News from the lovely world of the Games Industry.

[Legbiter]

The character writing was a big problem for me though.  I don't know who played the last DLC for Mass Effect 3, but in it many characters are at a party being quippy and light.  It seemed like they were trying to replicate that tone, only we didn't have anything like the same level of relationship with these characters.  It worked at the end of ME3 because we'd faced everything over three games with these characters, we'd passed through professional and serious and become real friends.  Not only that, but the situation allowed for a somewhat lighter tone.  We hardly know who most of the characters in Veilguard are, and they're quipping us like we're the Guardians of the Galaxy or something.

Yeah turning Dragon Age into a PG rated Young Adult fiction and expecting the existing fandom painstakingly built over 3 games to show up, plus the "modern audience" zoomers did not work out to put it mildly. Tonally the game is silly and childish and just cringe scene after cringe scene.
 

And really, that was part of the problem:  Marvel has drained the well dry there and salted the earth with quip-machine dialogue.  When the elf mechanic girl I've just met is cracking wise to me in this survival situation like she's a Zoomer on drugs who has never faced any kind of hardship or struggle before, I roll my eyes so hard.

Exactly, the Venn diagram between the previous DA fandom and the Veilguard writers therapy self-inserts is around 1 million copies globally it seems. It's like Bioware is suffering from 2-3 brainrots simultaneously and nothing has been done about it for the last 10 years.   

At least the Veilguard marketing campaign managed to make me replay the old DA games.

[viper37]

EA Boss Suggests Dragon Age: The Veilguard Didn't Meet Expectations As It Lacked Live Service Components

Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts, has suggested that Dragon Age: The Veilguard didn't meet the publisher's internal sales expectations due to it lacking live service components, something which was originally planned for the game but scrapped during development.



Speaking during the publishing giant's latest earnings call overnight, Wilson said that games must break from core audiences by catering to evolving player demands, which include "shared-world features and deeper engagement alongside high-quality narratives in this beloved category."

Mike Laidlaw was the former Creative Director and lead designer for the Dragon Age series.  He quit Bioware after DA:Inquisition in 2017, along with several veterans.


His entire BlueSky thread:
https://bsky.app/profile/mikelaidlaw.bsky.social/post/3lhhb477frc2h

[The Minsky Moment]

How can you be CEO of a major game developer with an RPG franchise and not be aware that Baldur's Gate 3 exists?

[Valmy]

EA and Bioware has never had a failed live service project so I can see why he thought that.

Look just close it down EA, you already killed it.

[viper37]

EA and Bioware has never had a failed live service project so I can see why he thought that.

Look just close it down EA, you already killed it.

Anthem was a failure.  Co-op 4 players, even though it could be played solo.

[Grey Fox]

Valmy was being sarcastic, Viper.

[viper37]

How can you be CEO of a major game developer with an RPG franchise and not be aware that Baldur's Gate 3 exists?

One of the writers (or was it Laidlaw?) Once said that EA never "got" Dragon Age. They didn' understand the game, they didn't understand its popularity either.

If you look at EA's catalogue of IPs, they have no role playing games outside of Bioware.

Past studios have long been closed.

They make sports games for console players that are essentially the same year after year with some better graphics.

Thing is, for a few years now, console gaming has been declining in favor of pc gaming.

If you look at any pc gaming forum, sports games aren't in the top 10 games mentionned by players.

Star Wars the Old Republic was never able to compete with WoW.

If these two do not generate revenue, EA has no cash cows.  And quite suddenly, there's a magnificent CEO bringing in money that does not appear so much genius like to the board anymore and he needs to bring in money.

He's trying what yas been tried before without thinking further because he does.nit understand his business.

He's possibly very good at financial analysis, deciding ratios and all that, but he suck at understanding what makes a company great.

[viper37]

Valmy was being sarcastic, Viper.

Ah.

Sorry.  I'm very tired, I do not get all the references.

[Solmyr]

Ironically, one of the first video games that I ever played, back in 1990, was a RPG from Electronic Arts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Hell_(video_game)

[Valmy]

Ironically, one of the first video games that I ever played, back in 1990, was a RPG from Electronic Arts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Hell_(video_game)

One of the first ones I played was The Bard's Tale, 1985. Also a single player RPG, also by Electronic Arts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bard%27s_Tale_(1985_video_game)

But that was back when those kinds of games were fashionable. The gaming industry has left RPGs for dead a couple times (especially of the single player variety) since then as they were not cool anymore. Nerds have rallied to save them a few times. A great example of that was...hey...Bioware in 1998. EA bought a company whose entire reason for existence was to make single player RPGs when they don't like single player RPGs.

I was frankly shocked when they bought the company back in 2007, or whenever it was, after EA had so little interest in Origin and making single player Ultima games a decade before.

[Valmy]

He's trying what yas been tried before without thinking further because he does.nit understand his business.

He's possibly very good at financial analysis, deciding ratios and all that, but he suck at understanding what makes a company great.

One of the things that drives me nuts about this industry, and frankly every industry, is companies get founded by people who want to make a gaming company and they know about gaming (or whatever maybe it is cars or agriculture or whatever). But if a company is successful enough it eventually just becomes a financial company run by people who don't know or care about what the company is supposed to be making. So EA (and the other big publishers) is not really a gaming company. If they found a really profitable way to not make games, they wouldn't make them.

[viper37]

Ironically, one of the first video games that I ever played, back in 1990, was a RPG from Electronic Arts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Hell_(video_game)

One of the first ones I played was The Bard's Tale, 1985. Also a single player RPG, also by Electronic Arts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bard%27s_Tale_(1985_video_game)

But that was back when those kinds of games were fashionable. The gaming industry has left RPGs for dead a couple times (especially of the single player variety) since then as they were not cool anymore. Nerds have rallied to save them a few times. A great example of that was...hey...Bioware in 1998. EA bought a company whose entire reason for existence was to make single player RPGs when they don't like single player RPGs.

I was frankly shocked when they bought the company back in 2007, or whenever it was, after EA had so little interest in Origin and making single player Ultima games a decade before.

I found the graveyard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Electronic_Arts

So many studios went to die...

[viper37]

But if a company is successful enough it eventually just becomes a financial company run by people who don't know or care about what the company is supposed to be making.

You go public.

It's a very hard transition.

I've seen it first hand, even though I was very young, with my dad's former employer.  My father lost a shit ton of money.  So did a lot of people, except for the founder of the company. 

When company go public, they need to hire counsultants, and then CEOs to replace their founder so to they make acquisition or have projects that boost the value of the title on the markets, even if it does not bring in a lot of money.

Sometimes, they strike gold.  EA Sports, with NFL and NBA, NHL for other non US markets (even some US markets, though I suspect NFL and NBA dwarfs their revenus in the US).  But other times, it can quickly lead to failure.

[Legbiter]

Speaking of single player RPGs doing well, Kingdom Come Deliverance II had a stellar launch a couple of days ago. The pent-up market demand for well made RPGs is enormous when one actually manages to release. Sold a million copies within 24 hours.

[Valmy]

Speaking of single player RPGs doing well, Kingdom Come Deliverance II had a stellar launch a couple of days ago. The pent-up market demand for well made RPGs is enormous when one actually manages to release. Sold a million copies within 24 hours.

That's good to hear.