Comment on After years of holding out hope, 2024 was the year I finally gave up on BioWare
Poopfeast420@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week agoSometimes a tree is just a tree, man.
Maybe Bioware just wasn’t happy with the game, it happens all the time. Bioware also cancelled two games in 2013, looks like they were just doing a lot. So, possibly they were just stretched too thin with all those different projects. The founders also left Bioware shortly after Mass Effect 3. Who knows if they were the driving force behind the game, and after they left it didn’t really go anywhere.
There are tons of different explanations, but of course it’s all EAs fault. From what I’ve read, working for EA is actually really great, and people seem to love it. That doesn’t really gel with the soul-sucking image you try to paint. In the early 2000s they were actually garbage, with the whole EA spouse thing, but they have apparently massively improved since then.
averyminya@beehaw.org 1 week ago
It definitely could be, it just seems like there’s a pattern of fallen leaves surrounding EA. Also, EA is great to work for, that’s why they are so bad. I know that sounds silly, but I mean that in the sense of they offer the developers so much and all the dev needs to do is add a little MTX here and there.
Then all they need to do is do it again, but maybe follow something that’s trending. Then see if maybe the full game could be cut into pieces, to sell as DLC. Then see if you can implement more MTX, maybe this time add some smoke effects that you can pay to change the color of.
That said to your point, NFS Heat has MTX that were so bad and hated that EA again like with SWBF2 got the message and didn’t include MTX in Unbound. I wouldn’t really actually mind them too much in a way but it’s also somewhat more of a core aspect to the game that having it is just so… Odd.
But that’s the thing about EA. Why did it happen again. Why didn’t they keep the message they got the first time from SWBF2. Or Andromeda with $100 payment options for a lootbox system to get you to spend more.
These were all before Heat released, and EA still was fine with doing it again.
And don’t even get me started on The Sims. They have broken and killed so many copies of sims games for people that there are cracks specifically to circumvent patches. They don’t want people playing older games so they delist them, release a patch to break it (I’m not even joking, The Sims Medieval), and the user has to move on or never the game they paid for again. It’s cruel.
So maybe a tree is just a tree. Or maybe it’s a pattern that’s ebbs and flows and EA toes the line of what they can get away with nickel and dimeing players before they throw a fit, all while leaving studios to rot while the IP they bring to EA is marionetted every 8 years, 3 if it sells well.
Not only does this behavior always return, but it encourages other companies to follow suit – and moreso when you learn that all these executives just swap between companies and EA owned 20% of Ubisoft for a decade 6 years ('04-'10).
So those are some examples of what EA does, and I’m critical because they are good to work for, and their force in the gaming industry should not be the monolith of MTX but the big stick that delivers AAA games instead of junk that destroys a developers vision and standing with the gaming community while we beg for EA to get it through their thick skulls that games are better when you put passion into them. Anthem having flying be the best part of the game suggested by EA is like the bare minimum of what a leading studio should be accomplishing.
One last point that should indicate EA’s behavior is how they treated Star Wars games. When the mouse was breathing down their neck, they came out with Star Wars Squadrons without a single hint of microtransactions. The mouse was so peeved from the SWBF2 that EA wouldn’t dare add MTX.
And yet they don’t give that respect to their small studios. Bioware doesn’t get that pass. Dice doesn’t get that pass. Respawn doesn’t get that pass.
Anyway, hey: gamejobs.co/MTX-Software-Engineer-Intern-Apex-Leg…
EA has been hiring for Interns looking for Software Microtransaction Engineers. Still leading the charge in battle passes!
Sorry if this comes off as rambling. I’m trying not to.