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GameDaily.biz via PC Gamer: EA CEO says Anthem is 'not working very well' but vows to stick with it (and BioWare)

kirbyfan407

kirbyfan407

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Oct 25, 2017
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I came across a PC Gamer article earlier today, which is pulling from an interview our PaladinXII conducted with Andrew Wilson for GameDaily.biz, and I found it interesting for a few reasons. I'm pulling a couple quotes for discussion, but the entire article raises interesting points to consider (in my opinion).

Despite Anthem's deep-rooted issues, and the Mass Effect: Andromeda catastrophe, Wilson said that BioWare's future is secure. He compared the studio to Steven Spielberg: Not every Spielberg flick is a hit, but the man puts asses in seats. And he also pointed out something that can be easy to overlook, especially for those of us who still reflexively equate BioWare with Baldur's Gate: The audience has changed, and EA's studios, including BioWare, need to change with it.
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For now, EA is taking a long-term view: Wilson said he believes the game's foundational elements—the game world, characters, Javelin suits—are "compelling," and that a property like Anthem "lives for generations, and runs in these seven to ten year cycles."

"So, if I think about Anthem on a seven to ten year cycle, it may not have had the start that many of us wanted, including our players," he said. "I feel like that team is really going to get there with something special and something great, because they've demonstrated that they can.
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I know there's been a lot of speculation that Anthem and BioWare will both be shut down. Do people believe Andrew Wilson's comments here? What do you think Anthem would look like with a 7-10-year timeline? Personally, these comments make me think that Anthem may actually get a next-gen relaunch/sequel to "redo" Anthem's initial launch, but I'm skeptical the game could last 7-10 years if the second launch is also disappointing.

The article/interview also references some changes that Andrew Wilson says BioWare will have to make. I'm not optimistic that BioWare will evolve into a company that makes games I like, but I'll wait and see.

What do you think, Era?
 
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BDS

BDS

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Oct 25, 2017
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We know Dragon Age 4 is being contorted into some GAAS monstrosity so that's probably what he means when he says the studios have to change. They'll warp and bastardize Bioware until it no longer resembles itself and then kill it.
 
Gizmo

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I really liked some of the game but even after trying to look past some of the garbage, I couldn't stick with it.
 

Deleted member 21411

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I have no faith, at this point you need a full reboot and even then I just dont see them pulling it off. Ff14 almost killed square, ea wouldn't make that kind of risk
 

Deleted member 1185

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The most concerning part of that interview re:Anthem is that Wilson thinks the biggest problem is the clash between story/narrative content and loot/endgame content and balances needs of the audience for each. When in facr the entire core design and every element of the game are fundamentally broken, it needs to be remade from scratch. He doesnt touch on that
 
shinobi602

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Oct 24, 2017
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Sticking with Battlefront II for so long and turning it around gives me hope they'll allow the same with Anthem. Even with its flaws I do love the gameplay loop.
 
ItsTheShoes

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He's not wrong but there is a deep rooted fundamental disconnect between EA and the games they are making when it comes to creator vision / appeasing stockholders. I don't think anyone can argue that ME, Anthem, Starwars, Deadspace, can be /are huge opportunities that are being let down by the bean counters who insist on nickle and diming customers and trying to cut costs by using Frostbite for everything.
 
Serene

Serene

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I've maintained that I think they'll give it a year before they decide whether they are going to continue trying to salvage it or not. If they can't pull a D1 style expansion+rebuild and boost the player base some time in the next year, I think that's when we see the tune change on the future of the game.
 
Riddler

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Would love to see a Realm Reborn" like reboot and finally seeing the "real" Anthem that was first shown.
 
Indy in the Fridge

Indy in the Fridge

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shinobi602 said:
Sticking with Battlefront II for so long and turning it around gives me hope they'll allow the same with Anthem. Even with its flaws I do love the gameplay loop.
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Having played both, Anthem has a fun gameplay loop but literally nothing else. Story? Lame. Characters? Uninspired. Loot? Nonexistent. It does not have the lore or general public interest that Star Wars has that will keep players around long term.
 
Dreams-Visions

Dreams-Visions

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Oct 25, 2017
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I wish them good luck. I'd really like to see it survive. You know, so I can enjoy playing it.

That being said, words like these mean little and the evacuation of the roadmap combined with radio silence from devs and community managers means a lot.
 
OP
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kirbyfan407

kirbyfan407

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Oct 25, 2017
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PaladinXII said:
That's based on my exclusive interview with him: https://gamedaily.biz/article/969/exclusive-a-candid-conversation-with-eas-andrew-wilson-at-e3-2019

I'd appreciate proper crediting. Thank you!
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I wanted to use the PC Gamer headline, but I definitely understand wanting the original source to be more prominent beyond just linking to your article in the OP. I've put in a request to update the OP title to say "GameDaily.biz via PC Gamer:" I will also update the OP to have your article link show up earlier.
 
Scuffed

Scuffed

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This game is bad to the core. The loot is bad so as a looter it fails. There is no hope for this game.
 
Volimar

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Official Staff Communication
Title updated per OP's request.
 
Fat4all

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you know bioware can't be feelin too hot when every interview keeps reiterating how they won't be exploding them hard style
 
shinobi602

shinobi602

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Oct 24, 2017
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PaladinXII said:
Hey, man. Any chance that this can be properly credited to GameDaily? https://gamedaily.biz/article/969/exclusive-a-candid-conversation-with-eas-andrew-wilson-at-e3-2019
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It looks like they're credited in the OP?
Indy in the Fridge said:
Having played both, Anthem has a fun gameplay loop but literally nothing else. Story? Lame. Characters? Uninspired. Loot? Nonexistent. It does not have the lore or general public interest that Star Wars has that will keep players around long term.
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I didn't think the story was particularly special but I do think the world itself and the lore behind it to be fairly interesting. In any case, story add-ons, overhauled loot etc are specifically those things that can be worked on to turn things around. I do hope they try.
 
Futterish

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kirbyfan407 said:
I wanted to use the PC Gamer headline, but I definitely understand wanting the original source to be more prominent beyond just linking to your article in the OP. I've put in a request to update the OP title to say "GameDaily.biz via PC Gamer:" I will also update the OP to have your article link show up earlier.
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Thank you! It means a lot for a new/small site like GameDaily.
 
BrassDragon

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Yeah, Spielberg doesn't dick around for years on end to find a vision and then starts shooting with half a script and no idea which camera setups he will use, getting blindsided by technical limitations and fickle producer notes while simultaneously trying to ape what other directors are successfully doing while refusing to learn from their missteps.

Because that seems to be the BioWare modus operandi for its last few titles.
 
PeskyToaster

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Hopefully they stick with their GaaS games. That's the whole point and it's why Rainbow has grown so huge and successful despite launching rather softly in the beginning. I don't really wanna see mention of a new Battlefield for a bit. This every two years thing does NOT work.


On another note: We should always try to credit original authors and sources instead of the reposters.
 
MrWindUpBird

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BDS said:
We know Dragon Age 4 is being contorted into some GAAS monstrosity so that's probably what he means when he says the studios have to change. They'll warp and bastardize Bioware until it no longer resembles itself and then kill it.
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We've been talking about the death of BioWare for years. If Anthem and it's disastrous launch doesn't kill them, nothing will.
 
Mammoth Jones

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If The Division and Destiny 2 could be turned around so can Anthem. EA and Bioware just need to give a shit to make the changes and content required to make it happen.
 
Ushojax

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The people at BioWare must really be worried, this guy is lying through his teeth. The game bombed, nobody is playing it and the IP will be buried quickly and never spoken of again. Nobody believes a word of this shit.

We all know it won't be long before BioWare is making Battlefield map packs, the type of game that BioWare used to be good at making simply does not mesh with the way EA does business. You have to make games that conform to their monetisation model and if you don't then you get shut down or forced to work on shooting games, no exceptions.
 
spookyduzt

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It makes me happy to see so many of these GaaS titles blowing up in their publisher's greedy fucking faces. Take your broken half-baked game, and your road map to fixing the basic shit that should have been in the beta, and fuck right off.
 
Serene

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Mammoth Jones said:
If The Division and Destiny 2 could be turned around so can Anthem. EA and Bioware just need to give a shit to make the changes and content required to make it happen.
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Eh, I think Destiny and Division survived in big part because they felt so good mechanically. Their problems were more systems/content-based. Anthem is pretty flawed even just from a core gameplay perspective.
 
Mammoth Jones

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Serene said:
Eh, I think Destiny and Division survived in big part because they felt so good mechanically. Their problems were more systems/content-based. Anthem is pretty flawed even just from a core gameplay perspective.
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Hmm, gotcha. I read that the flying felt great. Didn't realize the ground combat was mechanically weak. Was under the impression that the fundamentals (movement, shooting, combat) felt good. I know it does have a severe AI problem w/ mobs just standing there. Ideally that'd get updated too.

If FF14 can do it any game can.
 
Landford

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There's absolutely nothing interesting about Anthem's "world". And it's not even a case with it being bad, it's just the absence of anything. They didn't know what their game and their setting were going to be and it shows, so they slapped something about "World left unfinished and Anthem of Creation" because they had no concrete ideas about anything.

The title of the game is Anthem because of marketing. The game has no soul. The most important thing in the game's world, the Anthem of Creation, is mentioned time and time again without any meaning since it never does anything. even though is supposed to be "The force of all creation."

The game story is also literally "prevent the bad guy from getting the Mcguffin otherwise the world is doomed", but nobody has any idea why. You kill the big bad and the stuff just stops being a threat.

It's pathetic really. There's nothing to salvage about the IP.
 
Zealuu

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I guess if I thought EA would learn the right lessons from this I'd almost relish a high-profile failure to get them to change their thinking on GaaS, crunch, reliance on uncritical customers and so on. But whether it's because they're obligated to obfuscate it with PR spin or if they genuinely don't get it, it doesn't look like they get it based on the quote. So, perhaps paradoxically, I hope Bioware Austin can right the ship and make Anthem something I'd want to play.

The beta/demo clearly had something resembling the kernel of a good game buried beneath heaps of broken bullshit. But even when discounted to $30-35, which it now frequently is, Anthem in its current state isn't something I'd pay for.
 
lsarmiliato

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The Sims 4 also had a bad launch and they turned it around, so let's see! (The Sims 4 has an average of 60k concurrent players, so.. not bad!)
 
Scuffed

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lsarmiliato said:
The Sims 4 also had a bad launch and they turned it around, so let's see! (The Sims 4 has an average of 60k concurrent players, so.. not bad!)
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With SW, Sims and Final Fantasy you are talking about ips with followings and passionate fans that can sustain them even in the worst of times. Anthem as an ip means nothing to anyone except a bad game.
 
Landford

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Didn't he says the absolute same thing about confident in the studio, confident on the IP mere months after pulling the plug on anything Andromeda? Guy just lies through his teeth.
 
Hyun Sai

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Mammoth Jones said:
Hmm, gotcha. I read that the flying felt great. Didn't realize the ground combat was mechanically weak. Was under the impression that the fundamentals (movement, shooting, combat) felt good. I know it does have a severe AI problem w/ mobs just standing there. Ideally that'd get updated too.

If FF14 can do it any game can.
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Don't listen to the hyperbole. Anthem combat and movement feel great. Much better than all the TPS I've played in a long time. The story is not the garbage many are saying, and the lore got potential.

Everything else is broken, and the main problem is that devs seem ego fueled stubborn individuals.

I won't take anything EA's CEO is saying at face value though.
 
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kirbyfan407

kirbyfan407

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PeskyToaster said:
Hopefully they stick with their GaaS games. That's the whole point and it's why Rainbow has grown so huge and successful despite launching rather softly in the beginning. I don't really wanna see mention of a new Battlefield for a bit. This every two years thing does NOT work.


On another note: We should always try to credit original authors and sources instead of the reposters.
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Sorry. I posted hastily and relied on PC Gamer's summarization rather than making my own. I understand the impact, agree with your opinion, and will do better in the future.
 
El-Suave

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The audience hasn't changed. High quality traditional Bioware game still would have sold as well as they always have. Problem is that that wasn't good enough anymore. Unfortunately there has also been a quality decline at the studios when it needed to have been an increase for the kinds of games they want to make. Can't say I'm sorry, and I have lost all attachment I used to have for Bioware, so I wouldn't shed a tear if they disappeared if it wouldn't mean massive job losses which would suck of course.
 
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