[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[Edge-]

There is at least one metric available. In the UK, it was the number one on physical copies sold. Even managing to outdo Zelda, and Nier.

There's hardly a reason to think it did any less in digital sales.

Physical first week sales, yes. But that's a small market and a singular, isolated data point.

[rhorle]

https://www.masseffect.com/apex-miss...=1494552998356

Turian agent and the X-5 Ghost rifle are added to multiplayer. The x-5 is the cutscene rifle used by the Andromeda forces and as of the new patch can be crafted/researched from the Milky Way list. It was originally just a early prop/idea that they carried over into the final game but didn't make it available to players until now.

[Smitzelplix]

And yet, both Watch Dogs 2, and Inquisition, still sold very well, despite underperforming compared to their predecessors. They still got decent reviews, and managed to produce decent sales that not only recouped the investment made in them, but also turned profits.

Which brings us back to: EA's decision to put Mass Effect on ice was for no fucking reason other than EA being EA: A bunch of tantrum throwing fucktards who know shit about nothing, and are just assholes for no other reason than because they can.

It could be they're only putting it on ice long enough for their more experienced studios to take over Mass Effect again, but since those studios are already working on things it'll take awhile.

I think Andromeda will still get dlc though, especially if they've already started, which I'm sure they have before the main game even fully launched. It took 3-4 months for them to start announcing dlc for Inquisition and each dlc, except Trespasser, was released the same month it was announced. If they don't have any dlc announcements sometime next month or July then I'll start thinking that none will come, unless an official non anonymous source comes out and says that dlc will definitely not be happening before then.

[Derah]

Physical first week sales, yes. But that's a small market and a singular, isolated data point.

Its still 1 point of evidence in favor of good sales, vs ZERO points of evidence against good sales.

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It could be they're only putting it on ice long enough for their more experienced studios to take over Mass Effect again, but since those studios are already working on things it'll take awhile.

This is probably the best case scenario, and I'm hoping this is indeed the why they made such a baffling choice.

But this is EA, I'm not holding my breath. That company is run by untrained monkeys that know diddly squat about anything, let alone videogames.

[Tech614]

Its still 1 point of evidence in favor of good sales, vs ZERO points of evidence against good sales..

It's actually a point of evidence of bad sales as it was an over 60% decline from ME3s first week numbers in the UK.

But try to spin it anyway you wish. To put it in perspective Horizon Zero Dawn had a better launch in the UK. An exclusive game to the PS4 had a better sell through at launch then a game on 3 platforms. Nuff said.

EA is not in the market of making Niche games that probably barely break a million sold in launch month(my assumption on it's total sales, but I would wager it's not far off when we get hard numbers from all regions). It's pretty bad by EA AAA sales standards.

Topping the charts in a single region in a single week means pretty much jack shit, any AAA game that releases in a week without competition will do that.

[Derah]

It's actually a point of evidence of bad sales as it was an over 60% decline from ME3s first week numbers in the UK.

But try to spin it anyway you wish.

Well this is irony. You're telling me that "I" am the one spinning shit, when you're the one doing it. Do you know what "Projection" is? Just because Andromeda sold less than ME3, doesn't mean it sold poorly. It was the top selling game in the week it came out. That's a point of evidence of GOOD sales.

I've used this example plenty of times, and I'll continue to use it until someone can successfully counter it: Do you honestly think Star Wars Episode 6: Return of the Jedi was a flop as a movie? it made less money than Episode 5: Empire Strikes Back. So from your weird logic, that means it was a bad movie, that flopped hard and was a failure at the box office. Just because it couldn't surpass, or even match its predecessor.

So tell me, do YOU think Return of the Jedi is a flop? If the answer is no, but then you say that Andromeda is a flop because it couldn't surpass or match its predecessor, then something's clearly wrong with you.

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Topping the charts in a single region in a single week means pretty much jack shit, any AAA game that releases in a week without competition will do that.

And yet not all of them do. Ask poor poor Kingdoms of Amalur, a game that failed to recoup its budget even after 2 months of sales (of course, its budget was bloated to fuck and back due to poor financial management, but that's another thing entirely) despite being a AAA game, that released in a dead month with zero competition whatsoever.

Being a AAA game backed by a big boy pants publisher is not a guarantee of successful sales. It helps of course, but its not a guarantee.

[DarkstarUSMC]

Bunch of doomsayers ever since this article broke and I bet 1% or less are actually in the video game industry. Looking past the fact that most studios will shuffle personnel after a release and that team is being promoted or demoted due to their work is nothing new; the article was clickbait and counted on Chicken Littles running amok. This isn't even a practice exclusive to the video game industry.

Putting a triple A title in the cooler for the time being isn't even a bad sign, BW could just truly believe their new IP is so revolutionary and worthy that all resources are being thrown at it to put it on the shelves faster due to pressure from EA or excitement over the new project. Once the smoke from the new IP clears, they will reallocate teams back to their standby AAA games.

This is nothing new, its just we never had nor enjoyed this level of transparency in the Twitter/ digital media/etc age than we did not so many years ago and thus people are losing their minds over established SOP. I am an "old man" and can remember going months or a year before getting info that a series I liked was on ice, canceled or shelved.

TLDR: Relax.

[DarkstarUSMC]

Bunch of doomsayers ever since this article broke and I bet 1% or less are actually in the video game industry. Looking past the fact that most studios will shuffle personnel after a release and that team is being promoted or demoted due to their work is nothing new(especially from a support studio which is akin to a AAA baseball player getting called up or demoted down to AA or A ball); the article was clickbait and counted on Chicken Littles running amok. This isn't even a practice exclusive to the video game industry.

Putting a triple A title in the cooler for the time being isn't even a bad sign, BW could just truly believe their new IP is so revolutionary and worthy that all resources are being thrown at it to put it on the shelves faster due to pressure from EA or excitement over the new project. Once the smoke from the new IP clears, they will reallocate teams back to their standby AAA games.

This is nothing new, its just we never had nor enjoyed this level of transparency in the Twitter/ digital media/etc age than we did not so many years ago and thus people are losing their minds over established SOP. I am an "old man" and can remember going months or a year before getting info that a series I liked was on ice, canceled or shelved.

TLDR: Relax.

[Tech614]

And yet not all of them do. Ask poor poor Kingdoms of Amalur, a game that failed to recoup its budget even after 2 months of sales (of course, its budget was bloated to fuck and back due to poor financial management, but that's another thing entirely) despite being a AAA game, that released in a dead month with zero competition whatsoever.

Being a AAA game backed by a big boy pants publisher is not a guarantee of successful sales. It helps of course, but its not a guarantee.

http://www.gamesradar.com/kingdoms-a...ates-uk-sales/

You where saying?

Should I bother replying to rest of your failed spin attempt after failing that bad attempting it? Thanks for proving my point that topping a weekly sales chart in the UK means jack shit for how well a game is doing with that KoA reference. Pro.

[Lahis]

Well this is irony. You're telling me that "I" am the one spinning shit, when you're the one doing it. Do you know what "Projection" is? Just because Andromeda sold less than ME3, doesn't mean it sold poorly. It was the top selling game in the week it came out. That's a point of evidence of GOOD sales.

I've used this example plenty of times, and I'll continue to use it until someone can successfully counter it: Do you honestly think Star Wars Episode 6: Return of the Jedi was a flop as a movie? it made less money than Episode 5: Empire Strikes Back. So from your weird logic, that means it was a bad movie, that flopped hard and was a failure at the box office. Just because it couldn't surpass, or even match its predecessor.

So tell me, do YOU think Return of the Jedi is a flop? If the answer is no, but then you say that Andromeda is a flop because it couldn't surpass or match its predecessor, then something's clearly wrong with you.

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And yet not all of them do. Ask poor poor Kingdoms of Amalur, a game that failed to recoup its budget even after 2 months of sales (of course, its budget was bloated to fuck and back due to poor financial management, but that's another thing entirely) despite being a AAA game, that released in a dead month with zero competition whatsoever.

Being a AAA game backed by a big boy pants publisher is not a guarantee of successful sales. It helps of course, but its not a guarantee.

60% decline in sales compared to previous gsme is goddamn awful. Slight decrease compared to ME3 was expected, since Andromeda isn't a sirect sequel, but over half less?

No wonder EA had nothing actually good and tangible to say about ME in the earnings call. The game has been total flop saleswise to them.

[I Push Buttons]

There is at least one metric available. In the UK, it was the number one on physical copies sold. Even managing to outdo Zelda, and Nier.

There's hardly a reason to think it did any less in digital sales.

The game failed, quit bullshitting.

Here are the facts we know:
- It only sold 1,390,000 physical units across all platforms; per NPD data.
- It only sold 349,000 digital copies on PC.
- It only had single digit increases in digital sales revenue over 2012's ME3.

Mass Effect: Andromeda disappoints, as digital revenues only increased by mid-single-digit percentages against 2012’s Mass Effect 3, despite the growing shift towards digital purchases.

So we know it had a similar share of digital sales as ME3... EA never released the data on that game digital sales' percent, but let's be really generous and say its similar to another game that we do have that data on from 2014 (ie: after digital was becoming more mainstream on consoles, far more so than 2012); Destiny. Purportedly 1/5 of Destiny copies sold on console were digital. Applying that same figure to MEA, we get 1.75m total copies sold on console, for a grand total of 2.1m copies... And once again, that is being generous.

[Yriel]

You haven't played since the patch have you?

Was there another patch ? I've only seen the one where they buffed the AI. But there are still so many things wrong with it, most abilities are useless, everyone uses the same 2 weapons, then there was the "multiplayer difficulty depends on your singleplayer difficulty settings" thing and much more. At some point i stopped playing although i really loved ME3s multiplayer and was looking forward to MEAs Multiplayer.

[Lahis]

Was there another patch ? I've only seen the one where they buffed the AI. But there are still so many things wrong with it, most abilities are useless, everyone uses the same 2 weapons, then there was the "multiplayer difficulty depends on your singleplayer difficulty settings" thing and much more. At some point i stopped playing although i really loved ME3s multiplayer and was looking forward to MEAs Multiplayer.

All of that has been adjusted or fixed in this week's patch.

[Deleted]

Well looks like EA wasn't satisfied with the sales and Metacritic average.

Fucking RIP, new Mass Effect in ten years or never.

Excellent news, may they rot and burn in nine hells of Baator for soiling the Mass Effect franchise with this Andromeda garbage. Let this be a lesson to everyone who tries to spread their degenerate agendas.

[Mirishka]

Excellent news, may they rot and burn in nine hells of Baator for soiling the Mass Effect franchise with this Andromeda garbage. Let this be a lesson to everyone who tries to spread their degenerate agendas.

So much angst and ignorance in this post that it hurts.

Anyway, while I think the reviews and animation memes hurt Andromeda, I also believe it's sales were also impacted by other factors. ME:A launched inside of the same 1-month window as Horizon Zero Dawn, Nintendo's Switch and Zelda BOTW - all 3 of which were confirmed to be big, big sellers.

Ironically Switch (the system itself) got the same kind of 'decent but not great' reviews Andromeda did, but that hasn't stopped it from selling like hotcakes. Zelda had like... a 106% attach rate, meaning people who don't even HAVE a Switch are buying it, and the Wii U version sold 460k copies as well. As for HZD, it was the most successful 1st party IP launch that Sony's ever had (which is deserved because its fucking awesome).

Factor in sleeper hits like Nioh, Nier Automata, etc... and there was a LOT of top-tier competition for gamers' dollars in Feb/March.

[Gaidax]

Don't know why people have their panties in a twist, I, personally, liked ME:A and it was a cool way to start with a clean slate and not kiss Shepard's ass for saving the day instead- shoot me?

[Mirishka]

Don't know why people have their panties in a twist, I, personally, liked ME:A and it was a cool way to start with a clean slate and not kiss Shepard's ass for saving the day instead- shoot me?

I enjoyed it a lot as well, and I love that Bioware has worked to improve the stuff people have complained about. I play default Sara Ryder and she looks so much better than she did at launch, along with characters like Addison, and further improvements are coming.

Honestly Andromeda probably never stood a chance because a whole lot of people hold the nostalgia of the original trilogy over its head. Ironic because the OT has pretty much all of ME:A's flaws, including laughable facial animation, wonky cinematics (at points), plot holes, etc.

When ME2 was first released, you couldn't go into any discussion/forum about it without finding people bitching about the 'action shooter' focus, how dumbed down it was, etc. ME3 to this day is torn apart for the last 10 minutes, in spite of its many excellent moments like Mordin/genophage stuff and brilliant DLC like Citadel.

[DesoPL]

Woah this is harsh even toward to Totalbiscuit or AngryJoe, but he got lots of right.

[I Push Buttons]

Don't know why people have their panties in a twist, I, personally, liked ME:A and it was a cool way to start with a clean slate and not kiss Shepard's ass for saving the day instead- shoot me?

You literally learn from your dad's memories that the Andromeda Initiative was sponsored by a mysterious benefactor (probably The Illusive Man) to run away from the Reapers based on Shepard's word.

So it didn't even do that.

[Lahis]

You literally learn from your dad's memories that the Andromeda Initiative was sponsored by a mysterious benefactor (probably The Illusive Man) to run away from the Reapers based on Shepard's word.

So it didn't even do that.

TIM would never give out this much money to a project he couldn't directly supervise or reap the benefits personally. He is too much of a control freak.

Not to mention humans only make up less than quarter of the Initiative. If this was Cerberus thing, there's be much less aliens aboard.