Dragon Age: Inquistion - Can Bioware Survive Another Misstep?

[Sheo_Dagana]

My only real beef with BioWare is Dragon Age 2. I've loved all of their other games and I'm currently subscribed to SW:TOR. I think they'll be just fine, but pitchfork wielding fans might disagree with me.

 

[CloudAtlas]

I doubt that they can make it any worse than DA 2 was. The game will do well in sales like most of Bioware's games and they will continue making games, because companies don't close over people whining on the internet.

You call it whining I call it criticism.

A lot what people are doing here and elsewhere hardly qualifies as criticsm.

I've seen people give reasonable criticism that often gets dismissed as whining by the fanboys,so if people have to make their opinions more loud then that's why.

Well, anyone who claims ME3 or DA2 are objectively flawless games is just as stupid as those who think there's nothing good about them at all.

 

[CloudAtlas]

You call it whining I call it criticism.

"Criticism" is hardly the word I'd apply when individuals nail themselves to crosses to heap invective upon the company, proclaim a sense of betrayal or disrespect, and prophesize with a sense of deep self-satisfaction their downfall, all while deciding what is to be done with all that ill will and distrust is to...not pre-order their next game.

Not buy it used or on sale, not refuse to buy it at all, just not pre-order it.

That's just fanboys/fangirls being...well fanboys/fangirls.There are still reasonable people who give their criticisms in a mature and civil manner.

Yes, there are, but many have left the realm of reason long behind them too.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

That's just fanboys/fangirls being...well fanboys/fangirls.There are still reasonable people who give their criticisms in a mature and civil manner.

Those people are also the silent (by comparison) minority. Who, might I add, are excoriated just as much if not greater than the company's unabashed sycophants.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

They've brought back multiple player races, so I'm happy for the moment. ME2 and DA2 are still more egregious to me than ME3 (which made it up to me with it's high quality DLC), so they've bought back a little bit of trust with me.

Regardless, they're owned by EA now, and that giant black demon will eventually eat them whole and excrete the remains into a barrel of litigious toxic waste, so it hardly matters. I just hope they can stay afloat and out of range of that terrible gaping maw for awhile, yet.

 

[jackinmydaniels]

It certainly won't be the game that ruins the company. Dragon Age Inquisition will be another shoddy half backed action/rpg hybrid that's flawed in comparison to it's much better predecessor, just like ME 3 was, it'll suck, but I doubt it'll raise anywhere near as much of a stink as ME 3 did, just because it'll probably have a halfway decent conclusion.

Honestly, the majority of my issues with 3 have nothing to do with the ending, and nobody seems to care about any of those issues, so I'll likely see it again, which means I won't be taking part in it this time.

I won't be buying it, Bioware isn't 'dead' in a literal sense, but they're dead to me.

 

[EternallyBored]

Even if DA3 screws up somewhere along the line, I imagine Bioware still has too much inertia for that to be their death knell. If it does fail for some reason though, Bioware will likely be seeing cutbacks from it's owner EA.


When EA bought Bioware, they were preparing to make the company a leading brand name for EA to publish a number of titles under, from RTS to mobile gaming, Bioware was originally intended to be one of the crown jewels in EA's lineup. It's somewhat telling that EA has rescinded its name changes of other studios that they were tacking the Bioware name onto, and have basically halted plans to make Bioware a centerpiece of their collection. Likely, EA is wary at this point and is waiting to see how things change before they commit to making Bioware a flagship studio ala EA sports or shunting its production solely into Bioware core titles (which will likely end up with EA forcing Bioware to make another Mass Effect game). If it gets bad enough EA may attempt to rename the studio or lay off staff, forcing Bioware to work on a limited production budget.

People forget that critical acclaim and financial success take a backseat to meeting financial predictions and sales expectations set by the publisher. ToR was a decent MMO and sold pretty well, but its massive budget caused it's sales and retention rates to fall well short of company predictions. For anyone that followed the sales for ME3, after the ending controversy started the sales of ME3 dropped fast and EA admitted that the sales of the game post launch were short of their expectations. ME3 did still sell well though, so I doubt EA is looking for it's shotgun just yet, but two games in a row being unable to meet demands set by the publisher means they are probably going to adjust their expectations downward in the future, meaning that Bioware gets less of the EA money pie. They certainly aren't going to let Bioware develop another MMO anytime soon.

Could DA3 be the end of Bioware? I doubt it, but it could be the point where Bioware is no longer seen as the juggernaut of western RPGs that it once was. Of course, if DA3 sells phenomenally then it's also possible that EA will once again go ahead with its plans to make Bioware the center of many of its future production products. They could end up like Westwood, once being pretty much the premier RTS maker, eventually shut down after dropping sales over time, or they could end up like the Sims developers, shunted into a niche perhaps, but EA is still willing to pump time and money into new titles from them. In some hypothetical best case scenario they could even turn it all around and sell massive amounts of copies, where EA will restart its plans to make Bioware an entire division unto itself. It's really all speculation at this point. While I don't think its a lynchpin, DA3 will likely set the tone for Bioware going forward in the future.

 

[P.Tsunami]

DA2 had solid sales despite being critically panned, for a BioWare game, which meant it "only" received lukewarm reviews.

I don't think I agree with DA2 having "solid" sales, all things considered. It failed to reach DA:O in sales by a wide margin, which must be considered a disappointment. Relatively to being the sequel to a popular RPG, DA2 was no success.

 

[EternallyBored]

DA2 had solid sales despite being critically panned, for a BioWare game, which meant it "only" received lukewarm reviews.

I don't think I agree with DA2 having "solid" sales, all things considered. It failed to reach DA:O in sales by a wide margin, which must be considered a disappointment. Relatively to being the sequel to a popular RPG, DA2 was no success.

DA2 was the start of ominous things for Bioware after EA bought them out. DA2 indeed fell short of sales expectations, which was likely mostly EA's fault since DA2 had one of the shortest development times in Bioware history, and yet EA still banked on DA2 selling much more than DA:O just based on name recognition of the first one. ToR is still likely the biggest screwup in EA's eyes, but DA2 is what woke them up that they couldn't enforce ludicrous deadlines and still expect massive sales when it comes to RPGs.

Luckily, they seem to be putting that lesson into practice with DA3, whether it will be enough will be seen at launch.

 

[Raikas]

Who said I didn't like DA2?I actually love it but when people bash DA:O and claim it's cliche while DA2 isn't, well I usually point out the many cliches in DA2 like it's characters.

When people say that DA:O had a clichéd plot it generally means that "raise the army/slay the dragon" has been done to death in a way that "rise to power, but be powerless in the face of history" has not. That's it - characters and gameplay and world-building and the rest are separate items (although I will say that the characters in DA2 did have more development moments that surprised me, so even if they were standards in terms of type, I think it's debatable whether or not they were other terms), so pointing out any of that in response to a discussion of plot elements is changing the topic of the conversation.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed both games and thought each had different strong points and different weaknesses. Commenting on the weaknesses of one is not bashing it, it's just an observation.

 

[Raikas]

The longer dev times were almost certainly for the Xbone and PS4 ports.

Probably, but they're clearly using it for other things as well since they have it. The devs had stated repeatedly in the past that there would be no race selection, but now it's back on the table. Sure, maybe they were being misleading before, but that's not the impression that most of the comments they're giving over on the BSN would suggest.

Combined with the fact that they're throwing out Witch Hunt entirely along with the God Baby plotline(Apparently having her sleep with a Grey Warden outside of Ferelden and then hunting down and slaughtering a sleeping Archdemon would have been too difficult of a plotline to come up with) and DA:I is looking pretty shitty for a Bioware game.

If went with that alternate plotline, can't you imagine the fanrage from people who went with the ultimate sacrifice ending? I imagine that they'd be the ones predicting a "pretty shitty" result in that case. Regardless, all that means is that certain items won't be part of the main story, but that tells us nothing about what will be or how good it will be. Fair enough if that means it's not a story you're interested in, but the fact that it looks uninteresting to you is not the same as saying it looks objectively like crap.

I have no idea how good or bad the game is because it's still a year out and we've hardly been given any information - it's impossible to assume the worst or the best at this point because we just don't know yet.