Report: Mass Effect Put on Indefinite Hold

[Darth Rosenberg]

Its not art, its a business. They're selling a product. A product whose success depends solely on its content and quality. And it had neither, so as a product it was a failure. Thus the business people, with the job of creating s successful product, failed in their job.

...except given the subjective nature of art (regardless of what you repeat and would like to believe, it demonstrably isn't just a "business"), you are unable to objectively prove success or failure.

And to judge art/entertainment purely on how much it sells would be tantamount to a kind of anti-art culture, which would be in dire need of maturing/evolving. Thankfully, I'd say most people do not hold to that horribly reductive position.

But these days being a AAA and being average or uninspiring? Well, you may as well have committed a war crime. Especially if you're a developer like Bioware, who already upset the internet.

That's not just for triple-A games, though. And BioWare upset particular and particularly vocal sections of teh internetz/society - I'd wager most people who bought and played it treated it as you described; just another okay game to play and then likely move on from (I'll see for myself tonight).

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

Maybe you can't, but I can. Bioware wanted their product to do well, financially and critically. Bioware's product did not do well financially or critically, at least not to the benchmark Bioware set.
Bioware's product failed in its intent.
Whether or not you think its art is irrelevant, because you didn't buy an extra 2million copies. And to an investor, which do you think it more important? An extra 2 million units sold, or someone saying "But Art cannot be judged, for what is art? Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know, Mr. Boss Man!"

Chance are you'd be fired.

 

[hermes]

Good. They made a bad game, they deserve to get shit-canned as a result.

Assuming this wasn't sarcastic...I don't understand this mentality. Why are we brought up to learn from our mistakes and improve but once a big project fails the answer is to fire everyone?

With that view it's amazing Zelda and Castlevania franchises survived beyond the second installments.

The Mass Effect universe has a lot to offer. I don't think one merely 'decent' installment should be enough to kill the franchise.

What school did you go to?! When I got the answer wrong on a test, I was marked wrong. When I failed a class, I failed. No one said "Oh, well at least you tried your best, and as we all know, in Calculus, its the thought that counts..."

In the real world when you fail a project, you're fired. You don't still go on to the next grade or get a chance to repeat the class. You failed, you're fired.

The point where that analogy falls apart is that game making are not individual tests, and there is a lot of "fault" that can be divided among many people (there is also the part about judging failure or success in a piece of art is a lot harder than in 2+2=6, but that is another issue).

A better analogy would be, imagine a Calculus test where you are given a single question and 10 minutes to answer. Now imagine every member of your class is given a different question, and failure is defined by the amount of correct answers the entire class got. So, if most people failed the test, the entire class fails the test, regardless of your individual performance. Now imagine the one that decides which person gets each question is one of your classmates (not you), he does it without the input or opinion of anyone else, and he is the only one that is likely to pass, regardless of the result. And, just for kicks, imagine that if you fail this test, you can't repeat it, you have to repeat the course and try again, in a different school.

That is a closer analogy. See the "fairness" in that?

In all fairness, I am not against the people that made the decisions that lead to the game feeling unfinished despite being clustered getting some kind of punishment, but the people that got laid-off are likely to be the ones that didn't even get to decide on Ryder's hair color. Regardless of the reception, Wilson is still going to get a 1 million dollars salary (I am not exaggerating here), and Walters is still going to move on to the next Bioware project.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

OH! I get it! It's like a sports team, where no matter how much one player screams they scored the most goals of the entire team, the fact the team still lost means the team lost.
And also like in the say, business world, where if a project fails, more than just the project manager's head is on the slab. The entire teams' jobs are at risk, because they all share in the blame of the failed group project, and no amount of finger pointing fixes that.

There are lots of things in the world where you're judged on the performance of others in your team.

 

[hermes]

SNIP

OH! I get it! It's like a sports team, where no matter how much one player screams they scored the most goals of the entire team, the fact the team still lost means the team lost.
And also like in the say, business world, where if a project fails, more than just the project manager's head is on the slab. The entire teams' jobs are at risk, because they all share in the blame of the failed group project, and no amount of finger pointing fixes that.

There are lots of things in the world where you're judged on the performance of others in your team.

True, but you shouldn't worry about the future of the project manager and other decision makers' heads... Regardless of the reception, Wilson is still going to get a 1 million dollars salary, and Walters is still going to move on to the next Bioware project. But I am sure they are not responsible for it and shouldn't be singled out. Not like the person that made Ryder's textures.

 

[kitsunefather]

So...although unanswered questions from ME:A are going to remain unanswered? Like...basically the entire game? Smooth, BioWare. I know Andromeda wasn't the greatest game, but I'd still like to know what happens. I was kind of hoping you guys would learn from the mistakes and strive to make it better--like you've been saying you were going to do--but apparently tucking your tails and running is the better choice.
Thanks. Thanks a lot.

This is why we, as the gaming audience, should demand more games be self-contained stories, that leave dangling threads to be picked up in future installments, rather than planned outright as multi-part "epics". Tell a good story in a world we want to revisit, or with characters we want to see more of, rather than simply sell us a half-finished story and tell us to "wait for the sequel".

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

OH! I get it! It's like a sports team, where no matter how much one player screams they scored the most goals of the entire team, the fact the team still lost means the team lost.
And also like in the say, business world, where if a project fails, more than just the project manager's head is on the slab. The entire teams' jobs are at risk, because they all share in the blame of the failed group project, and no amount of finger pointing fixes that.

There are lots of things in the world where you're judged on the performance of others in your team.

Truth, but you shouldn't worry about the future of the project manager and other decision makers' heads... Regardless of the reception, Wilson is still going to get a 1 million dollars salary, and Walters is still going to move on to the next Bioware project. But I am sure they are not responsible for it and shouldn't be singled out. Not like the person that made Ryder's textures.

I do actually feel bad for one person on the team. Won't name her, but she's my bro's GF and her first job out of her master's program was on the QA team for Andromeda.
I can't decide if come thanksgiving if I should ask her if the turkey's textures are still loading...

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

I love how silly this thread is.

For many years a lot of the main figures of Bioware have been leaving and Bioware has been making less quality products as of late. They ship Mass Effect to their B-Team studio, who mishandles Andromeda to epic degrees, and people are screeching on with the "It's all EA's fault" meme.

Can we for once place some damn responsibility on the people who actually the game rather than go for the low hanging fruit?

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I love how silly this thread is.

For many years a lot of the main figures of Bioware have been leaving and Bioware has been making less quality products as of late. They ship Mass Effect to their B-Team studio, who mishandles Andromeda to epic degrees, and people are screeching on with the "It's all EA's fault" meme.

Can we for once place some damn responsibility on the people who actually the game rather than go for the low hanging fruit?

But according to these same people, EA drove out the main figures of Bioware. As for shipping Mass Effect: Andromeda to their B-team studio, that actually was (apparently) EA's decision, as was the decision to outsource the facial animations without any input from the development team.

Bioware isn't faultless, mind you, but EA is far from innocent.

 

[Saelune]

RIP Bioware's corpse. 2007-2017/8. (RIP Real Bioware 1995-2007)

But I liked Mass Effect 1

Then again, it's only one of two (technically three) BioWare games I've played, and the first of said three, so, I can admit to being ignorant.

I also liked Mass Effect 1, which was the final game good Bioware made. Unfortunately, Mass Effect 2 on was not made for ME1 fans.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Sources are claiming that BioWare's Montreal studio has been downsized, and work on new Mass Effect titles has been put on ice.

Mass Effect: Andromeda was not as well received by critics and the public as its predecessors, and that reaction is reportedly having some lasting effects at BioWare. Sources close to Kotaku [https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/05/sources-bioware-montreal-downsized-mass-effect-put-on-ice-for-now/] have claimed that not only has the developer's Montreal studio been downsized, but the entire Mass Effect franchise has been put on ice for now.

What did they expect would happen? Storywise it addeed not so much anything to the series. Thusly it made the graphics issues that much more focus worthy. Honestly I'm sort of baffled at those bugs to begin with.

I could expect that happening with a small team of EAcc indie devs, but this is a group of seasoned vets with millions of dollars and a makor publisher. And they miss an issue that even the most casual of playthroughs would notice. One playtester would have been enough to point that shit out and they're surprised that not doing even that got them a poor reception?

BioWare Montreal is the studio responsible for Andromeda, and last month a number employees were transferred to the studio EA Motive, also based in Montreal, to work on Star Wars Battlefront 2. Those remaining at BioWare Montreal will help support BioWare's other games including the new intellectual property that was recently delayed [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/170322-New-BioWare-IP-Delayed].

Wonder how long it will take for EA to get cold feet on that.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Maybe you can't, but I can. Bioware wanted their product to do well, financially and critically. Bioware's product did not do well financially or critically, at least not to the benchmark Bioware set.
Bioware's product failed in its intent.

Can you only capable of see the world in binary states? True/false, success/fail? Very few things in life are that simplistic.

A perception of failure on the publishers side is their own matter to decide - neither your opinion or mine is relevant to that judgement. If EA come out and declare ME:A a financial failure, then it is one for them[footnote]Though we'd need to know the projections they forecast and targets they wished to hit - which we could then compare to other publishers projections and benchmarks and assess whether EA were at all reasonable or not. Publishers - primarily being little more than money-men and marketers - are often a tad moronic and greedy, after all...[/footnote]. If some of the developers come out and declare their pride in the work, then it is a success to them. Ditto for anyone who plays the game (the most reasonable people will likely always see a mixture of qualities in all art/entertainment, and not ignorantly dish out reductive labels; bad films/games/books have good elements, good films/games/books have bad elements, and there's a ton of variously blandly acceptable content in between).

Surely the only way objective commercial failure can ever be declared is if a project does so poorly as to not make profits or endanger the solvency of the company backing it, or/and if people go unpaid.

ME:A did just fine commercially, and if we're going from general reception by gaming press, then 73 on Metacritic on PC (77 on Xbox, 70 on PS4) is not even close to a critical failure.

...than getting "Indinna Jones"'ed with garbage JSW pandering and "streamlining".

"JSW"? Is that another made up cultural boogieman, or just a typo?

 

[Ishigami]

Yep BioWare hate still strong on The Escapist forum. All quiet on the western front.

If true regrettable news. I'm currently finishing my second play thru sitting at slightly above 120 hours and level 93.
So I would be rather sad that I do not get to investigate the identity of the benefactor, missing Quarian ark or what happened to the Remnants and what the Kett Empire truly is like.
Overall I think the game did pretty good some issues like animations aside.
It had the ungrateful task to create or continue a Mass Effect universe after the ME3 ending. And I think overall it succeeded. Too bad if EA decides to throw it all away.

Someone here said ME died with ME3 as it was all about this one crew.
I don't think so.
Let's not forget a lot of the Normandy crew got replaced in ME2. Some choices about your crew did not carry over from ME2 to ME3 either e.g. Morinth or were no more than a cameo e.g. Kasumi.
What I say is the original cast is overrated because of some more outstanding entries like Mordin or Garrus.
On its own right ME:A has some pretty decent characters such as Drack, Vetra or Jaal.
For me it's like someone claiming StarWars is all about the Skywalkers or Star Trek all about Spock and Kirk.
I would like to believe that a lore rich universe can be used for all kinds of stories. That's why I looked forward to SW 1313 and I thought it was a downgrade when they said it was Boba Fett as it seemed like an unnecessary tie not to mention the game character looked nothing like Morrison.

All these stories how dreadful ME:A is only make me giggle. All I hear is some people with a lack of perspective talking. Apparently they have never played a truly bad game in their life. But the binary is strong on the internet: Something can only be the greatest thing ever or the biggest pile of shit, there is little in between.
Well for me something in between exists.
ME:A had and still has its problems but overall it is okay. I would like it to continue and improve.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

I love how silly this thread is.

For many years a lot of the main figures of Bioware have been leaving and Bioware has been making less quality products as of late. They ship Mass Effect to their B-Team studio, who mishandles Andromeda to epic degrees, and people are screeching on with the "It's all EA's fault" meme.

Can we for once place some damn responsibility on the people who actually the game rather than go for the low hanging fruit?

But according to these same people, EA drove out the main figures of Bioware. As for shipping Mass Effect: Andromeda to their B-team studio, that actually was (apparently) EA's decision, as was the decision to outsource the facial animations without any input from the development team.

Bioware isn't faultless, mind you, but EA is far from innocent.

I hear you, but as you can see in the thread, a lot of people are letting Bioware slide. I don't like doing that. I also find it funny when people go at EA for doing certain bullshit, but not other companies for doing the same thing.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

I see business as business. Bioware is in the business of making money. Business is that simple. Did you make enough money to turn a profit? Did you hit your sales goal? Was your product well received by the consumer? Can we justify a sequel game, given our first game's reception? Did the flaws in our product affect sales? Why were the flaws not fixed? Who was in charge of those areas that were flawed? Why did they give us a flawed product? Why are they still working for us?

These aren't philosophical topics to be pondered over brandy. This is Business 101.
The fact someone takes pride in their work doesn't matter if they go out of business because no one else took pride in their work.

 

[Fensfield]

Oh come on; Andromeda had a lot to rag on but the story was good, and now they're not going to continue it? Bleh, it sounded like it was lining up for some spaceborne horror, too.

 

[KoDOmega]

... holy crap, my account's still usable after years of neglect???? Awesome!

On the one hand, I absolutely think people have been too harsh on the game and it doesn't deserve half the hate it gets.

On the other, I couldn't save on my PS4 after getting 1.0.6, so...

 

[Tony2077]

well this sucks i like the game and there is still a lot we weren't told about so it would have been neat to see where those story paths led. oh just because of who i am haters be damned

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

I see business as business.

Which probably explains why you're only seeing part of the picture.

Bioware is in the business of making money. Business is that simple. [1]Did you make enough money to turn a profit? [2]Did you hit your sales goal? [3]Was your product well received by the consumer? [4]Can we justify a sequel game, given our first game's reception? [5]Did the flaws in our product affect sales? [6]Why were the flaws not fixed? [7]Who was in charge of those areas that were flawed? [8]Why did they give us a flawed product? [9]Why are they still working for us?

You're really not doing your position any good.

Let's go through 'em.

1: clearly EA did.

2: we'd need to speak to EA for that, as I stated before - and their position wouldn't necessarily be of any worth for the reasons I previously stated (publishers: not a reliably bright lot).

3: how do we judge that in any meaningful way? 'Fan' feedback? Aggregate sites? Random YT channels? Ranting forumites either with axes to grind or loyalties to defend? Polls through official channels? Snippets of all the above?

4: that's up to EA, and I find it very hard to believe another ME won't go into production soon enough (relatively speaking).

5: define "flaws", for starters, given those are mostly subjective in a creative artform. Many things affected sales. Delicate snowflakes ironically bridling at progressiveness, for one. Bugs for another - ME:A only finished installing on my drive a few minutes ago because I wasn't going to touch such a clearly - demonstrably - technically defective product (as less than impressive as ME:A's face tech is, I do not count that among the technical errors).

6: most guesses point to 'EA done EA again', given they should've been keenly aware of the state of the product they were backing. I'm not sure anyone knows the specifics yet, but it's reasonable to suspect BioWare and EA were effectively negligent in a variety of ways.

7's academic and down to BioWare's discretion and possible internal reviews.

8: a good question for the technical issues, and one I'd like to know the answer to. If they most care about early doors sales, then they lost my contribution because of its unfit state for release (though I am still adding to their overall sales success).

9: ditto as for 7.

The post of yours I challenged tried to paint ME:A's and a possible follow-up's fate as simple. The above questions and their possible answers do nothing but complicate matters.

The fact someone takes pride in their work doesn't matter if they go out of business because no one else took pride in their work.

...I'm sorry, did EA or BioWare go bust whilst I wasn't looking? Was ME:A a disaster commercially? That's a clear 'no' to both.

Referencing creative pride [in a creative medium] was relevant to illustrate that there are many perspectives on, and the means to measure, the quality of work that's been done by the various parties involved, and that beyond the metrics of units shifted, nothing is simple, and barely anything can ever be boiled down to 'derp, fail/succeed'.

If you've tried to claim ME:A was a black and white true/false failure, then so far you've not actually done a single thing to try to back it up, and given you can't reasonably cite commercial - or critical - failure, I'm not sure how you'd go about it.

well this sucks i like the game and there is still a lot we weren't told about so it would have been neat to see where those story paths led. oh just because of who i am haters be damned

It's worth keeping in mind just how small a group of haterz there probably is, relative to the amount of people just playing the game normally. ME:A's technical faults were just an excuse for certain groups to give BioWare another kicking.

...though, granted, it was like a defender in football going in studs up in the box, therefore giving the ref a decision to make - clearly BioWare/EA made mistakes.

 

[Ukomba]

All I know is I didn't buy it. Primarily it was because I was hoping for them to run with the indoctrination theory

I don't see how anyone could still have been holding out for something validating the IT to be implemented considering how the EC canonically disproves everything the IT suggests about the ending. After the EC, the only thing about the IT that has merit is the evidence that Shepard was in the process of being Indoctrinated throughout the trilogy...but much like that star that was being affected by dark energy in ME2: Shepard's possible Indoctrination was a story thread that was never developed.

To be fair, saying you were surprised by how good a game like ME:A was is like saying you were surprised by how dry the ocean is, it displays a blatant lack of objective understanding of your own experiences. ME:A is not a good game, not even a passable game with solid mechanics bogged down by bugs, it's through-and-through bad. Trying to pass off all the blame for the franchise's death onto 'the community' is just putting blinders on.

Granted: I agree that the studio had more to do with the game's reception than a toxic community, but that doesn't mean that you get to dictate what someone else considers to be a good game. If Vampwizimp thought the game was surprisingly good then - per Vampwizimp's tastes - it was good. You're welcome to disagree with that if you want, but there is nothing objective about personal tastes and preferences.

Your comparison regarding calling the ocean dry doesn't work because water being wet is an objectively observable fact that isn't based on personal tastes/preferences. Whether or not an individual finds a game to be good and enjoyable - regardless of whatever objectively observable flaws it may have - is still an entirely subjective matter since it is based on personal tastes/preferences.

Not sure how any of that changes the fact that I was disappointed they didn't decide to roll with the theory, and that decision effected my choice on buying the next game. It's more like whinging that someone likes the theory.

But no I don't think it completely disproves it. At best it explains how your crew members ended up on the Normandy, there is still a lot that doesn't make sense, including how Shepard apparently wakes up at the end of the Destroy ending buried in concrete on earth when he was exploded in space. It doesn't explain the appearing, disheartening, visible only to Shepard child. Or any of the dream like nonsense that happens post Reaper blast.

IMO the only smart way to move forward for them at this point is to dust off those story lines and and give the original Mass Effect the ending it deserves. Embrace the indoctrination theory as a way to reboot ME3 (just the end or most of it) and wipe out ME4 entirely, bring in that dark energy story line make the game more than just a series of shooting set pieces.