Pretty much everything people suspected seems to be true: personnel issues, much shorter actual dev time than 6 years, rushed out the door because EA and money. The Bioware gamers knew and loved...
Pretty much everything people suspected seems to be true: personnel issues, much shorter actual dev time than 6 years, rushed out the door because EA and money. The Bioware gamers knew and loved is gone.
EA gets a lot of shit, but in this case their only crime seems to have been giving Bioware enough rope (resources) to hang themselves. Look at this part: This is the sort of thing that doesn't...
EA gets a lot of shit, but in this case their only crime seems to have been giving Bioware enough rope (resources) to hang themselves. Look at this part:
Within the studio, there’s a term called “BioWare magic.” It’s a belief that no matter how rough a game’s production might be, things will always come together in the final months. The game will always coalesce. It happened on the Mass Effect trilogy, on Dragon Age: Origins, and on Inquisition. Veteran BioWare developers like to refer to production as a hockey stick—it’s flat for a while, and then it suddenly jolts upward. Even when a project feels like a complete disaster, there’s a belief that with enough hard work—and enough difficult crunch—it’ll all come together.
This is the sort of thing that doesn't scale. Small, dedicated teams with focused projects can pull it off. But sprawling teams with project scopes that go all over the place cannot. I think they just grew past the point where heroic effort from individual contributors was able to make up for shoddy project management. Especially as most of the original individual contributors who brought a lot of inherited tribal knowledge have slowly moved on to new things.
They had to stick to the release deadline because of EA's fiscal year. Granted, they had already had plenty of time, but EA and money was a factor in its release state.
They had to stick to the release deadline because of EA's fiscal year. Granted, they had already had plenty of time, but EA and money was a factor in its release state.
It's worth noting that Bioware refused to comment for the article, but drafted and published their response before reading the story. Lines like this are especially interesting after reading the...
It's worth noting that Bioware refused to comment for the article, but drafted and published their response before reading the story. Lines like this are especially interesting after reading the content that's actually in the Kotaku article:
We don’t see the value in tearing down one another, or one another’s work. We don’t believe articles that do that are making our industry and craft better.
While this does a good job explaining why the game has a spotty story and launched with quite a few bugs and broken features, it does not explain how the game "went wrong" in a way I feel is...
While this does a good job explaining why the game has a spotty story and launched with quite a few bugs and broken features, it does not explain how the game "went wrong" in a way I feel is adequate.
The game got a 55 not just because of the issues mentioned above, but because the core design of progression and gameplay was stale. This game could have easily been saved by a responsive development team. For example, one weekend shortly after launch there was a bug that caused drop rates to be higher than intended. Despite nearly all of the comments in social media being positive, they decided to "fix" the problem. This is a core disconnect from the desired experience of your audience and those developing the game.
Because the game was rushed I have no doubt that the play testing was extremely limited and they did not have time to gather adequate data from those who can help influence core design issues such as how often loot drops and how loot and characters progress. However, they had a chance to listen to this after the game was released and did not. The core designers of the game were unfortunately set in stone with their ideas, and their ideas about the genre were ignorant of 5+ years of evolution going on in said genre.
I very much enjoyed the core gameplay of Anthem. Most people who play looter shooters want a decent story, but even the best story won't keep players coming back if there isn't a sense of progression. The core sense of progression can be built upon by adding in more variety, but honestly even repetitive missions can seem fresh if you have the ability to experiment and create new builds which allow you to play your character in a fresh new way. With limited loot, you simply don't have this chance, and game play becomes stale fast.
Great article. It made something more clear for me that I had trouble putting my finger on, which is flying. It sounded so cool in theory, but it felt so underwhelming in practice. What was...
Great article. It made something more clear for me that I had trouble putting my finger on, which is flying. It sounded so cool in theory, but it felt so underwhelming in practice. What was missing?
The article says that the team went back and forth on whether or not to even include flying, and I think it shows. They obviously decided to leave flight in, but didn't seem to want to commit to it—you can fly, but it feels very limited and awkward, a far cry from the sorts of things shown in the Iron Man movies, for example. If the developers and management had zeroed in on flight as one of the defining aspects of the game, a major hook, I think we would've seen some much more impressive stuff, like real aerial combat (not just hovering while shooting). Maybe the world itself would have been built differently if flying didn't cause overheating.
I'm just picking on one aspect here, but it fits the theme that the game was missing direction. Anthem seems generic because it couldn't be focused in one direction, and that lack of direction seems to have caused a massive amount of wasted work for the developers. It's a shame, I (like many) had high hopes for this game and its potential.
Semi-related, and I haven't read the article yet, but: Just from the marketing material I've absorbed passively (pre-release opinions and YT-ads mostly) I'd have never guessed that anthem is a...
Semi-related, and I haven't read the article yet, but: Just from the marketing material I've absorbed passively (pre-release opinions and YT-ads mostly) I'd have never guessed that anthem is a bioware game, it's just so far out of what I'd think they'd do. Bioware seemed like a company making RPGs and maybe an MMO here and there, and now they're making a looter-shooter-coop kinda thing? I hardly believe this was their own idea. It has EA written all over it.
It's my understanding that multiplayer was an idea at BW as early as ME1. Of course both ME3 and ME:A ended up with MP, so the MP focus of Anthem isn't as big a surprise to me. I do think EA's...
It's my understanding that multiplayer was an idea at BW as early as ME1. Of course both ME3 and ME:A ended up with MP, so the MP focus of Anthem isn't as big a surprise to me. I do think EA's insistence on continuing monetization pushed BW even more in that direction; one ME3 dev said that one player spent $15k on ME3 loot crates. tl;dr EA probably indirectly pushed them in this direction but I don't think it was an EA mandate.
People like to blame EA for this, but I think it really shines a light more on how much of a total mess Bioware itself was and is. The point that the entire first half of the article makes is that...
People like to blame EA for this, but I think it really shines a light more on how much of a total mess Bioware itself was and is. The point that the entire first half of the article makes is that Anthem wasnt even a game when they pulled the trigger on production. It was a loose collection of "oh that would be cool" ideas that might or might not work, which eventually emerged as a generic trend-following ideas because that was what was easiest to implement.
It was headed by a leadership team that didnt know what they were trying to make, and as a result, had everyone throw ideas at a wall until enough stuck to scrape off and ball together. That led to frustrated employees who felt like the game didnt have direction because, well, it didnt have direction.
As for the complaints about the limitation of frostbite, so what? It wasnt implemented halfway through development, and you knew what you were getting from the start. There was time to actually train employees and develop a structure around using it, but it didnt happen. If you know all you have is spoons, you serve soup, not steak. Deal with it!
I havent even gotten to the part where EA ended up involved, but even these points, to me, spelled doom for the game well before anything the publisher mightve pushed in. In order to make a game, you have to know what you want the game to be first, and that sounds like something that Bioware has never been able to do, they just finally ran out of luck in their process.
do you think people cashed out / left after being acquired by EA? I'm not sure about gaming studios but it's pretty common in tech companies when shitty companies like IBM or Oracle end up buying...
do you think people cashed out / left after being acquired by EA? I'm not sure about gaming studios but it's pretty common in tech companies when shitty companies like IBM or Oracle end up buying people up.
I have no idea. The article hints that they have trouble finding talent, and it woulsnt surprise me that "EA owned" is part of the reason why, but the mass exodus could just as easily be because...
I have no idea. The article hints that they have trouble finding talent, and it woulsnt surprise me that "EA owned" is part of the reason why, but the mass exodus could just as easily be because of the aforementioned culture, and people jumping ship.
Yeah, my understanding is that BioWare was in the state it was precisely because of all the staff turnover following the EA acquisition. After all of the original stakeholders were out, what...
Yeah, my understanding is that BioWare was in the state it was precisely because of all the staff turnover following the EA acquisition. After all of the original stakeholders were out, what remained was BioWare in name only. This was before Dragon Age: Inquisition, if we're establishing a timeline (personally, I thought that game was a mess too, but I guess it compares favorably to what they've released in the years since then).
This sounds like every creative brainstorming exercise I've been a part of though.
It was headed by a leadership team that didnt know what they were trying to make, and as a result, had everyone throw ideas at a wall until enough stuck to scrape off and ball together.
This sounds like every creative brainstorming exercise I've been a part of though.
Pretty much everything people suspected seems to be true: personnel issues, much shorter actual dev time than 6 years, rushed out the door because EA and money. The Bioware gamers knew and loved is gone.
BW response: http://blog.bioware.com/2019/04/02/anthem-game-development/
EA gets a lot of shit, but in this case their only crime seems to have been giving Bioware enough rope (resources) to hang themselves. Look at this part:
This is the sort of thing that doesn't scale. Small, dedicated teams with focused projects can pull it off. But sprawling teams with project scopes that go all over the place cannot. I think they just grew past the point where heroic effort from individual contributors was able to make up for shoddy project management. Especially as most of the original individual contributors who brought a lot of inherited tribal knowledge have slowly moved on to new things.
They had to stick to the release deadline because of EA's fiscal year. Granted, they had already had plenty of time, but EA and money was a factor in its release state.
That’s just a factor with any publisher though. Being too lax about deadlines gets you Daikatana.
Crunching the game into the fiscal year got us Anthem. Surely there's a happy medium.
It's worth noting that Bioware refused to comment for the article, but drafted and published their response before reading the story. Lines like this are especially interesting after reading the content that's actually in the Kotaku article:
While this does a good job explaining why the game has a spotty story and launched with quite a few bugs and broken features, it does not explain how the game "went wrong" in a way I feel is adequate.
The game got a 55 not just because of the issues mentioned above, but because the core design of progression and gameplay was stale. This game could have easily been saved by a responsive development team. For example, one weekend shortly after launch there was a bug that caused drop rates to be higher than intended. Despite nearly all of the comments in social media being positive, they decided to "fix" the problem. This is a core disconnect from the desired experience of your audience and those developing the game.
Because the game was rushed I have no doubt that the play testing was extremely limited and they did not have time to gather adequate data from those who can help influence core design issues such as how often loot drops and how loot and characters progress. However, they had a chance to listen to this after the game was released and did not. The core designers of the game were unfortunately set in stone with their ideas, and their ideas about the genre were ignorant of 5+ years of evolution going on in said genre.
I very much enjoyed the core gameplay of Anthem. Most people who play looter shooters want a decent story, but even the best story won't keep players coming back if there isn't a sense of progression. The core sense of progression can be built upon by adding in more variety, but honestly even repetitive missions can seem fresh if you have the ability to experiment and create new builds which allow you to play your character in a fresh new way. With limited loot, you simply don't have this chance, and game play becomes stale fast.
Great article. It made something more clear for me that I had trouble putting my finger on, which is flying. It sounded so cool in theory, but it felt so underwhelming in practice. What was missing?
The article says that the team went back and forth on whether or not to even include flying, and I think it shows. They obviously decided to leave flight in, but didn't seem to want to commit to it—you can fly, but it feels very limited and awkward, a far cry from the sorts of things shown in the Iron Man movies, for example. If the developers and management had zeroed in on flight as one of the defining aspects of the game, a major hook, I think we would've seen some much more impressive stuff, like real aerial combat (not just hovering while shooting). Maybe the world itself would have been built differently if flying didn't cause overheating.
I'm just picking on one aspect here, but it fits the theme that the game was missing direction. Anthem seems generic because it couldn't be focused in one direction, and that lack of direction seems to have caused a massive amount of wasted work for the developers. It's a shame, I (like many) had high hopes for this game and its potential.
Semi-related, and I haven't read the article yet, but: Just from the marketing material I've absorbed passively (pre-release opinions and YT-ads mostly) I'd have never guessed that anthem is a bioware game, it's just so far out of what I'd think they'd do. Bioware seemed like a company making RPGs and maybe an MMO here and there, and now they're making a looter-shooter-coop kinda thing? I hardly believe this was their own idea. It has EA written all over it.
It's my understanding that multiplayer was an idea at BW as early as ME1. Of course both ME3 and ME:A ended up with MP, so the MP focus of Anthem isn't as big a surprise to me. I do think EA's insistence on continuing monetization pushed BW even more in that direction; one ME3 dev said that one player spent $15k on ME3 loot crates. tl;dr EA probably indirectly pushed them in this direction but I don't think it was an EA mandate.
People like to blame EA for this, but I think it really shines a light more on how much of a total mess Bioware itself was and is. The point that the entire first half of the article makes is that Anthem wasnt even a game when they pulled the trigger on production. It was a loose collection of "oh that would be cool" ideas that might or might not work, which eventually emerged as a generic trend-following ideas because that was what was easiest to implement.
It was headed by a leadership team that didnt know what they were trying to make, and as a result, had everyone throw ideas at a wall until enough stuck to scrape off and ball together. That led to frustrated employees who felt like the game didnt have direction because, well, it didnt have direction.
As for the complaints about the limitation of frostbite, so what? It wasnt implemented halfway through development, and you knew what you were getting from the start. There was time to actually train employees and develop a structure around using it, but it didnt happen. If you know all you have is spoons, you serve soup, not steak. Deal with it!
I havent even gotten to the part where EA ended up involved, but even these points, to me, spelled doom for the game well before anything the publisher mightve pushed in. In order to make a game, you have to know what you want the game to be first, and that sounds like something that Bioware has never been able to do, they just finally ran out of luck in their process.
do you think people cashed out / left after being acquired by EA? I'm not sure about gaming studios but it's pretty common in tech companies when shitty companies like IBM or Oracle end up buying people up.
I have no idea. The article hints that they have trouble finding talent, and it woulsnt surprise me that "EA owned" is part of the reason why, but the mass exodus could just as easily be because of the aforementioned culture, and people jumping ship.
Yeah, my understanding is that BioWare was in the state it was precisely because of all the staff turnover following the EA acquisition. After all of the original stakeholders were out, what remained was BioWare in name only. This was before Dragon Age: Inquisition, if we're establishing a timeline (personally, I thought that game was a mess too, but I guess it compares favorably to what they've released in the years since then).
This sounds like every creative brainstorming exercise I've been a part of though.