ANTHEM - failed Destiny clone from BioWare

[Angthoron]

Yeah but he meant "official" to that fan subreddit (r/LowSodiumAnthem)

Oh lol, then.

 

[Steamboat Willie]

The regular Anthem sub doesn't allow memes

Well they did want to make the game "un-memeable" so that makes sense.

 

[vota DC]

Yes, lets talk about storytelling and the male ego when the game is in literal early access and is mechanically a complete mess. Taking down the patriarchy is more important than completing the game. REE.

This will outsell Anthem https://store.steampowered.com/app/960740/Girls_civilization/

 

[vortex]

This will outsell Anthem https://store.steampowered.com/app/960740/Girls_civilization/

Please don't give to Bioware any more progressive ideas for DA4.

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

 

[True Ukrainian]

The end is near. Papa EA may be fine with you being a danger haired SJW, but he does not tolerate failure.

 

[Space Satan]

Deep down the Internet Stanley Woo is still fighing the Good Fight to fend off trolls and homophobic haters from his beloved BioWare games. Legend says that in the darkest hour he will return and pick chosen believers to ascent to the Private Bioware Forum

 

[abija]

"Goal was to hit 6 millions by now"

WTF expectations... the guys doing these "forecasts" seem more incompetent than bioware devs (unless number was intended to be bullshit).

 

[Black]

"Goal was to hit 6 millions by now"

WTF expectations... the guys doing these "forecasts" seem more incompetent than bioware devs (unless number was intended to be bullshit).

They probably heard that number over and over somewhere else before so they went with it.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/electronic-arts-says-the-old-way-of-releasing-games-doesnt-work-anymore/

Electronic Arts says the old way of releasing games doesn't work anymore
The Anthem experience has apparently led EA to reconsider how it launches large-scale online games.

Electronic Arts acknowledged during its Q4 2019 financial results conference call that Anthem, which it expected to be one of its biggest releases of the year, did not live up to expectations. Despite all its problems, EA reaffirmed support for both the game and developer BioWare, but it also said that the experience has led it to realize that it needs to start handling large, live-service game releases differently than it has in the past.

"The reality is, it's not just an EA challenge, it's an industry-wide challenge," CEO Andrew Wilson said during the call, referencing the difficulties of creating and operating large-scale open-world games like Anthem. "You're moving from what was initially a BioWare game which would be somewhere between 40 and 80 hours of offline play to 40 to 80 hours of offline play plus 100 or 200, 300 hours of elder game that happens with millions of other players at scale, online."

That obviously has an impact on development and QA processes, but EA is also examining how it presents new games to potential audiences, with an eye toward managing expectations. Wilson said that in Asia, major online games generally go through a soft launch and multiple community tests before everything goes live, which enables EA to get a better idea of how they'll behave at scale. In the West, however, major publishers have stuck with older conventions: A "drip-feed approach" to marketing to "build up the appetite and excitement for the game," that leads straight into release.

"As games have gotten bigger that system isn't working as as well as it has done in years gone by. So what you should expect from us is that it's not just about changing the development processes in the game, it's not just about changing the QA process in the game—although both of those things are being changed dramatically inside our organization right now—but it also comes down to changing how we launch games," Wilson said.

"You should expect that we'll start to test things like soft launches—the same things that you see in the mobile space right now. And it also comes down to changing how we communicate with players. Our entire marketing organization now is moving out of presentation mode and into conversation mode, and changing how we interact with players over time."

Wilson believes that change in approach should help ensure that games run better and more reliably when they go fully live, and will also help players "understand exactly what it is that they're going to be playing, and how they're going to be playing both on the day of launch and over time."

"We think that we're in a really good position for this—I think this gets really hard if you don't have scale to do this, and so we feel very good about it ," Wilson said. "And over time we hope that we can lead from the front and help other developers and publishers change the way they do things as well."

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Read: we will release games with more barebone features and shit gameplay loops and have you pay to do our job for us!

 

[Wilian]

So the new PR word for early access is 'soft launch'. Gotcha.

 

[Aildrik]

So Andrew Wilson (getting paid CEO cash) just had an epiphany that Anthem is more of an MMO than your traditional single player game? Just now figuring that out? Online games/services have been doing this sort of thing (phased betas) since well over 20 years ago, but this fucknut is just now putting 2 and 2 together?

Note to Mr.Wilson.... even 20 years ago, UO was released in a very playable state so please lets dispense with the notion that games can't possibly be released in anywhere near a finished state. Lets just call this all what it is. High speed Internet has become a crutch for these companies. Games that were released 20 years ago in the era of dial-up couldn't be expecting their customers to be downloading huge post-release chunks of content. For that reason, they had to get things right the first time. Stop pushing a shell of a game out the door and then shoving 20GB updates at people. Design as if you can't do that.

 

[Reinhardt]

large-scale open-world games like Anthem.

 

[TheChickenKing]

They had a soft-launch with Anthem. They had betas, too. It didn't help. I mean, shit, it actually contributed to a lot of negative buzz around the release of the game because people who had preordered didn't understand why they couldn't play the game alongside people who were subscribed to EA's Origin Access service. And a soft launch implies either Early Access or, you know, something like Anthem where it's playable too close to release to be genuinely fixable.

Speaking of Early Access, I gave Tripwire a lot of shit over how they handled Killing Floor 2 but in hindsight, I appreciate how polished the game was. It took them forever to release stuff, and it was probably a year after the official release before I felt like the game had enough stuff in it to actually justify it existing as a sequel to the first one, but from day 1 of it being in Early Access on Steam, it was 100% playable for me. Everything worked well, and in general the game didn't exhibit any major glitches. Sure, it needed some tweaks and some polish, but damn. EA's trying to claim they're reinventing the wheel because they built a square, marketed it as a wheel, and then were surprised when people wanted a wheel.

All that being said, I am genuinely surprised that EA stated on an earnings call that they have any interest in continuing to support Anthem. I'm sure they think that, long term, it'll be a good investment or they wouldn't be doing it. But still, credit where it's due, right? They didn't hit it and quit it, and continuing to update and improve the game they sold people is a much classier move than I would've expected from them.

 

[Aildrik]

All that being said, I am genuinely surprised that EA stated on an earnings call that they have any interest in continuing to support Anthem.

http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/05/anthem_sheds_key_staff_as_bioware_looks_towards_dragon_age_4

EA/Bioware:

 

[rusty_shackleford]

All that being said, I am genuinely surprised that EA stated on an earnings call that they have any interest in continuing to support Anthem.

http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/05/anthem_sheds_key_staff_as_bioware_looks_towards_dragon_age_4

EA/Bioware:

• 6
• playstation1995
• Thu, 11:30am

dragon age inquisition is a great games.one of the best rpgs of all time.word up son

 

[baud]

All that being said, I am genuinely surprised that EA stated on an earnings call that they have any interest in continuing to support Anthem.

Supporting Anthem can mean anything, from just not shutting down the server to actually fixing the game and making new content.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Even SWTOR still gets regular content updates.

 

[TheChickenKing]

All that being said, I am genuinely surprised that EA stated on an earnings call that they have any interest in continuing to support Anthem.

Supporting Anthem can mean anything, from just not shutting down the server to actually fixing the game and making new content.

That's fair. I think it's safe to say that Anthem will be getting some type of support, but it's certainly up in the air as to whether that'll translate to anything real or not.

 

[Angthoron]

"Lead from the front", what the fuck kind of newspeak is that?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Leading by example, like the commander that grabs a sword and charges the enemy so his troops follow him, instead of giving orders from the back. It's just kind of overdramatic since this model already exists in Asia, like he says.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

11 month old interview: https://variety.com/2018/gaming/features/biowares-casey-hudson-interview-1202842336/

“Maybe 15 or 20 years from now on devices we can’t imagine, you can play a game and say, ‘Wow. This feels like a BioWare game.’”

 

[Agame]

Hudson is quite the ego-maniac isn't he? Being part of burning Bioware to the ground may take some wind out of his sails...

 

[Beastro]

This will outsell Anthem https://store.steampowered.com/app/960740/Girls_civilization/

Puts a new spin on Mount and Blade.