131 réponses à ce sujet

[fishcurry]

Did they really make a mistake though?

Remember, they raked in tons of cash, and from what I can tell, that's been their goal for awhile now.

Make money so you can make games, or make games to make money (not my quote but can't remember who said it)

[Snypy]

bakamatsu222 wrote...

Did they really make a mistake though?

Remember, they raked in tons of cash, and from what I can tell, that's been their goal for awhile now.

Make money so you can make games, or make games to make money (not my quote but can't remember who said it)

They earned tons of cash mainly because the two previous games were extremely successful. However, one can milk its IP only for so long.

Phantom089 wrote...

Mass Effect should be kept the way it is. Mass Effect should be more improved and better, have things the way it is.

I agree with you. The problem is that they improve and fix things that had never been broken (e.g., journal, codex, quests, etc.)

Modifié par Snypy, 23 août 2012 - 09:00 .

[MerchantGOL]

Snypy wrote...

bakamatsu222 wrote...

Did they really make a mistake though?

Remember, they raked in tons of cash, and from what I can tell, that's been their goal for awhile now.

Make money so you can make games, or make games to make money (not my quote but can't remember who said it)

They earned tons of cash mainly because the two previous games were extremely successful. However, one can milk its IP only for so long.

It made a ton of cash becuase of that and it was a good game

as for milking an ip, Nintendo has been beating dead horses for  decades and their still at the top

Modifié par MerchantGOL, 23 août 2012 - 09:06 .

[Abraham_uk]

Terror_K wrote...

As far as I can tell, Mass Effect has no future. It was slaughtered with ME3. The next Mass Effect title probably will just be "Gears of War with Powers and too Many Cutscenes"

You know what?
How about a new game series called Terror K?
Your name is awesome.

I'm still tying to think of a concept to go with the name. But it could be a spinoff of the Mass Effect franchise, staring, well you. You'll have complete control over the script. So fire away Terror K.

P.s. If the Mass Effect franchise is to survive, then perhaps EA should allow other companies to create stories within the Mass Effect Universe.

That is what Dungeons and Dragons did. I wonder what pen and paper Mass Effect would be like.

Modifié par Abraham_uk, 23 août 2012 - 09:22 .

[Snypy]

MerchantGOL wrote...

It made a ton of cash becuase of that and it was a good game

as for milking an ip, Nintendo has been beating dead horses for  decades and their still at the top

Wait for Terror_K to log in. I'm sure he'll write you a convincing list of arguments why ME3 was a bad game. He almost persuaded me, and that's something.

[MerchantGOL]

Snypy wrote...

MerchantGOL wrote...

It made a ton of cash becuase of that and it was a good game

as for milking an ip, Nintendo has been beating dead horses for  decades and their still at the top

Wait for Terror_K to log in. I'm sure he'll write you a convincing list of arguments why ME3 was a bad game. He almost persuaded me, and that's something.

you can make an argument for any game being bad, is all subjective.

so what if some butt hurt fan says its bad, i myself and many others have jsut as many valid claims to it being good.

Modifié par MerchantGOL, 24 août 2012 - 01:18 .

[Midz]

Snypy wrote...

Midz wrote...

Snypy wrote...

davidshooter wrote...

If there is another Mass Effect game it will largely be multiplayer/co-op with minimal story based single player.

What Ea has learned from the release of Mass Effect 3 is that the money is in microtransactions and multiplayer.

Leviathan will also underperform compared to previous (ME2) DLCs and this will only further their belief that multiplayer/co-op is the future of Mass Effect

That's precisely what we're all afraid of. Ultimately, there won't be any need for BioWare as an independent studio within EA company structure, because it will be making the very same type of games as the other studios. It's possible that EA will fall apart before that happens, though. The value of its shares has slumped sharply YOY.

If  you refer to share price circa Oct  2008 maybe  have a point ,
Apart from  the normal sensationalist headlines the  share price range has been fairly similar over the last 2 years with  plus and  minus fluctuations .

Before  too much  joy look at  the finance  of  Bioware before it  needed a partner   far  from  positive  more likely  the road to closure. Maybe they made  good  great games  but   they needed  also financial stability and there structure  was not efficiant..They  also wanted  to make KOTOR  independently  they  could not.
.The  costs  of  that were high very high , if  that becomes  a  loss. Then probably  you  will   see the break up of  EA  and  the  end  of  Bioware .
It seems   just overt correctness  to blame EA   .Whereas  Bioware have  a lot of independence  within EA from many articles written .Since development of   KOTOR  started  EA  has basically   granted funding  enormous  funding  to Bioware ,and  told them simply  how  much return  they want , the same as a bank  would require intrest.
,How Bioware achieved  that was  pretty much left in there hands .To claim  EA heavy hand  at every turn  is  simply incorrect.

The hatred of EA  has become  like an urban  myth the devil to scare children ,some of it  is true  a lot of it is  not .
Throw away phrases repeated till many  think there are true without thought a bit like a cult even .

Perhaps you should've checked the latest data before you replied to my post. Let me show you some figures:

• YTD: -37.98% in share price.
• 2Y: -14.55% in share price.
• 3Y: -31.52% in share price.

Granted, you and I probably have a different definition of stable.

By the way, I meant SWTOR (not KOTOR) in my previous post, but it seems you understood me after all.  I couldn't dig up BioWare's financial statements from the time when they were still an independent company. But it's true that they had never really intended to create the game on their own -- too costly.

Hm, I'm not sure what level of freedom we're talking about. But I find it hard to believe that BioWare would basically change from a developer which puts emphasis on its fanbase and RPG elements in its games to a studio which talks about "appealing to a broader audience at the cost of losing its loyal fans" without any interference from EA. Just read the comments above, barely anyone is happy with the way things are. And I'm probably one of few optimists here.

Anyway, if EA ever fell apart, it wouldn't necessarily be the end of everything. It's far more likely that EA would sell its studios and perhaps there would be a bright future for BioWare and the current IPs.

Having said all that, I'm hoping for a change to the better in DA3 and ME4.

[*]All  correct but statistics  percentages are  as in the quote lies lies  and statistics  ............
[*]It  depends where you take the point of comparison ...EA  highest was nearly 75 that was very short lived ,2004 to 2009  it  generally hovered around  the 50 dollar  mark it  fell from 48 dollars  to 16.4 dollars  not recently  but in 2008  oct about  
[*]Now  it is about 13 .25  a fall from  recent  in weeks  but  compared  to performance  over the last  4 years   it is still  around  the  mean  for that period .
[*]Is  that good  no neither is  it  disasterous  what  it will depend  on  is there next earnings reports  which are due  and  the impact  of  there MMO on that .
[*]If  you want to be realistic  though most  of EA  has   performed as good if  not better than  expected  ...........the area financially  that has  not has been Bioware ..and  its  MMO does  that mean  that EA   has bad management  or  Bioware ?.

[Terror_K]

Snypy wrote...

MerchantGOL wrote...

It made a ton of cash becuase of that and it was a good game

as for milking an ip, Nintendo has been beating dead horses for  decades and their still at the top

Wait for Terror_K to log in. I'm sure he'll write you a convincing list of arguments why ME3 was a bad game. He almost persuaded me, and that's something.

Well, that's a simple one: ME3 was largely a success due to the pedigree of its predecessors. The same goes for DA2 early sales. I haven't seen the trends for ME3, but I do remember that DA2's sales slipped massively after the first month, while DAO wasn't as huge at the start, but was more steady and high over the following year. I wouldn't be surprised if ME3 was the same. Working in a games shop, I can personally say that we haven't sold as many lately, and that the game has gone on sale a few times now and dropped in price a fair bit considering it's still fairly new.

Making loads of cash doesn't mean a good game. The Call of Duty series breaks sales records with each new entry, despite players claiming that genre and overall CoD fatigue is setting in, and has been since the original Black Ops. Yet MW3 sold through the roof and Black Ops 2 will likely do the same from what I can tell. The CoD series hasn't been good for a while, largely because it's basically the same damn game every time, with a pathetically short and over-the-top Michael Bay style single player and essentially the same MP. In the words of Lisa Simpson, "you'll never go broke appealing to the lowest common denominator."

On top of that, many of us had no idea how much ME3 was going to disappoint. There was little to no indication of all the autodialogue and lack of choices and the fact our choices would be as meaningless as they ended up being. The EMS and Galactic Readiness thing actually sounded good on paper, and we didn't know how shallow and meaningless it was going to be and it was basically just a tool to reduce our choices to an arbitrary number. Suspicions raised when the demo released and Earth and Sur'Kesh seemed lacking in the player agency and dialogue areas, but BioWare tried to reassure people that there was plenty of dialogue in the final game and these issues weren't a factor. Lies, of course.

People believed BioWare and what they were claiming about the game. I was damn sceptical, but even I didn't think it was going to be so restrictive, so linear and so lacking. I thought it wasn't going to be as good as ME1, but thought I'd at least get a game better than ME2, and closer to an in-between hybrid of the two. I expected choices to be largely cosmetic, but I wasn't expecting things to be so completely railroaded and meaningless as they were, such as The Rachni Queen, the fate of The Council and the Collector Base choices.

People were taken in by BioWare deceptive propaganda of the game, and that's why it sold well. It really did look like a good blend between ME1 and ME2 prior to launch, especially with all the claims BioWare was making.

[fishcurry]

Terror_K

My concern is this: what if it was successful because for the "average gamer" this level of quality was enough to become popular with them?

What if ME3 IS the future of gaming? Because if the average consumer doesn't have very high expectations, what would happen to the quality of the games that get pumped out?

Wouldn't it them make financial sense for companies to just make game good "enough" to sell decent volumes?

Wouldn't that still be considered to be very much a "success"?

[Terror_K]

bakamatsu222 wrote...

Terror_K

My concern is this: what if it was successful because for the "average gamer" this level of quality was enough to become popular with them?

What if ME3 IS the future of gaming? Because if the average consumer doesn't have very high expectations, what would happen to the quality of the games that get pumped out?

Wouldn't it them make financial sense for companies to just make game good "enough" to sell decent volumes?

Wouldn't that still be considered to be very much a "success"?

That's already happening. Most of today's AAA titles are just clones of each other, with too many sequels are Ip reboots. Too many games are also rushed out to cash in rather than being given proper development time, while resources are also wasted on aspects that aren't needed (e.g. shoehoring MP into SP games, Kinect or Move support, setting up other platforms for integration like Facebook and iPhone games/apps, etc.). Too many games are being shot out for the sake of mass appeal instead of being about the quality of the product.

It's a curse of the entire entertainment industry as a whole over the past decade or so: too many cash-in bloclbuster action flicks that are usually sad reboots of existing material not because the directors, producers and studios want to do a film that properly honours and represents that material, but because they know they've automatically got a big audience with little need to advertise because any fans of an existing popular property will pay to see the movie, even those who know they will likely hate it. The music industry is largely all about dub-step and autotuned garbage now over actually making proper music with talent. Businesses and corporations have always been about the $$$'s above all else, but now very few are even trying to put out anything of quality. The entire entertainment industry have stopped going after different audiences and are largely trying to nab as big an audience as possible. The AAA games industry is no different lately.

Sure, there's the odd glimmer of freshness or difference here and there, but by and large we've gone from a diverse group of different genres and game types to almost every big title being the same thing: a semi-cinematic, story-driven action game with some light RPG and customisation elements. Look on the AAA shelves of your game shops today and you'll find 90% of the titles there now adhere to either this model or to being a fairly straight-up shooter (and even those tend to incorporate story, cinematics and light RPG elements these days). It's not that all these titles are bad, because they aren't. Some are very good. But we're getting a glut of very, very samey games these days with very little in the way of variety and originality. Very fure pure-class genres these days, with everything being a hybrid, and largely the same type of hybrid.

So, this isn't the future of the gaming industry you're actually talking about... it's the present. BioWare were just a little later to the game, and coming from the other side. Over developers like UbiSoft and Activision were taking action games and adding more RPG elements, both story and cinematic ones and the statistical, customisation and player agency ones. Even if they are just helping serve this situation of samey brown mush in gaming lately, at least they've adding depth to their titles. BioWare are coming from the other side: they already had these elements in their games, but they're watering them down and culling them to make way for more action game elements. Two different groups trying to achieve the same goal from opposite ends: AAA game homogenization.

And why? Because it's not about making quality so much as about profits. The big studios are in charge these days, while the smaller ones keep laying off people, losing money and going bankrupt. Psygnosis just recently left us, and THQ aren't looking healthy lately. It'll soon just be Activision, EA, UbiSoft, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo the way things are going, and these groups all want the big sellers and want to grab as many people as possible, and niche games and pure-class genres aren't the way as far as they're concerned. Everything has to be sexed up, actioned up and made more Call of Duty, because that's where the money is as far as they're concerned.

Publishers and developers are no longer asking what gamers want, they're telling us what we want. They look at what sells and say "everybody wants that!" just because a large portion want it. Perhaps we do, but not every gamer does, and certainly not every game wants every game to be that way. Variety is the spice of life. I like eating chocolate, but that doesn't mean I want every damn meal to be chocolate or have chocolate in it. And that's what gaming is like lately: it's hard to find anything without chocolate.

Success does not mean quality.

Modifié par Terror_K, 24 août 2012 - 02:03 .

[MerchantGOL]

Rubios wrote...

We need another game crash like in the 80s to put everyone in its place.

Thats a horrible thing to hope for.

[Snypy]

Midz wrote...

Snypy wrote...

Perhaps you should've checked the latest data before you replied to my post. Let me show you some figures:

• YTD: -37.98% in share price.
• 2Y: -14.55% in share price.
• 3Y: -31.52% in share price.

Granted, you and I probably have a different definition of stable.

By the way, I meant SWTOR (not KOTOR) in my previous post, but it seems you understood me after all.  I couldn't dig up BioWare's financial statements from the time when they were still an independent company. But it's true that they had never really intended to create the game on their own -- too costly.

Hm, I'm not sure what level of freedom we're talking about. But I find it hard to believe that BioWare would basically change from a developer which puts emphasis on its fanbase and RPG elements in its games to a studio which talks about "appealing to a broader audience at the cost of losing its loyal fans" without any interference from EA. Just read the comments above, barely anyone is happy with the way things are. And I'm probably one of few optimists here.

Anyway, if EA ever fell apart, it wouldn't necessarily be the end of everything. It's far more likely that EA would sell its studios and perhaps there would be a bright future for BioWare and the current IPs.

Having said all that, I'm hoping for a change to the better in DA3 and ME4.

[*]All  correct but statistics  percentages are  as in the quote lies lies  and statistics  ............
[*]It  depends where you take the point of comparison ...EA  highest was nearly 75 that was very short lived ,2004 to 2009  it  generally hovered around  the 50 dollar  mark it  fell from 48 dollars  to 16.4 dollars  not recently  but in 2008  oct about  
[*]Now  it is about 13 .25  a fall from  recent  in weeks  but  compared  to performance  over the last  4 years   it is still  around  the  mean  for that period .
[*]Is  that good  no neither is  it  disasterous  what  it will depend  on  is there next earnings reports  which are due  and  the impact  of  there MMO on that .
[*]If  you want to be realistic  though most  of EA  has   performed as good if  not better than  expected  ...........the area financially  that has  not has been Bioware ..and  its  MMO does  that mean  that EA   has bad management  or  Bioware ?.

I personally don't like making decisions based on statistics, either. But we cannot dispute the numbers. Apparently, I was comparing yesterday figures to Year To Date, 2 year period, and 3 year period. It should be enough to draw trend lines. You're absolutely correct that the share price hasn't changed much compared to 2008/2009 numbers. But that was at the height of the financial crisis. It's true, however, that shares in this industry are usually quite volatile within a year.

So, you think that BioWare is the problem within EA?
- ME3: budget estimate: $50 million to $60 million dollars; retail sales in the first three weeks: over $200 million dollars. 40% also bought the Day One DLC.
- ME2: budget estimate below $50 million dollars; sales

- development of SWTOR: $150 million to $200 million; so far it's well above the break-even point of 1 million active subscribers.

I don't have time to write you DAO and DA2 figures. But it's obvious that BioWare performs well.

What I mean is that EA is apparently pushing BioWare to make even more money at the cost of alienating the current fanbase.

[Newnation]

They kind of ****ed themselves with the ending of ME 3. Any other games would have to take place either before or during the trilogy unless they make one of the endings canon or use the endings as part of a save import. This can work for control and destroy but everything is too hunkey dory in synthesis (which I think is the dumbest ending in the history of all media).

[Iakus]

Mass Effect 3 pretty much cashed in the goodwill built up with ME1 and ME2. Now the setting is pretty well torched and many people are afraid to trust Bioware at all. The smartest thing they can possibly do right now is shelve the franchise for a good five years then reboot it and start over.

In the meantime, they should do standalone titles and new IPs if they want to "experiment"

One good thing that came out of this is Dragon Age 3 will likely be treated very, very carefully. I like the stance they've taken that they're not going to talk about anything until they have gameplay footage to back it up. Everything promise made will have to be backed up

[Snypy]

Newnation wrote...

They kind of ****ed themselves with the ending of ME 3. Any other games would have to take place either before or during the trilogy unless they make one of the endings canon or use the endings as part of a save import. This can work for control and destroy but everything is too hunkey dory in synthesis (which I think is the dumbest ending in the history of all media).

Yes, it's not going to be easy.

I think that setting any new game in the past isn't really an option. Player's choices would have very little impact on the story, because we know from Codex how major conflicts played out. Besides, it hasn't even been 30 years since the First Contact War.

Choosing one ending as a canon is possible, but from what I've read so far, they're considering synthesis. I'm not convinced it's the right choice, either.

There's one more possibility. BioWare could focus on an entirely new galaxy, but still keep several characters from this one. It shouldn't be very difficult to connect the story with the events in ME3 -- shortly before the final decision. I don't have any ideas about the plot, though.

I guess BioWare already has drafts, and we'll see in the next year or two.

[TheRealBugz]

You guys really think this is the end to a money making machine? EA will milk this cow dry. Thas just my opinion.

[IanPolaris]

TheRealBugz wrote...

You guys really think this is the end to a money making machine? EA will milk this cow dry. Thas just my opinion.

The problem is they really have.  By wrecking the goodwill that had been built up, the long term profitability is gone from ME as well...at least for now.  Sure EA will milk the MP cash as long as they can, but people will move on to the latest MP experience soon enough.

-Polaris

[Terror_K]

iakus wrote...

Mass Effect 3 pretty much cashed in the goodwill built up with ME1 and ME2. Now the setting is pretty well torched and many people are afraid to trust Bioware at all. The smartest thing they can possibly do right now is shelve the franchise for a good five years then reboot it and start over.

I have to strongly disagree with the reboot idea. Reboots are, in my mind, never good. I'm personally sick of seeing games get rebooted lately, especially when they end up with the same damn exact name as the original. Reboots almost never adhere to the original formula (hence why they're reboots I guess) and often come across as weak cash-in attempts for developers and publishers with no originality milking an established name.

ME3's biggest issues were it's gameplay and lack of proper consequences, and I don't think it was so bad off that it needed a reboot. A reboot of the last 10 minutes or so, perhaps, but not the whole thing. If another Mass Effect game came along and was actually closer to ME1 (and even ME2 to an extent), then it could largely undo the damage done by ME3 to the IP.

Dragon Age is another story, because it got a damn near reboot with DA2 when it didn't need it. What Dragon Age needs is to retcon DA2 pretty much entirely and return to its DAO stylings, but that doesn't look likely with BioWare's recent stubborn attitude. Dragon Age is pretty much dead to me as an IP, and in far worse shape as an IP than Mass Effect, IMO. The only exception to this is at least I can go back and play DAO and completely ignore DA2. That's not as easy to do with ME1 and ME2, because they depend more on ME3 given the trilogy nature of them.

In the meantime, they should do standalone titles and new IPs if they want to "experiment"

Exactly. That's what I've been saying since before ME2 came out. BioWare feeling the need to grow their audience isn't so much of an issue as the fact they need to ruin and warp their existing IPs to do so instead of creating original IPs designed to be this way from the get-go.

Of course, if BioWare didn't learn and listen to this advice 3+ years ago, why would they suddenly now?

One good thing that came out of this is Dragon Age 3 will likely be treated very, very carefully. I like the stance they've taken that they're not going to talk about anything until they have gameplay footage to back it up. Everything promise made will have to be backed up

I doubt it. Nothing from what little I've heard and seen from the Dragon Age team gives me any hope. Despite their claims that they've learned, it's pretty damn clear they haven't. Largely because BioWare as a whole seem completely incapable of learning from their mistakes at all lately. There is a cancer in BioWare at the moment, and unless they actively try and get rid of it, it's not going to be going away anytime soon.

[MerchantGOL]

IanPolaris wrote...

TheRealBugz wrote...

You guys really think this is the end to a money making machine? EA will milk this cow dry. Thas just my opinion.

The problem is they really have.  By wrecking the goodwill that had been built up,
-Polaris

people contiue to think BSN speaks for every one who bought the game.

ME4 will sell.

[IanPolaris]

MerchantGOL wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

TheRealBugz wrote...

You guys really think this is the end to a money making machine? EA will milk this cow dry. Thas just my opinion.

The problem is they really have.  By wrecking the goodwill that had been built up,
-Polaris

people contiue to think BSN speaks for every one who bought the game.

ME4 will sell.

If it was just BSN, there is no way that EA would have authorized the extended cut.  No the damage to the ME franchise was both broad and deep and if you think it was just a 'vocal minority' then with all due respect you are in denial.

-Polaris

[Biggboss0021]

ill buy me4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MerchantGOL]

IanPolaris wrote...

MerchantGOL wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

TheRealBugz wrote...

You guys really think this is the end to a money making machine? EA will milk this cow dry. Thas just my opinion.

The problem is they really have.  By wrecking the goodwill that had been built up,
-Polaris

people contiue to think BSN speaks for every one who bought the game.

ME4 will sell.

If it was just BSN, there is no way that EA would have authorized the extended cut.  No the damage to the ME franchise was both broad and deep and if you think it was just a 'vocal minority' then with all due respect you are in denial.

-Polaris

heres the thing it was aways a verry vocal minority your whining was loud so they appeased you, when the EC hit their face book and other sites were flooded with, "thank you" hope Restored"  and the like

the the minority was even further slashed in half

[IanPolaris]

MerchantGOL wrote...

heres the thing it was aways a verry vocal minority your whining was loud so they appeased you, when the EC hit their face book and other sites were flooded with, "thank you" hope Restored"  and the like

the the minority was even further slashed in half

You are dead wrong.  A large majority of the people that played ME3 did not like the endings.  Yes EC got some of them back because they did fix a few things around the edges, but if you think that EA would allow Bioware to do the EC for a "vocal minority" then you are living in denial.

In short, you are dead wrong.

-Polaris