience,” said Wilson — but the company’s live videogame events business performed better than expected.

Videogame rival Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. TTWO, +0.78% reports results Feb. 7, and Activision Blizzard Inc. ATVI, -1.25% is scheduled to release earnings Feb. 8. Both will do so after markets close.
A basic TL;DR can be summed up by this quote: “We’ve chosen to launch ‘Anthem’ in Q4, and the date is really determined by portfolio-balancing considerations, not for product-readiness reasons,” EA Chief Executive Andrew Wilson said

Literally every question you have, from why it looks so ugly, why it's so empty, why it's being launched so weird, it answers pretty much all of them, except maybe why it's called the Bob Dylan of video games. It's whole existence is to strategically wring pennies out of mongoloids to make up for their biggest franchise (Battlefield) going belly up. And they're hedging it all on a brand new IP, that by their own admission isn't finished, made by a studio they've gutted and bled all the good will out of. This isn't just Bioware's public execution, this is the bullet ricocheting and also shooting EA's own knee caps off. Instead of actually finishing a game and trying to do literally anything to please their customers they are doubling down on their insistence to fuck you in the ass with no lube. At least nobody's lining up for $69.99 poz-ings anymore.

I'm fully erect in anticipation of what's to come tomorrow and the days that follow.
 
Listening to these kikes coldly dissect video games as soulless products made to please Wall Street shitbags is always skin-crawling. It's not news, but you can only grasp the full measure of how awful EA and other AAA publishers are when you see them shamelessly discussing how well they've managed to empty your wallet that year.
 
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