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[Gaz_RB]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-23-manveer-heir-bioware-mass-effect-ea-monetisation

"Gameplay designer Manveer Heir spent a long time - seven years - working for Electronic Arts at BioWare Montreal, making Mass Effect 3 (mostly multiplayer) and then Mass Effect Andromeda, and he had some illuminating information about the company's mindset to share with Waypoint at the weekend.

It was to do with EA's recent closure of Visceral Games and the "pivot" in direction of the Star Wars game in development there - but it also tied into Star Wars Battlefront 2 loot crates as well.

In the Visceral Games statement, EA executive vice president Patrick Soderlund said: "It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design. We are shifting the game to be a broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency..."

It read like a declaration EA will move away from single-player experiences in favour of open-world or shared open-world games. It's what Manveer Heir said he saw happening firsthand there.

"It's definitely a thing inside of EA," he said, "they are generally pushing for more open-world games. And the reason is you can monetise them better. The words in there that were used are 'have them come back again and again' [not quite but that's the gist - see above]. Why do you care about that at EA? The reason you care about that is because microtransactions: buying card packs in the Mass Effect games, the multiplayer. It's the same reason we added card packs to Mass Effect 3: how do you get people to keep coming back to a thing instead of 'just' playing for 60 to 100 hours?"

Which one of you did this?

 

[Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order]

Microtransactions are all about the "whales", man.

 

[Bsigg12]

It was one of the banned ones.


I read this earlier. It makes sense why EA and other companies are pushing loot boxes and microtransactions so god damn much. They're chasing whales like they do with mobile games.

 

[Tanoooki]

Reminds me of something I read about some guy who spent in the hundreds of thousands on a Facebook or a phone game

 

[Arby 'n' the Chief]

Really hope Halo 6 stays with the same method as 5, earning gold packs without spending a single dollar was great

 

[Hyun Sai]

Not that surprising knowing the Overwatch thread and how much many spent on the boxes...

 

[CharmingCharlie]

It is hard to fathom having so much money that you can spend $15,000 bucks on something as inconsequential as micro transactions. However we have to remember that there are people rich enough that $15,000 to them is the equivalent too $5 - $10 to us.

Either way an expensive precedent has been set and it will carry on till the bottom falls out. Whilst I am not a fan of Manveer Heir he does give a very scary insight into the thought processes behind EA's decisions.

 

[see5harp]

One would hope that someone who can spend $15,000 on anything at all can afford to do so.

EDIT: above poster beat me to it.

 

[MissCauthon]

EA and Activision were probably happy when they saw Gaf close. This site was very loud and vocal about microtransactions lately.

 

[LOLCats]

Thats so messed up.

If youve played blade and soul, you see those whales really easily. Thousands of dollars.

I know its not the same, but still. Fucking nutz.

 

[Humdinger]

That's a really depressing story about the fate of SP games at EA.

 

[see5harp]

EA and Activision were probably happy when they saw Gaf close. This site was very loud and vocal about microtransactions lately.

I'm against the idea of microtransactions but have no problem just ignoring them myself and I don't knock the hustle. Overwatch was easily my favorite game of last year.