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Bioware falls out from Develop's "Top 100 developers" of 2010 list, [Top 10 Revealed]
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List is based off Metacritic rankings (which is a poor starting point to begin with). Enthusiast mobile sites aren't exactly critical in their reviews, they continually hype up the next big 99 cent time waster. Hence, iOS games dominate the list. If BioWare did not release any Dragon Age DLC, going by these scores they'd be top 10.Willy105 said:
2 Slice Toaster
Member
Valve should probably take this to heart as well, if they ever intend to get back into the Develop 100.
Deadstar said:
?
ME1 got a ton of flak for its shitty RPG mechanics. They removed most of it instead of improving it which a lot of people didn't like, along with ditching the copy + paste side missions. People complained about all of this stuff constantly with the first game.
Either way, ME2 was critically acclaimed and topped a lot of GotY lists. The DLC for it in 2010 was also great, it's just the list being stupid and the DA1 DLC metacritic averages are bringing their total "score" down, this is hardly a doom and gloom situation.
SolidSnakex
Member
hosannainexcelsis said:
Yeah, it's definitely one the more bizarre lists that i've seen. I honestly can't see why Bioware would be bothered by this list.
Dyno said:
It made me quit after playing since Beta. Most other players I know also. WoW's subscriptions are down over 600,000 since it came out.
A lot of the top players in the world, from various top 100 guilds gave up also.
Cata is more of the same shit. They made it a better experience to level up, but thats about it. Something that means nothing to a lot of people, who have been playing a long time and have all the alts they want or could ever need.
25 man raiding has also all but died out recently also. I remember when 10 people would be a casual UBRS run.
WoW is becoming very stale and Blizzard did nothing to adress this problem. Which is why they are losing subscribers. When I read their plan to fix this was to release more expansions, faster, I just rolled my eyes.
I know they say their "A team" isn't working on Titan, but every few months another one of their top dev's leaves for it.
IoCaster
Member
I don't agree with this methodology. If they're going to include DLC metascores then I feel like they should be weighted proportionally in some way. Maybe they should have separate categories for mobile, handheld, DLC and full retail console/PC releases instead.
As much as I've been hyper-critical of BioWare in recent years I still hold ME2 in high regard. I was sorely disappointed by the writing, but the core gameplay was excellent and a shitload of fun. Using the admittedly low quality DA:O DLC released during 2010 to cancel out the critical success the company achieved with ME2 does a disservice to the hard working men and women that put in the long hours to make the game. :|
megalowho said:
plus the comparisons are hurt ios sites tend to score out of four and five way more than the big traditional game sites do and metacritic falls apart when it comes to forcing together different review scales like that as 4/4 doesn't mean the same as 10/10 or 10.0.
AppleSmack
Banned
Dambrosi said:
What was wrong with Cataclysm? IMO its the greatest WoW expansion since the Burning Crusade. FAR better than WotLK. Actually takes some skill to play and heroics were actually challenging.
lochnesssnowman
Member
I know knocking Bioware is pretty fashionable these days but I'm not sure this list is the correct platform to do it from.
This list is *only* based on metacritic averages for games released during calendar year 2010. Nothing else is taken into account (i.e. Dragon Age II was not included).
This is fine, if the list was branded appropriately but it's billed as "the world's most successful games studios" throughout the literature. The definitions for this may be included at the micro site (linked below) but when the headline gets across the interweb, conversation will be based off the misleading title of the list.
Some observations:
There is no weighting for each title - a 'triple A' game is the same as map pack DLC is the same as an iOS port. Rockstar San Diego having released Red Dead Redemption to massive critical and commercial success (95 metacritic) are knocked to 72nd in the list by the Liars and Cheats map pack. DLC dragging down the average is what has taken Bioware (Mass Effect 2) out of the list - DLC for a game that was released in 2009. As pointed out above, Nex Entertainment are ranked higher in the list for the botched PS3 port of Bayonetta than Platinum themselves (who's average was dragged down by Vanquish and Infinite Space. 2D Boy are *2nd* in the list having released a port of a (admittedly excellent) 2008 game on iDevices. Also worth noting that Ubisoft Montreal (Assassins Creed Brotherhood) are not in the top 100 either.
There is no also no minimum review count needed for releases to qualify - the 15th 'most successful game studio in the world' is Matt Rix who released one game, Trainyard, in 2010 which gained just 6 reviews at Metacritic. Again, not knocking Trainyard here - but when that elevates Matt Rix above Valve, Retro, Kojipro, etc in a list branded "the world's most successful games studios" then something is wrong.
Again, were the list be named differently - say "developers ranked by metacritic average 2010 releases of any kind, with no minimum review count necessary" - then there would be no issue.
The full list is available here: http://www.develop100.com/
This list is *only* based on metacritic averages for games released during calendar year 2010. Nothing else is taken into account (i.e. Dragon Age II was not included).
This is fine, if the list was branded appropriately but it's billed as "the world's most successful games studios" throughout the literature. The definitions for this may be included at the micro site (linked below) but when the headline gets across the interweb, conversation will be based off the misleading title of the list.
Some observations:
There is no weighting for each title - a 'triple A' game is the same as map pack DLC is the same as an iOS port. Rockstar San Diego having released Red Dead Redemption to massive critical and commercial success (95 metacritic) are knocked to 72nd in the list by the Liars and Cheats map pack. DLC dragging down the average is what has taken Bioware (Mass Effect 2) out of the list - DLC for a game that was released in 2009. As pointed out above, Nex Entertainment are ranked higher in the list for the botched PS3 port of Bayonetta than Platinum themselves (who's average was dragged down by Vanquish and Infinite Space. 2D Boy are *2nd* in the list having released a port of a (admittedly excellent) 2008 game on iDevices. Also worth noting that Ubisoft Montreal (Assassins Creed Brotherhood) are not in the top 100 either.
There is no also no minimum review count needed for releases to qualify - the 15th 'most successful game studio in the world' is Matt Rix who released one game, Trainyard, in 2010 which gained just 6 reviews at Metacritic. Again, not knocking Trainyard here - but when that elevates Matt Rix above Valve, Retro, Kojipro, etc in a list branded "the world's most successful games studios" then something is wrong.
Again, were the list be named differently - say "developers ranked by metacritic average 2010 releases of any kind, with no minimum review count necessary" - then there would be no issue.
The full list is available here: http://www.develop100.com/
BattleMonkey
Member
Papercuts said:
Ppl crapped on ME1 alot especially here, and then when 2 came out and didn't become a hardcore RPG they just flipped out and acted like ME1 was a masterpiece and completely ignored all the complaints ME1 had. ME1 was barely a RPG with poor shooter game play.
Cygnus X-1
Member
2 Slice Toaster said:
This is not a good thing for the industry. There is nothing to be happy with this trend.
AppleSmack said:
The game is in massive decline, especially after them posting some of the biggest subscription losses in a good while. That can be that people either got bored with the game finally, or the decline in overall quality and direction of the game has pissed players off.
But this is an interesting list. I'd actually do a "GAF - What dev do you <3 list?" just to see what the results would be in comparison, but I'm in process of moving and couldn't maintain the updates.
Deadstar said:
The problem was rather than improving the inventory management, the RPG elements, the planet exploration, the driving, and the combat, they chose to just improve the combat. Everything else they tossed. They even ruined the elegant galaxy map with a cheesy little ship you fly around.
In ME2 mining planets was a drag, the missions were repetitive and bland, the soundtrack was inexplicably downgraded, the story was bad, the RPG elements were ejected, and exploration was eliminated. BioWare/EA strip-mined the soul out of Mass Effect for the sake of better graphics and combat.
AppleSmack said:
I'll give you a few examples.
New Vegas: Vault 19
Fallout 3: Vault 106
Two Worlds 2: Cursed Tomb questline.
DA:O: Mage Tower
Too Human: Act 4
Demon's Souls: World 3, World 2, World 5 (Oh I guess you said WRPG, but it's still more exciting and tense than anything ME2)
That said, I actually enjoyed ME2 quite a bit. It'd help if you'd chose one of the interesting missions (Most of the loyalty missions were excellent, Jacob's being my favorite from a story perspective) as opposed to the gimmicky and dull final fight.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
TheOddOne said:
This is not an "EA problem". If you've been following all of this, you'd see that Bioware started it's decline before the EA purchase.
Omotesando
Member
Bioware fallen from the top 100?
That is news?
That is news?
Mr. B Natural
Member
ooo, sick burn develop online.net
And of course nostalgia is one hell of a drug. It's been lasting for 25 years in this industry and it's the only thing it's got left going for it.
And of course nostalgia is one hell of a drug. It's been lasting for 25 years in this industry and it's the only thing it's got left going for it.
hosannainexcelsis
Member
Shiggy said:
World of Goo HD, the iPad port which came out in December 2010, received a Metacritic score of 96.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
Having never played ME2 i thought people were exaggerating about the game ditching its RPG stuff. i mean, the game got Best RPG awards so those complaints couldnt really be accurate, could they? Then i watched a Lets Play and i understood. Bioware has done what i thought was impossible, making Mass Effect less of an RPG than it already was.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
Shiggy said:
World of Goo is tits-awesome.
Chinese Electric Batman
Banned
Good riddance.
angelkimne
Member
They should have created two separate lists - one for full, retail games and one for mobile games.explodet said:
Otherwise, it makes for quite a bizarre list.
Edit: And, obviously, DLC shouldn't have the same weighting as a full game.
Baller. PhD
Banned
Deserved.
MisterHero
Super Member
WHOOO NINTENDO WHOOO
but to be fair, with the demands of today's game production, judging a company's output over the span of one year isn't very fair, as many games can take a couple to a few or several years to get right
but WHOOO NINTENDO WHOOO
but to be fair, with the demands of today's game production, judging a company's output over the span of one year isn't very fair, as many games can take a couple to a few or several years to get right
but WHOOO NINTENDO WHOOO
Gully State
Member
Papercuts said:
Wait....people thought the mako sections were awesome? WTF?
sixteen-bit
Member
Exposed. Bioware definitely needs to step it up.