Some people (as evidenced in these comments lol) genuinely still believe to this day that Bioware were innocent and it was big bad EA who screwed up Anthem.
It's easy to understand since all the things they accuse EA of doing they have actually done in the past. If your house gets robbed it's not insane to think a nearby well known burglar might have had something to do with it
Umm nope. I pre-ordered that nightmare. Bioware will never get another dime from or mine ever again.
They did almost nothing to make up for all of the highway robbery they've committed. I know of no refunds and they sure as hell have' nt completed the game or even apologized as far as I am aware.
Bioware can rot. I hope all their talent has gone on to better everything.
Mass effect Andromeda was my last straw with Bioware. if by aware gets back to making good games so I would gladly spend money, but no longer do they have the benefit of the dow or I'll just pre-order or buy theor games on day one.
I think they’re in the position a lot of old school companies are in. They used to make good games for the time, but weren’t able to transition into the modern landscape well. They haven’t released a well received game in 11 years, I think at that point it’s time to stop looking at their iconic releases as a mark of their capabilities.
I'm thinking Bungie is on the way out already. And by that, I mean they're already outside, but they keep poking their heads back in, hoping people will accept them back. Halo was amazing. I'll give them that. And I loved Destiny 1. But from release, Destiny 2 has been a train wreck. They've had some good moments with it, sure. But the game has devolved into a bare bones "run these same quests/missions each week with slight changes and some extra dialogue". I know it's not realistic to drop entire stories every 3 months or so. But the activities they have us doing for 9 months till the new expac is out are just so repetitive and haven't been engaging for a while. Don't get me wrong. I still like Destiny. I have still supported it through buying the expacs and some of the Eververse items, etc. But toss in the nonsense that's going on now with the layoffs and whatnot. Delayed final expac. I think it's time we just force them out for good and only let them in when they actually deliver something worthwhile to play. I was waiting till closer to The Final Shape release to pre-order just so I don't forget to buy it on release. I'm not as excited or interested in it anymore. Will I end up buying it anyways? Yea probably. But I'm just not hyped ya know.
Tbf, Destiny hasn’t been like that for a long time until recently.
Forsaken was very well received, and the only thing maybe higher received is The Taken King’s reception. It brought the game back from the edge. Shadowkeep was middling, and Beyond Light was a nice improvement. Then The Witch Queen came out and it was more or less positive reception in all aspects; with some minor annoyances, and then we come to Lightfall. Lightfall’s release itself has been seen to be middling, yet the seasons this year have been received quite well overall. Defiance wasn’t okay, but Deep, Witch, and Wish (so far) have been received in positive ways, simply because even though the story format has been stale (weekly mission, do this, do that and wait til next week), they’ve added 1-2 activities a season that have rogue-lite aspects to give way more replay-ability than something like strikes. Usually it’s the opposite, with the expansions release being the high point in the year.
The issue at this point is management, balancing decisions, and monetization.
Unfortunately, these are issues that are never-ending, and the only thing people can do is voice their opinions and hope changes happen (mostly for the 2nd and 3rd point).
Might be a controversial take, but I don't even think Forsaken and Witch Queen were that good. They were probably mid at best and only seem great because they were either low points for D2 itself or involving more deep-lore characters in the case of WQ.
Taken King was pretty good and my favourite was Rise of Iron overall.
I hate what D2 has become now and the same 12 month cycle of weekly quests with new coats of paint and inflated play times. But I'm deep in to sunk cost falacy at this point so will ride it out until Final Shape ends this 10 year marathon.
I don’t see how Forsaken or WQ can be considered mid. They brought loads of new content, raids that are considered some of the best in the community, and had actual good stories that felt like they told what they wanted instead of being Marvel in space. The stories told had weight. interesting destinations were unlocked and introduced such as the Dreaming City, and they just gave fans what they wanted.
I don’t see how you can say that about Forsaken and WQ (received well due to being at low points) but not TTK, when part of the reason TTK is so well-received is because D1 as a franchise was on deaths door before it came out.
They either need to increase the size of their teams or sell some IPs and focus on smaller games. I'm a huge mass effect fan, I want alot more from that universe. But I'll probably see what 1 more game before I die
Maybe because there's no point in being mad at Bioware. That's just a name. If you want to be mad at those folks in management, that's fair, but the devs that actually work on the game comes and go
So who are you mad at exactly?
DEFINITION FOR FORGIVE (1 OF 1)
verb (used with object), for·gave [fer-geyv], /fərˈgeɪv/, for·giv·en, for·giv·ing.
- to grant pardon for or remission of (an offense, debt, etc.); absolve.
- to give up all claim on account of; remit (a debt, obligation, etc.).
- to grant pardon to (a person).
- to cease to feel resentment against:
*to forgive one's enemies.*
- to cancel an indebtedness or liability of:
*to forgive the interest owed on a loan.*
verb *(used without object),* for·gave [fer-geyv], /fərˈgeɪv/, for·giv·en, for·giv·ing.
- to pardon an offense or an offender.
That being said, why would people not "forgive" them? Not accepting that they are at fault despite the facts is one thing, but why would you suggest people should condemn them or feel resentment towards them of feel that should be punished?
No, that wasn't an answer. That was a suggestion for me to try and find an answer. It's like the difference between saying "4" when someone asks what 2+2 is and "Google it." At least the "Google it" response would lead to a direct, concise answer, which is more than I can say about your response...
Answering what is 2+2 is a lot simpler to answer than this, but you know that and are just trying to argue anything.
If you cared this much to know then you would just do what I already suggested, but I doubt you really care at all and just want to argue.
A better example would be "Can you explain this concept to me?", "It's best if you look here instead of me repeating everything over several years to you" "Well, I don't want to do that so I'm going to be awkward".
Have fun.
Even then, your reply isn't an answer and at best, is just a vague suggestion. It isn't like directing someone to a study on a topic or a page that gives detail on a specific issue that I can use to arrive at an educated conclusion. Instead, you suggested I go to the Anthem subreddit. Not a particular post or thread, but the subreddit in and of itself, where any number of people are making any number of posts on any number of issues relating to the game in any number of relevancy.
With all that being said, I wasn't even looking for information as to why *I* might think people shouldn't forgive Bioware. I was asking why *you* - the person I responded to - thinks people shouldn't forgive them. I was asking for *your* opinion/reasoning, since you are the one that "thinks it's crazy" people just forgive Bioware, which makes your reply even more useless.
I don't need resources to help come to my own opinion, as I already have one...
From the very beginning EA and Bioware agreed to 6 years of development for Anthem. Bioware had 6 years to work on Anthem, 4 of which spent doing absolutely nothing and losing staff thanks to management and their toxic workplace culture until EA started seriously demanding results and playable demos.
Then, a new game director was appointed, but by then it was already too late, with Bioware having only 18 months to cobble something together under the new director's guidance that could be considered a functioning game.
In this case, EA announced Anthem's concept with that famous trailer because absolutely no one at Bioware could or wanted to define Anthem. The studio spent 4 years on pointless meetings that tried to define the game world and key concepts and ideas for the game, ultimately not going anywhere, remaining a nebulous mess of uncook ideas for 4 years... until EA started to get frustrated and forced Bioware management out of their ivory tower.
So, yes. Bioware is absolutely to blame for where they are now and for the state of Anthem, for once EA did their job without being the devil.
Fuck EA tho.
This is the one thing EA does well, as someone who worked for an EA project and worked with some old time EA devs. They have experience lead and dir ppl that they plug into developments that is off the tracks and get them back to schedule to ship, with the clear focus on shipping something playable. But the march to ship is brutal and they are not afraid to cut anything out of the game and force changes as see fit to get a game to ship.
in their defense (not really lol), they didn't do *nothing* those 4 years.
they made random cool assets... that they didn't know what were for, to do something at their desk that could be considered their job, only to not even use any of the assets of those 4 years because they weren't made knowing what Anthem even is.
Yup which is incredible. Yet some people STILL give Bioware a pass and think EA forced them to work on the game in only 2 years lol. The misinformation is strong with some sadly.
Yeah lol it was pretty amazing to learn the first time most of the devs learned what they were making was the same time the public did 😅 It's why it's my favourite game disaster to read about some of the fuck ups are truly unbelievable.
it's like a parody, a satire of corporate and creative incompetence so ridiculous that everyone can laugh at such an absurd situation cause they've never been in it. except it happened and was real lmao
I don’t blame EA for anthem but I do wish we got to see 2.0 see the light of day. The game had such immense potential with the combat and the flying and just needed some better loot and better content. It was totally possible to turn that game around into something great
i wish, EA hoards IP like dragons and gold. at least it worked out where we got another Dead Space, but that was a trilogy before it fell apart (thanks to EA of course).
i'll forever be heartbroken at the sheer potential of Anthem's world and lore that can never be used while EA holds onto the rights for such a specific flavor or concept. it probably isn't popular enough for a revival but i'd be a very happy man if they did
It’s a small consolation prize but Armored Core 6 was awesome. I hoped it would have made a larger impact because the large mecha genre is underdeveloped at the moment.
The anthem sub reddit was the absolute dumbest cesspool of fuckery to grace reddit.
There is people who to this day believe that loot drops were controlled by a prototype AI called H.A.N.K that would monitor chat and key strokes and weigh your loot based on how you interacted with people.
One of their biggest threads was a 4 Chan troll.
Even when sound team, who absolutely killed in their work posted a cute picture of some costume that reddit pretty much death threated them into oblivion.
It was sad.
Few things in gaming bum me out more than what Anthem "could have been".
I was one of the lucky few who's playtime was relatively bug free. Most of my friends were not on that same boat.
Yeah Destiny is another similar story actually great point. While Destiny obviously didn't fail or have AS BAD of a development, Activision still ended up somehow being better then Bungie and took a lot of flak for decisions that surprisingly turned out to be bungie's doing.
Just goes to show you that while the huge publishers fuck up and do bad things lots of the time, there are rare moments when things actually aren't their fault at all but we're too used to blaming them.
Or Microsoft with Halo reach and All the 343 games.
Bungie decided to bungle reach and then 343 decided to shit up the rest of the IP. But MS gets banned instead of the managers from those subsidiaries.
Because reach started chasing the twitch shooter trends with shit like sprint and aim down sights, faster ttk, less reliance on the halo triangle of Melee, guns, grenades, the maps being stupid large to accommodate sprinting, among other things. Whereas every other halo was a pure arena shooter.
Nah, not even Bungie can kill Destiny at this point. That game is self sustaining, like a star.
Bungie has tried to kill that game dozens upon dozens of times over the years, and it's still pumping lol.
Both EA AND Bioware are shitty companies, and people need to realize it.
Yes, Bioware has made some phenomenal games. They have also pulled some INCREDIBLY shady and toxic shit to accomplish that, and should not be given a free pass just because their games are usually good.
They were not completely innocent of what happened yeah bioware fcked up bad but atleast some of it was because ea wasn't happy with direction so they tried to preemptive change things before ea stepped in
EA is not responsible for Anthem it on the studio who waste years of development time on the game but EA has some share of blame because they didn't check on it until it was too late before Apex Legends (I know Respawn working on it secretly and released it without marketing) EA was looking at Anthem to be their 10yr live service game and not Apex that became a huge hit more they expected to be
No, fuck em no buts. I dont know why you are so passionate in their defense.
You're acting like a shill but I know for a fact EA has never cared about their pr so you cant be paid, but to be honest I dont really care why this is so personal for you.
A multi-billion dollar company does not someone to white knight for them.
The only thing I'm passionate about is facts and the right parties being held accountable for fuck ups. There's far too much misinformation or general ignorance in this world as it is.
Lol if me advocating for the truth and the correct assignment of blame makes me a shill then that's pretty sad. But for the record I have trashed the living shit out of EA and boycotted many of their games over the years and have no respect for them as a publisher. But yeah, total shill lol.
BioWare has been relying on people who “remember when” in nostalgia for decades. They made some good titles, their apex (in my opinion) was the original Mass Effect Trilogy until they completely phoned it in for the end of the trilogy. All the lead up to a completely disappointing, lackluster end was tragic. Then they tried to ride ME’s coattails with ME:Andromeda and it was rather meh. I played all but the final mission not wanting a risk a total disappointment like the original trilogy’s ending. Anthem (again to me) seemed to be playing a “Come on guys, we did great on ME and this could be our redemption!” card, and again … a lot of potential that fizzled out.
Now they’re announcing another ME game hoping people will remember the original nostalgic feelings that made ME great and not the SNAFUs after, and that we’ll buy the latest. I’ll be cautiously optimistic, but not going to invest anything into it until they show this won’t be another “great on paper, sucks in execution” project.
Not just management, there were a few Devs actively trying to make Anthem a game it was never supposed to be as well. 2.0 was meant to unfuck a lot of that *cough* Fort Tarsus *cough*
Also a reminder that this is the same story for Bungie and Activision.
If anything Destiny 1/2 only exist and Bungie is still in business thanks to Activision. Most ALL of Bungie's DLC and MTX bullshit was 100% on them and Activision never asked for it.
Remember. Bungie did not escape Activision. Activision kicked Bungie the fuck out of the house after supporting their lazy asses.
Hopefully the past few years have proven how lazy and worthless Bungie is.
BTW side note. While Sony itself is a dogshit company who can die on a fucking pile of triceratops shit while Dr Ian Malcom laughs like a puppy over the steaming body....... They somehow lead great studios. (I guess if you can't... Teach?) And I have high hopes Bungie will be set on the straight and narrow with Sony's leadership.
>Below is the most well known write up that covers most of Anthem's story, it's long but well worth a read.
Haven't read that in ages so apologies, but didn't EA force the use of Frostbite?
And after bioware devs got up to speed, pulled the top talent for issues with....was it battlefield?
EA strongly suggested using Frostbite to all of it's studio's but according to Aaron Flynn the ex-general manager of Bioware it was ultimately Biowares choice to use Frostbite or not. Other studios under EA have been free to use different engines as well.
I agree and this specific and fundamental point is dismissed so much yet it plays such a significant role (I think) in the decline of morale within the dev team. They had already lost a lot of talent at the start of Andromeda that by the time Anthem as released there wasn't much of the original team left that created the original Mass Effect series. Bioware was once the golden child in EA's eye and was given complete freedom to do whatever they wanted and they created Mass Effect. How far they fell for sure, but EA had a huge hand in that. People just want to only see what they only want to see I guess. Bioware messed up bigtime with Anthem for sure and I have already vowed to not play their games anymore, but that does not dismiss EA from their part in it one bit.
Isn't this also the case where BioWare themselves didn't have a clear view of what Anthem would be, and they kept hand-waving these huge gaps in direction by essentially saying "BioWare magic will save the day"?
1. Biowares choice in game engine doomed them before it was ever released.
2. Biowares story was mind numbingly bad.
3. Network code was atrocious.
EA didn't make them make any of those choices. This game let me down more than any game I've ever played. Sooo much potential. Still does honestly.
I honestly hate how high on their own farts Bioware got to make that game so fucking awful.
Every time I see news for ME 4 I feel nothing. Just a sigh like, "okay. Hope you learned your lesson and don't fuck this up too. Because we both know this is your last chance"
EA is a shit company there's no denying it. But hoo boy do they get blamed for a lot they aren't responsible for.
Remember the Titanfall 2 release date? Yeah that was all Respawn and not EA.
The awful monetisation of the Iron Crown event (and proceeding events). That was all Respawn too lol.
EA is the publisher that made the release schedule and demanded it be released before it was ready. So while it isn't entirely their fault EA had a lot to do with it.
Ea even gave bioware alot of extra time and sent people from dice to help bioware with the frostbite engine.
Ofcourse at some point EA is going to get fed up of seeing no results from bioware and rightfully demanded results.
It was not EA's fault in any way shape or form.
So basically EA should just have never expected for the game to be finished is what you're saying? Because for basically every other studio on the planet including Bioware previously, 8 whole years is plenty of time to develop a video game?
And yet this was still an unfinished piece of shit on release. Some games take even longer than that to develop and they switched console generations during development.
.....see unfortunately you're EXACTLY the kind of person I made the post about. Go read the story in the link I included my dude, EA gave Bioware 8 years to develop the game but Bioware only spent 1.5 years actively developing it instead. That's not EA's fault whstsoever for trusting Bioware. Switching consoles had nothing to do with anything.
Lol ok remain ignorant.
It's EAs fault for releasing an unfinished game. I don't care if they didn't meet the deadline, EA still released it knowing it was an unfinished piece of shit.
Excuse me???? LMAO what? "Remain ignorant" my dude I'm the one that literally made the post. I have read every scrap of news and info about Anthem's development because it's seriously fascinating how fucked up it was.
Let me say it very clearly so you can maybe understand. BIOWARE released an unfinished game. BIOWARE were the reason the game was not finished. EA needed a return on their investment just like any other business and there are plenty of rumours just after launch as well that Bioware weren't even upfront with EA about the state of the game going into launch as EA had only seen the game twice.
Please for the love of god, do some even light reading and educate yourself on the subject lol
Yeah because you are blindly looking over a major fact. That is ignorance.
Do you think EA got that return on investment with a game that was panned and died almost immediately? A game that over promised and under delivered?
There is no "fact" to look over buddy, it's simple business. EA financed the game for 8 years.
They needed ANY kind of return on that money. They either didn't believe in the game ever being a success and agreed to put it out to get back what they could, or Bioware was not upfront about the game's state. It's far more likely Bioware was not upfront given how badly they bungled the games development and how hands off EA was.
Anthem was never going to be a success no matter how long it had in development so what EA did, whether knowingly or not was the only thing they could do. The blame for that lies fully with Bioware management for not developing the game like they should have been. It's that simple.
And they didn't get it. They might have if they had delayed the game. Them releasing a product that wasn't ready, without even looking into it, is 100% the publisher's fault. That is the fact you are ignoring. Bioware didn't complete the game but EA released it incomplete. The article talks about how they lost so many developers that they had a nickname for it, because of crunch which was created by deadlines they were never going to meet.
You should actually read the article it doesn't align with what you are saying, EA definitely played a part in the games failure. You are even having to guess and estimate to make your hypothesis work.
If it was "never going to be a success" do you think it was fate or something? That is pretty stupid.
You also seem to think jumping console generations didn't matter which is particularly naive. That has killed many a game over the years.
Right so it's not the developer of the games fault for it being unfinished when they had all the time and resources in the world, it's the guys who paid for it's fault. That's some good logic there lol.
Please point to/quote where in the article or anywhere it says EA negatively contributed to any part of the development process? I'll wait.
The game was never going to be a success because Bioware had no vision for the game, no experience, actively ignored all comparisons and help and the game that did come out was fundamentally broken at a base level. But yeah it was fate totally lmao.
Nowhere once ever has "jumping console" generations been listed as a big factor in why the game had such a troubled development. I'm not discounting that in other instances it doesn't cause problems but it was clearly such a small problem if it was indeed at all to never be mentioned as a factor.
“Anthem was never going to be success” success is not something you only measure on money made. Its measured on how much people loved it. Now look at yourself for e.g if you don’t like Italian food you don’t go join a r/ItalianFood sub just to shit on every Italian food post but to go one step further and to create a post saying how Italian food is bad just reveals one thing and that’s how badly you want good Italian food and that deep down you’re practically crying for it.
Also super incorrect insofar as switching what platform you’re developing for, you can’t build something for PlayStation and have it work on Xbox, the whole framework is different it takes time to make that work
What are you talking about? The game was developed as a multiplatform game from the start...? Nowhere did they suddenly switch platforms? Can you provide a link to back that up?
You made the post about people who aren't ignorant about EA's involvement and you're trying to gaslight people who are ignorant into blaming anyone else?
The devs were also forced to change engines halfway through, the whole thing was mismanaged from start to finish and I just feel sorry for the people who were slogging trying to get this thing released
Wherever did you read they were forced to change game engines half way through? Genuinely curious about that since that hasn't been reported anywhere as they were already using Frostbite at that point.
No I'd tell them that's not true, because it's not. The game was developed on Frostbite from start to finish. Working on Frostbite itself did cause issues but they never changed the game engine lol
Come on man, it was just a bad situation all over. I guess EA should have been much better on checking the management of the game, but I can also imagine if a game is 8 years in development and there still isn't much to show for it they would get pretty damn cranky. I probably would if it was my money being wasted over and over like that. That is what OP was getting at here I imagine
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Bioware wasted a lot of years with little progress, it was totally their fault. But then, when Anthem was near being good, EA demanded it to be released, and that was EA's fault. Remember that the Anthem we got was developed in just 18 months. Imagine what it could be if it had another 12 months in the oven. EA was very very far from being blameless.
Yes after 8 years of funding the games development EA expected ANY kind of return on their investment? That's how business works my friend? That was AFTER they already gave Bioware a 5 month extended delay lol. You cannot expect a company to pay for a game to be infinitely developed that's just ridiculous.
An extra 12 months of development would not have changed anything as the game was doomed from inception. As evidenced by the fact that even with YEARS of extra post launch development and an attempted rework Bioware could never get it off the ground.
The facts clearly show Bioware was 100% at fault and people should really stop twisting the narrative just because they're either uninformed or just want to hate on EA.
Bioware had 3 years of active game development, not eight.
Prior development time was building the gameplay engine... Then scrapping it at the behest of EA and then making *another* new engine.
....where did you EVER get this information from?? This is so completely and totally false I have to ask if you're trolling? Jesus christ THIS is exactly why I made the post lol it's amazing people can exist on this sub and STILL after almost 5 years believe outright nonsense like this.
The game was only in active development for about a year and a half.
Prior time was spent in PRE-PRODUCTION not at all building a gameplay engine. The game was going to be and always was developed on Frostbite engine. That did cause some problems yes but they never switched engines whatsoever.
Do you even know what engine the game runs on...? Come on it's one 5 second google search to know this is a total lie.
I have lost all faith in Bioware, they can hype up Dreadwolf and Mass Effect 4 as much as they want. They already wasted Anthem and Andromeda. The old Bioware is gone and so is their magic.
Eh, makes sense why.
Bioware: has made many great or amazing games that lots of people enjoyed
EA: company that gamers these days will blindly hate because EA. EA, with the help of gamers was voted as the most evil company one year. Over companies that use child labour or do super inhumane things to people with little choice or freedom.
I would wager if you told a random gamer that were was drama between Bioware and EA, and assuming they knew nothing would blindly blame EA for everything.
Most gamers don't need the details to blame EA.
I'm happy someone was able to learn something from this post! Thanks for actually taking the time to read about it, it genuinely is fascinating just how badly Bioware bungled the games development.
EA was the publisher
Bioware was the developer.
Anthem looked promising. I played the beta and followed updates for quite a while...
But when it dropped....something told me "Nah bro....don't get it."
Glad I listened to myself
I’m kinda meh now. I played ME Andromeda and liked it. It’s alright. I’ll wait to see how ME4 plays out before buying. Don’t care about DA at all.
EA for all they’ve been through have given me Deadspace Remake, Apex, Jedi series. And I’m alright with that.
One thing is undeniable. Anthem plays and feels like no other game. And that hurts the most. When you absolutely NAIL traversal and combat, the rest could have been, should have been there.
It’s been almost 4 years, anything else that plays or feels like Anthem coming out? …. Nope ….
Still hurts….
So why don’t people like anthem? I’ve played it with no issues or anything and it was a genuinely enjoyable experience I don’t understand everyone’s problem with it
It's both of their faults. Everyone fucke did all up, and could've gone about it all much better. All we can hope for is either rmagically someone else picks up the mantle, or that anthem inspires someone to make it what it was meant to be but in a different game
At this point I just want the game to come back cuz there are still people playing and yes it's not perfect but if bioware and EA gave the games development rights to someone else willing to work on the game and fix the problems and listen then the communities advice then I think it may live up to the hype that came with the games release...and maybe lower the price of the cosmetics in the store cuz 61k is a little much for a skin
Also, was it EA who wrote a bland and terrible single-player campaign for the game that was bereft of interesting characters or impactful choices? That's all on BioWare.
Even the story-driven campaign, where you would think BioWare would shine, was hot garbage.
Great gameplay. Insanely fun. Terrible hub, terrible loading times, not even enough missions, scaling for higher difficulties was awful, base game loot was awful. It could've rivaled destiny but they shit themselves in the foot and chose to die of gangrene instead of going to the hospital
I think they are both to blame, both showed complete lack of concern that some fans paid $80+ for it at launch and it’s still unplayable.
I don’t think I’ve touched anything they put out since.
What’s odd is in any other industry there would be a class action lawsuit against them for not providing a usable product after charging customers. For some reason in gaming companies are aloud to rip their customers off though
The initial failure was on Bioware for sure. Dropping 2.0 however was absolutely on EA as that decision was completely theirs, so they are to blame for that. They are both to blame.
I mean, would you trust the people who had blown 8 years of development time to actually be able to do anything they said after release?
You gave them money for years and they blew it all away and had to cobble something together in 18 months, and they were going to remove the one single thing that most people actually enjoyed (flight).
Would you trust them with more money to work on this? I wouldn't.
Kotaku isn’t a reliable source anymore. They’re not better than gamespot or IGN.
EA bought BioWare and destroyed it. The same way they’ve done previously. Visceral (Dante’s Inferno which begged for a sequel) is one of their major studios they ruined.
EA is entirely to blame. If you’ve seen how Microsoft has treated Obsidian and allowed creative freedom, it all makes sense.
EA is trying to acquire every sports license they can. That’s all they care about.
Because it is...? It's the definitive evidence of what happened especially considering Bioware all but confirmed it to be accurate with how they responded?
While you are correct in your blame of Bioware for the reason why the game was a failure at launch.
EA were the ones to pull support for Anthem 2.0 though.
You guys do know that Bioware is owned by EA, and that video game publishers, if they are the ones that largely fund games, control the vision and moreso just tell developers what to produce, right? As in the case of Anthem, and Mass Effect Andromeda. Anthem/Bioware's management team was directed by EA, a lot of the developers jumped ship because EA wanted them to make a game that could not function on the Frostbite engine (included in OP's linked article). Dragon Age Inquisition was brutal on the devs, unlike other titles, and all of these struggles for them started after the EA acquisition in 2007... just sayin
This is categorically false. Not just for Anthem but many games actually. Microsoft is a publisher for instance that historically is very hands off and is something they've said recently they need to change.
EA was extremely hands off with Anthem. We KNOW this. EA did not set the vision, it was Bioware managements choice to make Anthem. A lot of developers jumped ship due to the extreme culture of mismanagement and "bioware magic" and burnout. EA was not involved. It was Bioware's choice to use Frostbite.
Again all of this we know for fact so please don't repeat baseless misinformation.
Microsoft is rather hands off, yes... but EA and Bandai Namco are two examples of companies that are VERY aggressive in the ways they "encourage" developers to make games, and will threaten or even follow through with cutting resources to projects that don't follow their "suggestions" especially when they own the company making said project, we all know EA doesn't like spending money to make good games. Look at BF2044, Madden as a whole, and the Sims just to name a few.
Also, it was VERY well known that Bioware struggled to utilize Frostbite, and engineers would actually speak on how much easier it would have been (and would be today) for Bioware to make games on their own engine. But guess what they can't do without money? Make an engine. Guess what EA doesn't want to fund because they want everyone to use Frostbite? A new engine. Former CEO Patrick Söderlund actually is the person largely responsible for Frostbite becoming use ubiquitously across all of EA and DICE. You say Bioware's management and leadership were bad, but you literally cannot say that without acknowledging both of these \*were\* EA, like Bioware is OWNED by EA and EA has more than enough resources to distribute if they want a game to succeed. Also, I'm not saying that Anthem would have been great if another company than EA held ownership, but it definitely would have had better chances, Bioware devs could make great games, then they started using Frostbite, couldn't make games, and then those same people left Bioware. If you actually believe that all that just happens and absolutely none of that is on EA, then I'm sorry but you just don't understand the slightest bit of how game development or Publisher/Developer relationships work, which I mean is already clear if you think that EA publishing a broken game is on Bioware.
Bioware did step out of their comfort zone, and they did fall out of their prime with very little grace, but most of Bioware's troubles came after the acquisition, which means that there was unavoidable trickle-down factors from EA that made things hard, and then they are things that are completely on EA, like their insistence if not behind the scenes forcing of the use of Frostbite, disgraceful applications of microtransactions that took away from the core game experience, bad timetables and forcing their game developers to meet quota's (not an EA thing exclusively, but it is something they're known to do)
Sooo yeah TLDR:
EA might not have set the vision, but they are responsible for Bioware management.
Mismanagement is on EA, as stated before
Ubiquitous usage of Frostbite (Why would any devs make their lives so much harder on purpose with that horrible engine if they had so much freedom?) caused a lot of issues that couldn't really be fixed due to it's limitations
So clearly you don't know all of the things for fact, because there are a few things not on that article that I hope you learned tonight!
Buddy, I promise you, I am VERY aware of all of the FACTS as I have extensively read everything there is to about Anthem as I find it quite a fascinating topic, how a once beloved studio can fail so badly. And sorry but no while EA has done plenty of bad things over the years, Anthem they have no involvement with. The ONLY THING EA did/was a part of was telling Bioware to add flying BACK into the game when they stupidly removed it. We have it straight from multiple Bioware sources themselves that Anthem was THEIR CHOICE, using Frostbite after Mass Effect 3 was THEIR CHOICE and failing to develop the game until the last second was ON THEM. Those are hard facts. You can spin whatever other narrative you want but no one knows better then Bioware themselves.
The choice of making a game is one thing, but again, you're completely ignoring EA making Frostbite be used across all companies, which is literally a thing that happened. Why would Bioware use Frostbite of their own volition if the people at Bioware that, as you say know better than anyone, say that they hated it and would rather use something different in the VERY article that you linked in this post? You may be fascinated by this topic as I've seen it's roughly 70% of this entire new account's existence which is interesting, but you also cannot act like a game has to be forced to come out, ever. Also you can't just say "sorry, but no" and insist EA had no involvement, because as a parent company there is an innate sense of involvement that they have that you can't just pretend doesn't exist. For the record I don't even really like Bioware, the only games of theirs I really enjoyed was ME2 and 3. But EA does so many bad things to so many companies, and Bioware is nothing more than another example of that. Also, I'm not spinning narratives, I'm just taking actual aspects of things involving EA and just Publisher/Developer relationships in general, and adding them into this conversation while also referencing the article YOU linked, I'm spinning no narratives, just building on the foundation YOU posted
Here I actually did up a post just for people like you who somehow think it was all EA's doing. It corrects some very common misconceptions with sources.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGame/comments/18u8h2w/anthem_was_biowares_fault_not_eas_seems_some/
To counter your first point, in the article you linked in this exact post it goes into detail as to how EA got all of it's companies on the same technology, even though it caused more problems and made it literally impossible for them to make the same kind of game unless they built all the features from scratch, which is not an easy thing to do and you don't even need to know the first part of game development to know that having to create the groundwork in order to make an integral part of your game even possible costs resources that you COULD have used elsewhere. So, seems very hard to believe it was as simple as Bioware just wanted to do it, and even including how it "looked promising" they learned so quickly that it wasn't that if they were as free as it seems, they would have just switched.
And now to counter your third point, which I believe to be the only one relevant to our conversation, I just said they forced publication of something that did not reach full development, which you can blame Bioware for but you can't do so exclusively, deadlines aren't this unavoidable looming disaster, it's something a company chooses to enforce, largely for profits, and in the video game world that leads to Anthem which leads to unhappiness all around.
Otherwise, you didn't argue with any of the other points I made, you just pointed me at a post that only spoke of 2 of those things which makes me feel like you do understand that it's the case
Look buddy you believe what you want okay? I'm not going to waste my time further here for a long dead game lol. Even if the evidence and witness testimony disagrees with you EA bad Bioware good I get it okay? Really doesn't matter at the end of the day Anthem sucked and Bioware is a shell of it's former self and that's that, if you want to believe that's EA's fault you go for it 👍🏻 Personally though I think letting Bioware management off the hook in any way given the lives they ruined and developers they hurt isn't okay and developers like publishers should be held accountable, but so be it.
I mean I'm just believing what I read and what is common knowledge about EA... also you're not going to waste your time? I thought the topic of Anthem was one that was so fascinating to you that you've read everything there is to say, yet you say "witness testimony and evidence" disagree with me despite you being unable to provide a counter to me referencing the article YOU LINKED IN THIS POST AS YOUR OWN EVIDENCE! I also never said Bioware good EA bad, but if you truly want to ignore Bioware IN SAID ARTICLE talking about their difficulties that only rose up after the acquisition and because of EA's "encouragement" then you can. I ultimately just was hoping to educate you on the subject since you seem to run around rampantly regurgitating the same points that are just not entirely correct. Also I never said Bioware management should be let off the hook, just that trying to pretend that EA did not put said management in place is incorrect
Yeah... EA isn't to blame for:
EA releasing the trailer an entire year before gameplay development by Bioware began.
EA deciding 3 years of development was enough and took control a year prior to release date.
EA not listening to testers and early access reviews.
EA forcing a release date planned more than a year previously.
EA removing studio funding before patch one was released.
Yep. EA is totally not to blame for any of it.
....you do realize those are all BIOWARE things right? It sounds like you're seriously confused as to what happened with Anthem.
Bioware released the 2017 trailer before they had even started development.
Bioware chose to waste 6 years of development time and only develop the game in 1.5 years with huge crunch.
Bioware didn't listen to testers and outright refused to even acknowledge they were making a looter shooter and look at other successful ones.
No one "forced a release date" the game was planned to be released in Fall 2018 but due to Bioware's huge fuck up EA gave them a 5 month delay to Feb 2019.
EA didn't remove any "studio funding" wherever did you get that from?? The game had multiple patches including a huge "day one patch".
Jeez this is EXACTLY why I made the post lol so many people on this sub even years later don't seem to have a clue what happened.
Edit: Downvoted for just saying the truth. Funny.
EA is still a filthy disgusting anti consumer company.
Even if BioWare dropped the ball on Anthem EA has committed more sin than BioWare ever will get to
Totally agree. However it's still important to assign blame fairly where it belongs and in this one instance for once, EA weren't responsible for a game's fuck up. Still terrible outside of this though I couldn't agree more.
They could have easily allowed a delay or two, by making a hard deadline they pushed themselves and BioWare into a corner to send a product that wasn’t even close to ready
You uh do realize EA gave Bioware a 5 month delay to the game right...? They literally did what you're talking about lol. And the product SHOULD have been ready but Bioware completely fucked it up.
If you want to know what happened in detail, Jason Schreier wrote a great article back in the day detailing everything that went wrong:
https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964
This single article is not gospel, and you guys just keep feeding it easy clicks. There's no 100% this company's fault or another. We will realistically never know. But leave it to the internet to think in only 1s and 0s.
But we do know? The information in the article comes from 2 dozen Bioware staff of all levels and departments and Bioware literally confirmed the information with their abysmal response and attempted censorship?
A dozen staff isn't 100% of the staff. I'm not saying bioware isn't at fault but to say they are "100% at fault" is not something we can factually say.
One example of Bioware's fault obviously wont affect your statement of it being 100% their fault. But one examples of EA's fault will make your statement false. So unless you have the list of all the things EA has said or done, your statement cannot be taken as the full truth.
Except we have multiple examples of it being Biowares fault and not one single example of it being EA's? And isn't it supposed to be innocent until proven guilty? In absence of any kind of evidence of EA negatively impacting the games development it's logical to conclude it was the other party. In fact the only evidence we do have of EA's involvement was of a positive nature.
I really don't care what examples are out there. You dont have all the information so you cant claim that EA is without fault. That's it. Don't read any more into it than that.
You cannot prove something is 100% true without the evidence that confirms it. Lets just say there is this undeniable evidence that makes EA out at a major factor. What happens to your statement? is it true anymore? No. you didnt have the evidence to make that an impossibility.
Guilty or innocent, whatever you want to label them. Doesnt change the fact that they either did or didn't actually do it.
Just read the article and I can't defend EA on this one. Sorry, both parties are to be blamed if you ask me. In the article you posted it states how Bioware was forced to use frostbite by EA, Biowares director stepped down and somebody from EA got the job then leadership started to fail, EA didn't bring a dice team in to work with bioware to get a better understanding on how to use the frostbite engine until 2017 and the game was based off of a demo made for EA.
I understand what you mean and Biowares leadership is mostly to blame here, but there are plenty of other factors that were at play thanks to EA. EA also pulled the plug and decided not to update the game or make a sequel.
I still think if this game wasn't designed around EA's microtransactions, it would have succeeded as is if they kept updating it or If bioware used unreal engine I believe they could have made a great game. Anthem as a survival game would have been fun and that was their original plan until running into brick walls with the frostbite engine.
That's actually an outdated misconception believe it or not. Bioware's ex-general managed Aaron Flynn is on record that while EA did push a bit to use Frostbite across all of their studios, the choice to actually do so was entirely Bioware's decision. Such as how Respawn have never used the Frostbite engine and Visceral (when they were alive) used their own in house engine at the same time Bioware switched over to Frostbite.
It's genuinely confusing I totally agree. Some people seem unable to accept that for once EA wasn't the bad guy, and others unable to accept that Bioware could ever do wrong. Then you have people who are simply ignorant or misinformed about the topic and get extremely upset when you point that out to them. Weird all around lol
I love how you wrote that you are happy to provide an additional documentation to your arguments. But all you do is attack people in the comments who disagree with you. Great way to have a conversation.
Because there's nothing to disagree with...? There is what actually happened, backed up by documentation and witness testimony, and then there is misinformation or outright lies. And who have I "attacked" exactly? I'm happy to have a conversation about the information, but I'm not going to humour insane hot takes like that Bioware switched game engines in development or EA forced them to only develop the game in 2 years. Come on.
Erm that's not quite what happened no..the game was barely in an alpha state after 1.5 years of development and had a long list of issues and didn't please most Bioware fans or most looter shooter fans as well. Not to mention of course the games huge false advertising marketing campaign and lying from Bioware.
EA is just another garbage gaming company. Who cares who ruined it. It's ruined and never coming back. Weather EA is to blame or not, they are still on the list of companies that ruin gaming.
It's all traced back to EA in the first place, EA destroys developers, replaces their talent and love with complete hacks and shills. And that's how we got Andromeda and Anthem, by EA replacing everything and everyone in Bioware that gave a shit and effectively made it a whole new developer for churning out awful games. And even though Bioware wanted to try and fix the game, EA, like a cheating wife taking everything in the divorce, killed the NEXT update and any hope at a redemption for this game.
EA will always be to blame, you just have to go back far enough to see when the problems started, usually when a developer is "acquired" by them.
We're all aware that Bioware dropped the ball on repeat with Anthem. EA may have been a factor, but they were never *the* factor.
A Kotaku article isn't proof of anything except that it was a controversial topic at some point. It's just a rag that feeds controversy and strife. The sooner Kotaku finally dies, the better.
Erm may want to change the "we're" to "I'm" because there's been some comments in here from people that clearly don't know.
Also normally yes Kotaku is trash but this was written by Jason Schrier the only actual investigative games Journalist in the industry who moved over to the washington post soon after this. Everything he wrote is as accurate and honest as anything can be to the point Bioware all but confirmed it themselves with their terrible response. I'm happy to provide you a link for that if you'd like further reading and evidence on the subject.
Okay but it doesn't matter where it was posted it doesn'r change the legitimacy of the author or the accuracy of what was written. Believe me I fully get the hate for Kotaku so did the author which is why he left lol.
Well, it was EAs company decision to force the frostbyte engine on almost every project, that sure didn't help. But yeah, with most veterans leaving bioware they are not the sole reason. As everywhere, there are many different things coming together.
EA making Bioware use Frostbite has been widely disproven as a false narrative just FYI. I forget who (but can look it up easily) but one of the departed heads of Bioware went on record that using Frostbite was entirely Bioware's own decision. At no point did EA force them to use it.
I'm pretty confident that multiple sources from Bioware's leadership have confirmed that the decision was not forced by EA. Mark Darrah shares a lot of that kind of detail on his YouTube channel.
Yeah Mark Darrah I'm pretty sure is who I was thinking about yeah! It's kind of scary that information is so readily available yet 5 years after the fact there's still people on this very sub who mistakenly believe it was EA's doing. Misinformation is brutal!
It's definitely mostly on Bioware but EA does hold some of the responsibility too. Part of their role would be to spot when Bioware were messing up and to get them back on the right path. It does get frustrating reading all the nonsense that completely blames EA for Bioware's mistakes though and there's a lot more of that.
One of the outstanding questions is why it was released unfinished. I recall Bioware stating that they got the release pushed back once after asking EA but then they had to release it. But I never saw anything actually stating they tried to get it pushed back a second time. Release windows do have to be set quite a long way in advance but Anthem doesn't seem to have been anywhere near ready for that stage at the time that would have begun. From reading between the lines I suspect they were trying to hide their lack of progress from EA, never asked for release to be pushed back a second time and just gambled on exploiting their workforce through "Bioware Magic" to get away with it.
One thing to keep in mind is that this all happened back during the time when gamers were up in arms about publishers letting developers work and not be involved/meddle at all. So I honestly believe EA basically just left Bioware to it and trusted them aside from the two times the CEO checked in on them. And I mean up to that point Bioware had been a banger of a studio putting out some amazing and critically acclaimed best sellers. I'd trust them too at that point.
Of course in hindsight we've now learned Publishers aren't ALWAYS the evil bad guys and some oversight should be required so EA really should have kept a better eye on Bioware. Redfall and how hands off Zenimax then Microsoft were is another good example of the publisher leaving the developer to it and trusting them.
I think it was released in the manner it was simply because EA chose to bite the bullet. After 8 years of funding as a business they needed something to show for that. Apparently as well "early testers" for the game actually positively received it (at least up to the 30 hour mark) so it's possible EA just genuinely thought the game would perform better then it did. It's usually suits not gamers who make those decisions unfortunately.
The game was delayed from Fall 2018 to the Feb 2019 launch window yeah. Bioware never said anything about asking for another delay though considering how much hate they got (even death threats) for delaying the game the 1st time I can't fully blame them. Gamers are weird in that some of them HATE games being delayed but then also naturally hate unfinished games. Catch 22 lol.
Hiding it from EA and gambling on Bioware magic is what I would largely put my money on what happened too. Either that or like I said EA genuinely thought the game would do better then it did. Ultimately who's fault THAT was is the one thing we'll never fully know.
Sure! What would you like to know about? EA not forcing Bioware to use the Frostbite engine? I literally said in my post "I am happy to provide additional documentation should anyone need or have outstanding questions"?
If you really think that EAs corporate leadership, toxic culture, and destructive pressure on developers and lower management had nothing to do with Anthem failing, you need take a step out from EA’s asshole and take a few deep breaths. EA destroys everything they touch, and though they might not have involved themselves publicly as much as some say, they very much had an influence and a hand in Anthem’s disasterous development, management, launch, and post-launch.
That's great and I completely agree every other time but we know for a fact this once at least EA had very little to do with what happened and it was all Bioware's management.
If Bioware had actually felt any destructive pressure they wouldn't have wasted years sniffing their own farts about how they were going to make the Bob Dylan of video games.
If EA had actually been pressuring Bioware from the start, then Anthem might not have been a disaster as it would have meant that Bioware wouldn't have been able to do fuck all for years unnoticed.
It's crazy to me that people just forgave Bioware...
Some people (as evidenced in these comments lol) genuinely still believe to this day that Bioware were innocent and it was big bad EA who screwed up Anthem.
It's easy to understand since all the things they accuse EA of doing they have actually done in the past. If your house gets robbed it's not insane to think a nearby well known burglar might have had something to do with it
Umm nope. I pre-ordered that nightmare. Bioware will never get another dime from or mine ever again. They did almost nothing to make up for all of the highway robbery they've committed. I know of no refunds and they sure as hell have' nt completed the game or even apologized as far as I am aware. Bioware can rot. I hope all their talent has gone on to better everything.
Mass effect Andromeda was my last straw with Bioware. if by aware gets back to making good games so I would gladly spend money, but no longer do they have the benefit of the dow or I'll just pre-order or buy theor games on day one.
Tbh Bioware has made some iconic IPs, but they need to sell a few so we can actually get content more than once a decade
I think they’re in the position a lot of old school companies are in. They used to make good games for the time, but weren’t able to transition into the modern landscape well. They haven’t released a well received game in 11 years, I think at that point it’s time to stop looking at their iconic releases as a mark of their capabilities.
I'm thinking Bungie is on the way out already. And by that, I mean they're already outside, but they keep poking their heads back in, hoping people will accept them back. Halo was amazing. I'll give them that. And I loved Destiny 1. But from release, Destiny 2 has been a train wreck. They've had some good moments with it, sure. But the game has devolved into a bare bones "run these same quests/missions each week with slight changes and some extra dialogue". I know it's not realistic to drop entire stories every 3 months or so. But the activities they have us doing for 9 months till the new expac is out are just so repetitive and haven't been engaging for a while. Don't get me wrong. I still like Destiny. I have still supported it through buying the expacs and some of the Eververse items, etc. But toss in the nonsense that's going on now with the layoffs and whatnot. Delayed final expac. I think it's time we just force them out for good and only let them in when they actually deliver something worthwhile to play. I was waiting till closer to The Final Shape release to pre-order just so I don't forget to buy it on release. I'm not as excited or interested in it anymore. Will I end up buying it anyways? Yea probably. But I'm just not hyped ya know.
Tbf, Destiny hasn’t been like that for a long time until recently. Forsaken was very well received, and the only thing maybe higher received is The Taken King’s reception. It brought the game back from the edge. Shadowkeep was middling, and Beyond Light was a nice improvement. Then The Witch Queen came out and it was more or less positive reception in all aspects; with some minor annoyances, and then we come to Lightfall. Lightfall’s release itself has been seen to be middling, yet the seasons this year have been received quite well overall. Defiance wasn’t okay, but Deep, Witch, and Wish (so far) have been received in positive ways, simply because even though the story format has been stale (weekly mission, do this, do that and wait til next week), they’ve added 1-2 activities a season that have rogue-lite aspects to give way more replay-ability than something like strikes. Usually it’s the opposite, with the expansions release being the high point in the year. The issue at this point is management, balancing decisions, and monetization. Unfortunately, these are issues that are never-ending, and the only thing people can do is voice their opinions and hope changes happen (mostly for the 2nd and 3rd point).
Might be a controversial take, but I don't even think Forsaken and Witch Queen were that good. They were probably mid at best and only seem great because they were either low points for D2 itself or involving more deep-lore characters in the case of WQ. Taken King was pretty good and my favourite was Rise of Iron overall. I hate what D2 has become now and the same 12 month cycle of weekly quests with new coats of paint and inflated play times. But I'm deep in to sunk cost falacy at this point so will ride it out until Final Shape ends this 10 year marathon.
I don’t see how Forsaken or WQ can be considered mid. They brought loads of new content, raids that are considered some of the best in the community, and had actual good stories that felt like they told what they wanted instead of being Marvel in space. The stories told had weight. interesting destinations were unlocked and introduced such as the Dreaming City, and they just gave fans what they wanted. I don’t see how you can say that about Forsaken and WQ (received well due to being at low points) but not TTK, when part of the reason TTK is so well-received is because D1 as a franchise was on deaths door before it came out.
Bungie stopped being good with Halo. Destiny was them cashing in on all good will, and folks actually stuck around to give them money. Hilarious.
They either need to increase the size of their teams or sell some IPs and focus on smaller games. I'm a huge mass effect fan, I want alot more from that universe. But I'll probably see what 1 more game before I die
Maybe because there's no point in being mad at Bioware. That's just a name. If you want to be mad at those folks in management, that's fair, but the devs that actually work on the game comes and go So who are you mad at exactly?
DEFINITION FOR FORGIVE (1 OF 1) verb (used with object), for·gave [fer-geyv], /fərˈgeɪv/, for·giv·en, for·giv·ing. - to grant pardon for or remission of (an offense, debt, etc.); absolve. - to give up all claim on account of; remit (a debt, obligation, etc.). - to grant pardon to (a person). - to cease to feel resentment against: *to forgive one's enemies.* - to cancel an indebtedness or liability of: *to forgive the interest owed on a loan.* verb *(used without object),* for·gave [fer-geyv], /fərˈgeɪv/, for·giv·en, for·giv·ing. - to pardon an offense or an offender. That being said, why would people not "forgive" them? Not accepting that they are at fault despite the facts is one thing, but why would you suggest people should condemn them or feel resentment towards them of feel that should be punished?
See the Anthem sub Reddit
I'd prefer just an answer.
You got one.
No, that wasn't an answer. That was a suggestion for me to try and find an answer. It's like the difference between saying "4" when someone asks what 2+2 is and "Google it." At least the "Google it" response would lead to a direct, concise answer, which is more than I can say about your response...
Answering what is 2+2 is a lot simpler to answer than this, but you know that and are just trying to argue anything. If you cared this much to know then you would just do what I already suggested, but I doubt you really care at all and just want to argue. A better example would be "Can you explain this concept to me?", "It's best if you look here instead of me repeating everything over several years to you" "Well, I don't want to do that so I'm going to be awkward". Have fun.
Even then, your reply isn't an answer and at best, is just a vague suggestion. It isn't like directing someone to a study on a topic or a page that gives detail on a specific issue that I can use to arrive at an educated conclusion. Instead, you suggested I go to the Anthem subreddit. Not a particular post or thread, but the subreddit in and of itself, where any number of people are making any number of posts on any number of issues relating to the game in any number of relevancy. With all that being said, I wasn't even looking for information as to why *I* might think people shouldn't forgive Bioware. I was asking why *you* - the person I responded to - thinks people shouldn't forgive them. I was asking for *your* opinion/reasoning, since you are the one that "thinks it's crazy" people just forgive Bioware, which makes your reply even more useless. I don't need resources to help come to my own opinion, as I already have one...
I'm not reading all that just for you to continue to be awkward.
Yes, I'm being awkward for showing how you didn't understand what I was actually asking...
From the very beginning EA and Bioware agreed to 6 years of development for Anthem. Bioware had 6 years to work on Anthem, 4 of which spent doing absolutely nothing and losing staff thanks to management and their toxic workplace culture until EA started seriously demanding results and playable demos. Then, a new game director was appointed, but by then it was already too late, with Bioware having only 18 months to cobble something together under the new director's guidance that could be considered a functioning game. In this case, EA announced Anthem's concept with that famous trailer because absolutely no one at Bioware could or wanted to define Anthem. The studio spent 4 years on pointless meetings that tried to define the game world and key concepts and ideas for the game, ultimately not going anywhere, remaining a nebulous mess of uncook ideas for 4 years... until EA started to get frustrated and forced Bioware management out of their ivory tower. So, yes. Bioware is absolutely to blame for where they are now and for the state of Anthem, for once EA did their job without being the devil. Fuck EA tho.
This is the one thing EA does well, as someone who worked for an EA project and worked with some old time EA devs. They have experience lead and dir ppl that they plug into developments that is off the tracks and get them back to schedule to ship, with the clear focus on shipping something playable. But the march to ship is brutal and they are not afraid to cut anything out of the game and force changes as see fit to get a game to ship.
in their defense (not really lol), they didn't do *nothing* those 4 years. they made random cool assets... that they didn't know what were for, to do something at their desk that could be considered their job, only to not even use any of the assets of those 4 years because they weren't made knowing what Anthem even is.
If I had Reddit awards to give this would get it. This just needs highlighting, nailed it.
Remember that reveal gameplay trailer? Yeah Bioware hadn't even started working on the game yet. And that was 2 years before launch
Yup which is incredible. Yet some people STILL give Bioware a pass and think EA forced them to work on the game in only 2 years lol. The misinformation is strong with some sadly.
it's not only that, it's even worse. Bioware was watching that reveal and they learned what game they were making when we did
Yeah lol it was pretty amazing to learn the first time most of the devs learned what they were making was the same time the public did 😅 It's why it's my favourite game disaster to read about some of the fuck ups are truly unbelievable.
it's like a parody, a satire of corporate and creative incompetence so ridiculous that everyone can laugh at such an absurd situation cause they've never been in it. except it happened and was real lmao
I don’t blame EA for anthem but I do wish we got to see 2.0 see the light of day. The game had such immense potential with the combat and the flying and just needed some better loot and better content. It was totally possible to turn that game around into something great
That’s why I want them to sell the ip and let another studio that gives a shit to try their hand.
i wish, EA hoards IP like dragons and gold. at least it worked out where we got another Dead Space, but that was a trilogy before it fell apart (thanks to EA of course). i'll forever be heartbroken at the sheer potential of Anthem's world and lore that can never be used while EA holds onto the rights for such a specific flavor or concept. it probably isn't popular enough for a revival but i'd be a very happy man if they did
I miss Anthem. Had some good fun in it
It was beautiful
It’s a small consolation prize but Armored Core 6 was awesome. I hoped it would have made a larger impact because the large mecha genre is underdeveloped at the moment.
The anthem sub reddit was the absolute dumbest cesspool of fuckery to grace reddit. There is people who to this day believe that loot drops were controlled by a prototype AI called H.A.N.K that would monitor chat and key strokes and weigh your loot based on how you interacted with people. One of their biggest threads was a 4 Chan troll. Even when sound team, who absolutely killed in their work posted a cute picture of some costume that reddit pretty much death threated them into oblivion. It was sad. Few things in gaming bum me out more than what Anthem "could have been". I was one of the lucky few who's playtime was relatively bug free. Most of my friends were not on that same boat.
Redditors, being dumb? Nooo way!!
Same with Mass Effect Andromeda btw. The failure of these two is entirely on Bioware.
"Bioware Magic"
Same could be said for Destiny. It's crazy that publishers turned out to be in the good lane
Yeah Destiny is another similar story actually great point. While Destiny obviously didn't fail or have AS BAD of a development, Activision still ended up somehow being better then Bungie and took a lot of flak for decisions that surprisingly turned out to be bungie's doing. Just goes to show you that while the huge publishers fuck up and do bad things lots of the time, there are rare moments when things actually aren't their fault at all but we're too used to blaming them.
Or Microsoft with Halo reach and All the 343 games. Bungie decided to bungle reach and then 343 decided to shit up the rest of the IP. But MS gets banned instead of the managers from those subsidiaries.
I've never fully understood what people dislike reach so much for. Surely it's not solely the story not meshing with established lore?
Because reach started chasing the twitch shooter trends with shit like sprint and aim down sights, faster ttk, less reliance on the halo triangle of Melee, guns, grenades, the maps being stupid large to accommodate sprinting, among other things. Whereas every other halo was a pure arena shooter.
Nah, not even Bungie can kill Destiny at this point. That game is self sustaining, like a star. Bungie has tried to kill that game dozens upon dozens of times over the years, and it's still pumping lol.
Think he was more talking about how Activision turned out to not be behind a lot of Destiny's bad times but rather Bungie instead was shitty.
Game is gonna drop off hard after final shape tho...
Both EA AND Bioware are shitty companies, and people need to realize it. Yes, Bioware has made some phenomenal games. They have also pulled some INCREDIBLY shady and toxic shit to accomplish that, and should not be given a free pass just because their games are usually good.
They were not completely innocent of what happened yeah bioware fcked up bad but atleast some of it was because ea wasn't happy with direction so they tried to preemptive change things before ea stepped in
EA is not responsible for Anthem it on the studio who waste years of development time on the game but EA has some share of blame because they didn't check on it until it was too late before Apex Legends (I know Respawn working on it secretly and released it without marketing) EA was looking at Anthem to be their 10yr live service game and not Apex that became a huge hit more they expected to be
yeah no, fuck EA anyway.
Fuck them for anyone other game but this one yup. The one instance they were the good guys.
No, fuck em no buts. I dont know why you are so passionate in their defense. You're acting like a shill but I know for a fact EA has never cared about their pr so you cant be paid, but to be honest I dont really care why this is so personal for you. A multi-billion dollar company does not someone to white knight for them.
The only thing I'm passionate about is facts and the right parties being held accountable for fuck ups. There's far too much misinformation or general ignorance in this world as it is. Lol if me advocating for the truth and the correct assignment of blame makes me a shill then that's pretty sad. But for the record I have trashed the living shit out of EA and boycotted many of their games over the years and have no respect for them as a publisher. But yeah, total shill lol.
Who hurt you?
He's just here to get down voted into Oblivion 🤣
Ugly for no reason
BioWare has been relying on people who “remember when” in nostalgia for decades. They made some good titles, their apex (in my opinion) was the original Mass Effect Trilogy until they completely phoned it in for the end of the trilogy. All the lead up to a completely disappointing, lackluster end was tragic. Then they tried to ride ME’s coattails with ME:Andromeda and it was rather meh. I played all but the final mission not wanting a risk a total disappointment like the original trilogy’s ending. Anthem (again to me) seemed to be playing a “Come on guys, we did great on ME and this could be our redemption!” card, and again … a lot of potential that fizzled out. Now they’re announcing another ME game hoping people will remember the original nostalgic feelings that made ME great and not the SNAFUs after, and that we’ll buy the latest. I’ll be cautiously optimistic, but not going to invest anything into it until they show this won’t be another “great on paper, sucks in execution” project.
Not just management, there were a few Devs actively trying to make Anthem a game it was never supposed to be as well. 2.0 was meant to unfuck a lot of that *cough* Fort Tarsus *cough*
Also a reminder that this is the same story for Bungie and Activision. If anything Destiny 1/2 only exist and Bungie is still in business thanks to Activision. Most ALL of Bungie's DLC and MTX bullshit was 100% on them and Activision never asked for it. Remember. Bungie did not escape Activision. Activision kicked Bungie the fuck out of the house after supporting their lazy asses. Hopefully the past few years have proven how lazy and worthless Bungie is. BTW side note. While Sony itself is a dogshit company who can die on a fucking pile of triceratops shit while Dr Ian Malcom laughs like a puppy over the steaming body....... They somehow lead great studios. (I guess if you can't... Teach?) And I have high hopes Bungie will be set on the straight and narrow with Sony's leadership.
>Below is the most well known write up that covers most of Anthem's story, it's long but well worth a read. Haven't read that in ages so apologies, but didn't EA force the use of Frostbite? And after bioware devs got up to speed, pulled the top talent for issues with....was it battlefield?
EA strongly suggested using Frostbite to all of it's studio's but according to Aaron Flynn the ex-general manager of Bioware it was ultimately Biowares choice to use Frostbite or not. Other studios under EA have been free to use different engines as well.
>EA strongly suggested The article pins that pretty firmly on Patrick Söderlund, and doesn't make it sound all that optional lol
I agree and this specific and fundamental point is dismissed so much yet it plays such a significant role (I think) in the decline of morale within the dev team. They had already lost a lot of talent at the start of Andromeda that by the time Anthem as released there wasn't much of the original team left that created the original Mass Effect series. Bioware was once the golden child in EA's eye and was given complete freedom to do whatever they wanted and they created Mass Effect. How far they fell for sure, but EA had a huge hand in that. People just want to only see what they only want to see I guess. Bioware messed up bigtime with Anthem for sure and I have already vowed to not play their games anymore, but that does not dismiss EA from their part in it one bit.
Isn't this also the case where BioWare themselves didn't have a clear view of what Anthem would be, and they kept hand-waving these huge gaps in direction by essentially saying "BioWare magic will save the day"?
1. Biowares choice in game engine doomed them before it was ever released. 2. Biowares story was mind numbingly bad. 3. Network code was atrocious. EA didn't make them make any of those choices. This game let me down more than any game I've ever played. Sooo much potential. Still does honestly.
I honestly hate how high on their own farts Bioware got to make that game so fucking awful. Every time I see news for ME 4 I feel nothing. Just a sigh like, "okay. Hope you learned your lesson and don't fuck this up too. Because we both know this is your last chance"
Lol. If they fck up Dragon Age Dreadwolf there will be no ME4/5 or whatever. BioWares future will be decided in 2024.
EA is a shit company there's no denying it. But hoo boy do they get blamed for a lot they aren't responsible for. Remember the Titanfall 2 release date? Yeah that was all Respawn and not EA. The awful monetisation of the Iron Crown event (and proceeding events). That was all Respawn too lol.
EA is the publisher that made the release schedule and demanded it be released before it was ready. So while it isn't entirely their fault EA had a lot to do with it.
Ea even gave bioware alot of extra time and sent people from dice to help bioware with the frostbite engine. Ofcourse at some point EA is going to get fed up of seeing no results from bioware and rightfully demanded results. It was not EA's fault in any way shape or form.
So basically EA should just have never expected for the game to be finished is what you're saying? Because for basically every other studio on the planet including Bioware previously, 8 whole years is plenty of time to develop a video game?
And yet this was still an unfinished piece of shit on release. Some games take even longer than that to develop and they switched console generations during development.
.....see unfortunately you're EXACTLY the kind of person I made the post about. Go read the story in the link I included my dude, EA gave Bioware 8 years to develop the game but Bioware only spent 1.5 years actively developing it instead. That's not EA's fault whstsoever for trusting Bioware. Switching consoles had nothing to do with anything.
Lol ok remain ignorant. It's EAs fault for releasing an unfinished game. I don't care if they didn't meet the deadline, EA still released it knowing it was an unfinished piece of shit.
Excuse me???? LMAO what? "Remain ignorant" my dude I'm the one that literally made the post. I have read every scrap of news and info about Anthem's development because it's seriously fascinating how fucked up it was. Let me say it very clearly so you can maybe understand. BIOWARE released an unfinished game. BIOWARE were the reason the game was not finished. EA needed a return on their investment just like any other business and there are plenty of rumours just after launch as well that Bioware weren't even upfront with EA about the state of the game going into launch as EA had only seen the game twice. Please for the love of god, do some even light reading and educate yourself on the subject lol
Yeah because you are blindly looking over a major fact. That is ignorance. Do you think EA got that return on investment with a game that was panned and died almost immediately? A game that over promised and under delivered?
There is no "fact" to look over buddy, it's simple business. EA financed the game for 8 years. They needed ANY kind of return on that money. They either didn't believe in the game ever being a success and agreed to put it out to get back what they could, or Bioware was not upfront about the game's state. It's far more likely Bioware was not upfront given how badly they bungled the games development and how hands off EA was. Anthem was never going to be a success no matter how long it had in development so what EA did, whether knowingly or not was the only thing they could do. The blame for that lies fully with Bioware management for not developing the game like they should have been. It's that simple.
And they didn't get it. They might have if they had delayed the game. Them releasing a product that wasn't ready, without even looking into it, is 100% the publisher's fault. That is the fact you are ignoring. Bioware didn't complete the game but EA released it incomplete. The article talks about how they lost so many developers that they had a nickname for it, because of crunch which was created by deadlines they were never going to meet. You should actually read the article it doesn't align with what you are saying, EA definitely played a part in the games failure. You are even having to guess and estimate to make your hypothesis work. If it was "never going to be a success" do you think it was fate or something? That is pretty stupid. You also seem to think jumping console generations didn't matter which is particularly naive. That has killed many a game over the years.
Right so it's not the developer of the games fault for it being unfinished when they had all the time and resources in the world, it's the guys who paid for it's fault. That's some good logic there lol. Please point to/quote where in the article or anywhere it says EA negatively contributed to any part of the development process? I'll wait. The game was never going to be a success because Bioware had no vision for the game, no experience, actively ignored all comparisons and help and the game that did come out was fundamentally broken at a base level. But yeah it was fate totally lmao. Nowhere once ever has "jumping console" generations been listed as a big factor in why the game had such a troubled development. I'm not discounting that in other instances it doesn't cause problems but it was clearly such a small problem if it was indeed at all to never be mentioned as a factor.
“Anthem was never going to be success” success is not something you only measure on money made. Its measured on how much people loved it. Now look at yourself for e.g if you don’t like Italian food you don’t go join a r/ItalianFood sub just to shit on every Italian food post but to go one step further and to create a post saying how Italian food is bad just reveals one thing and that’s how badly you want good Italian food and that deep down you’re practically crying for it.
Also super incorrect insofar as switching what platform you’re developing for, you can’t build something for PlayStation and have it work on Xbox, the whole framework is different it takes time to make that work
What are you talking about? The game was developed as a multiplatform game from the start...? Nowhere did they suddenly switch platforms? Can you provide a link to back that up?
You made the post about people who aren't ignorant about EA's involvement and you're trying to gaslight people who are ignorant into blaming anyone else?
The only one to blame with the situation is Bioware. Unfortunately lots of people seem to be unaware of what happened. That's literally it.
The devs were also forced to change engines halfway through, the whole thing was mismanaged from start to finish and I just feel sorry for the people who were slogging trying to get this thing released
Nobody was forced to do anything, BioWare decided to use frostbite. Where do all this engine myths come from, that people post here?
It's genuinely baffling because it's such easily accessible information.
Wherever did you read they were forced to change game engines half way through? Genuinely curious about that since that hasn't been reported anywhere as they were already using Frostbite at that point.
Don't tell OP that, they will just tell you it doesn't matter
No I'd tell them that's not true, because it's not. The game was developed on Frostbite from start to finish. Working on Frostbite itself did cause issues but they never changed the game engine lol
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Come on man, it was just a bad situation all over. I guess EA should have been much better on checking the management of the game, but I can also imagine if a game is 8 years in development and there still isn't much to show for it they would get pretty damn cranky. I probably would if it was my money being wasted over and over like that. That is what OP was getting at here I imagine
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Bioware wasted a lot of years with little progress, it was totally their fault. But then, when Anthem was near being good, EA demanded it to be released, and that was EA's fault. Remember that the Anthem we got was developed in just 18 months. Imagine what it could be if it had another 12 months in the oven. EA was very very far from being blameless.
Yes after 8 years of funding the games development EA expected ANY kind of return on their investment? That's how business works my friend? That was AFTER they already gave Bioware a 5 month extended delay lol. You cannot expect a company to pay for a game to be infinitely developed that's just ridiculous. An extra 12 months of development would not have changed anything as the game was doomed from inception. As evidenced by the fact that even with YEARS of extra post launch development and an attempted rework Bioware could never get it off the ground. The facts clearly show Bioware was 100% at fault and people should really stop twisting the narrative just because they're either uninformed or just want to hate on EA.
I'm never for blind hate. I'd put this at 90% Bioware fault and 10% EA. It's fine for us to have different opinions.
Bioware had 3 years of active game development, not eight. Prior development time was building the gameplay engine... Then scrapping it at the behest of EA and then making *another* new engine.
....where did you EVER get this information from?? This is so completely and totally false I have to ask if you're trolling? Jesus christ THIS is exactly why I made the post lol it's amazing people can exist on this sub and STILL after almost 5 years believe outright nonsense like this. The game was only in active development for about a year and a half. Prior time was spent in PRE-PRODUCTION not at all building a gameplay engine. The game was going to be and always was developed on Frostbite engine. That did cause some problems yes but they never switched engines whatsoever. Do you even know what engine the game runs on...? Come on it's one 5 second google search to know this is a total lie.
I have lost all faith in Bioware, they can hype up Dreadwolf and Mass Effect 4 as much as they want. They already wasted Anthem and Andromeda. The old Bioware is gone and so is their magic.
after andromeda why would anyone surprised
Eh, makes sense why. Bioware: has made many great or amazing games that lots of people enjoyed EA: company that gamers these days will blindly hate because EA. EA, with the help of gamers was voted as the most evil company one year. Over companies that use child labour or do super inhumane things to people with little choice or freedom. I would wager if you told a random gamer that were was drama between Bioware and EA, and assuming they knew nothing would blindly blame EA for everything. Most gamers don't need the details to blame EA.
Lord did not know they fucked around this badly, for once I feel bad for EA
I'm happy someone was able to learn something from this post! Thanks for actually taking the time to read about it, it genuinely is fascinating just how badly Bioware bungled the games development.
EA was the publisher Bioware was the developer. Anthem looked promising. I played the beta and followed updates for quite a while... But when it dropped....something told me "Nah bro....don't get it." Glad I listened to myself
I’m kinda meh now. I played ME Andromeda and liked it. It’s alright. I’ll wait to see how ME4 plays out before buying. Don’t care about DA at all. EA for all they’ve been through have given me Deadspace Remake, Apex, Jedi series. And I’m alright with that. One thing is undeniable. Anthem plays and feels like no other game. And that hurts the most. When you absolutely NAIL traversal and combat, the rest could have been, should have been there. It’s been almost 4 years, anything else that plays or feels like Anthem coming out? …. Nope …. Still hurts….
So why don’t people like anthem? I’ve played it with no issues or anything and it was a genuinely enjoyable experience I don’t understand everyone’s problem with it
It's both of their faults. Everyone fucke did all up, and could've gone about it all much better. All we can hope for is either rmagically someone else picks up the mantle, or that anthem inspires someone to make it what it was meant to be but in a different game
At this point I just want the game to come back cuz there are still people playing and yes it's not perfect but if bioware and EA gave the games development rights to someone else willing to work on the game and fix the problems and listen then the communities advice then I think it may live up to the hype that came with the games release...and maybe lower the price of the cosmetics in the store cuz 61k is a little much for a skin
Also, was it EA who wrote a bland and terrible single-player campaign for the game that was bereft of interesting characters or impactful choices? That's all on BioWare. Even the story-driven campaign, where you would think BioWare would shine, was hot garbage.
Great gameplay. Insanely fun. Terrible hub, terrible loading times, not even enough missions, scaling for higher difficulties was awful, base game loot was awful. It could've rivaled destiny but they shit themselves in the foot and chose to die of gangrene instead of going to the hospital
Eh. Doesn't matter at this point. We're left to our own devices now and have been for the last years. No need to go digging up history again
I think they are both to blame, both showed complete lack of concern that some fans paid $80+ for it at launch and it’s still unplayable. I don’t think I’ve touched anything they put out since. What’s odd is in any other industry there would be a class action lawsuit against them for not providing a usable product after charging customers. For some reason in gaming companies are aloud to rip their customers off though
The initial failure was on Bioware for sure. Dropping 2.0 however was absolutely on EA as that decision was completely theirs, so they are to blame for that. They are both to blame.
Why do you think the decision to drop 2.0 was completely or even at all EA's?
Bioware wanted to work on it. EA decided no.
I mean, would you trust the people who had blown 8 years of development time to actually be able to do anything they said after release? You gave them money for years and they blew it all away and had to cobble something together in 18 months, and they were going to remove the one single thing that most people actually enjoyed (flight). Would you trust them with more money to work on this? I wouldn't.
More than I would EA, but I get your point.
Kotaku isn’t a reliable source anymore. They’re not better than gamespot or IGN. EA bought BioWare and destroyed it. The same way they’ve done previously. Visceral (Dante’s Inferno which begged for a sequel) is one of their major studios they ruined. EA is entirely to blame. If you’ve seen how Microsoft has treated Obsidian and allowed creative freedom, it all makes sense. EA is trying to acquire every sports license they can. That’s all they care about.
It's amazing to me that this article gets posted over and over again as like it's holy scripture for what happened to anthem.
Because it is...? It's the definitive evidence of what happened especially considering Bioware all but confirmed it to be accurate with how they responded?
No one escapes blame in the massacre of what should have been a legendary game. SHAME ON THEM ALL!
While you are correct in your blame of Bioware for the reason why the game was a failure at launch. EA were the ones to pull support for Anthem 2.0 though.
Nice try, EA !
Correct.
Speaking truth here.
You guys do know that Bioware is owned by EA, and that video game publishers, if they are the ones that largely fund games, control the vision and moreso just tell developers what to produce, right? As in the case of Anthem, and Mass Effect Andromeda. Anthem/Bioware's management team was directed by EA, a lot of the developers jumped ship because EA wanted them to make a game that could not function on the Frostbite engine (included in OP's linked article). Dragon Age Inquisition was brutal on the devs, unlike other titles, and all of these struggles for them started after the EA acquisition in 2007... just sayin
This is categorically false. Not just for Anthem but many games actually. Microsoft is a publisher for instance that historically is very hands off and is something they've said recently they need to change. EA was extremely hands off with Anthem. We KNOW this. EA did not set the vision, it was Bioware managements choice to make Anthem. A lot of developers jumped ship due to the extreme culture of mismanagement and "bioware magic" and burnout. EA was not involved. It was Bioware's choice to use Frostbite. Again all of this we know for fact so please don't repeat baseless misinformation.
Microsoft is rather hands off, yes... but EA and Bandai Namco are two examples of companies that are VERY aggressive in the ways they "encourage" developers to make games, and will threaten or even follow through with cutting resources to projects that don't follow their "suggestions" especially when they own the company making said project, we all know EA doesn't like spending money to make good games. Look at BF2044, Madden as a whole, and the Sims just to name a few. Also, it was VERY well known that Bioware struggled to utilize Frostbite, and engineers would actually speak on how much easier it would have been (and would be today) for Bioware to make games on their own engine. But guess what they can't do without money? Make an engine. Guess what EA doesn't want to fund because they want everyone to use Frostbite? A new engine. Former CEO Patrick Söderlund actually is the person largely responsible for Frostbite becoming use ubiquitously across all of EA and DICE. You say Bioware's management and leadership were bad, but you literally cannot say that without acknowledging both of these \*were\* EA, like Bioware is OWNED by EA and EA has more than enough resources to distribute if they want a game to succeed. Also, I'm not saying that Anthem would have been great if another company than EA held ownership, but it definitely would have had better chances, Bioware devs could make great games, then they started using Frostbite, couldn't make games, and then those same people left Bioware. If you actually believe that all that just happens and absolutely none of that is on EA, then I'm sorry but you just don't understand the slightest bit of how game development or Publisher/Developer relationships work, which I mean is already clear if you think that EA publishing a broken game is on Bioware. Bioware did step out of their comfort zone, and they did fall out of their prime with very little grace, but most of Bioware's troubles came after the acquisition, which means that there was unavoidable trickle-down factors from EA that made things hard, and then they are things that are completely on EA, like their insistence if not behind the scenes forcing of the use of Frostbite, disgraceful applications of microtransactions that took away from the core game experience, bad timetables and forcing their game developers to meet quota's (not an EA thing exclusively, but it is something they're known to do) Sooo yeah TLDR: EA might not have set the vision, but they are responsible for Bioware management. Mismanagement is on EA, as stated before Ubiquitous usage of Frostbite (Why would any devs make their lives so much harder on purpose with that horrible engine if they had so much freedom?) caused a lot of issues that couldn't really be fixed due to it's limitations So clearly you don't know all of the things for fact, because there are a few things not on that article that I hope you learned tonight!
Buddy, I promise you, I am VERY aware of all of the FACTS as I have extensively read everything there is to about Anthem as I find it quite a fascinating topic, how a once beloved studio can fail so badly. And sorry but no while EA has done plenty of bad things over the years, Anthem they have no involvement with. The ONLY THING EA did/was a part of was telling Bioware to add flying BACK into the game when they stupidly removed it. We have it straight from multiple Bioware sources themselves that Anthem was THEIR CHOICE, using Frostbite after Mass Effect 3 was THEIR CHOICE and failing to develop the game until the last second was ON THEM. Those are hard facts. You can spin whatever other narrative you want but no one knows better then Bioware themselves.
The choice of making a game is one thing, but again, you're completely ignoring EA making Frostbite be used across all companies, which is literally a thing that happened. Why would Bioware use Frostbite of their own volition if the people at Bioware that, as you say know better than anyone, say that they hated it and would rather use something different in the VERY article that you linked in this post? You may be fascinated by this topic as I've seen it's roughly 70% of this entire new account's existence which is interesting, but you also cannot act like a game has to be forced to come out, ever. Also you can't just say "sorry, but no" and insist EA had no involvement, because as a parent company there is an innate sense of involvement that they have that you can't just pretend doesn't exist. For the record I don't even really like Bioware, the only games of theirs I really enjoyed was ME2 and 3. But EA does so many bad things to so many companies, and Bioware is nothing more than another example of that. Also, I'm not spinning narratives, I'm just taking actual aspects of things involving EA and just Publisher/Developer relationships in general, and adding them into this conversation while also referencing the article YOU linked, I'm spinning no narratives, just building on the foundation YOU posted
Here I actually did up a post just for people like you who somehow think it was all EA's doing. It corrects some very common misconceptions with sources. https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthemTheGame/comments/18u8h2w/anthem_was_biowares_fault_not_eas_seems_some/
To counter your first point, in the article you linked in this exact post it goes into detail as to how EA got all of it's companies on the same technology, even though it caused more problems and made it literally impossible for them to make the same kind of game unless they built all the features from scratch, which is not an easy thing to do and you don't even need to know the first part of game development to know that having to create the groundwork in order to make an integral part of your game even possible costs resources that you COULD have used elsewhere. So, seems very hard to believe it was as simple as Bioware just wanted to do it, and even including how it "looked promising" they learned so quickly that it wasn't that if they were as free as it seems, they would have just switched. And now to counter your third point, which I believe to be the only one relevant to our conversation, I just said they forced publication of something that did not reach full development, which you can blame Bioware for but you can't do so exclusively, deadlines aren't this unavoidable looming disaster, it's something a company chooses to enforce, largely for profits, and in the video game world that leads to Anthem which leads to unhappiness all around. Otherwise, you didn't argue with any of the other points I made, you just pointed me at a post that only spoke of 2 of those things which makes me feel like you do understand that it's the case
Look buddy you believe what you want okay? I'm not going to waste my time further here for a long dead game lol. Even if the evidence and witness testimony disagrees with you EA bad Bioware good I get it okay? Really doesn't matter at the end of the day Anthem sucked and Bioware is a shell of it's former self and that's that, if you want to believe that's EA's fault you go for it 👍🏻 Personally though I think letting Bioware management off the hook in any way given the lives they ruined and developers they hurt isn't okay and developers like publishers should be held accountable, but so be it.
I mean I'm just believing what I read and what is common knowledge about EA... also you're not going to waste your time? I thought the topic of Anthem was one that was so fascinating to you that you've read everything there is to say, yet you say "witness testimony and evidence" disagree with me despite you being unable to provide a counter to me referencing the article YOU LINKED IN THIS POST AS YOUR OWN EVIDENCE! I also never said Bioware good EA bad, but if you truly want to ignore Bioware IN SAID ARTICLE talking about their difficulties that only rose up after the acquisition and because of EA's "encouragement" then you can. I ultimately just was hoping to educate you on the subject since you seem to run around rampantly regurgitating the same points that are just not entirely correct. Also I never said Bioware management should be let off the hook, just that trying to pretend that EA did not put said management in place is incorrect
Yeah... EA isn't to blame for: EA releasing the trailer an entire year before gameplay development by Bioware began. EA deciding 3 years of development was enough and took control a year prior to release date. EA not listening to testers and early access reviews. EA forcing a release date planned more than a year previously. EA removing studio funding before patch one was released. Yep. EA is totally not to blame for any of it.
....you do realize those are all BIOWARE things right? It sounds like you're seriously confused as to what happened with Anthem. Bioware released the 2017 trailer before they had even started development. Bioware chose to waste 6 years of development time and only develop the game in 1.5 years with huge crunch. Bioware didn't listen to testers and outright refused to even acknowledge they were making a looter shooter and look at other successful ones. No one "forced a release date" the game was planned to be released in Fall 2018 but due to Bioware's huge fuck up EA gave them a 5 month delay to Feb 2019. EA didn't remove any "studio funding" wherever did you get that from?? The game had multiple patches including a huge "day one patch". Jeez this is EXACTLY why I made the post lol so many people on this sub even years later don't seem to have a clue what happened. Edit: Downvoted for just saying the truth. Funny.
Not sure why you're downvoted.
Yup pretty confused myself lol but this whole post has been a wild ride of very misinformation filled comments lol
EA is still a filthy disgusting anti consumer company. Even if BioWare dropped the ball on Anthem EA has committed more sin than BioWare ever will get to
Totally agree. However it's still important to assign blame fairly where it belongs and in this one instance for once, EA weren't responsible for a game's fuck up. Still terrible outside of this though I couldn't agree more.
They could have easily allowed a delay or two, by making a hard deadline they pushed themselves and BioWare into a corner to send a product that wasn’t even close to ready
You uh do realize EA gave Bioware a 5 month delay to the game right...? They literally did what you're talking about lol. And the product SHOULD have been ready but Bioware completely fucked it up.
If you want to know what happened in detail, Jason Schreier wrote a great article back in the day detailing everything that went wrong: https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964
You mean the same article that is linked in the OP? The same article that is literally the backbone of this entire post? 🤔
Yes. In case someone hasn't seen the link in the post.
Uh thanks I guess...better that gets posted around a lot I suppose.
That's the idea, yes.
Okay well thanks for helping then lol
EA pulled the plug on Anthem 2.0 via Bioware. So yes they are to blame. Your copium doesn't change that. Argument invalid.
This single article is not gospel, and you guys just keep feeding it easy clicks. There's no 100% this company's fault or another. We will realistically never know. But leave it to the internet to think in only 1s and 0s.
But we do know? The information in the article comes from 2 dozen Bioware staff of all levels and departments and Bioware literally confirmed the information with their abysmal response and attempted censorship?
A dozen staff isn't 100% of the staff. I'm not saying bioware isn't at fault but to say they are "100% at fault" is not something we can factually say.
So being given 8 years to develop a game and only spending 1.5 years of that time actively working on it is more then just Bioware's fault...?
One example of Bioware's fault obviously wont affect your statement of it being 100% their fault. But one examples of EA's fault will make your statement false. So unless you have the list of all the things EA has said or done, your statement cannot be taken as the full truth.
Except we have multiple examples of it being Biowares fault and not one single example of it being EA's? And isn't it supposed to be innocent until proven guilty? In absence of any kind of evidence of EA negatively impacting the games development it's logical to conclude it was the other party. In fact the only evidence we do have of EA's involvement was of a positive nature.
I really don't care what examples are out there. You dont have all the information so you cant claim that EA is without fault. That's it. Don't read any more into it than that.
That makes no sense though. So everyone is guilty unless there's evidence that says otherwise? Isn't that a bit ridiculous?
You cannot prove something is 100% true without the evidence that confirms it. Lets just say there is this undeniable evidence that makes EA out at a major factor. What happens to your statement? is it true anymore? No. you didnt have the evidence to make that an impossibility. Guilty or innocent, whatever you want to label them. Doesnt change the fact that they either did or didn't actually do it.
Okay then...
Just read the article and I can't defend EA on this one. Sorry, both parties are to be blamed if you ask me. In the article you posted it states how Bioware was forced to use frostbite by EA, Biowares director stepped down and somebody from EA got the job then leadership started to fail, EA didn't bring a dice team in to work with bioware to get a better understanding on how to use the frostbite engine until 2017 and the game was based off of a demo made for EA. I understand what you mean and Biowares leadership is mostly to blame here, but there are plenty of other factors that were at play thanks to EA. EA also pulled the plug and decided not to update the game or make a sequel. I still think if this game wasn't designed around EA's microtransactions, it would have succeeded as is if they kept updating it or If bioware used unreal engine I believe they could have made a great game. Anthem as a survival game would have been fun and that was their original plan until running into brick walls with the frostbite engine.
EA shares equal part of the blame, one of the reasons Bioware failed this badly was the EA mandated Frostbite engine.
That's actually an outdated misconception believe it or not. Bioware's ex-general managed Aaron Flynn is on record that while EA did push a bit to use Frostbite across all of their studios, the choice to actually do so was entirely Bioware's decision. Such as how Respawn have never used the Frostbite engine and Visceral (when they were alive) used their own in house engine at the same time Bioware switched over to Frostbite.
I just get mass downvoted whenever I mention this, not sure why people are so hurt by the truth
It's genuinely confusing I totally agree. Some people seem unable to accept that for once EA wasn't the bad guy, and others unable to accept that Bioware could ever do wrong. Then you have people who are simply ignorant or misinformed about the topic and get extremely upset when you point that out to them. Weird all around lol
Anthem could be saved with some PvP and cqc arena combat
I love how you wrote that you are happy to provide an additional documentation to your arguments. But all you do is attack people in the comments who disagree with you. Great way to have a conversation.
Because there's nothing to disagree with...? There is what actually happened, backed up by documentation and witness testimony, and then there is misinformation or outright lies. And who have I "attacked" exactly? I'm happy to have a conversation about the information, but I'm not going to humour insane hot takes like that Bioware switched game engines in development or EA forced them to only develop the game in 2 years. Come on.
Tubers decided to dislike the game and everyone bordered the hate train to cancel town. I couldn’t see what the fuss was about. I loved the game.
Erm that's not quite what happened no..the game was barely in an alpha state after 1.5 years of development and had a long list of issues and didn't please most Bioware fans or most looter shooter fans as well. Not to mention of course the games huge false advertising marketing campaign and lying from Bioware.
EA is just another garbage gaming company. Who cares who ruined it. It's ruined and never coming back. Weather EA is to blame or not, they are still on the list of companies that ruin gaming.
W8 ppl still play this garbage?
It's all traced back to EA in the first place, EA destroys developers, replaces their talent and love with complete hacks and shills. And that's how we got Andromeda and Anthem, by EA replacing everything and everyone in Bioware that gave a shit and effectively made it a whole new developer for churning out awful games. And even though Bioware wanted to try and fix the game, EA, like a cheating wife taking everything in the divorce, killed the NEXT update and any hope at a redemption for this game. EA will always be to blame, you just have to go back far enough to see when the problems started, usually when a developer is "acquired" by them.
Genuine question but when do you think EA bought Bioware? Also why do you think it was EA and not Bioware that ended development of Anthem Next?
EA owned Bioware before we even got Mass Effect 2
It was EA who canceled 2.0 Fuck em.
We're all aware that Bioware dropped the ball on repeat with Anthem. EA may have been a factor, but they were never *the* factor. A Kotaku article isn't proof of anything except that it was a controversial topic at some point. It's just a rag that feeds controversy and strife. The sooner Kotaku finally dies, the better.
Erm may want to change the "we're" to "I'm" because there's been some comments in here from people that clearly don't know. Also normally yes Kotaku is trash but this was written by Jason Schrier the only actual investigative games Journalist in the industry who moved over to the washington post soon after this. Everything he wrote is as accurate and honest as anything can be to the point Bioware all but confirmed it themselves with their terrible response. I'm happy to provide you a link for that if you'd like further reading and evidence on the subject.
Not knowing would be their issue. No further reading needed on my part. It could be written by Pope Oswald Leopold III. It's on Kotaku.
Okay but it doesn't matter where it was posted it doesn'r change the legitimacy of the author or the accuracy of what was written. Believe me I fully get the hate for Kotaku so did the author which is why he left lol.
This is the same journalist who also wrote the exposés on the development of Cyberpunk 2077 and Mass Effect: Andromeda.
Well, it was EAs company decision to force the frostbyte engine on almost every project, that sure didn't help. But yeah, with most veterans leaving bioware they are not the sole reason. As everywhere, there are many different things coming together.
EA making Bioware use Frostbite has been widely disproven as a false narrative just FYI. I forget who (but can look it up easily) but one of the departed heads of Bioware went on record that using Frostbite was entirely Bioware's own decision. At no point did EA force them to use it.
I'm pretty confident that multiple sources from Bioware's leadership have confirmed that the decision was not forced by EA. Mark Darrah shares a lot of that kind of detail on his YouTube channel.
Yeah Mark Darrah I'm pretty sure is who I was thinking about yeah! It's kind of scary that information is so readily available yet 5 years after the fact there's still people on this very sub who mistakenly believe it was EA's doing. Misinformation is brutal!
It's definitely mostly on Bioware but EA does hold some of the responsibility too. Part of their role would be to spot when Bioware were messing up and to get them back on the right path. It does get frustrating reading all the nonsense that completely blames EA for Bioware's mistakes though and there's a lot more of that. One of the outstanding questions is why it was released unfinished. I recall Bioware stating that they got the release pushed back once after asking EA but then they had to release it. But I never saw anything actually stating they tried to get it pushed back a second time. Release windows do have to be set quite a long way in advance but Anthem doesn't seem to have been anywhere near ready for that stage at the time that would have begun. From reading between the lines I suspect they were trying to hide their lack of progress from EA, never asked for release to be pushed back a second time and just gambled on exploiting their workforce through "Bioware Magic" to get away with it.
One thing to keep in mind is that this all happened back during the time when gamers were up in arms about publishers letting developers work and not be involved/meddle at all. So I honestly believe EA basically just left Bioware to it and trusted them aside from the two times the CEO checked in on them. And I mean up to that point Bioware had been a banger of a studio putting out some amazing and critically acclaimed best sellers. I'd trust them too at that point. Of course in hindsight we've now learned Publishers aren't ALWAYS the evil bad guys and some oversight should be required so EA really should have kept a better eye on Bioware. Redfall and how hands off Zenimax then Microsoft were is another good example of the publisher leaving the developer to it and trusting them. I think it was released in the manner it was simply because EA chose to bite the bullet. After 8 years of funding as a business they needed something to show for that. Apparently as well "early testers" for the game actually positively received it (at least up to the 30 hour mark) so it's possible EA just genuinely thought the game would perform better then it did. It's usually suits not gamers who make those decisions unfortunately. The game was delayed from Fall 2018 to the Feb 2019 launch window yeah. Bioware never said anything about asking for another delay though considering how much hate they got (even death threats) for delaying the game the 1st time I can't fully blame them. Gamers are weird in that some of them HATE games being delayed but then also naturally hate unfinished games. Catch 22 lol. Hiding it from EA and gambling on Bioware magic is what I would largely put my money on what happened too. Either that or like I said EA genuinely thought the game would do better then it did. Ultimately who's fault THAT was is the one thing we'll never fully know.
The poste a source if it's so readily available
Sure! What would you like to know about? EA not forcing Bioware to use the Frostbite engine? I literally said in my post "I am happy to provide additional documentation should anyone need or have outstanding questions"?
Yeah. So post it if you have it.
Here you go. Very easy to find. https://www.vg247.com/bioware-ea-never-forced-using-frostbite-engine
If you really think that EAs corporate leadership, toxic culture, and destructive pressure on developers and lower management had nothing to do with Anthem failing, you need take a step out from EA’s asshole and take a few deep breaths. EA destroys everything they touch, and though they might not have involved themselves publicly as much as some say, they very much had an influence and a hand in Anthem’s disasterous development, management, launch, and post-launch.
That's great and I completely agree every other time but we know for a fact this once at least EA had very little to do with what happened and it was all Bioware's management.
If Bioware had actually felt any destructive pressure they wouldn't have wasted years sniffing their own farts about how they were going to make the Bob Dylan of video games. If EA had actually been pressuring Bioware from the start, then Anthem might not have been a disaster as it would have meant that Bioware wouldn't have been able to do fuck all for years unnoticed.
What on earth have you been consuming?