Anthem: Bioware's next Mass Effect-like IP

[SirCowdog]

And I must agree, I don't understand the concept of defending a fully priced game being released, with the argument of "it might be a little more finished in 3-12 months time".

Even though I'm calling out a lot of the bullshit "Reviews" and opinions based on bullshit, I also said that Anthem isn't really worth $60 in its current state.

$15 to play through the story and get a real hands-on, first-person taste of the game is reasonable. The problem is that people think that $60 should grant them an infinite amount of content available right at launch. They want to LIVE in the game and get surprised when they exhaust the 20-40 hours worth of content available at launch. Is there actually something wrong with playing what's there, then going to do something else until Bioware releases more?

Is $60 for 20-40 hours of gameplay unreasonable? What about $15?

I'm really not trying to say that Anthem is perfect, or amazing. I'm just trying to put things in perspective.

[Puupi]

I'm beyond astounded this has a lower metacritc score than the new compile heart game. That's a solid 3 yikes and an oof from me.

This game has the same metacritic (both critic and user) score as Fallout 76. That should tell people something.

[Shinzai]

Even though I'm calling out a lot of the bullshit "Reviews" and opinions based on bullshit, I also said that Anthem isn't really worth $60 in its current state.

$15 to play through the story and get a real hands-on, first-person taste of the game is reasonable. The problem is that people think that $60 should grant them an infinite amount of content available right at launch. They want to LIVE in the game and get surprised when they exhaust the 20-40 hours worth of content available at launch. Is there actually something wrong with playing what's there, then going to do something else until Bioware releases more?

Is $60 for 20-40 hours of gameplay unreasonable? What about $15?

I'm really not trying to say that Anthem is perfect, or amazing. I'm just trying to put things in perspective.

I dunno. For free, I can play Apex Legends.

For $15 I could get Hollow Knight or Darkest Dungeon or any similar such game.

For $60, you're talking anything from Assassins Creed Odyssey to Red Dead Redemption 2 to Spider Man to God of War, right now. Most of these games are considered 9-10/10 games. Where would you rate Anthem compared to that?

If that's unfair, then I'll just use Monster Hunter World as a direct comparison:

It's a 1-4 player always online game, with a solo story, with a world to explore that's broken up into zones and has a gear, loot and difficulty progression system that is immaculate. There's a horde of weapons to choose from, each with unique play styles that can be adapted into rolls of tanking, ranged dps and melee dps, some of them with multiple uses and they change how you interact with enemies. Each weapon has different combos, often different types of resource management etc.

At launch, the game had about 15 times the content of Anthem, ranging from unique hunt's, time limited events, crossovers with other games featuring unique monsters and so on.

Anthem is a mediocre and incomplete game.

[Puupi]

Is $60 for 20-40 hours of gameplay unreasonable?

Yes.

What about $15?

No.

But the real question is, how much do you value your time? Do you want to waste 20-40 hours on a subpar adventure that doesn't seem to have much of a future to it?

It's like watching the first season of a bad sitcom. I wouldn't do that even if it was free.

[Dextroden]

This game has the same metacritic (both critic and user) score as Fallout 76. That should tell people something.

It tells me those kind of people will magically thinking reviews and YouTube videos now think all that shit is just hating on EA. I mean, we got a guy calling people sheeple over mentioning the scores it gets.

[Akka]

That's awesome that people are blindly trusting day-one reviews, which are 99% of the time wrong (in whatever direction).

The thing is, early press reviews tend to be wrong only in one direction, and that's the "positive" one.
As a general rule, press reviews tend to be bootlickers (there is a reason why "70" is considered a "bad" review, while mathematically it should be far above average), and most of the time a game frontload its best moments. Take those two facts and it means that if you get bad early reviews... it's 99 % of the time that you're either having a very bugged game, or that it's just shitty.

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The problem this game is going to face is, it will take a lot of abuse for the first 6 months and then when the "free" update drops everyone will praise it for fixing everything and forget the struggle it had. the Vets / Vanilla players will still tell stories of how hard they had it but it's the story of destiny 1 and 2, Division and even world of warcraft...even fortnite.

ME : Andromeda would like to have a word with you.

[apelsinjuice]

Look at Battlefront 2, BFV or ME Andromeda, if the game sells poor or does not make enough money, EA will make sure the game gets very little to no updates, or straight up pull the plug and cancel future updates

especially as Bioware like to promise all future content updates to be free, the game needs to sell really well or a lot of microtransactions for that to happen

[Yunru]

In my mind, things evolve more or less like this:
- production costs skyrocketed over the years and companies need to recover that money while a standard 60$ upfront price isn't enough anymore
- the game gets planned and developed until they burn out more or less all the funds to justify said 60$ price, then released independently from the actual status on the pipeline
- if the game proves to be good by players, and revenue is good, then more money is invested to it trying to bring it in a more complete state and monetizing everything they can (shops, microtx, dlcs, season passes)
- if the game is bad, the company has made money anyway with the upfront sales while investing just the money needed for it, cutting all support to avoid losses and investing on a new project that follows the same scheme all over.

Basically: invest the less possible for max profits. They don't really know what players want so they put an embryo-game to testing from players, and try to make it better/more profitable following the data they get from it. Otherwise they kill it.

Back in the days, failed projects got the axe BEFORE getting released. But i suppose proper quality control is a huge cost that can be cut since there are plenty of people willing to do it and actually pay to do it. reason why i stopped buying games at release, only exceptions WoW because i'm just hooked forever and Destiny 2 because i fell for the trap.

60$ not enogh is a myth. Games are cheaper to make now, than before due to improved tehnology. (also more people buying games = more money)
Most of money when it comes to AAA games goes to advertising.

Also Ea canceled a lot of games (that would be better than this), because they figured out that they cant realy put live services into those games.
Sadly there are people to stupid that still fall for that scheme of a half-baked products that are sold to you (seriosly we need some laws here for quality control as the rest of industry).

The only reason i can find it as excuse to trow out a broken game is due to lack to money to test it. But AAA publishers have money for this, so bad quality is not a excuse for them.

[Cosmic Janitor]

So you're hating on a game for something that hasn't even happened yet. And somehow I'M the one to not be taken seriously?

How about you judge on what's actually happening instead of creating reasons to hate out of thin air?

Okay, seriously this time:

1. I don't hate the game. I would like to say I'm disapointed, but it is actually exactly as I expected, hence why I only gave them the 15 bucks for the EA thing. The game is rather shallow and has some extremely annoying design flaws, but it is servicable to kill some time with friends and at least one of mine seems to be really enjoying the gameplay loop, so the rest of us enjoy it by proxy (as long as we don't have constantly load in and out of zones.. that one hurts even the fanboi in our group).

2. While I was amused by your adamant defense, I'd like you to go back and check who and what I was originally responding to. While my words may have been harsh, the reality is exactly as I said: The two games were built with a completely different goal in mind. Heck you can actually see this by the sheer fact that EA let's you have a serious stab at the game for only 15 bucks. They don't do this out of generosity, they know exactly how they intend to monetize this game going forward and why many people paying only 1/3 to 1/4 of the price is still plenty. At least I know that by the time the month is over I will either have lost interest or be done with the campaign (probably the later since they lessened the tomb grind now), so will many others. ME:A was a closed deal, a one-time purchase. Anthem will most likely not kill Bioware like ME:A did their little satelite studio, because EA is going to earn money with Anthem in the long run, no matter how bad the reviews are. If interest drops they just release some new Javelins, weapons or what ever, most of which have probably alreay been completed. This game was fundamentally built around the games as a live-service model, pretending that to be not the case is just laughable.

EDIT: Btw, it definitely deserves a better review score than FO76.. like seriously. The only exception might be a completely clueless casual person that expected different from Bethesda and Bioware because of their previous games, that is the only excuse I would somehow let slip. And even then the person is largely at fault for not putting in any research, since it was obvious for both games that the story would be subpar. But even then Anthem at least runs properly for the most part, which can't be said about the FO76 shit show. Not to mention that FO76 is also largely an asset flip.

[Eleccybubb]

I think it's well deserved. The thing is raw and open bleeding wound. In between technical issues, lack of content there I'd give it a 5/10. Chiefly for it being pretty and flying being nice even if restricted.

I just hope Bioware does not get closed over this and will get an opportunity to redeem itself in next DA.

But this game was the game that was supposed to redeem both Bioware and EA.

How many times can a studio get this kind of opportunity?

This is the issue. We keep giving devs chance after chance and they take their playerbase for granted. Or in something like Bethesdas case they make fairly ok games then just make Fallout 76 and make no attempt to fix it's issues.

[Dextroden]

But this game was the game that was supposed to redeem both Bioware and EA.

How many times can a studio get this kind of opportunity before people realise it's basically the "stop it's already dead" situation?

As long as people call it EA hating to say this game looked meh at best, it'll keep happening.

[dope_danny]

reading some of the comments online are fascinating. the whole "i put money down and now this game that i am only just getting hands on with is the thing i defend to the last against a faceless legion of haters, because that can be the only reason they dare critique my purchase" schtik is bloody wierd in this case. Like with 76 you get it because fallout fans exist. But anthem is looter shooter half a decade late. I just don't see why people are getting their zealous brand loyalist on when they should have no investment bar box price down on it. But still there are a significant number of people totally self assured that the internet at large is enacting some meme warfare campaign to spite a game that nobody should have positive or negative investment in because its an ip shat out with no previous investment in it.

I mean i get there is the whole "critique of the product is critique of my spending and therefore a direct attack on my person" mental gymnastics you see people do online, but usually thats with things like an xbone where a larger chunk of cash has been put down. This is a single videogame that appears to be a mediocre release that might get fixed over time or get forgotten. Neither should be a rational persons cross to die on.

[Lindon]

60$ not enogh is a myth. Games are cheaper to make now, than before due to improved tehnology. (also more people buying games = more money)
Most of money when it comes to AAA games goes to advertising.

If you think that you seriously have a screw loose.

The cost of developing AAA-games have increased immensly compared to past decades (pre-2000) which is not up for debate. The cost of advertising has also increased as you stated. This is how it is right now and it's better for you to accept reality and not go creating some alternate reality.

You're either reading articles made by imbeciles or your reading comprehension has failed you.

[Lahis]

In my mind, things evolve more or less like this:
- production costs skyrocketed over the years and companies need to recover that money while a standard 60$ upfront price isn't enough anymore
- the game gets planned and developed until they burn out more or less all the funds to justify said 60$ price, then released independently from the actual status on the pipeline
- if the game proves to be good by players, and revenue is good, then more money is invested to it trying to bring it in a more complete state and monetizing everything they can (shops, microtx, dlcs, season passes)
- if the game is bad, the company has made money anyway with the upfront sales while investing just the money needed for it, cutting all support to avoid losses and investing on a new project that follows the same scheme all over.

Basically: invest the less possible for max profits. They don't really know what players want so they put an embryo-game to testing from players, and try to make it better/more profitable following the data they get from it. Otherwise they kill it.

Back in the days, failed projects got the axe BEFORE getting released. But i suppose proper quality control is a huge cost that can be cut since there are plenty of people willing to do it and actually pay to do it. reason why i stopped buying games at release, only exceptions WoW because i'm just hooked forever and Destiny 2 because i fell for the trap.

60 bucks is plenty enough to cover production costs and even turn profit if you make a product that is good enough to sell well.

But it is still a limited amount of money and not literally all money in the world, which publushers want. Hence all the nickling and diming.

[Ophenia]

60 bucks is plenty enough to cover production costs and even turn profit if you make a product that is good enough to sell well.

But it is still a limited amount of money and not literally all money in the world, which publushers want. Hence all the nickling and diming.

People out there really believing a game should barely cover its production costs to be a success.

Are you, yourself, working solely to pay your rent and food ? Never trying to make a bit more ?

If the game cost 200m$ to create, of course the developpers/publishers will hope for at least 300m$, but that's normal y'know. That's how the world actually works, and everyone, including you, has the same goal, just on a lower scale.

[Lahis]

reading some of the comments online are fascinating. the whole "i put money down and now this game that i am only just getting hands on with is the thing i defend to the last against a faceless legion of haters, because that can be the only reason they dare critique my purchase" schtik is bloody wierd in this case. Like with 76 you get it because fallout fans exist. But anthem is looter shooter half a decade late. I just don't see why people are getting their zealous brand loyalist on when they should have no investment bar box price down on it. But still there are a significant number of people totally self assured that the internet at large is enacting some meme warfare campaign to spite a game that nobody should have positive or negative investment in because its an ip shat out with no previous investment in it.

I mean i get there is the whole "critique of the product is critique of my spending and therefore a direct attack on my person" mental gymnastics you see people do online, but usually thats with things like an xbone where a larger chunk of cash has been put down. This is a single videogame that appears to be a mediocre release that might get fixed over time or get forgotten. Neither should be a rational persons cross to die on.

They might not have attachmeng to the IP itself, but Biodrones will defend anything with a certain logo in its opening splashes.

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People out there really believing a game should barely cover its production costs to be a success.

Are you, yourself, working solely to pay your rent and food ? Never trying to make a bit more ?

If the game cost 200m$ to create, of course the developpers/publishers will hope for at least 300m$, but that's normal y'know. That's how the world actually works, and everyone, including you, has the same goal, just on a lower scale.

And they could get that 300m$ with 60$ boxes. But it is not enough for them. They want ∞m$ forever.

[dope_danny]

Speaking of strange brand defence bunkum EA started a "#gamechangers" program to basically get youtuber to be essentially shills for EA. Which kind of explains the befuddling recent "EA haters be all like going down on my bois EA" defence for videogames big bad. But now they are getting a rude wake up call this morning after giving anthem mediocre reviews -not yongyea tier clickbait but honestly just calling it mediocre- https://twitter.com/Ggdograa/status/1098885724303024128

EA is now taking their reviews down and blacklisting them entirely. This is sound damage control and totally wont just be more bad press. Nope. Everythings coming up millhouse.

[Gorsameth]

People out there really believing a game should barely cover its production costs to be a success.

Are you, yourself, working solely to pay your rent and food ? Never trying to make a bit more ?

If the game cost 200m$ to create, of course the developpers/publishers will hope for at least 300m$, but that's normal y'know. That's how the world actually works, and everyone, including you, has the same goal, just on a lower scale.

Considering Activision just had the best financial year in its history I think I can safely say that games are making more money then 'barely covering its production cost'.

[Ophenia]

And they could get that 300m$ with 60$ boxes. But it is not enough for them. They want ∞m$ forever.

That's 6 millions sales, which they won't have, especially with their Origin/EA access stuff (and the bad reviews).

[Lahis]

Speaking of strange brand defence bunkum EA started a "#gamechangers" program to basically get youtuber to be essentially shills for EA. Which kind of explains the befuddling recent "EA haters be all like going down on my bois EA" defence for videogames big bad. But now they are getting a rude wake up call this morning after giving anthem mediocre reviews -not yongyea tier clickbait but honestly just calling it mediocre- https://twitter.com/Ggdograa/status/1098885724303024128

EA is now taking their reviews down and blacklisting them entirely. This is sound damage control and totally wont just be more bad press. Nope. Everythings coming up millhouse.

HahahahahaH holy shit

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That's 6 millions sales, which they won't have, especially with their Origin/EA access stuff (and the bad reviews).

Maybe make good game next time? 6 million shouldn't be impossible for EA marketing machine.

Hell, Switch exclusives beat that and EA releases on every possible platform.