EA: The latest installment of this beloved single player franchise just isn’t making enough money.
EA: Could it be because the game was released unfinished, doesn’t have anymore to do in it than previous, smaller installments of the franchise yet has far larger environments to traverse? Is it because we put integral story elements in premium DLC? Is it because we keep trying to force microtransactions and multiplayer on you!?
EA: Nah, single players games just suck.
- Don’t buy Battlefront 2
Over the weekend, there was a bit of a controversy involving the upcoming release Star Wars Battlefront 2.
EA, the game’s publisher, set character unlocks using the game’s in-game currency exorbitantly high. The price was set at 40,000, which some outlets suggested could take up to 40 hours of playtime. I assume this is worst-case scenario stuff, so I’m going to be generous to EA and say it was probably something like 20 hours of playtime per hero. This was seen as an attempt to not so subtly prod the player into purchasing in-game currency in order to expedite the process.
Monday, EA backpedaled and decided to heavily discount the unlocks. They declared in a tweet that they were listening to fans! And some took this as some sort of victory. This is no victory. This is what EA wanted to happen. Here’s my theory.
Before the big character unlock kerfuffle, there was a bit of a fuss over in-game lootboxes and micro transactions. People were frustrated that apparently the game has pay-to-win features. You can pay real money to have a real advantage over folks in multiplayer. In a $60 AAA release, this is absurd. In a free-to-play mobile game this is expected. This sort of thing is also EA’s main way of making money post release, so having people outright furious about them out of the gate seems bad for business.
So in order to distract from the outrage over this, I think EA set character unlock fees absurdly high in order to manufacture a separate outrage. Yes, they take a short term hit - including having a reddit comment become the most downvoted in the website’s history - but they also stand to earn some long term good will.
For starters, if you cruise the tweet where EA says that they are slashing the cost of these standalone characters, you will see person after person defend the company whenever somebody says they still aren’t purchasing the game. “EA listened! Why are you still mad! I just wanna play a fun Star Wars game!” By backing down from their crazy demands, they seem like they care about customers. So now some people are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt regarding lootboxes. You see the casual “if you don’t like it, don’t play it!” or “you don’t have to buy them!” which are certainly not helpful.
You also have what inevitably comes when a large group of people swarm on one target: death threats. No matter what side of the political spectrum someone is on or what the target is, if enough people get mad about an issue there will always be a couple of angry folks who take things too far. So, when the most downvoted comment in reddit history bring the Internet’s focus onto EA’s monetary scheme, a few crazy people will come with it.
Straight up, death threats are awful, should be taken seriously and are made by some of society’s worst people. Do not make threats at developers. Do not send hateful messages laden with personal insults at developers. Having said that, a company can use these inevitable occurrences to gain sympathy. Waypoint had an article right away on the death threats sent to game developers over this issue. Then the article’s writer, Patrick Klepek, immediately referenced the threats again when EA announced prices were reduced. You would then see people in the comments for the article saying that this sends a message to those sending threats that they work.
The .0001% of humanity that would send these kind of threats aren’t learning anything. If EA doubled down, they’d still make threats. They just do it because it’s in their nature. But because threats were made and EA made sure people knew about them - which is their right because I sure would let people know if a threat was made on my life - there will be people out there who are like “Well shit, if this game doesn’t take off those assholes win! I better buy a lootbox!” It can get in some folks minds that all EA detractors are vile people who hate developers.
A tactic similar to this was used when Mass Effect 3 was receiving hatred over the ending DLC. EA was under fire, so a lot of the shit getting flung at them from a crazy group of people was being brought to the light. It takes the heat off of the company and instead places it elsewhere
It’s all part of advertising. Paint the cynics in a negative light, make it seem like you care about customers or some virtue, and rake in money. EA wants you to remember the shitbags. They want you to remember that they listened to “the most downvoted comment in reddit history”. They want you to forget about the lootbox thing.
Don’t forget. Don’t buy the game if you disagree with this current AAA trend of monetization. They can always find another way. Don’t feel compelled to line some CEO’s wallet. Sadly the game is going to make like 80 billion dollars because it’s STAR WARS, but you don’t have to contribute to that sum.
UPDATE: https://twitter.com/EAStarWars/status/931332890717143040
They turned off micro-transactions. I personally think this is because of Belgium looking into Battlefront 2 and lootboxes as a form of gambling. BIG BRAND Star Wars + gambling = controversy the Disney overlords probably don’t want. 
After this very detailed article about the development of Anthem and the state of Bioware as a studio by Jason Shreier over at Kotaku I feel like this outcome is a matter of when not if to be quite honest.
- Dear Dragon Age Community!
Let me start by saying that I don’t want to sound like an entitled gamer, but it’s been confirmed that Dragon Age 4 is currently in production. That said, I want to send BioWare and EA a list of suggestions that I think most fans of the saga would like to see. If you agree with this list, please reblog with #Bioware, #EA, and #Dragon Age so hopefully both companies will see this post and take my suggestions to heart. Feel free to add your own suggestions as well. If you’re anything like me, Dragon Age is near and dear to your heart and you really want them to blow our minds with another epic sequel! Wardens, Champions, and Inquisitors unite!
1. Don’t rush it! I know hardcore gamers can be pretty intimidating, to the point that they nag and threaten and force you to release a game early– but don’t give in! Just know that they don’t represent the majority of us. Most of us would rather wait and for a glitch-less, well-rounded game, than a half-assed, heavily bugged disaster that’s barely tolerable to play. If it’s obvious that a lot of heart and soul went into the final product, we’ll stand by you and denounce the haters every step of the way.
2. Beta testing. Remember that consoles and PCs work differently. Please ensure that the game runs smoothly on all systems, not just one. I realise that PC gamers generate almost 50% of all sales, and that that number is only growing, but that doesn’t mean console gamers should be forgotten. We’re still diehard fans who simply can’t afford a $2000 PC.
3. More kick-ass companions with one personal quest (or more) for each one. If there’s one thing we love about BioWare, it’s their colourful characters and awesome companion interactions. Please give these characters as much thought as possible. Each one should be someone’s pet project, because each one should have a unique personality. You nailed it in DAI and we hope to see that kind of dedication and creativity again!
4. Romance options. I understand that it’s hard to please everyone, but there should be several options for every orientation. Don’t forget your target audience. I hate to say it but video games are mostly dominated by straight men, and in DAI straight men only had two choices– Cassandra, who’s a bit too brutish for most, and Josephine, who isn’t even a main companion. In contrast, gay men only had two choices as well– Dorian and Iron Bull. Straight women had more options than most, but one of their choices was a liar (Blackwall) and the other was a heartbreaker (Solas). And lesbian women got the shortest stick with Sera as their only option for romance. What I’m saying is, we need more variety. It might be a difficult feat, but we’ll definitely appreciate it.
5. Story. Most gamers don’t even care about graphics or setting, so long as the story’s good. Please do your best to come up with a gripping narrative that we’ll love to follow. We also want to see a great conclusion to the cliff hanger DAI left us with. I think many of us are expecting Solas to be the main antagonist of Dragon Age 4, and it would be incredible to see how that plays out.
6. Story import. Please don’t tell us we played through three games only for our choices to be stricken from the experience now. Please allow us to import our world state from DAI. You’ve done a fabulous job connecting the stories so far, and we’re dying to continue it.
7. Don’t break our hearts. A little pain is fine. A little sorrow it fine. Audiences love being moved, but no one wants to finish a game and walk away feeling emotionally butchered. You can tug at our heartstrings, but please don’t shred it into a million pieces.
8. Speaking of broken hearts … please tell us that Hawke is still alive if we chose to leave him/her in the Fade.
9. Throwbacks to the original games. You’ve done a great job with this so far, so all we ask is that you keep at it! It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside when we see characters from the old days, or find a fun little Easter egg. It’s very nostalgic and we need that. Enchantment!
10. Make our choices matter. Please. We want to see the impact of our choices and how they affect everyone and everything around us. We want to think before we act, not act with the knowledge that it won’t matter.
11. Allow us to save and import/export our character profiles. In DAI, it was rough having to recreate the same face if we lost/restarted a game.
12. Keep the same combat system! It literally kicks ass! The only thing I can recommended is more specials. Remember, there’s no point in fixing something that isn’t broken.
13. Continue to let us build and colour our armour/outfits. That was an awesome bonus that was a lot of fun for DAI players. It was a great way to let us express our individuality as players, and I for one spent hours finding the perfect armour for my character and companions.
14. Don’t experiment. Please. You nailed the graphics in DAI, and that’s all we could ever ask for.
15. Jumping! Jumping is important, and we’re so happy you included it in DAI! Please keep the jump feature!
16. Multiple voices for the main character. I understand that hiring voice actors is expensive, but if you’re able, I highly suggest you follow this pattern for Dragon Age 4. Having so many choices really made DAI go the extra mile for so many people.
17. Can we have a mabari, please? :)
18. The amount of side quests and locations to explore in DAI was absolutely stunning. There’s a reason DAI was awarded Game of the Year and considered a fan favourite, and this was one of them. I think most of us would be overjoyed to see the same variety of maps and quests available in Dragon Age 4.
19. Don’t kill Varric. You can trick us into thinking he’s dead for a while. Hell, you can even injure him, if you want. But don’t kill him. That would be … such a dick move.
20. Good character presets. Please give us decent templates. Something that we can mould into a character we can all be proud of. Please don’t limit our options.
Again, these aren’t demands, just suggestions. I personally won’t send out death threats or burn down buildings if these suggestions aren’t met. XD
But as a long-time fan of Dragon Age … I will be very hurt if BioWare doesn’t listen to their fans on this. A lot of people are looking forward to Dragon Age 4, and we’re ready to help you make it something that will be remembered for generations of games to come!Ma serannas!
- New Mass Effect: Andromeda Rumors
So I’m sure that by now, even people who aren’t fans of Mass Efffect are aware of the latest game’s facial animation issues, and many fans of the series have been asking “How could a massive AAA game with millions of dollars and years of development time shit the bed so hard on such an important part of the game?”
Well, it may not have been the fault of the development team, and the blame can instead be laid at the feet of Upper Management at BioWare.
Liam Robertson AKA Game History Guy over on YouTube made this video on the subject. This is all stuff that should be taken with a grain of salt, and may not be entirely true, but it is all certainly plausible. For anyoen who is unable or doesn’t have the time to watch the entire video, here are the key points.
According to his source at BioWare, the reason the animations are so bad is due to the use of CyberScan technology, which can scan a person into the game and create a high-quality model of the person, however, the technology is not to the point where it alone can create a model all on its own, and the 3-D model it creates then needs to be sent to an animator, but it is a fantastic tool for creating a base to work on.
After the Cyberscan Process was complete, instead of letting the game’s development team work on it, the human character models were instead outsourced to various development studios associated with EA, no one is quite sure which ones, but it seems that EA Bucharest in Romania did a lot of the work. But the real kicker are the reasons behind this decision.
While business costs are certainly lower in Romania due to a much lower labor cost, that was apparently NOT the reason that this decision was made. The main reason was because Upper Management at BioWare did not consider the facial animations to be enough of a priority for the main dev team to spend time on, in spite of the Development Team insisting otherwise, and instead sent these animations out to various studios, and had the Main team work on Hard Surface Assets like Enviornments and ships, as well as a few robotic characters and some of the aliens.
Also cited as a reason was a “Corporate Culture of Political Correctness” and a fear that the in-house team would make the characters (not just the female characters, but all characters) “too attractive” and alienate some audiences.
If this turns out to be true, then this has got to be a new level of corporate incompetence, deciding that Facial animations and character modeling is unimportant in a heavily story and character-driven game where you will spend a significant amount of time staring directly at those faces and models and animations has got to be some kind of record for “Worst Decision Ever Made Concerning a Video Game.” This would be like if Blizzard decided to outsource the shooting mechanics in Overwatch to some other studio.
It goes without saying that this all needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but if this is true, then What the Actual Fuck is wrong with BioWare’s upper management.
Wait…..y’all seriously defending the lack of seasons and toddlers now? This is why EA has your money and not dropping anything. If this was the first time we were getting either of those things I could understand the wait….but Sims 4? Where they keep focusing on emotions instead of actual gameplay? You must like to be easily parted with your money. Look at all the things we did have before Seasons though.
Want to see more posts tagged #electronic arts?
Sign up for Tumblr