9972 réponses à ce sujet

[Ender1221]

mogri wrote...

Don't give up folks! Stow the defeatism and hold the line! Keelah Se'lai!

Keelah Se'lai is perfect!  By the ending I hope to see someday!

[cyrrant]

cardboardarmor wrote...

In related EA/Bioware news, a news item came in via SWTOR's Facebook page announcing another free weekend pass for those who missed/couldn't make it to last weekend's free event.

Even if the first one wasn't a faux olive branch, I'm getting some sense that this might be a move in reaction to cancellations happening due in no small part to the bad endings in Mass Effect 3.  I won't pretend to be an expert in PR, but it's my opinion.

Our Choices Should Matter - Hold the Line

[Dawnrunner]

Sorry in advance if this has already been posted somewhere, but here is a little insight from basic/strategic marketing POW (mediocre english included, not native ))).

There are 6 basic types of customers relatively to your product (within targeted audience from planet population =)):

• unaware
• aware
• customer-dissatisfied
• customer-neutral
• customer-satisfied
• customer-involved (invested or whatever you prefer to call it).

Skipping all the basic theory, the companies like BioWare are always aiming at increasing the proportion of ppl in last, top-segment of involved customers to at least 25-30%.

While it might be obvious, not really all companies desperately need it, since that requires additional resources on all lvls of production-to-selling chain. F.e. producers of some basic, so called "traditional" (like UHT milk), commodities which generally got lower margins, are fine with 90% beeing around 4. You do not need to invest huge resources into ads, collecting customer responses, hiring army of sales staff etc. as long as you know that your product is "just fine". People will still buy it in huge amounts, you gain lower %margin, but higher absolute margins.

On the other hand there are companies like Apple (best example ever). Create products of exceptional (arguable) quality and aim at making it a "cult". This involves constantle evolving (or at least making ppl believe) your products, determining the paths by basing on insights delivered by research in any form (scientific research, constant market research, active customers involvement, etc.)

Gaining the army of "culprits" provides, in first and major place, HUGE %margins by selling your while well-designed but priced high product. In addition: makes fail-launches of new products close to impossible, boosts sales of associated goods (that often have even bigger %margins), give you free ads (culprits preaching of how good you are), etc-etc.   I'm using Apple products myself but for me it's like a deliberate self-indocrination  

Everytime you think "well, I'm ready to pay 60$ for this game" there is an echo in the back of your skull "even though it can't possibly cost that much!" - and you're right.

You're (just like me) one of the culprits, the involved customer, you're buying DLCs, associated materials like ELECTRONIC artbooks (which are, basically, the sketches produced during game developing process, e.g. the expenses are already included to the raw cost of the product, so you're effectively double-paying for that), action figures, Normandy SSV models etc. in 2011 I basically made my friend who have never heard about ME (he played and enjoyed KOTOR back in the days, but he generaly doesn't care about who developed game so "BioWare" doesn't ring any bell) try ME2 and prior to that buy ME1 cuz it wouldn't be any fun otherwise. Now he's ready to kill me for wasting money on ME3.

After completing ME3 I had one thought - BioWare is supposed to be that high %margin branch of EA delivering sales by maintaining their cult. Have EA fired their Lead mkt officer roughly at the same time as Drew left BW? If things are left like this, EA effectively nukes the temple where major part of all culprits gathered to worship BW and receive their latest divine gift.. =)

PR damage control actions can't possibly help with drastic strategic mistakes... If EA want to keep their high %margin machine named BioWare, they are bound to do something more serious.

Just my2cents. (or probably im just grabbing the straw like everyone tends to...)

[iiNOMADii]

@bluryhunter

There is more to these endings that originally believed, because Shepard was indoctrinated. Nothing makes ANY sense otherwise.

[DoctorCrowtgamer]

cyrrant wrote...

cardboardarmor wrote...

In related EA/Bioware news, a news item came in via SWTOR's Facebook page announcing another free weekend pass for those who missed/couldn't make it to last weekend's free event.

Even if the first one wasn't a faux olive branch, I'm getting some sense that this might be a move in reaction to cancellations happening due in no small part to the bad endings in Mass Effect 3.  I won't pretend to be an expert in PR, but it's my opinion.

Our Choices Should Matter - Hold the Line

Two free weekends in a row seems like panic,we are having an impact.  Don't give up just because they are trying to wait us out.  we have put so much work into this don't let it be for nothing.

Hold the line for as long as it takes.

[sabasebatyne]

PluralAces wrote...


It's not pessimism. its my opinion. I believe if it was up to Bioware themselves, this situation would have been addressed and probably not even occurred. Remember it was when ME2 came out, the time when EA took over, that the style of gameplay changed, etc.. Most studios nowadays need a major company behind them to remain stable and have the ability to create more games. I believe things would be different if Bioware were still under Microsoft.

Would BW be in any better position now if they were still with Microsoft? Eh, maybe. I don't think so. Microsoft is even more monolothic than EA. Being that the issue essentially stems from the creative team, I think that's beside the point.
Also, not trying to insult or belittle in any way. I respect your opinions.

[ElectronicPostingInterface]

Why be defeatist?

Things are moving towards a positive reality for a new ending...

[Salyut]

blurryhunter wrote...

Since I'm apparently on a posting roll (I don't do this often), I thought I'd mention something else that's important to this entire situation; even if it is a bit of a crystal ball thought.

Should BioWare end up showing us that there really is more to these endings then originally believed, be wary in how you approach the situation. You don't want to invalidate everything you've stood for, because you're not wrong; even if BioWare had an Ace up their sleeve this whole time.

If you truly felt wronged, you have every right to say so. You can acknowledge that they pulled a fast one with genuine praise or courtesy, while also pointing out that the whole situation would have gone much better for everyone involved if there were more engagement from BioWare other than 'half truth' and 'almost-but-not-quite' statements.

You've done nothing wrong if this all turns out to be a mirror trick. Acknowledge if they'd done something right, but be firm and resolute about what they did wrong. It's the only way we learn; no matter the medium.

I agree. If the Indoc theory is true, I would certainly admire their creativity. But that still means they sold people a game without the promised conclusive and varied endings. That's especially unfair towards those who can't download patches/DLC due to a bad/missing internet connection.

[Emphyr]

and ow yes ME2 players are having difficulties also!
see this!

[Thornne]

DoctorCrowtgamer wrote...

cardboardarmor wrote...

 Meanwhile, these financial things happen.

As of writing, EA's stock prices have receeded to near pre-ME3 launch levels.  What does this mean?  Well...it means their stock prices are trending towards returning to near pre-ME3 launch levels.

The price rode high on the excitement of the game launch for a fair bit of time, but chill feelings seem to have put a damper on things.

See people these things take time... 

I don't think ME3's critical reception will have a significant effect on EA's stock price.  If there is going to be an effect, it will be when they report sales numbers.  I'm not really a financial guy but I think the fiscal quarter typically ends March 31st in the USA.  So I wouldn't expect anything much until then.

That said, if it looks like ME3 is selling poorly, they may be more inclined to make a concrete statement about how they intend to fix that problem.
 

[HanshinRynuusuke]

MikeSnipe1692 wrote...

Anyone think that EA shutting down all those game servers could have some serious PR backlashes? I mean it's kind of obvious that it will, but I'd like some opinions.

It definitely wouldn't help their PR! Personally, I would imagine that that would tick-off a lot of people. Not to mention, I could see that hurting them legally too. As they have a responsibility to allow for people to access and use content they paid for. At least that is my understanding of the statutes.

[dfstone]

Anyone who's played the game has already purchased it so they got your money and if thats all EA is concerned about they've already won.

[The Almighty Ali]

Seems some of you need some inspiration.
Though make you you don't get burned out, watch a movie and do something to take your mind off this for some hours, then you'll soon be back fit for fight again.
Can only provide this for now though.

[HanshinRynuusuke]

Salyut wrote...

blurryhunter wrote...

Since I'm apparently on a posting roll (I don't do this often), I thought I'd mention something else that's important to this entire situation; even if it is a bit of a crystal ball thought.

Should BioWare end up showing us that there really is more to these endings then originally believed, be wary in how you approach the situation. You don't want to invalidate everything you've stood for, because you're not wrong; even if BioWare had an Ace up their sleeve this whole time.

If you truly felt wronged, you have every right to say so. You can acknowledge that they pulled a fast one with genuine praise or courtesy, while also pointing out that the whole situation would have gone much better for everyone involved if there were more engagement from BioWare other than 'half truth' and 'almost-but-not-quite' statements.

You've done nothing wrong if this all turns out to be a mirror trick. Acknowledge if they'd done something right, but be firm and resolute about what they did wrong. It's the only way we learn; no matter the medium.

I agree. If the Indoc theory is true, I would certainly admire their creativity. But that still means they sold people a game without the promised conclusive and varied endings. That's especially unfair towards those who can't download patches/DLC due to a bad/missing internet connection.

Correction: Technically, it could be considered criminal or fraudulent. Companies have till the release or publishing of a product to amend or correct any previous official statements. In this case, that did not happen! I am sure you see where that is going...

[Salyut]

dfstone wrote...

Anyone who's played the game has already purchased it so they got your money and if thats all EA is concerned about they've already won.

That would be a bad attitude to have from a business standpoint. Brand loyalty is an important thing to have for any business. So unless they don't care about selling future DLC or new IPs, they ignore this at their own peril.

[mi_dad]

    When I finished the game I was terribly confused as to what just happened.  I thought to myself there must be a better ending than this, so I  turned to google to search for explanations of what just happened.  My first result was the facebook page, and there I found a link to these forums. I was suprised to see how many other people were
dissatisfied with their ending as well.  Then it dawned on me we all got the same ending, albiet with slighty different tweaks and colors.
                               
                                “Experience the beginning, middle, and end of an emotional story unlike any
                                other, where the decisions you make completely shape your experience
                                and outcome.”


    For me, the Mass Effect trilogy was more about the story than anything else,  the game-play was good, but it wasn't the best either.   BioWare managed to create a rich story, full of great characters, that I became attached to (not in a creepy way). I just wanted to see where they ( the characters) ended up when the trilogy was done.  My biggest gripe with the ending-god in the machine aside-is with the destruction of the relays. We all learned in the arrival that destroying the relays wipes out the system in which they reside. To me this means no matter which option you choose you are wiping out most of the life in the galaxy. Why would my shepard pick this option knowing full well he is doing the reapers work for them. My shepard set out to save lives, not destroy them.  I acknowledge i am not a great study of story telling, but even to me the ending has very flawed logic.  Why give up a chance to destroy the reapers on shepards terms and possibly fail, if all the other options lead to the almost complete destruction of the galaxy anyway?


      I felt betrayed by the developer.  I was promised a end to the story, my story, the story created by my choices.  Thats not what they delivered.  I cannot in good concious spend any more money on BioWare products, unless they do something to remedy this situation. I simply do not trust them to make decisions with quality or story telling in mind, only appeal to the masses.                       
    
  Signed
     A Potentially Former Customer


     PS. Many thanks go  atghunter for his wonderful insight into the world of Public Relations and  great                                   motivational posts, Bachuck for organising the first post so those of us with out alot of time can keep           
             up with the pertinant info, and everyone else for helping show BioWare that they have lots of diehard fans                  and we know that they can do better than this.

             Hold the Line

Modifié par mi_dad, 20 mars 2012 - 05:50 .

[Sandoo]

Is saying "hold the line" really enough ?

I would be Bioware or EA, that would just make me laught. What would make me want to act/react is that player actually boycot all bioware/EA games.
If you're saying that and still playing games on Origin, it just show no determination and my guess is once you've finished the game, you'll forget all about this "ending thing".

Or maybe ignoring the BSN for a few days could do the trick ? No messages, no one actually visiting the forum.
Since they don't answer when the forum are spam, maybe they will if we start completely ignoring them.

Right now, they are playing a dangerous game. Loosing respect from their most devoted fans. The ones who will buy collector edition, pre order or DLC.
We know they made a lot of money from the ME saga, they could develop this ending dlc without any real problem. And like I said, now it's only a matter of how they want to be seen by the fans.
Do they care about customers or simply don't give a f**k. And even with all that, if they do a good ending DLC, they would be the bigger man and earn some respect.

[monotoy]

not sure if this was posted already

http://www.theverge....-ken-levine-sad

I found the statement from BioWare's Barnett "Just as J.K. Rowling can end her books and say that is the end of Harry Potter. I don't think she should be forced to make another one." is quite absurd. Rowling doesn't sell you the last book of Potter for $60, tells you that 50 pages are missing but only continue an additional character and some background information on the series but are not *totally* critical to the book, but that you can buy those 50 pages separately for an additional $10 if you want to actually read the book in its entirety, that she might release more pages later that you can also buy and read (preferably by reading the entire book again including the newly released pages), and then to top it all off ends the series by sending in an armada of tinfoilhat-wearing space hamsters riding pink ponies that kill Harry Potter and turn the universe into a cheesecake, described in 30 lines of text, because she saw fit to a "bittersweet" ending.

Modifié par monotoy, 20 mars 2012 - 05:49 .

[Pandoravv3]

Thornne wrote...

DoctorCrowtgamer wrote...

cardboardarmor wrote...

 Meanwhile, these financial things happen.

As of writing, EA's stock prices have receeded to near pre-ME3 launch levels.  What does this mean?  Well...it means their stock prices are trending towards returning to near pre-ME3 launch levels.

The price rode high on the excitement of the game launch for a fair bit of time, but chill feelings seem to have put a damper on things.

See people these things take time... 

I don't think ME3's critical reception will have a significant effect on EA's stock price.  If there is going to be an effect, it will be when they report sales numbers.  I'm not really a financial guy but I think the fiscal quarter typically ends March 31st in the USA.  So I wouldn't expect anything much until then.

That said, if it looks like ME3 is selling poorly, they may be more inclined to make a concrete statement about how they intend to fix that problem.
 

The stock prices are starting to go downish because of bad publicity. but will probably go up end of Q1 due to despite bad reviews, and complaints, it still sold well. The best way to counter this is to keep up the bad publicity on them. CNN did a segment once, but it was practically insulting, the BBC segment starts the turn of the tide though, with major news outlets picking it up. I expect good things to happen from it. We just need to keep the story relatable to for non ME players, and get more of the people actually investing in these stocks to lose heart.

[DannieCraft]

Let's consider the time it takes to develop new content.

Urgent meetings are (most likely) already on the ground, and BioWares active forum readers are constantly compiling feedback from the fans. They want to carefully analyze different ideas and constructive criticism before they send their writing team to work. Gathering this data will take time. I know many fans are eager to receive an alternative or more developed ending "now!", but that just isn't possible. It takes time to produce quality. On top of that, because they have already stated that "this is how the game was meant to end", they will also have to figure out why things went wrong and the fans did not accept the ending like they (the core team) did.

The writing team will have to make their drafts, not only based on our feedback, but also based on the Mass Effect core team's opinions. They are the ones we need to trust in this (even if they made a mess of the last ending, how much wonderful things have they delivered to us? and how many joyful hours of gameplay, book reading, cosplaying, crafting, painting, musicwriting have we brought us so far thanks to them? - Alot. And we need to trust them at their word when they say - "Yes, we ARE listening".

Everything start out on a concept stage with a ton of "what if-questions", voting, "let's try that" and "that is our best alternative at the moment". Will we be able to play the ending, or will it just be longer cutscenes? When that concept have started to solidify in writing together with some concept arts and storyboards, they will have to put it into a gaming environment and see if it works. If it doesn't - it's back to the next idea. It is not a small job, and many times a script can change on the way. But thanks to us - the fans - there is a budget to work with, and depending on that budget, the final process of animations etc can be brought up to speed (or brought down if we are not supportive!). In the end it comes down to months of preparation. There will be no less than 6 months before we get something like this.

I believe "Holding the line" is not only letting them know that there are dissatisfied fans out there, but that we are waiting for the resolve and trusting them with the outcome. We are fans that love their games, just give them time, and continue to give them feedback.

Modifié par DannieCraft, 20 mars 2012 - 05:56 .

[Salyut]

HanshinRynuusuke wrote...

Correction: Technically, it could be considered criminal or fraudulent. Companies have till the release or publishing of a product to amend or correct any previous official statements. In this case, that did not happen! I am sure you see where that is going...

Yes. That's one of the reasons I have trouble believing that whole theory. I truly doubt EA's legal team would have given something like that the go-ahead, no matter how interesting it would be as an artistic statement/social experiment.

[Pandoravv3]

Salyut wrote...

dfstone wrote...

Anyone who's played the game has already purchased it so they got your money and if thats all EA is concerned about they've already won.

That would be a bad attitude to have from a business standpoint. Brand loyalty is an important thing to have for any business. So unless they don't care about selling future DLC or new IPs, they ignore this at their own peril.

Agreed, EAs new buisness model puts a high value on DLC, and other additions to the game. They probably expect to make as much in DLC as they do on game sales.

[DoctorCrowtgamer]

Salyut wrote...

dfstone wrote...

Anyone who's played the game has already purchased it so they got your money and if thats all EA is concerned about they've already won.

That would be a bad attitude to have from a business standpoint. Brand loyalty is an important thing to have for any business. So unless they don't care about selling future DLC or new IPs, they ignore this at their own peril.

yeah also as I said I have stopped four people from buying the game so far and didn't buy ME2 DLC for my dad,so they got my $80 but lost close to $300 more.  The game is not selling as well as it should(a game this big should not be marked down this fast)and if we stick together DLc sales will suffer.  We are wining,we just have to stick togehter.

[Hydralysk]

The Almighty Ali wrote...

Seems some of you need some inspiration.
Though make you you don't get burned out, watch a movie and do something to take your mind off this for some hours, then you'll soon be back fit for fight again.
Can only provide this for now though.

Such a well edited piece. If a movement can have a 'cinematic trailer' that guy nailed it.

[Leland Gaunt]

dfstone wrote...

Anyone who's played the game has already purchased it so they got your money and if thats all EA is concerned about they've already won.

True, but if they're planning on relasing massive DLC in the form of missions, mp-stuff etc. to maximize the profit coming from the source ME 3, they definitely will have to deal with their actual sales not living up to their prognosis as a lot of people (at least at the moment) are not planning on buying DLC if it's meaningless due to the story being meaningless in regards of the ending. EA would definitely not want that because they are a business and need to make money in order to exist (not saying that some ME 3 DLC will be that critical to them). But as I see things (as someone who isn't involved in business stuff at all) any company trying to sell stuff will not be happy if don't live up their prognosis. I mean look at it this way: today a fiscal year has been a failure, even when they made money but made less money than in the previous fiscal year. Making 10 million last years and this year "just" 9 million is a financial failure. EA is clever enough not to want that. Every company which has shareholder relies on growth.