Despite combat being better and more polished in Andromeda than it was in the trilogy Mass Effect, Andromeda felt like a fan-fiction adaptation of Mass Effect. It did not feel like it was made by the same people. I feel like tying that game into Mass Effect was a mistake.

Bioware also had a large number of employees in Edmonton. Maga goons (Jared Kushner and Lourenco Goncalves) are just laying off Canadians to hurt the economy.

My Dick Knuckle 2

EA = Enshittify All.

I had to write a buad report on them long time back. EA is basically the Martin Shkreli
of the gaming industry.

I read them, I enjoyed them. I had a long hiatus from gaming from like 2013-2022 and got to "discover" a lot of great games releatively recently. Happy to have played all the mass effect games and dragon age games before SA PIF bought EA.

We found them! The person who had the 3DO!

Sir. Sir, the beatings will continue until morale improves. We have been over this.

Lol it's the actual name of the game.

Apparently I wasn't lazy enough to do some leg work to figure it out (I actually knew about this game and was able to identify it by the name but that's beyond the point.)

You're the reason why Netflix has to take into account people doom scrolling on their phones while they watch their media.

It probably took less time for me to search, upload and write this message than it took you to type up that rancid pile of shit.

So for everyone concerned: shut the fuck up.

I don't know, I feel like for many it's the goal from the very beginning, even if they don't succeed in selling out

Can’t spell death without ea

True, they have been on a trash slop run and this is the inevitable result.

Murder Death Kill.

you still have tactical mode tho and it works the same as in origins, I think the AI ruleset stuff you could set before is missing in 2 iirc, but when I played them back to back it didn't feel like I needed to relearn how stuff works.

I do think it helps playing da2 with all the included dlcs, it helps add variety to areas you visit.

Lest we forget. I still have my C&C Decades collection to replay.

Brother/Sister, you have no idea how much 3DO's Army men series was a part of my life.

I wish someone would remake Army men land sea and air, like a Company of Heroes clone.

I use to have 5 small crates filled with plastic soldiers. They were my life.

Okay, so if any proof or evidence came out that proves that the BioWare leadership or employees themselves did something bad or self destructive...

Whatever it is, without the direction of EA, then they take the blame for that. You haven't provided me any such evidence yet. Meanwhile, I'm sticking with what is known, and my conviction than any competent leadership could have prevented it, because it wasn't a natural disaster that happened here.

I'm sure that EA managers are payed enough so that they can take the blame, I will not subject the developers, that just lost they employment, to that. That seems like victim blaming.

people havnt forgiven them for destroying the CNC franchise, and they tried to money grab with CNC4, and tiberium alliance.

As is capitalism, especially the unregulated sort, where executives worst ideas run the show

https://youtu.be/CnbiUP18TFw

Internal trailer for ME 5

Okay, so if any proof or evidence came out that proves that the BioWare leadership or employees themselves did something bad or self destructive…

Have you read Jason Schreier's article on how Anthem went wrong? Excluding the technical problems from the Frostbite engine everything wrong with Anthem was on Bioware. They couldn't lock down what the scope of the game was, they couldn't agree on the story and the studio functioned on what they called “BioWare magic.” which is a hope that the game will come together at the end. And until the very end the message from the leadership was that "Bioware magic will come and everything will work out". That Bioware magic had been around since at least the very first Mass Effect game (possibly sooner, I don't remember how long that had been going on).

I'll also link this article for a quote.

Darrah says he doesn't feel like he had a choice, however, because "EA was very good at making Bioware feel like things were very dire." Though, he points to the fact that Hudson's replacement as Bioware's general manager, Gary McKay, was able to delay Dragon Age: Veilguard through multiple financial years. "That tells me either he's magic, which is possible, or it was never quite as 'gun to our head' as we thought it was," Darrah says.

To me that indicates the people leading the studio didn't know how to communicate with EA. I've worked in corporate for years. The people at the top are so disconnected from the actual work it's common for them to set unreasonable expectations. It's part of the job of the people between the top and the people actually doing the job to temper the expectations from the people of the top so they could allocate resources (be it people, time or anything else) so the people actually doing the job can do their job. Whoever was the leadership at Bioware (even if they're appointed by EA, they're still a part of Bioware) failed at their job to temper the expectations from EA. As the quote indicates McKay got that part of the job, which is why Veilguard got the delays it needed even though it didn't help because they were constantly scrambling to for a vision they couldn't realize.

Paradox just added a expansion for your comment. To unlock please pay $12.99...

$12.99 for... another 200 hours of content? Wtf! In this economy?!

The problem is that EA will still squat on the IP for the indefinite future, so nobody gets to do anything with it later.

I mean, the IP is pretty generic.

Mass Effect isn't the first game to use space cops and robot aliens fighting over the fate of the galaxy. The Expanse did Mass Effect's storyline much better.

That's before you consider how played out the Mass Effect IP already is. Just like Halo, they peaked at game 3. That was the apex of the story.

More like $12.99 for core functionality that should have been released with the game (cities skylines is the worst for this). I'm all for reasonable pricing to cover the costs of development, but chaining together a dozen expansions and making a $40 game cost an additional $160 is bonkers. Its deceptive pricing, and it shouldn't be excused just because you like small studios making better games. It would be better to release games when they are fully ready and have a roadmap of full cost available.

Though it does look like they've now offered a subscription service to essentially rent the expansions for $8 a month, at least that provides choices.

Maybe the ex BioWare Devs can found a new studio. Maybe OrganicWare.

Sounds like the GTA world offbrand

Mass Effect is a wonderfully constructed world; I disagree on you there.

I’d also argue ME3 is not the peak. The best gameplay, sure, but a more questionable campaign IMO.

You are not wrong about the story trajectory though. They wrote themselves into a corner with the Reaper arc, and that is done now. But I do think “Shepard-free, smaller story spinoffs” were the correct move, rather than trying to pick up a story that should be done (like Halo did).

I fully believe there's a huge amount of money and effort in making a studio -- but it seems like killing off a known brand wholesale like this just should result in a new brand that is the successor.

'Friendship ended with Bioware, Now OrganicWare is my best friend' kind of energy. We were never there for EA's involvement. We wanted These People*.

*First link I found, you get the point, but it might not be accurate for the whole team.

Gaming is getting harder with economy and silicon prices -- but that means we can just take the stories we want to tell and do so without 4A graphics.

it's crazy that despite this happening a couple days ago, the official bioware website still says nothing about this closure. Like they didn't even bother updating the site to say "hey btw we are closed" The optimistic side of me hopes that it's because they want to try to go inde again and run on their own but.. probably not.

But I do think “Shepard-free, smaller story spinoffs” were the correct move

Sure. But then it's just a generic scifi.

You don't need to own IP to make Mass Effect minus the title characters

No it's not. They can use the entire world they constructed, its history, and (for the players) all the nostalgia. And selectively bring back characters.

I mean, that immediately drew me into this trailer.

Halo is an entirely different beast. They could not let the MC/Cortana go like they are stuck to them with a chain, but side stories in that world would have been interesting too.

They can use the entire world they constructed, its history, and (for the players) all the nostalgia

Or they can write up something new, just like the Mass Effect guys did.

I think theres a large group of people that are committed to the sunken cost fallacy. Just because a lot of effort went into something, and it was enjoyed for a long time, doesnt mean it needs to continue on forever.

Especially when we are talking about art, if we never let go of things there will not be room for new art and artists.

Look. I’m all for a new world.

But there’s nothing wrong with building on a good, existing constructed world, too. They can do both. You mentioned publishers that did that quite successfully, at the top of this thread: Owlcat, Paradox, and especially Larian.

It’s also quite practical from a development perspective. It’s easier to pitch to get funding, they already have lore experts on the team, mechanics they don’t have to invent from scratch.

I’m just not buying that Mass Effect is a “dead end.” It’s a great setting, there’s tons to explore, and they’ve already broken away from the main trap of being stuck with Sheperd. Halo is a bit different not because they wrote themselves into a corner (which ME aid also guilty of), but that they utterly refused to leave it, amongst other things.

I will say that I think BioWare just deteriorated.

…There’s no getting around that, whether they start from scratch or not.

I have the same opinion of Halo. I vividly remember forming it upon playing Halo 4, with how cheesy it felt.

But there’s nothing wrong with building on a good, existing constructed world, too.

I don't disagree. But folks are pretending like Mass Effect is some kind of exceptionally novel or revolutionary IP. It's really not. This is some really basic tier SciFi. You could scratch the serial numbers off the side and make "Enlarged Consequences" with no real threat of liability.

I’m just not buying that Mass Effect is a “dead end.” It’s a great setting, there’s tons to explore, and they’ve already broken away from the main trap of being stuck with Sheperd. Halo is a bit different not because they wrote themselves into a corner (which ME aid also guilty of), but that they utterly refused to leave it, amongst other things.

I mean, I don't disagree entirely. I just think the core ideas of Mass Effect have percolated through the genre of open world space adventure game. And now we've got a plethora of alternatives that strike the same central cords. You don't need the Mass Effect IP to make a successor to the game any more than you needed the Halo IP to make Destiny.

If I'm going to be sad about anything, it's really the Dragon Age IP, which I think was cooking with something a bit more novel than "Evil Aliens Exterminate Humanity While Humans and Demi-Humans Bicker Over Politics".

Now "Evil Dragons Exterminate Humanity While Humans and Demi-Humans Bicker Over Politics"! There's a keeper

Now “Evil Dragons Exterminate Humanity While Humans and Demi-Humans Bicker Over Politics”! There’s a keeper

Wherever those BioWare employees land, they should do fantasy space opera, like Shadowrun. With that premise. In space.

Make it Bioware-y, with drama and sexy elves and armor lights and lens flare.

Both for something fresh, but also to spite EA.

I would love that