The bad press for the game was everywhere. Even Pewdiepie made a video on it. I'd be highly surprised if it didn't affect sales negatively.
Oh dear. Not pewdiepie. Whtever shall they do. The humanity.
Oh dear. Not pewdiepie. Whtever shall they do. The humanity.
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
Oh dear. Not pewdiepie. Whtever shall they do. The humanity.
Yeah, in this case EA is not being anti-consumer at all. I love the trilogy and despite the negativity I wanted to take a look for myself plus EA had a few games there that I would have probably bought anyway this year to try out. So $5 to test out MEA and several other games is not a bad proposition.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.
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 isnÂ’t great.
no one seems to want to discuss what ea will do in the future
I find it interesting people find the demo aspect of EA Access to be "pro-consumer" at all.
If it was worded as "We'll delay all games for those who don't pay us up front" I'm pretty sure there'd be total outrage, and a pitchforks and torch mob would be headed to the EA offices. Word it slightly differently though and people call it "the most pro-consumer thing EA has ever done".
no one seems to want to discuss what ea will do in the future
]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 isnÂ’t great.[/B] 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 itÂ’s 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 itÂ’s 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 havenÂ’t 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?
1) Online impressions are a poor gauge for mainstream popularity
2) EA is making money hand over fist on the early access program, and it's doubtful that fraction of users on one platform will overwhelm their marketing efforts
3) Demos and closed betas have been a calculated risk for years in the console space. Unless there is something gamebreaking that's in the final shipped copies, it's not going to significantly change the outlook
4) People paying more money for more features isn't anti consumer. It's like textbook capitalism
Amazon is a consistently poor metric for judging retail sales.
That's pretty much what a thread backfire is.
It is objectively a successful thread
EA Access was the best thing to come out of this generation.
I've played so many games early and gotten so many games for free, totally worth it.
I got to play 10 hours of a game I didn't even have to pay for, now I know I will buy said game later today.
There are no free games and you loss any dlc you buy if you stop your subscription
I find it interesting people find the demo aspect of EA Access to be "pro-consumer" at all.
If it was worded as "We'll delay all games for those who don't pay us up front" I'm pretty sure there'd be total outrage, and a pitchforks and torch mob would be headed to the EA offices. Word it slightly differently though and people call it "the most pro-consumer thing EA has ever done".
With all the negativity surrounding this game, it makes me want to purchase the competing sweeping Sci Fi Space based RPG's like Mass Effect 1-3 and Mass Effect Andromeda 2 when it comes out in 2021.
Agreed on this being too early. Besides, 75 meta is perfectly acceptable for a BBB collecting RPG from a niche Japanese publishing house like Nippon ichi.
So EA access is viciously anti-consumer, but it helped people determine the quality of a game before it's hard launch?
Do enough people subscribe to EA Access for it to have this much of an effect?
I mean, I was probably going to hold off on ME anyway because of Zelda and Horizon, but this seems like a bit of a reach.
That's basically all this was about. Anti EA and EA access, with a bunch of fluff added to try and mask it. A bitter Sony fanboy likely.The most incredible thing is trying to spin EA Access as anti consumer. Ridiculous.
Yeah, same. The game certainly has some really low lows when it comes to some of the banter and facial animation, but as a whole package it's really coming together for me in an interesting way. I'm having a lot of fun with it, to the point where feel like I'm playing a completely different game from other people sometimes.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.
Yep I've been saying this since this all started. I've been enjoying myself with the game despite its flaws (and the flaws are glaring at times).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.
This. I don't understand the witch hunt that popped up against this game. Sure, it has some janky animations. But name a BioWare game that hasn't had janky animations. I don't understand why certain people have a vested interest in this game failing.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.
That's basically all this was about. Anti EA and EA access, with a bunch of fluff added to try and mask it. A bitter Sony fanboy likely.
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.