104 réponses à ce sujet

[Paulinius]

If I were BioWare/EA, I would be releasing free copies of of ME1 and ME2 a month or so before ME3 hits shelves. It's not like they're going to lose a lot of sales over it. But then again, depending on the contract they have signed; BioWare (and possibly certain key developers) probably get a certain royalty amount based on each game distributed so if 5 million copies are downloaded someone is going to be due a significant payday.

[BeefoTheBold]

javierabegazo wrote...

Do you really think PR is going to tell people who've never heard of Mass Effect that they have to slug in 50 to 80 hours of their time on the first two games just so they can play ME3?

I actually read through the entire thread before coming back and selecting this as the best comment to reply to.

I'd hope that most PR folks would know that the best kind of public relations is based on the building and maintaining a good image for the company to the point that the people who buy your products trust what you say about them.

Things that are obviously silly/stupid like claiming that playing the third game of a trilogy is the best place to start are actually BAD public relations because they are so utterly, transparently lies. I'm not saying that PR shouldn't play up ME3 to the best extent possible. I WANT Bioware's games to do well. (At least so long as they keep making actual RPGs and don't completely abandon us RPG fans as they pursue the "better" gamer audience that they seem to crave so badly.)

But there are ways to encourage people who have never played a Mass Effect game to give ME3 a try without saying something that most 8 year olds would see right through.

For example, if I was working for Bioware and I wanted to encourage folks who haven't played the series before to jump in and give it a go I'd talk about how Bioware is including a decision editor for those people who didn't play the first two games to help familiarize them with the ongoing plot and let them make some of the key decisions that they would have had to make in the first games. I'd comment about how the introduction to Mass Effect 3 will have a "the story so far" type segment to catch them up. Stuff like that.

The nature of long running series is that they create barriers to entry, but they aren't insurmountable and you CAN do things to make them less intimidating and bring new players onboard who missed the first games.

[alihou]

Okay...I'll admit it right here! I didn't play ME1...there I said it! B/C I wanted to buy a game and randomly stumbled upon ME2... I was looking for an RPG and he told me ME2 is the best thing since sliced bread... I asked him if I needed to play the 1st..he said no...they'll explain everything to u in ME2...I played ME2 confused most of the time... B/C I didn't know who Garrus, Liara, or Ashley were while playing... I didn't know what a Reaper was... I don't think it was explained well enough... I literally read every Codex package that existed in the game...But I still didn't know WTF happened in the 1st game...They bring up Saren and Sovereign in ME2 but never really explain who and what they were and ended up doing efficiently... It was after my 1st play where I had to thoroughly research the lore behind ME1 and even before to get a full grasp... So I honestly believe if you start ME3 as your 1st game you're royally screwed...

[JayhartRIC]

BeefoTheBold wrote...

javierabegazo wrote...

Do you really think PR is going to tell people who've never heard of Mass Effect that they have to slug in 50 to 80 hours of their time on the first two games just so they can play ME3?

I actually read through the entire thread before coming back and selecting this as the best comment to reply to.

I'd hope that most PR folks would know that the best kind of public relations is based on the building and maintaining a good image for the company to the point that the people who buy your products trust what you say about them.

Things that are obviously silly/stupid like claiming that playing the third game of a trilogy is the best place to start are actually BAD public relations because they are so utterly, transparently lies. I'm not saying that PR shouldn't play up ME3 to the best extent possible. I WANT Bioware's games to do well. (At least so long as they keep making actual RPGs and don't completely abandon us RPG fans as they pursue the "better" gamer audience that they seem to crave so badly.)

But there are ways to encourage people who have never played a Mass Effect game to give ME3 a try without saying something that most 8 year olds would see right through.

For example, if I was working for Bioware and I wanted to encourage folks who haven't played the series before to jump in and give it a go I'd talk about how Bioware is including a decision editor for those people who didn't play the first two games to help familiarize them with the ongoing plot and let them make some of the key decisions that they would have had to make in the first games. I'd comment about how the introduction to Mass Effect 3 will have a "the story so far" type segment to catch them up. Stuff like that.

The nature of long running series is that they create barriers to entry, but they aren't insurmountable and you CAN do things to make them less intimidating and bring new players onboard who missed the first games.

I think they did mention the decision editor, and "best" could mean a lot of different things anyway.  I'm sure ME 3 will play great as a standalone game.  The thing is, even if the decision editor tracked all 1000+ decisions from the first 2 games, it still doesn't replace actually experiencing those things happen.  I think a lot of people will play ME3 and then go back and try the other two games.