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[Stuart360]

I really hope that some point in the future, we get some detailed insider reports about what happened to Anthem (and Bioware itself) over the last few years. I get the sense that it would be compelling reading.

 

[EDMIX]

BioWare's management was utter garbage. Their general manager before Casey Hudson was a joke. He allowed many of the issues BioWare was experiencing. The clashes and animosity between Edmonton, Austin, and Montreal. Allowing Anthem to stagnate in pre-production for way longer than it should have. Being more concerned about an "inclusive" culture instead of trying to make good games. I don't think it's a coincidence that Hudson left BioWare to go join Microsoft during Andromeda and Anthem's production/pre-production (of which Anthem was his idea) and came back to replace Aaryn Flynn, the previous general manager.

He came back to a studio that forgot how the hell to make the kind of quality titles BioWare was known for thanks to management making either no calls or poor ones. I actually have a lot of faith in Hudson to turn things around. He directed Knights of the Old Republic and the Mass Effect trilogy. He put out an e-mail acknowledging the poor development environment. Someone at EA or BioWare convinced him to leave his new job at Microsoft to come back and take charge and they obviously had confidence in him.

That being said, I'm not sure if Anthem is worth it at this point. I think the only real shot that game has is to take the time to make it right and then re-introduce it. Similar to what Square Enix did with Final Fantasy XIV. That's going to take a lot of time and money, though. It can be done but it really depends on who can or even wants to convince the people with the purse strings. Should they try or should they wash their hands of it and just make something else?

"I think the only real shot that game has is to take the time to make it right and then re-introduce it. Similar to what Square Enix did with Final Fantasy XIV" Agreed. So much wrong with this development team and nothing is wrong with Frostbite as DICE works WONDERS with it, something is however wrong with forcing a team to work on such a engine that has a concept that doesn't really fit it. Its clear that EA for a few years now has stopped doing that seeing how Star Wars Fallen Order is running on UE4, but Anthem can't really just jump engines (would be a massive overhaul).

So like FFXIV or No Man Sky, they can have a massive come back, but ironically if anyone could even pay for such a massive turn around, it would be EA. They have the means more then MOST publishers to actually do that. They have a history of supporting their online titles for a very long time so here is hoping they are willing to let the engineers actually explain the issues vs the suits coming in thinking they can out do Epic with UE toolset.

Frostbite is amazing.......for those that actually know how to use it, it must just be on a developer by developer basis and reading that Kotaku article very much sounds like this teams issues have a lot to do with mismanagement and using a toolset just not made for the concept they are creating.

 

[EDMIX]

I’d wait a bit. The game already has matchmaking issues due to low player count. With them indefinitely delaying the roadmap Id say the game is already dead. They are just trying to find the balls to announce they are dropping support ala Andromeda.

"They are just trying to find the balls to announce they are dropping support ala Andromeda." Well that was a single player title, they don't have much of a history of dropping support of their multiplayer online titles. The team and publisher have already confirmed its a long term investment so....

 

[Slings and Arrows]

FtP when?

 

[Screamer-RSA]

"They are just trying to find the balls to announce they are dropping support ala Andromeda." Well that was a single player title, they don't have much of a history of dropping support of their multiplayer online titles. The team and publisher have already confirmed its a long term investment so....

Guess we'll have to wait and see.
Personally, after the deceptive marketing, right up until release when they knew they didn't have anything, and constant vagueness I won't trust anything coming from them anymore.

 

[BunzLee]

Anthem's release was such a waste of time. I've binged the game for about a month, got to some endgame-ish power level and dropped the game. Last week I went back in just to check on the state of the game and I'm pretty much still as well equipped as I was before I left. There's just no incentive to keep on playing, as I'm pretty much depending on legedary drops that never actually drop. Meh. The group I was playing with has pretty much declared the game to be dead after these news, looks like there's no point getting back into it. Once again, another cautionary tale to not buy into EA's hyped up products.

 

[Woo-Fu]

FtP when?

They couldn't get enough cosmetics in when they had an actual playerbase. Isn't like they're going to be able to do it now. F2P wouldn't make it any better. Name all the other EA games that went f2p after a disastrous launch.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

They couldn't get enough cosmetics in when they had an actual playerbase. Isn't like they're going to be able to do it now. F2P wouldn't make it any better. Name all the other EA games that went f2p after a disastrous launch.

Good point.

In that case, throw it in the ea access for a month and then release some dlc or declare it DOA and move in.

 

[PSlayer]

EA outdid themselves releasing a full priced empty shell.