135 réponses à ce sujet

[daecath]

jakal66 wrote...
these guys are here to make money...every 1 nerd that is here raging like the comic book guy of the simpsons saying "WORST GAME EVAHH" there are 20 casual gamers who probably loved the game adn are spending tons of REAL money on the MP....

With games like this it's very hard IMO to attract casual gamers and keep the fanbase happy...

And this is what I don't understand. So those casual gamers that they're trying to attract, you think any of them pre-ordered the game? Any of them stand in line at midnight to get it? Any of them buy the CE? Any of them buy two copies of the CE because they have two gaming platforms? Any of them buy the books, t-shirts, action figures, comics, figurines, posters, and other assorted merchandise that is all basically free money for EA?

No. They waited for a deal, borrowed a friend's copy, or rented it. They might spend some money on microtransactions, but big whoop. They didn't "love" the game, they liked it, they enjoyed it. They're not spending "tons" of money on it, they're spending a few dollars here and there. Sure, when you add up all of them, you get some good money, but then you have to look at what you sacrificed to get there.

I totalled it up. This year alone, I've spent over $400 just on Mass Effect, and over $700 on BioWare and their licenses.

They can either work on making money, or they can work on making good games. They can't do both. If they work on making money, their games will suffer. You'll end up with sub-quality games with a bunch of gimmicks that hurt the game rather than enhance it. If they focus on making good games, then you attract people like me. People who recognize quality, who are looking for something different in the market, and who will reward quality with loyalty. Do that, and the money sorts itself out. They might not have as many customers as if you went the other way, but the ones you have aren't just customers, they're fans. They're the ones buying up all that licensed merchandise that is basically free money for the company.

Like the game itself. You can turn out a bunch of mediocre games designed to appeal to casual gamers in an attempt to nickel and dime your profits, or you can turn out a few very quality games designed to appeal to passionate gamers who will buy up not only the game and game content, but all the associated merchandise as well. If it were me, I'd do the work to land the big fish, rather than trying to pull in a whole bunch of little sardines.

[daecath]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Funkdrspot wrote...

Seboist wrote...

Atakuma wrote...

When you factor out the writing, Bioware games have always been fairly mediocre.

Bioware's writing has never been great either. Their stories tend to be the standard black and white disney tale against big bad ancient evil with tons of inane hero worship.

this couldnt be more wrong, but if you were correct, why are they catching flak for trying t have a non disney ending?

For trying to have a non-disney ending.

Have you heard what so many people wanted the ME3 ending to be? To listen to a lot of them, loss was something that happened to other people and Mordin and/or Thane.

Have you heard what so many people wanted the ending to be? The reason why we're upset isn't because it wasn't a disney ending. It's because it was stupid. It didn't fit with the story.

Let's simplify the catalyst conversation (not that it can get much simpler since it's only 14 lines long).

"Hi, I'm the leader of your greatest enemy. I have some arbitrary reason for having the reapers destroy you, but it's directly contradicted by everything you've experienced so far, and I'm not going to prove it. You'll just have to take my word for it, even though, like I mentioned, I'm the leader of your enemy. So anyway, the reason I invited you up here is so you can kill yourself. You can electrocute yourself, blow yourself up, or be disintegrated in an energy beam. If you do that, the war will end. Again, I'm not going give you any proof or explain exactly how, and you have no reason to trust me, seeing as how I'm the leader of your enemy. So, how would you like to kill yourself?"

"Garwsh, heyuck. I dunno." Put simply, in the last few minutes of the game, we replace Shepard with Goofy, except that Goofy was never that stupid, even on his worst day.

Then there's the technology that has absolutely no precedent in the rest of the story, nothing even remotely like it (TIM controlling Shepard and Anderson, and the entire synthesis ending).

And the fact that your choices matter only as a number in a score to determine what options you get at the end, rather than directly impacting the story.

And yes, this is a video game, so it would be nice if there were a way to have a satisfying, winning conclusion. It shouldn't be automatic, but it should be possible to win the game and get a happy ending. But that's by no means either the main argument against the ending, or the major one.

[Sajuro]

JeffKaos wrote...

I'm writing this on my iPad so I am unable to use a quote but at the beggining of this thread Atakuma said that if you factor out the writing Bioware makes mediocre games. I agree with this. Just look at 3 random Vioware games: KOTOR, Jade Empire and Mass Effect. Take away the writing and really what do you have? 3rd person game-play with main hero and two followers, very small game worlds with extremely linear areas to "explore" and combat that is pretty uninvolved where you pause the action to issue commands. And each of these games also has pretty limiting character developement. While the combat was more involved in Mass Effect it still followed the tried and true BioWare method. Whenever a new BioWare game comes out I never even consider how it will play, because if you played one BioWare game you pretty much know the mechanics of all of them. And before anyone brings up Dragon Age: Origins I'll say that it's basically the same thing except with a few extra followers, just like Baldurs Gate.

Jade Empire has same gameplay as Mass Effect or Kotor? lolwut? What if you take away the writing in Half Life 2, or in Skyrim, or Gears of War, or Final Fantasy series, or God of War, all you have is a series of random levels with the same enemies over and over with no context.

[Sajuro]

daecath wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Funkdrspot wrote...

Seboist wrote...

Atakuma wrote...

When you factor out the writing, Bioware games have always been fairly mediocre.

Bioware's writing has never been great either. Their stories tend to be the standard black and white disney tale against big bad ancient evil with tons of inane hero worship.

this couldnt be more wrong, but if you were correct, why are they catching flak for trying t have a non disney ending?

For trying to have a non-disney ending.

Have you heard what so many people wanted the ME3 ending to be? To listen to a lot of them, loss was something that happened to other people and Mordin and/or Thane.

Have you heard what so many people wanted the ending to be? The reason why we're upset isn't because it wasn't a disney ending. It's because it was stupid. It didn't fit with the story.

Let's simplify the catalyst conversation (not that it can get much simpler since it's only 14 lines long).

"Hi, I'm the leader of your greatest enemy. I have some arbitrary reason for having the reapers destroy you, but it's directly contradicted by everything you've experienced so far, and I'm not going to prove it. You'll just have to take my word for it, even though, like I mentioned, I'm the leader of your enemy. So anyway, the reason I invited you up here is so you can kill yourself. You can electrocute yourself, blow yourself up, or be disintegrated in an energy beam. If you do that, the war will end. Again, I'm not going give you any proof or explain exactly how, and you have no reason to trust me, seeing as how I'm the leader of your enemy. So, how would you like to kill yourself?"

"Garwsh, heyuck. I dunno." Put simply, in the last few minutes of the game, we replace Shepard with Goofy, except that Goofy was never that stupid, even on his worst day.

Then there's the technology that has absolutely no precedent in the rest of the story, nothing even remotely like it (TIM controlling Shepard and Anderson, and the entire synthesis ending).

And the fact that your choices matter only as a number in a score to determine what options you get at the end, rather than directly impacting the story.

And yes, this is a video game, so it would be nice if there were a way to have a satisfying, winning conclusion. It shouldn't be automatic, but it should be possible to win the game and get a happy ending. But that's by no means either the main argument against the ending, or the major one.

Nanites, Anderson has been on Reaper occupied earth for the past six months or so, even if he isn't 'all hail the reapers' he must be feeling the early stages of indoctrinaton at least and Shepard can be controled as evidenced in Overlord.

[GethPrimeMKII]

There seems to be far more Bioware haters than fans on this forum. Disturbing.

[Sebby]

Seeing as how Gears of War has more meaningful choices that impact the gameplay than the Mass Effect series (an alleged "choose your own adventure RPG") and considering those choices merely involve going left or right,that should tell you how mediocre Bioware is.

[Tregon]

You release ****, you reap what you release.
I own every piece of ME-trilogy. I pre-ordered the CE-version, I did that because I used to TRUST what Bioware did.

Now, I am feeling royally pissed off and that trust is gone, forever unless BW pulls out some miracle to fix the situation.

What you see in terms of haters/fans is representation of Bioware failure. They have failed so hard that huge portion of fans have become disillusioned and unhappy.

Hard as I try, I cannot fathom how company could do more to commit practical suicide than BW is now.
Betraying trust, lying ahead of release.
And then refusing to listen to criticism of large number people who are keeping them employed (because no customers means no money). And eventually only bothering to polish the turd they offered as cake and thinking that's it. All the while continuing the silent treatment of customers.

[WolfyZA]

As much as I rate BW as one of my top 3 Devs.. ME 3 did shake my faith in them...

[d-boy15]

I say, let them rot.

they not the only developer that can create a good story.

Modifié par d-boy15, 21 juin 2012 - 12:43 .

[yukon fire]

Tregon wrote...

You release ****, you reap what you release.
I own every piece of ME-trilogy. I pre-ordered the CE-version, I did that because I used to TRUST what Bioware did.

Now, I am feeling royally pissed off and that trust is gone, forever unless BW pulls out some miracle to fix the situation.

What you see in terms of haters/fans is representation of Bioware failure. They have failed so hard that huge portion of fans have become disillusioned and unhappy.

Hard as I try, I cannot fathom how company could do more to commit practical suicide than BW is now.
Betraying trust, lying ahead of release.
And then refusing to listen to criticism of large number people who are keeping them employed (because no customers means no money). And eventually only bothering to polish the turd they offered as cake and thinking that's it. All the while continuing the silent treatment of customers.

This! Good God this!

[Helios969]

mumwaldee369 wrote...

Helios969 wrote...

mumwaldee369 wrote...

RobotMilk wrote...

Gimme a break. Go out of business? Seriously?

All of the Bio games mentioned were huge hits, awesome games, and won almost universal praise. ME3 was awesome except for some people weren't satisfied with ending. Now one of the best game studios ever, who've made some of the best games ever, is supposed to shut down?

Sometimes the nerd angst on these forums makes me wanna puke.

EA has lost over 40% of it's value in the stock market over the past 6 months.  I guess investors are just angsty nerds instead of savvy business people that know a sinking ship when they see one.

finance.yahoo.com/echarts

Might be a good time to invest.  Buy low, sell high.  Unless you think videogames are gonna go the way of the dodo.

I find the whole topic somewhat laughable.  Mediocre compared to what?  EA/BW games are pretty much the only ones I play.  Despite some recent releases that failed to live up to my lofty (perhaps unrealistic) expectations, they're still better than most others.  I'd rather play a bad Bioware game than most other games that are considered good.  They're the only ones that really seem to immerse me in the experience.

Put your money where your mouth is and start buying EA stock.  EA/BW will cater to the lowest common denominator.  If you will pay top dollar for unfinished games and then pay more to get dlc that should have been included in the first place, they will continue to put it out there for you to buy.  Enjoy the microtransactions.


*and no I don't think video games are going away, but with a crappy global economy, entertainment dollars are not as abundant as they once were.  EA/BW will have to compete with small studios with fresh ideas and full games that passionate game makers have created...until EA buys them out obv.  I predict EA will split into smaller units and the Bioware name will go away completely.

How the video games industry is faring
www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-06-18/how-the-video-games-industry-is-faring

If I had the money to invest I'd seriously consider it.  At some point the economy will rebound, and so will entertainment dollars.  Unless they've got a Bernie Ebbers type running the show EA/BW will enjoy prosperity again.