• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

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

I think overall their sales will probably be fine, but honestly playing the 10 hour trial was what made me decide not to buy it. I bought/preordered the first three, but this one had so many issues that I couldn't bring myself to get excited about it. I'll probably just mooch off of my husband's copy when I get around to it.
 
We can all make wild accusations from baseless assumptions.

It's just that most of us choose not to so publicly.
 
The opening post is contradictory, all over the place, flat-out wrong in many places, anti-EA Access and anti-gamer. I have no idea what the argument is.
 
sounds like something someone with a Thread Success Ratio below 50% would say

XS5LK.gif
 
So, I'm sure we have all experienced it: thread anxiety. We spend a lot of time thinking about concepts for threads, typing out a persuasive argument, capable of changing the minds and hearts of thousands of gaffers. But sometimes our threads fall flat. In the ecosystem/marketplace of ideas, only the strongest ones will be discussed, shared and propagated. Weak ideas die out because of lack of interest. And weak threads don't even make it off of the first page.

You've clearly spent more time thinking about thread structure and attracting an audience rather then the actual subject matter of the threads themselves...

For example, you created this thread with a click baity title and then provided no real evidence or facts to supports the implications suggested in the title...From what I can tell this thread is mostly just 3-4 pages of gaffers in awe and disbelief going so far as to push some to suggest the thread itself is a troll post as seen below..

This thread is weird, almost like a conspiracy theory.

They didn't hide the game at all, and there were multiple trailers covering a lot of things.

Also, the mere fact that it's on Origin Access means they weren't hiding the game.

We live in a post-facts world.



Ah, okay, so this is a troll thread.

Thread just seems an attack on EA Access, trying to use Mass Effect Andromeda as an excuse?

Despite the fact that your receiving a (minor) response from the community (at the moment) you should consider the content of that response rather then its quantity. You seems to think that just because a thread makes it to the front page and has more then a few responses the ideas represented have value and as result the threads a success. Unfortunately for you i doubt many gaffers would agree with this.
 
I was just wondering if EA games would start being front loaded to appeal to EA service demo time. Do exciting stuff from the start to hook players faster then have a less interesting mid and endgame. Time will tell, especially if it effect selling games in the first place.
 
OP is dead guys. Let this thread be.

Early access is not delaying the game for consumers. Your literally paying to play it early. As, ya know, games are usually finished before their release dates. If you want that luxury you pay for it.
 
Even the good reviews read negative.

It's almost like people are still giving Mass Effect Andromeda higher scores than they really want to because of their fondness of the franchise.

There's a few that read kind of that way, I think most are more just that the game has some high highs, but a a lot of lows and problems. For some the problems are relatively minor, but still add up and keep them from scoring it higher than the 7-8.5 it mostly gets in those reviews. Thus the hesitancy or what have you in the text is just mild disappointment that it didn't live up to series or current standards.

I don't think most of these reviewers would be scoring it much lower if it wasn't an ME game. Hell, if it was a new IP from a less tested dev it might fair a tiny bit better as expectations would have been lower. Who knows.

In any case, from what I've played it's far from a bad game. Just a let down following up the original trilogy in some ways, with a bunch of issues that will drive some people nuts, be mild annoyances to others and not really bother some. As 7.5ish average seems about right to me, but maybe my take will change (in either direction) as I play more. Looking forward to digging in after scrafing some dinner (skipped lunch).
 
...

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?

When EA wants to, they can avoid giving you early access to a game or just give you access to a portion of it. Titanfall 2, for instance, wasn't available early.

In any case, I think without EA access the impressions alone would have been worse. With Access, some people got to try it for themselves instead of waiting for reviews.
 
Too soon to say, but if the game sells considerably less than Mass Effect 3 I think it's fair conclusion, even with the damage 3's ending presumably did to the brand.
 
What went wrong here?

3,318,994 views

Yep, totally not a big deal at all.

I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow talked themselves into believing that the reaction wouldn't be as bad as it is, so they had no problem with putting it on EA Access. Who knows though.
Video game youtuber making a video about a game currently in the public concisouness is not a big deal

You give PDP's influence more weight than it deserves
 
Uhmm...if they hadn't let me play Mass Effect Andromeda on EA Access I would've still waited for reviews. I don't think having the game as a trial would have a major negative effect on the game. People who were set on buying it would still buy it and people who were on the fence would still be on the fence until reviews or word of mouth. You can hide it from ea access but those people would've found out eventually.

Not that it matters anyway. It could've had a 40 on metacritic they still would sell millions.
 
The reception the game received will most likely hurt it somewhat but not enough for EA to want to cancel the series. Also I think some of the issues the game has could of been fixed with more development time.

I personally have no issue with EA doing the EA/Origin Access thing as it provides fans the chance to try a game out first and see if its worth actually buying once its officially released.
 
I wouldn`t go as far as saying it backfired badly, but the early access certainly didn`t do the game any favors. The story up to the point where the access version ends is boring as hell. I hear the game becomes better later on, but this didn`t showcase that at all.
 
I think it backfired because the review embargo ended after the early access trial.
As a result, people had largely negative reactions based on over-analysis of the early game. Instead of writing about the full scope of the game, there were endless articles on the poor animation of the few NPCs you meet in the first few hours, and endless debate about the poor character creator - because that's all people were able to see.

I've no doubt that the negative response to the early access builds helped a lot of reviewers to give it a low score review when the embargo finally lifted. Most reviewers don't write in an "objective" or "to-thine-own-self-be-true" bubble, and they are affected by hype and negativity like everyone else.

Compare it with Fallout 4, which had many similar problems (poor writing, graphics/animations, repetitive/dull sidequests and 'lack of choice'). I think it scored pretty well in reviews because there the "this game is worse than the last one from years ago" narrative was not established until after most reviews were published.

Unfortunately, we'll never know the true cause of what seem likely to be poor sales (at least initial sales, based on amazon charts and the like).
 
Even though we don't know the sales numbers yet there's no doubting it backfired in terms of publicity. Their fault for releasing a game that wasn't polished even earlier than their initial release date.
 
Unfortunately, we'll never know the true cause of what seem likely to be poor sales (at least initial sales, based on amazon charts and the like).

If it does sell poorly then it would hardly be a mystery as to why.

- the last Mass Effect game was highly divisive and damaging to the brand
- it has been 5 years
- the game is simply half-baked on a technical level

That's before even digging into the quality of the game's actual structure, writing etc. They needed to knock Andromeda out of the park if they wanted it to succeed, a shoddy effort was never going to repair the franchise.
 
Top Bottom