249 réponses à ce sujet

[AresKeith]

AlanC9 wrote...

Edolix wrote...

They may not have had any input in the direction the game was going in, but they still set the deadlines.

That's true. But is it significant? An independent Bio would still have a deadline, set by their bank account. Would it have been longer? 

That depends really

But EA themselves should've gave Bioware a better deadline for ME3 and ME2 for that matter

[dreamgazer]

spirosz wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

Nope, they wanted MP in the game since Me1.

They only stated that during the news of MP hitting ME3.  I don't personally believe that they wanted it, but I'm not them, it's just the way the ME1 was crafted, I don't see how they would of wanted to fit it in there.    

Meh, Pinnacle Station suggests that they might have wanted something like that for quite a while.

[Eckswhyzed]

What I find really funny is when people blame EA for the endings. EA would have probably liked something much safer and convetional....like MEHEM

[spirosz]

dreamgazer wrote...

spirosz wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

Nope, they wanted MP in the game since Me1.

They only stated that during the news of MP hitting ME3.  I don't personally believe that they wanted it, but I'm not them, it's just the way the ME1 was crafted, I don't see how they would of wanted to fit it in there.    

Meh, Pinnacle Station suggests that they might have wanted something like that for quite a while.

Who knows, even though I prefer the MP compared to the SP in ME3, I still don't agree with including it in. 

[Ninja Stan]

All games have deadlines. Publishers have to schedule a game's release while juggling all the other games they're releasing, deciding on release months that will be more beneficial, when their competition is releasing, and schedule all of the non-development side of videogames (ie. marketing, advertising, ramp-up on social media and game websites, localization of text and voicing, packaging and manufacturing, global distribution, console certification, digital retail setup), and then they have to do the same thing on a smaller scale with DLC.

Because of all of this scheduling and the money sunk into these things, it's important that developers stick as closely to the agreed-upon schedules as possible. Yes, I said "agreed-upon." Publishers can't just dictate the schedule. The developer has to agree that it can meet that timeframe and schedule its own team as needed.

Why, then, do some games get delayed and some are "rushed"?

Delays happen all the time for a variety of reasons. Usually, the time can be made up by working overtime (or "crunch"). You really don't want to be the department responsible for the publisher having to waste a million dollars, or the time and hard work of dozens of people. But sometimes, if a studio absolutely can't meet the schedule as agreed upon, they can make a case to the publisher for an extension. It is not at all an easy decision to make, and no company makes it lightly. It involves many meetings where the publisher tries to convince the developer to either cut back on unneeded features or game scope, and the studio tries to convince the publisher that what they've got will be worth the extra time.

The publisher has already had regular updates from the studio, and at certain times, has already played the game, so hopefully the publisher already knows what kind of game the developer is making. There may also be some legal implications to delaying release, depending on what kind of delay it is. I knew this kind of meeting as the "go/no-go" meeting, where the developer and publisher decide the game is a go as scheduled or a no-go with some kind of delay.

That's delays, but what about rushing? Well, think about the last major project you worked on, like a term paper or a science fair or an important report or something like that. Each one had some kind of deadline, and no matter how well you managed your time, there was always some last minute things you just had to do to polish it up. It could be extra line-runs of a play, or fixing the formatting of your charts, or double-checking the accuracy of your data, or spellchecking.

Now, imagine that your instructor, professor, boss, director or whoever didn't care for the work you did, but instead of calling out specific faults or offering constructive criticism, he (or she) merely said "it looked like it was rushed" and gave you a low grade. Any attempt to get more specific answers resulted in variations on the "it was rushed" comment. That's what it's like in videogames.

There are absolutely instances where games were likely rushed (ie. not given nearly enough time to make the kind of game the publisher wanted, or the developer not changing the scope of their game when that go/no-go meeting came around). It can be argued that Dragon Age was a "rushed" game, as it wasn't given as much time as other BioWare games got. In fact, some people have pointed out that DA2 got a ridiculously short development cycle. Because of that short cycle, and the quality and scope of the game as compared to its immediate predecessor, "the game was rushed" could be a legitimate observation.

This is not the case with games that have average development cycles, such as ME2 or ME3. Whatever else you can say about those games, I don't think you could legitimately call them "rushed." They had about the same amount of time as previous games, the team was largely the same, and ME3 was the last game of a trilogy featuring the same protagonist as the first two.

TL;DR - "Rushed" is a very specific criticism that cannot be applied to just any game as a generic term for "I didn't like some things about it" or "it didn't meet my expectation". BioWare and EA both have to agree on the game's schedule. All giant projects go through massive last-minute freaking out. A change in schedule for a company dealing with as many things as EA does, can mean a lot of shuffling of resources, money, and personnel, so it's not an easy decision. I like pie.

[AresKeith]

dreamgazer wrote...

spirosz wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

Nope, they wanted MP in the game since Me1.

They only stated that during the news of MP hitting ME3.  I don't personally believe that they wanted it, but I'm not them, it's just the way the ME1 was crafted, I don't see how they would of wanted to fit it in there.    

Meh, Pinnacle Station suggests that they might have wanted something like that for quite a while.

If that's true then I'm even more annoyed about the MP

[Nightdragon8]

Spartas Husky wrote...

........right they are not pressuring anyone into a quick buck. They are a responsable profit driven company that relies on long term stable investments to deliver epic graphic good games with in depth story lines across the board.

yea like there sports games which they just update the roster from one year to the next and didn't change the game itself and charged FULL PRICE for it... yea real "epic" there


its a publisher, they will always push for a product to get done, by X date. look at what happened to SotS2 at release it was a horrible game because "they needed to get the game out" it sure wasn't ready for release then.

Publishers will push a product out on X date wither the developers wanted to or not.

so the crap about, EA didn't intifere is BS.

I honestly think they are talking about "the story" being interfered with not the short timetable bioware was given.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Obadiah wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...

 Interesting read. For the most part, I've never sold on all this "big bad EA" talk, myself.

Me neither. Of course, I'm still not sure how much of this is a political response. Still, I liked ME 3 from the beginning.

Very political. He's not going to say anything. Everyone in the gaming industry knows everyone else. If he should decide to go back to work in the gaming industry he doesn't want to burn any bridges.

[Eckswhyzed]

A question for people who disagree: Is there any evidence that would convince you that EA didn't "interfere" with Bioware?

[spirosz]

Eckswhyzed wrote...

A question for people who disagree: Is there any evidence that would convince you that EA didn't "interfere" with Bioware?

They enjoyed the game, haha. 

[Steelcan]

@Ninja San. I think the majority of complaints about ME3 being "rushed" are that it felt incomplete in many places. In some places it felt like content was either missing or DLC would provide it later. Javik especially comes to mind.

While ME3 may have had a "normal" development time, it also seems reasonable that the game could have benefitted from a longer development time.

While I certainly don't agree with much of what was in ME3 a lot of that is simply me disagreeing with the direction that BioWare went in. However, there is still validity to the complaint that ME3 could have benefitted from more development time. How much this would have impacted the biggest issues I personally have with the game is just something I can wonder about.

[crimzontearz]

Ninja Stan wrote...

All games have deadlines. Publishers have to schedule a game's release while juggling all the other games they're releasing, deciding on release months that will be more beneficial, when their competition is releasing, and schedule all of the non-development side of videogames (ie. marketing, advertising, ramp-up on social media and game websites, localization of text and voicing, packaging and manufacturing, global distribution, console certification, digital retail setup), and then they have to do the same thing on a smaller scale with DLC.

Because of all of this scheduling and the money sunk into these things, it's important that developers stick as closely to the agreed-upon schedules as possible. Yes, I said "agreed-upon." Publishers can't just dictate the schedule. The developer has to agree that it can meet that timeframe and schedule its own team as needed.

Why, then, do some games get delayed and some are "rushed"?

Delays happen all the time for a variety of reasons. Usually, the time can be made up by working overtime (or "crunch"). You really don't want to be the department responsible for the publisher having to waste a million dollars, or the time and hard work of dozens of people. But sometimes, if a studio absolutely can't meet the schedule as agreed upon, they can make a case to the publisher for an extension. It is not at all an easy decision to make, and no company makes it lightly. It involves many meetings where the publisher tries to convince the developer to either cut back on unneeded features or game scope, and the studio tries to convince the publisher that what they've got will be worth the extra time.

The publisher has already had regular updates from the studio, and at certain times, has already played the game, so hopefully the publisher already knows what kind of game the developer is making. There may also be some legal implications to delaying release, depending on what kind of delay it is. I knew this kind of meeting as the "go/no-go" meeting, where the developer and publisher decide the game is a go as scheduled or a no-go with some kind of delay.

That's delays, but what about rushing? Well, think about the last major project you worked on, like a term paper or a science fair or an important report or something like that. Each one had some kind of deadline, and no matter how well you managed your time, there was always some last minute things you just had to do to polish it up. It could be extra line-runs of a play, or fixing the formatting of your charts, or double-checking the accuracy of your data, or spellchecking.

Now, imagine that your instructor, professor, boss, director or whoever didn't care for the work you did, but instead of calling out specific faults or offering constructive criticism, he (or she) merely said "it looked like it was rushed" and gave you a low grade. Any attempt to get more specific answers resulted in variations on the "it was rushed" comment. That's what it's like in videogames.

There are absolutely instances where games were likely rushed (ie. not given nearly enough time to make the kind of game the publisher wanted, or the developer not changing the scope of their game when that go/no-go meeting came around). It can be argued that Dragon Age was a "rushed" game, as it wasn't given as much time as other BioWare games got. In fact, some people have pointed out that DA2 got a ridiculously short development cycle. Because of that short cycle, and the quality and scope of the game as compared to its immediate predecessor, "the game was rushed" could be a legitimate observation.

This is not the case with games that have average development cycles, such as ME2 or ME3. Whatever else you can say about those games, I don't think you could legitimately call them "rushed." They had about the same amount of time as previous games, the team was largely the same, and ME3 was the last game of a trilogy featuring the same protagonist as the first two.

TL;DR - "Rushed" is a very specific criticism that cannot be applied to just any game as a generic term for "I didn't like some things about it" or "it didn't meet my expectation". BioWare and EA both have to agree on the game's schedule. All giant projects go through massive last-minute freaking out. A change in schedule for a company dealing with as many things as EA does, can mean a lot of shuffling of resources, money, and personnel, so it's not an easy decision. I like pie.

OK...I am gonna bite

halo 4
Team of 300 and separate team for MP.....game took 3 years to develop .......AND IT'S A SHOOTER

ME3
Team of 200 and separate team for MP which was added after a delay....took 2 years....and it's a freaking Mass Effect game


one can argue semantics only so much before it becomes silly

or should I add other fun facts that point to the game being rushed like, say, the face import bug, the fact devs themselves could NOT import their characters at work and so on?

[TK514]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

Obadiah wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...

 Interesting read. For the most part, I've never sold on all this "big bad EA" talk, myself.

Me neither. Of course, I'm still not sure how much of this is a political response. Still, I liked ME 3 from the beginning.

Very political. He's not going to say anything. Everyone in the gaming industry knows everyone else. If he should decide to go back to work in the gaming industry he doesn't want to burn any bridges.

This right here.  There is absolutely no way he's going to say something negative about anyone in the industry that might get published.  Once his non-compete clause runs out, he might need a job back in the pixel business and he won't want anyone bringing up an article where he said something meaningful.

[Steelcan]

@crimsontearz. Being hostile isn't going to get you anywhere.

[crimzontearz]

Steelcan wrote...

@crimsontearz. Being hostile isn't going to get you anywhere.

how was I hostile? I merely stated facts

[Steelcan]

crimzontearz wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

@crimsontearz. Being hostile isn't going to get you anywhere.

how was I hostile? I merely stated facts

. Tone is everything.  

[crimzontearz]

Steelcan wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

@crimsontearz. Being hostile isn't going to get you anywhere.

how was I hostile? I merely stated facts

. Tone is everything.  

working for a company that dwarfs EA made me bitter, that was just emphasys

[Spartas Husky]

Steelcan wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

@crimsontearz. Being hostile isn't going to get you anywhere.

how was I hostile? I merely stated facts

. Tone is everything.  

For those who dont wish to look at the meaning behind the tone, yes tone is everything, an excuse.

[arial]

crimzontearz wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

@crimsontearz. Being hostile isn't going to get you anywhere.

how was I hostile? I merely stated facts

. Tone is everything.  

working for a company that dwarfs EA made me bitter, that was just emphasys

and what "Company" may that be?

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Here's my opinion.

EA gave too much creative control to BioWare.

BioWare didn't use or otherwise neglected a loremaster and quality control.

EA imposed a set launch schedule and were unwilling to deviate.

EA put the game out to make money, and left out other bits to sell to consumers later for more cash.

Both EA and BW are equally responsible for the travesty of ME3.

[crimzontearz]

arial wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

@crimsontearz. Being hostile isn't going to get you anywhere.

how was I hostile? I merely stated facts

. Tone is everything.  

working for a company that dwarfs EA made me bitter, that was just emphasys

and what "Company" may that be?

my parent company is nestlè

[eddieoctane]

Samtheman63 wrote...

nothing in this article says anything about EA not forcing the release date, just that they didnt interfere with the game development, which id of guessed anyway - EA are the publishers

This.

A deadline is not creative control. The deadline was likely set in order to get the sales of ME3 counted on a shareholder report that was published shortly after release. You can call it speculation, but the sequence of events is known. As is the fact the EA's sales were less than spectacular last year and ME3 boosted rather dim-loooking figures. Did John Riccitiello set a hard limit for ME3's release in order to make himself look better to the board after slipping performance year after year? We'll never know for certian, but the circumstantial evidence says yes.

[Spartas Husky]

eddieoctane wrote...
 but the circumstantial evidence says yes.

As much as I dont like those two words... they are what drives reality. We dont always have the center pieces of the puzzle, is by getting the surrounding pieces that we get an idea of what the puzzle looks like. Not perfect but... what is it?

[ruggly]

With something as ambitious as what Mass Effect tried to pull off, it definitely could have benefited with more dev time.

[spirosz]

I still believe certain aspects of ME3 were rushed. For example, the score in ME3 is brilliant, beyond brilliant, but one of my main complaints back in March were about the re-used tracks from ME1 and 2, where it seemed to be there... just for the sake of it. Now, for example, the Overlord track used when you see David again, appropriate and worked very well - yet in ME2, they did re-use certain tracks, but they remixed them in a way that still felt original and fresh - Vigil's theme and the Romance theme mixed on Horizon for the VS (if romanced), Legion's theme had elements of Saren's theme in there, etc.

ME3, I don't know, that aspect really bugged me, maybe it wasn't rushed, but I'm just going off how ME2 handled the score as well, with practically the same development time.