BioWare "Made a Big Mistake" With Mass Effect on iPhone

vansau

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May 25, 2010
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BioWare "Made a Big Mistake" With Mass Effect on iPhone



Don't worry: BioWare hated the Mass Effect iPhone game, too.

Last summer, a number of gamers with iPhones bought <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/91482-BioWare-Talks-Mass-Effect-on-iPhone>Mass Effect: Galaxy to learn about the story between Mass Effect and <a href=http://www.amazon.com/Mass-Effect-2-Xbox-360/dp/B001TORSII/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1280426259&sr=8-1>Mass Effect 2. The game wasn't really that great, thanks to some awkward controls, and the players quickly lost interest in the title. It turns out that BioWare knows the game was flawed, and is now admitting to the misfire.

According to Dr. Greg Zeschuk in an interview with Videogamer, "Oh, I think [the game] was very worth attempting. Even when something's not as successful as you'd like, you can take some lessons away and apply them, right? For us, that's kind of where humility comes in, to eat the humble pie on the Mass iPhone game [laughs] and go, 'Yeeeaaah, we made a big mistake,' in the sense that we thought story could carry it."

Zeschuk backtracked about that last comment, stating that the game wasn't necessarily a mistake, although, "as much as we took a guess, our guess was wrong, and we learned something in the process ... unless your game is utterly designed about tactile gameplay, you shouldn't release it. That was good information for us to have."

In spite of the game's less-than-stellar execution, BioWare is still considering the iPhone as a viable platform to use in the future. "We'll explore stuff," Zeschuk noted. "For us, it may be things that link into other games. It's the cross-platform nature of the potential platform, like an iPhone app able to somehow access one of the other games' universes, or something. That would be really cool."

Source: Joystiq

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Ranooth

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Mar 26, 2008
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Wait, Mass Effect came to the iPhone?

Well that's an idea doomed to fail.
 

Loonerinoes

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Apr 9, 2009
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Hee hee. Never tried it myself but yeah...I was rather intrigued by it getting slammed as opposed to the other two Mass Effects...but I thought "Ah well...they must be experimenting with the medium or somesuch and apparently relying on trial and error in this case."

Glad to see this kind of admission I s'pose. Also, nice screenshot.
 

DrScoobs

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Mar 6, 2009
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well thats giving the finger to all the mass effect fans who brought this crappy app.
(what is up with that art style anyway? could it be less ME?)
 

Plauged1

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Mar 6, 2009
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GeneticallyModifiedDucks said:
Why did they even bother with this?

Actually this is the first time I hear of this game's existence, but whatever.
I thought I was the only one who was kept out of a loop. I was sure that by this point in time anything concerning bioware and mass effect would be heard around the entire gaming community.0_0

But hey, thats what informative sites like the escapist are for. Keeping us in the known unknown.
 

RatRace123

Elite Member
Dec 1, 2009
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Noooo! Take the lesson you learned from Galaxy as insentive to stay the hell away from the Iphone.

We do not need to further the delusions that the thing is good for game playing.
 

Armored Prayer

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Mar 10, 2009
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Oh I remember playing that game once, I thought it was ok. I did loved the cartoony art style.

But yeah its wasn't all that well received, so I think its for the best that Bioware not make games for the iPhone.
 
May 23, 2010
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metroidgearsolid said:
well thats giving the finger to all the mass effect fans who brought this crappy app.
(what is up with that art style anyway? could it be less ME?)
Reminds me of penny arcade (mostly the guy on the right). If they were to actually go for the real thing, I would totally buy it.
 

Nmil-ek

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Dec 16, 2008
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Ohh god that is some ugleh art, never actually bothered to look into the game or an I-phone for that matter seems I wasnt missing much. And seriously bleeech it's sad when you can make that Vandal Hearts sequel art look appealing.
 

SomebodyNowhere

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Dec 9, 2009
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They should do another online flash game like they did for DA:O with Dragon Age Journeys. It provided a bit of info about the world and unlocked items in game.
 

Stabby Joe

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Jul 30, 2008
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I didn't know they even made one but one look at that screenshot and I can see why they apologized.
 

TheAceTheOne

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Jul 27, 2010
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vansau said:
BioWare "Made a Big Mistake" With Mass Effect on iPhone



Don't worry: BioWare hated the Mass Effect iPhone game, too.

Last summer, a number of gamers with iPhones bought <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/91482-BioWare-Talks-Mass-Effect-on-iPhone>Mass Effect: Galaxy to learn about the story between Mass Effect and <a href=http://www.amazon.com/Mass-Effect-2-Xbox-360/dp/B001TORSII/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1280426259&sr=8-1>Mass Effect 2. The game wasn't really that great, thanks to some awkward controls, and the players quickly lost interest in the title. It turns out that BioWare knows the game was flawed, and is now admitting to the misfire.

According to Dr. Greg Zeschuk in an interview with Videogamer, "Oh, I think [the game] was very worth attempting. Even when something's not as successful as you'd like, you can take some lessons away and apply them, right? For us, that's kind of where humility comes in, to eat the humble pie on the Mass iPhone game [laughs] and go, 'Yeeeaaah, we made a big mistake,' in the sense that we thought story could carry it."

Zeschuk backtracked about that last comment, stating that the game wasn't necessarily a mistake, although, "as much as we took a guess, our guess was wrong, and we learned something in the process ... unless your game is utterly designed about tactile gameplay, you shouldn't release it. That was good information for us to have."

In spite of the game's less-than-stellar execution, BioWare is still considering the iPhone as a viable platform to use in the future. "We'll explore stuff," Zeschuk noted. "For us, it may be things that link into other games. It's the cross-platform nature of the potential platform, like an iPhone app able to somehow access one of the other games' universes, or something. That would be really cool."

Source: Joystiq

Permalink
At least Dr. Zeschuk admitted the fact that the game wasn't as good as it could have been. I'm glad to see someone learning on failure as well as success, instead of how the industry can be at times where developers immediately jump to defending. Acknowledging a failure and using it as a learning experience may not hold much immediate value in terms of profit, but if you take lessons you learn from that failure, your future successes will likely be at least a little bit greater.
 

TheAceTheOne

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Jul 27, 2010
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Dr. wonderful said:
MaVeN1337 said:
I'm so fucking sick of hearing about bioware on this site. THEY SUCK.
Hey, this is Bioware country.
Would you rather hear about the Activision-Infinity Ward thing again? Perhaps some EA merger maybe? There's lots of things you'll hear about constantly, and I think Bioware isn't too bad when you think about the other things out there that are going on.