hydrophilic attack
Member
So based on reviews and player impressions, Mass Effect Andromeda seems to be a bit of a dud. It seems to me as if Bioware/EA was aware of this fact and wanted to cover it by employing the Fallout 4 launch strategy: give almost no information pre-launch so that pre-orders and pre-release hype give you good sales before people realize that your game isnt great. It is a bit shitty and anti-consumer, but it does give nice financial numbers for the closest financial report, and may give any executives involved a nice little bonus. It may do long-term damage to the brand, but I guess gamers are sheep with the memory of a goldfish, and four years from now you will probably have moved on in your career anyway, so notmyproblem.jpg
But in this particular case, this approach seems to have backfired. See, EA has gone all-in on their EA/Origin access service where they want you to pay a subscription fee every month to access their back library of mediocre games. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all, and its probably really good value if you like their games, but for whatever reason it seems the people in charge of the service thought they needed something more to increase the perceived value of the service. The solution they came up with was the preview program where they delay all of their games for everyone who is not a subscriber, which is a bit anti-consumer, but I guess it brings in the dough, so its all good from their perspective. Also, if your game is good, it can help increase the hype, see Battlefield 1. But not in this case apparently. Impressions from the EA early access period were really bad and quickly took the wind out of the sales of the pre-release hype. Normally, a AAA game getting so many reviews below 8, would lead to a lot of angry comments from fans who havent yet played the game. But not this time, when everyone had already seen the game for what it was.
So it seems EA wanting to combine two anti-consumer practices at once (hide your game from consumers before launch and hold back games for non-subscribers for a week) backfired badly. I guess the conclusion to draw is that you need to choose one anti-consumer strategy to employ at a time. Seems like in trying to do both they bit off a bit more than they could chew.
For clarity: I'm talking about how being on Early Access may have affected this game and the Mass Effect IP going forward, not about how EA/Origin Access subscription numbers may have been temporarily affected
So how do you think EA will react to this to prevent similar events in the future? Will they start polishing their games properly before release? Or perhaps revamp the Early Access program to prevent stuff like this from happening again? Double down on pre-order incentives? What do you think?
But in this particular case, this approach seems to have backfired. See, EA has gone all-in on their EA/Origin access service where they want you to pay a subscription fee every month to access their back library of mediocre games. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all, and its probably really good value if you like their games, but for whatever reason it seems the people in charge of the service thought they needed something more to increase the perceived value of the service. The solution they came up with was the preview program where they delay all of their games for everyone who is not a subscriber, which is a bit anti-consumer, but I guess it brings in the dough, so its all good from their perspective. Also, if your game is good, it can help increase the hype, see Battlefield 1. But not in this case apparently. Impressions from the EA early access period were really bad and quickly took the wind out of the sales of the pre-release hype. Normally, a AAA game getting so many reviews below 8, would lead to a lot of angry comments from fans who havent yet played the game. But not this time, when everyone had already seen the game for what it was.
So it seems EA wanting to combine two anti-consumer practices at once (hide your game from consumers before launch and hold back games for non-subscribers for a week) backfired badly. I guess the conclusion to draw is that you need to choose one anti-consumer strategy to employ at a time. Seems like in trying to do both they bit off a bit more than they could chew.
For clarity: I'm talking about how being on Early Access may have affected this game and the Mass Effect IP going forward, not about how EA/Origin Access subscription numbers may have been temporarily affected
So how do you think EA will react to this to prevent similar events in the future? Will they start polishing their games properly before release? Or perhaps revamp the Early Access program to prevent stuff like this from happening again? Double down on pre-order incentives? What do you think?
