I realised there was no discussion for games in general, so here one is! And yes, I come with something I wanted to discuss/post about.




BioWare. And Anthem.

This article was written this morning and I spent a good while reading it. It's long. 11,000 words long. But it's one of the most depressing things I've read in a long time.

How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong.


THE SUMMARY:

'It’s a story of a video game that was in development for nearly seven years but didn’t enter production until the final 18 months, thanks to big narrative reboots, major design overhauls, and a leadership team said to be unable to provide a consistent vision and unwilling to listen to feedback.'

Reading through the entire thing was frustrating, saddening, and just left me feeling deflated. Reading through this article was like watching someone I love slowly die, knowing that there's nothing I can do to help. Knowing that this is what the studio has become actually brought me to tears. This Reddit post and its comments sum up everything that struck me through the heart. It may sound ridiculous, but the games they have made and therefore the company itself became very dear to me, and I can't help but choke on a cocktail of emotion upon realising what has become of them.

(Semi-irrelevant anecdote about my feelings for BioWare):
Spoiler:
This is the studio which made the very first RPG game that I truly fell in love with (excluding Pokemon, which I loved for the creatures, not specifically the RPG experience): Dragon Age Origins. I found it in 2011 when I was in year 12, and after playing many, many hours in Oblivion and loving its open-world RPG goodness, I played Dragon Age: Origins (thanks to a recommendation from @Teddiursa of the Sky) and realised that Oblivion lacked something dear to me: rich, lifelike characters and story choices. Sure it had some, but characters aren't the focus of Bethesda games--gameplay and setting are. But BioWare's games appealed to me so much more, with companions you could recruit, worlds rich with lore, and a compelling storyline which you could change aspects of depending on choices you made. I will admit, as a teenager unsure about who I was and feeling like I couldn't talk to anyone about it, I was also drawn by the fact that I could romance a female character as a female character. It kind of meant a lot to me, and still does. All of these things made me completely adore Dragon Age. I played it many times I should have been studying. XD

Then end of 2012, I see a preowned Mass Effect 2 in one of my local game stores one day for $20. I'd never played the series before, and knew nothing about it--only that it was good. I hadn't properly discovered Steam or indie games yet; in fact I had had limited exposure to games. Mostly I played Pokemon, Sonic, and some old PlayStation titles like Crash and Spyro. Anyway, I was broke, so I mentioned casually to my mum before Christmas that she could pick it up for me because I really couldn't think of much else I wanted.

Single greatest request of my life.

I fell in love instantly. I got a PC version of the first game and started playing that the same time I was playing the second one on the PS3. Everything in these games blew me away: incredible characters, story, and a world that felt real. The music was phenomenal, voice acting was awesome, and the level of detail showed that whoever was working on this really, really cared. These games were a product of passion and dedication. Long story short, I bought the trilogy to play in order and my playthrough of the second game this time was drastically different because my decisions from the first game carried over (coolest freaking thing ever). It felt like an experience I helped to create. Mass Effect 2 is my favourite game of all time, and any game will be hard-pressed to take its place for me.

So, you can imagine I viewed these people in a magical, ethereal light. They were all amazing. They had shaped one of the greatest experiences of my life, and I loved them for it. I never did get back into Dragon Age after that, because I am truly terrible at strategy and I feel like you need to have some level of strategy for DA's combat. XD But I still love it.

When Mass Effect Andromeda came out, well...even just half an hour in, it felt completely different. It was hollow. It lacked soul. It lacked...everything that made the trilogy exceptional. Needless to say, I was incredibly let down by that game. I finished it once and tried to do another playthrough, but couldn't bring myself to do it. One playthrough was all I could muster. As many people have pointed out, it's not necessarily a bad game...it's just average. An average BioWare game. Nothing...stood out about it. Oh, except its absurd number of bugs and glitches.


*sigh*

Anyway. I didn't buy Anthem because I was honestly hurt from Mass Effect Andromeda and I didn't trust them to deliver an experience that I would love. And I'm glad I didn't buy it. But reading about their struggles, the hardships that transpired, and ridiculous decisions that were (or weren't) made, just make me so, so sad. The Frostbite issues, the lack of leadership or a vision, the pressure from EA, the levels of stress that skyrocketed which resulted in what they refer to as "stress casualties" and mental breakdowns and depression and anxiety running rampant throughout the studios is just...goddamn depressing. That's appalling conditions to work in for any company, and the devs did not deserve that. So many of them brought up issues and were ignored. Things didn't used to be like that. Sure they were always stressful at times, and I know there was a huge time crunch for Mass Effect 3's release, but...at least they had direction. And everyone was happy with the result. For the most part, anyway. And now...this is happening.

Bah...I'm just feeling so, so very deflated. I'm extremely glad that I have the Mass Effect trilogy, but I'm extremely sad that I don't think they'll ever make anything like that again, or anything close. And my biggest fear is that constant failures will result in EA forcing BioWare to close.

I just really hope BioWare leadership and management get their act together because their company's games changed lives, mine included. I hope they can recover.