For the good of video games, Anthem needs to fail hard

Gladius Legis said:

Nope. I am right.

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No, you aren't. (This is starting to remind me of kindergarten...)

Gladius Legis said:

Did you miss the SINGLE-PLAYER part in your feeble attempt to be condescending? Of course you did.

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And of course you missed that all Blizzard games that were released in the last decade require you to be online, regardless whether you're playing solo or not.

Gladius Legis said:

You seem proud to be part of the problem with AAA video gaming today.

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I'm just being realistic. I dislike micro-transactions as much as you do.

Gladius Legis said:

And he is wrong.

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You cannot be wrong in liking or disliking something. It's simply a matter of taste and personal preferences.

Jhaelen said:

No, you aren't. (This is starting to remind me of kindergarten...)

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It may be time to disengage. Don't get into this:

Umbran said:

It may be time to disengage. Don't get into this:

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The cartoon that saved my sanity.

See, from my perspective, Bioware hasn't really done anything to lose my good will.

Mass Effect is my favorite game franchise, after Civilization, of course. For %95-97 of its length, ME# is the best game in the series. Most refined mechanics, best character moments - thanks, obviously to two prior games worth of build-up.

Dragon Age 2 is a well-written written RPG with great characters, making it a pretty great game despite the criminal reuse of assets (thanks to its too-short dev cycle).

As for Anthem, part of me is sad to see Bioware trying something new -- or not-so-new, as it sure looks like a Destiny clone. I'd prefer if they'd to stick to their strengths. Bioware makes terrific Bioware-style RPGs; charming, frequently violent dating-and-friendship simulators full of wonderful character moments where you also obligatorily save the world/galaxy (because of course you do this is a high-budget video game).

Games where the best combat loot is more dialogue & cut scenes with your space/castle friends. I kinda wonder why EA didn't pressure Bioware to make a single-player RPG where all the best dialogue and relationship advances are hidden in loot boxes?

But... whatever. Time marches on. Bioware's making a persistent-world shooter. I like their work, so I'm in. Besides, I have to admit Destiny is fun, even when played filthy casual almost entirely solo-style like I did.

While I don't share his fervor, I will admit that I partially agree with Gladius's original point.

EA has long been known for "slash and burn" practices when purchasing game studios and IP. I believe that business model is generally a Bad Thing. It's bad for devoted fans, who get increasingly inconsistent products. It's bad for innovative creators that have to see their content degrade as it's pulled out of their hands. And it's really bad for people in the gaming industry, as it leads to extremely high stress work environments where people have no feeling of job security whatsoever.

However, EA has had a number of failures with this model in the last few years. The SimCity and SW Battlegrounds debacles that people have noted here are some of the most visible examples. Also, my understanding is that their number of acquisitions is generally down, with a focus on fewer high-value targets. Combining these things, it is likely that their slash-and-burn model is losing steam at the corporate level. It's possible that failing to meet target ROI numbers for Anthem would be the tipping point that gets them to halt this practice (or at least slow it down further).

The unfortunate part where I disagree with the OP is that I don't think that this will end EA's trend towards micro-transactions. If anything, it will solidify it. EA's profit has been steadily increasing over the last few years, with micro-transactions (and other "bonus content") accounting for a huge percent of that money. If EA ends their slash-and-burn program, its simply because their corporate level wants to focus on "gaming as a subscription service" rather than "growth though acquisition".

So, yes, necroed this thread to gloat over the fact that Anthem is indeed confirmed to be mediocre or worse.

Metacritic: 60 on critics' reviews. And 4.0/10 on user score.

You're welcome, all.

Gladius Legis said:

So, yes, necroed this thread to gloat over the fact that Anthem is indeed confirmed to be mediocre or worse.

Metacritic: 60 on critics' reviews. And 4.0/10 on user score.

You're welcome, all.

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Please.... as if Metacritic user scores mean ANYTHING in instances like this.

307 negative reviews and I'd bet dollars to donuts that 95% of those are by people like you who did not play the game and have no interest in the game and are entirely motivated by the delusion that if they attack Anthem it will cause EA to rethink it's behaviour. The hilariously false idea that EA will suddenly change how it operates because they have to close another studio.
Or because the game isn't exactly what they want and that automatically makes it a bad game. The standard wrongbadfun B.S. we don't need.

Seriously. There are over 200 reviews of 2 or lower, and all posted in LESS than 48-hours of release. Yeah... they didn't actually play the game. They're not actually reviewing the game, they're reviewing the idea of the game.

The hate over Anthem is ridiculous. I'd never seen anyone say anything remotely positive about Destiny 2. Every news article was about how it was failing or not as good as the first or hemorrhaging players. And then Anthem's release neared and everyone suddenly started tripping over themselves to praise Destiny 2 and talk about how we didn't need another game like it on the market. Because apparently there's no room for more than one "loot shooter" game.
Meanwhile, Apex Legends dropped and despite there being a half-dozen other online team battlefield games, everyone jumped on that bandwagon.

Stuff like this isn't bringing down EA. It's bringing down Metacritic. It's making reviews aggregates less useful and reliable a platform. It isn't helping anyone.
Plus, EA cares about sales, not Metacritic.
So, realistically, how is Anthem doing? Well, it's #14 and #16 in Amazon's XBox chart and #4 and #14 on the PS4 chart (with #1 in both not being a real game), and the #1 on the PC game chart.
Meanwhile, on Twitch, 22k viewers are watching people Stream the game, making it currently the #16 game. Anthem is doing fine. It's doing very, very well.

Also... the aforementioned Apex Legends is also an EA game. It's currently the #3 game on Twitch. And that's also published by EA and is 110% about the Loot Crates. So even in the highly unlikely situation where Anthem nosedives in popularity and sales in the next week, and EA burns BioWare to the ground, EA is still going to walkout of Q1 2019 with bags and bags of money. And the lesson they'd take away is PvP shooters rather than PvE and more Loot Crates (as Anthem didn't have any).

If we do lose BioWare because of so-called "fans" like you who don't really care about the games and just care about some petty vendetta against a publisher, it won't hurt EA. It will mean the loss of hundreds of jobs here in my hometown and the end of the DragonAge franchise before the forthcoming DA4 can drop.

Jester David said:

Seriously. There are over 200 reviews of 2 or lower, and all posted in LESS than 48-hours of release. Yeah... they didn't actually play the game. They're not actually reviewing the game, they're reviewing the idea of the game.

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a) The game had early access. So many of those gamers already played the game well before the "official" release date.

b) Funny how in your rant you never mentioned ONCE the professional critics who are also dealing Anthem bad or mixed reviews. Or the scores of leading YouTube reviewers giving Anthem bad reviews. You're clearly coming into this with some bias to ignore those.

So, realistically, how is Anthem doing? Well, it's #14 and #16 in Amazon's XBox chart and #4 and #14 on the PS4 chart (with #1 in both not being a real game), and the #1 on the PC game chart.
Meanwhile, on Twitch, 22k viewers are watching people Stream the game, making it currently the #16 game. Anthem is doing fine. It's doing very, very well.

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So, the mid-teens on a new AAA release = "doing very, very well"?

Clearly your definition of the phrase differs from mine.

If we do lose BioWare because of so-called "fans" like you who don't really care about the games and just care about some petty vendetta against a publisher, it won't hurt EA. It will mean the loss of hundreds of jobs here in my hometown and the end of the DragonAge franchise before the forthcoming DA4 can drop.

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Yes, it's a shame what EA has done to BioWare. Best pull the plug while BioWare's name has any dignity left.

As for Dragon Age, the series with only one good game, ever, that being the first one? Meh, I'm not exactly heartbroken over that possibility.

Gladius Legis said:

a) The game had early access. So many of those gamers already played the game well before the "official" release date.

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Oh my gosh! You mean a public stress test beta of an online game might have been shaky?!
Oh my word. I must clutch my pearls for now I have the vapors.

Gladius Legis said:

b) Funny how in your rant you never mentioned ONCE the professional critics who are also dealing Anthem bad or mixed reviews.

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It's a 60 on Metacritic. It's overwhelmingly "mixed" but far, far from the terrible you are claiming.

Gladius Legis said:

Or the scores of leading YouTube reviewers giving Anthem bad reviews. You're clearly coming into this with some bias to ignore those.

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Funny how in your rant you never ONCE mention the scores of YouTube reviewers giving Anthem good reviews. You're clearing coming into this with some bias to ignore those.

Gladius Legis said:

So, the mid-teens on a new AAA release = "doing very, very well"?

Clearly your definition of the phrase differs from mine.

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It's #11 right now. It's position will wax and wane during days.
But the Top 5 tend to be a fairly firm lock of Overwatch and Fortnight. With PUB and Black Ops. Anthem was never going to crack that.

Gladius Legis said:

Yes, it's a shame what EA has done to BioWare. Best pull the plug while BioWare's name has any dignity left.

As for Dragon Age, the series with only one good game, ever, that being the first one? Meh, I'm not exactly heartbroken over that possibility.

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So because YOU don't like Anthem, Dragon Age, and studio anymore 800 people have to lose their jobs, likely having to relocate themselves and their families to new cities to find work in their chosen career, and everyone who is attached to the game has to lose something they enjoy.

Get.
Over.
Yourself.

No one is making you play the game. It doesn't impact you life one iota if you hate it. There are lots of other games on the market, both new and classic. More games than any one person could ever play. I'm willing to bet you have a half-dozen excellent games in your Steam queue that you haven't even bothered installing let alone 100%ing.
If you don't like Anthem then don't play it.
Find something you do like and leave it alone for the people who do. Move on with your life and stop dwelling on the one game you hate. Grow the up.

Gladius Legis said:

As for Dragon Age, the series with only one good game, ever, that being the first one? Meh, I'm not exactly heartbroken over that possibility.

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My take is Dragon Age has two good games and one great one. In the great one you can watch your frenemy blow up the Pope, steal the Qu’ran, then flee across the ocean with your pirate ex-girlfriend and demonologist current girlfriend. Really, the game has it all, except enough location assets.

I’m going to hold off on Anthem for now. It sounds like it’s in rough shape, with some quality-of-life issues that really need sorting. But the reviews I read/watched mainly agree there’s the core of a good game there. Given how invested BioWare is in the project, I have some hope they’ll set it right.

Though why they didn’t just push the release date is beyond me. They already missed the 2018 holiday season.