163 réponses à ce sujet

[Farangbaa]

You probably think most game companies that merge with others are like that. Activision-Blizzard comes to mind. People have said similar things that people here say about Activision, that you guys do about EA.

 

Did it ever occur to you that EA simply funds the project and Bioware does its own thing without any intervention? See, a lot of people think EA is really mean and all, but without actually working on Mass Effect 3 or other projects you wouldn't really know for sure. Did you personally see someone high up at EA giving orders to Bioware on what to do with Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age 2, or otherwise?

 

Kind of begs the question, if you dislike EA, and Bioware is apart of EA, why do you buy their games?

 

These guys and gals blame everything on EA. They forget though that their holy ME2 was also completely developped while BW was owned by EA.

[Farangbaa]

Me neither

[essarr71]

Having fronted the money EA is just as deserving of whatever praise or criticism Bioware has. If all they care about is the bottom line why should they be excluded? If they cared about quality why should they be exempt?

Do I blame EA for ME3's mess? No. It's on Bioware. But if you think pumping out unfinished titles is unusual for EA...

[voteDC]

Kind of begs the question, if you dislike EA, and Bioware is apart of EA, why do you buy their games?

I don't dislike EA. I really don't see how you got that I do from what I posted.

Rather it is simply that I don't believe that they let Bioware or any of their labels develop with no influence from them. At the very least they are going to be setting the budget and what other resources they can access.

That's it really. It's not a knock against EA. I just don't think they give their developers the autonomy that other posters think they do.

[Morty Smith]

Another speculation to be added to the pile.

 

But, interesting what those 5-7 poeple that disliked the ending have caused according to those statements.

[AlanC9]

Rather it is simply that I don't believe that they let Bioware or any of their labels develop with no influence from them. At the very least they are going to be setting the budget and what other resources they can access.
That's it really. It's not a knock against EA. I just don't think they give their developers the autonomy that other posters think they do.

The budget-- sure, they set that. How else could it work?(The publishers who lets developers set their own budgets aren't with us anymore.)

I'm not sure what other specific input they would have had. What are you thinking their directives would have been?

[Reorte]

EA sets the budget and probably have some influence on the timescales. Haven't they also said that all EA games will have to have some multiplayer part too?

I don't see any evidence that they have any direct influence over games but it's entirely plausible that they have indirect influence (i.e. pushing to get more games thrown out quickly and all the knock-on effects that has).

When it comes to ME3 if there's anything that could indirectly be laid at EA's door it's that parts seem rushed. The actual artistic content, almost certainly not at all.

[StarcloudSWG]

EA certainly provides the budget. EA also demands returns on that budget. They want the game out the door as soon as possible. So there's internal pressure on Bioware to produce, and EA does set deadlines. Sure, they don't have much of a say over the story, but they hold the purse-strings and set release dates.

 

The reason that there was a six month delay for Mass Effect 3? That kind of slippage had been built into the schedule if the game hadn't met certain criteria by a month before release. But it was NOT going to be pushed back any further. Come hell or high water, it was going to be released on March 6th. Even if it was, as it turned out, not finished.

 

And gamers reacted to that not-finished state. It was clear the ending had been rushed, poorly polished, and full of crap just to get the game out the door. It took *another* three months to properly finish and polish the ending, but it still had to build on a shaky foundation.

 

EA may have learned from this, though. They may have learned that CRPGs cannot have the same fast turnaround development cycle of their sports games, not without damaging the brand and driving down sales. So they're giving Bioware more room in scheduling, accepting that yes, it does in fact take three years to put out a quality RPG.

[Linkenski]

I think EA mostly gives Bioware creative control, but as with many publishers I bet there's always some kind of agreement between where EA hands out a list of things on which Bioware has to deliver e.g. for Mass Effect 3 the list would be "Make the game as accessible to newcomers as possible, make the core gameplay appealing to mainstream gamers".

 

Of course i don't KNOW this, but I always figured there was some kind of catch. At the same time, like some of you are already saying, I think the idea that EA is controlling everything Bioware does in an iron grip is blown out of proportion. The biggest constraint they put on Bioware is development time, but that's nothing we haven't seen by other publishers. Sony does this a lot as well to Naughty Dog.

 

If you wanna look at a nasty publisher, look at SEGA. EA's biggest mistake is making dev cycles too short like all other major publishers, but if DA:I is any indication, they are willing to improve and sacrifice a bit for better consumer satisfaction.

[StarcloudSWG]

EA's more controlling than that. And since a game is not a bridge, yes, EA will push to release 'on time' even if the game hasn't been given its final polish.

[ZipZap2000]

@von "Not aware of anyone threatening to shoot bioware developers"

 

That happened. After DA2 a female developer was tracked down and had rape and death threats send to her. I agree wholeheartedly with the rest of your post it's sad to see gaming go in one direction over the other instead of straight through the perfectly reasonable middle ground.

[von uber]

@von "Not aware of anyone threatening to shoot bioware developers"

That happened. After DA2 a female developer was tracked down and had rape and death threats send to her. I agree wholeheartedly with the rest of your post it's sad to see gaming go in one direction over the other instead of straight through the perfectly reasonable middle ground.

A female developer? There's a surprise.

Those who make such threats are detestable scum, the lot of them.

[Reorte]

Isn't that like saying if you build a bridge, and your budget comes up short or are approaching the projected completion date, they open the bridge anyways, despite it having several problems? I don't think so. Doesn't work like that. Games aren't as buggy and broken and people make them out to be.

Yet they are still buggy. If you're writing a complex piece of software (or even a fairly simple one) bugs are inevitable and you'll never get rid of them all, so there has to come a point at which you accept them and release. It's not at all unreasonable to think that EA might push companies it owns to release software at a buggier stage than might've happened before. If they'll just irritate players but not put them off enough that they don't buy the next title then the bugs will stay. Ditto with other aspects of development time, such as thinking through and resolving plot issues and attention to little details. But like I said none of that translates into directly dictating game content.

Most individuals working on a game would probably keep polishing it until it's perfect and it would never get released. Publishers go a bit too far in the opposite direction.

[dreamgazer]

I think EA mostly gives Bioware creative control, but as with many publishers I bet there's always some kind of agreement between where EA hands out a list of things on which Bioware has to deliver e.g. for Mass Effect 3 the list would be "Make the game as accessible to newcomers as possible, make the core gameplay appealing to mainstream gamers".

Sounds more like a description for Mass Effect 2, actually, which almost literally rebooted the universe and switched to an ammo-based TPS with practically no loot and a bare-boned skill tree. Not to mention turning the protagonist into a super-cool cyborg.

Of course, your logic would still apply since it was under EA's watch, too.

[Vazgen]

Yet they are still buggy. If you're writing a complex piece of software (or even a fairly simple one) bugs are inevitable and you'll never get rid of them all, so there has to come a point at which you accept them and release. It's not at all unreasonable to think that EA might push companies it owns to release software at a buggier stage than might've happened before. If they'll just irritate players but not put them off enough that they don't buy the next title then the bugs will stay. Ditto with other aspects of development time, such as thinking through and resolving plot issues and attention to little details. But like I said none of that translates into directly dictating game content.

Most individuals working on a game would probably keep polishing it until it's perfect and it would never get released. Publishers go a bit too far in the opposite direction.

It largely depends on the game. Take Bethesda games, for example. Certainly not rushed (there are about 5-year gaps between games) but buggy to the point of breaking the game in some cases. 

[dreamgazer]

Ahhhh, anyone else remember the days of the dragons spinning like tops in Skyrim?

[themikefest]

Ahhhh, anyone else remember the days of the dragons spinning like tops in Skyrim?

[Daemul]

Bethesda Game Studios games have longer development times than 99.9% of games, and yet they're buggier than most of them. WTF?!

 

I still love Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but bah gawd, they gotta find a way to get rid of the bugs, there's always a game breaking one just around the corner which will force you to restart from the beginning and make you lose hundreds of hours of game time. 

[Vazgen]

Bethesda Game Studios games have longer development times than 99.9% of games, and yet they're buggier than most of them. WTF?!

 

I still love Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but bah gawd, they gotta find a way to get rid of the bugs, there's always a game breaking one just around the corner which will force you to restart from the beginning and make you lose hundreds of hours of game time. 

I only start play them after Unofficial Patches are released By that time there are usually about 4 official patches

[ImaginaryMatter]

Bethesda Game Studios games have longer development times than 99.9% of games, and yet they're buggier than most of them. WTF?!

 

I still love Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but bah gawd, they gotta find a way to get rid of the bugs, there's always a game breaking one just around the corner which will force you to restart from the beginning and make you lose hundreds of hours of game time. 

 

I suspect, due to the non linear nature of the game, that it's impossible for QA to test everything. Then again I'm not even sure if Bethesda does QA.

[ZipZap2000]

@von I was shocked when I heard it origins is a good game but making death threats over it? Someone has real issues.