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Looks like EA access early access backfired badly for Mass Effect: Andromeda

hydrophilic attack said:
aside from unravel, dead space is cool

i'll pass on the rest



lol

not really, i just don't like their games much

or those of any large western publisher tbqh
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But if you're not angry at EA and you don't like the games of western pubs, why bother making a thread about a game you never intended to play (since you don't like the games EA plays). I mean, ME:A hasn't even come out yet and "well my friends said" isn't a valid metric for lost sales among the gaming population. There is quite literally no way to judge the sales until EA (or big box retailers) start handing out the numbers on how many units were sold/shipped.

I'm sorry but I'm siding with the people who say this is a stealth EA attack thread.

Additionally, calling EA Access anti consumer is absolutely insane. Letting you play trials of new games is the exact opposite of that.
 
EA access currently costs 2.50 a month for instant access to a library full of critically praised games, while discounting any game you purchase and let's you try a game to see if you like it or not. What kind of logic is worse than fanboy because op just hit a new level.
 
excaliburps said:
You angry at EA? Seems like you're angry at EA. I think you're angry at EA, right? Yep, you might be angry, irritated, annoyed, etc. at EA.

Too early to tell given the game hasn't been out worldwide yet. Although, a AAA game averaging less than 80 (or hell, 85) on Metacritic is super terrible. That said, I admit that reviews are becoming less and less relevant given early access, YouTuber influence, the need to own and play the latest game, etc.

I predict that if BioWare patches all the technical stuff, Andromeda will be the Alpha Protocol of this gen; the game that was almost universally panned by critics, but will find it's own cult following.

Then again, it might just end the Mass Effect saga, which I hope it won't.
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The thing is even if Bioware patch the tech issues and fix the facial animations and all the Party member NPC models in the updated character creator. The game has writing that reads like a placeholder, its highest profile Voice Actors are almost unreconisable and mostly underused. The plot is a wrote rehash of Halo 4 with a supporting cast that feels like it belongs in an anualized shooter like battlefield or CoD and far away from something that Bioware is typically known for producing.

Cult classics typically become that way because they temper poor execution with grand ambition. Mass Effect Andromeda only manages to further confuse the brand's already tangled identity by offering low polish versions of the only consistent feature running throught the origional trilogy. (Great character writing)
 
Funny enough, EA Access kept me from cancelling my preorder. Not because what's there blew me away, more that the very obvious flaws didn't do enough to make me not want to play more. Maybe not right away, with me still needing to finish Nier and Horizon, but I do want to play it.

Reviews might have made me hold off on even that if I hadn't been able to judge for myself what I like and dislike about the mechanics and storytelling.
 
hydrophilic attack said:
yes, that's what i'm saying

by the time reviews land, minds tend to be already made up. especially when the embargo lifts so close to release

normally, bad reviews can't penetrate the mental shields set up by pre-order culture and fanboyism. fans prefer to rage at the reviewers rather than at the game (see: review thread for the order 1886). but thanks to all the gifs, streams and bad impressions from the early access, these shields had already been torn down
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It might have backfired for mass effect (which i don't think you've proved yet) but not for ea and not for the consumer.

Edit: I think your op needs a rewrite.
 
hydrophilic attack said:
if you can launch a game for subscribers on early access you can launch it for everyone

in effect they are holding the game back one week for non-subscribers, and that, specifically, is the shitty part of the program

otherwise, it's probably a good service service for the kind of people who enjoy ea games
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Why do you care so much if you don't even enjoy EA's games or subscribe to the service?
 
akileese said:
But if you're not angry at EA and you don't like the games of western pubs, why bother making a thread about a game you never intended to play (since you don't like the games EA plays). I mean, ME:A hasn't even come out yet and "well my friends said" isn't a valid metric for lost sales among the gaming population. There is quite literally no way to judge the sales until EA (or big box retailers) start handing out the numbers on how many units were sold/shipped.
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because i think this game is an interesting example of how streaming culture may affect the plans of publishers when your game is below par, and how this may be exacerbated by programs like early access
 
I'm proud of EA for this. Letting people try something for ten hours to see if they like it for themselves, a lot of people seem to be split on how to feel about the title. It might well hurt them in the short run but now they don't have to deal with anyone complaining that they hid the game or its problems: they definitely haven't.
 
Wait a minute

You're here saying EA Access made people aware of a broken game pre release so they could avoid purchasing it


... Then go onto saying EA Access is anti consumer? How exactly? That doesn't make sense at all.
 
Chris1 said:
Wait a minute

You're here saying EA Access made people aware of a broken game pre release so they could avoid purchasing it


... Then go onto saying EA Access is anti consumer? How exactly? That doesn't make sense at all.
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It's a bit of mental gymnastics, but........

Because you have to pay to find out it's bad (which is a moot point, because of a thing called the internet and peoples impressions)
 
danowat said:
It's a bit of mental gymnastics, but........

Because you have to pay to find out it's bad (which is a moot point, because of a thing called the internet and peoples impressions)
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So paying $5 to save $55 in the case that someone decided they didn't want the game is anti-consumer? They allowed you to rent the game basically. We're talking gold medal winning mental gymnastics here.
 
You talk about anti-consumer a lot and say they push back the release for normal customers. Could it not be that the date is the same and the subbies get to play it early?

Also how is it anti consumer to show the demo so people have the choice to be informed on the game and whether to buy it or not..?
 
maybe, but with refunds, specially on origin i dont see it as the case. i bought it to support the team that worked their assess off in hellish conditions. Game doesnt look bad at all, it may not be the best me but its enough for me.
 
Didn't care about Mass Effect before, don't know why I'd want to play it now that it looks worse than the original trilogy
 
danowat said:
It's a bit of mental gymnastics, but........

Because you have to pay to find out it's bad (which is a moot point, because of a thing called the internet and peoples impressions)
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But even that doesn't make sense because of what you said & reviews still existed to tell you if it was bad but if we're ignoring that (like OP seems to be doing), how is EA Access anti consumer opposed to having to actually pay full price for the game to find out if it's bad or not?

It's $5 vs $60 and in EA Access' case most people will already be subscribed so it was in a sense free.
 
I played early access on origin. The old games are a distant memory and only got to halfway of part 2 and I think I played 3 but not too sure.

Played it on the consoles and after a while real life intervened and never got to finish it.

I played the trial until the door part and I love it. It has flaws here and there and it isn't perfect and we all deserve and should have gotten a better game but it is still a fun game for me to play. I am a graphics whore so no problems there. The worlds look great and combat is fun.

Story wise I am never 100% hardcore into it. I watch the dialogue and move on. I don't bitch about the finer details that are wrong (I don't see it so also no problems for me).

But more importantly. I just love being in my ship, looking out into space and seeing the planet and exploring the planet and just being in space in general!

SO yeah, the game is around a 7/8 and its a deserved numbers for this game but it also doesn't mean its bad.

Off course, I don't know how good or bad it will be further into the game but it's worth the 40 bucks I payed for it.
 
hydrophilic attack said:
because i think this game is an interesting example of how streaming culture may affect the plans of publishers when your game is below par, and how this may be exacerbated by programs like early access
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The bolded leads us back to the main point, it's too early to make a definitive statement on this.
 
hydrophilic attack said:
because i think this game is an interesting example of how streaming culture may affect the plans of publishers when your game is below par, and how this may be exacerbated by programs like early access
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That's fine and dandy but the game isn't actually out yet unless you went to a midnight release. I think it's very premature to make a thread that's only going to spiral into fan boy wars with no metrics for sales.
 
Tobor said:
The bolded leads us back to the main point, it's too early to make a definitive statement on this.
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since publishers never share numbers for games performing disappointingly, it's always too early to discuss the performance of any commercially disappointing game

the writing is on the wall for this one though, at least until the deep discounts start coming
 
On the other side of this the early negative impressions allowed time for a lot of people to lower their expectations and tempered the sort of angry outburst from an unexpectedly disappointing game like we saw for No Mans Sky.
It will assuredly hurt sales of Andromeda to some extent but it may have saved the series and the studio from earning a toxic reputation in the process since much fewer people will be playing it with high expectations.
 
hydrophilic attack said:
no, i'm saying one specific part of the program is bad for consumers, not all of it
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It's not like EA used to release free trials to everyone before EA access came along. And demos are as good as dead, that goes for every publisher.

Considering how the early access prevented people from buying a mediocre game it's really hard to spin this as anti-consumer
 
Obviously anecdotal, but i signed up for a month of it solely to try out ME:A...

...and I basically decided its not worth getting until its heavily discounted on sale. While i'm not one of the hardcore Bioware fans, ME has meant a lot to me over the years and I just wasn't feeling the magic here. The trial basically confirmed a lot of the fears I had about the game mechanically and there are other games (Horizon, P5, Nier, GR2 etc) that I would enjoy playing more than this tbh.
 
diaspora said:
The most incredible thing is trying to spin EA Access as anti consumer. Ridiculous.
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He's a hardcore Sony fan. That pretty much tells you. Please note I'm not saying all hardcore Sony fans spin EA Access negatively, but most of the people who do spin it that way are Sony console fans.

The whole ridiculous notion that they "held back" the release of a ready game to non-subscribers is ridiculous. Games are ready well in advance of their set release date. I don't get his whole agenda here except to slam EA.
 
Man, while I think the early access for ME:A did bite it in the ass (by deflating hype before release and changing the narrative to one about bugs and flaws), this OP is too biased to take seriously.

You only weaken your point when you come hot like that, OP.
 
hydrophilic attack said:
since publishers never share numbers for games performing disappointingly, it's always too early to discuss the performance of any commercially disappointing game

the writing is on the wall for this one though, at least until the deep discounts start coming
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Are you suggesting we never find out when a game bombs? That's nonsense.

Also, Fallout 4 is an awesome game. There was no scam. It was highly reviewed and enjoyed outside of the vocal minority who always scream about Bethesda games.

So your entire premise is early and flawed.
 
diaspora said:
EA is offering people a 10 hour rental for $5- including whatever vault game they want for that month to see if they like it before it fully drops- there's no spinning that as anti-consumer mang.
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Hell, you even get a 10% price drop on the digital game, so if you decide to buy it digitally you save $7, meaning you actually save money by signing up before buying the game.
 
hydrophilic attack said:
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.
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...ok bro. Ok Bro. OK BRO!

That is NOT a library of mediocre games. I know it's your opinion and everything, but it's definitely not mediocre. This is just spewing whatever you can to make EA seem like an even bigger baddie here.
hydrophilic attack said:
aside from unravel, dead space is cool

i'll pass on the rest



lol

not really, i just don't like their games much

or those of any large western publisher tbqh
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And heeeeeerrreee's the bias. I live JRPGs and prefer them to other things, but come on. Now it's sort of an agenda here.
 
I mean the reviews were probably already going to put people off judging by the reactions in the review thread.

The trial at the very least EA gets the sub money, and people can try the game for themselves and see whether they're bothered by said issues.

Personally I'm not - but then again, I don't really think the original trilogy was the holy beacon of gaming either, so I'm probably not holding the series to as high of a standard as most.
 
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 it's probably really good value if you like their games...
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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.
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The logic here is flawed enough that it's almost hard to parse. Taken individually, OP's comments on EA Access make the case that it's good in general for consumers, but they're so hung up on a desire to criticize it that they lapse on their own thesis about the program working against an advertising strategy. OP gets sidetracked by a desire to insult buyers ("I guess gamers are sheep with the memory of a goldfish"), and there's not much substance to the internal reasoning.

The points boil down to the idea that a bad/flawed game exists, and that word-of-mouth has potentially pulled back the number of Day-1 buyers, and that EA Access' preview aided awareness of that. Unless OP is suggesting that EA never considered this was possible, I think it's more likely that the cartoon villain charicature they've developed for the company and these programs isn't meshing with reality, which is why the post feels so confused. I read that borderline malice from the unprompted commentary they inject into so many lines.

hydrophilic attack said:
not really, i just don't like their games much

or those of any large western publisher tbqh
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Speaking of tangential editorializing, how do you feel about the price of tea in China?
 
Alias03 said:
Lol you're right... A typo clearly makes my response irrelevant. I wasn't trying to be an asshole, only pointing out that in particular stuck out to me and it's hard to take the rest of what you're saying seriously.
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That was tongue-in-cheek.

Even my thread title has a glaring typo which has been annoying me all day T_T
 
Regardless of how this game fares, I will tell you this much. I am never going to allow myself to be swept up by negative internet meme-fests surrounding a game again. Let's just say that I am glad that I kept an open mind and stuck with my pre-order.
 
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