How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong [article by J. Schreier, Kotaku]

I've been waiting for this one.

Perhaps most alarming, it's a story about a studio in crisis. Dozens of developers, many of them decade-long veterans, have left BioWare over the past two years. Some who have worked at BioWare's longest-running office in Edmonton talk about depression and anxiety. Many say they or their co-workers had to take "stress leave"—a doctor-mandated period of weeks or even months worth of vacation for their mental health. One former BioWare developer told me they would frequently find a private room in the office, shut the door, and just cry. "People were so angry and sad all the time," they said. Said another: "Depression and anxiety are an epidemic within Bioware."
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And we literally learned nothing new. The whole world knew long before this article went live that Frostbite is fuckin' trash and nobody but DICE must work with it to make games. Period!
 
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manfestival said:
>Jason Schreier
>deserving a full read
Why are you doing this OP? Do you hate us?
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You can disagree with the site he is hosted at (and there are many very good reasons to do so), and also have issues with his Twitter presence (then again, personally I'm of the opinion that more we disregard Twitter the better of we are).

But the fact remains, he does have connections within the industry that while may want to remain anonymous, give some good insight into what really happens. As an analogy, his piece on ME:A was terrific (or terrifying, I suppose it's a matter of perspective). Attack the message, not the messenger; personally, I'm going to read it once I'm done with the more mundane aspects of my daily life for today.
 
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wutnau said:
You can disagree with the site he is hosted at (and there are many very good reasons to do so), and also have issues with his Twitter presence (then again, personally I'm of the opinion that more we disregard Twitter the better of we are).

But the fact remains, he does have connections within the industry that while may want to remain anonymous, give some good insight into what really happens. As an analogy, his piece on ME:A was terrific (or terrifying, I suppose it's a matter of perspective). Attack the message, not the messenger; personally, I'm going to read it once I'm done with the more mundane aspects of my daily life for today.
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I actually rarely disagree with the site he is hosted at. He is the main problem(especially considering his position of seniority). Not discrediting his sources. He has done fine things as long as he does not insert his opinion... which he likes and often does. "Attack the message and not the messenger" is a pretty awful statement period. The message here is a good one(attempting to expose the suffering of the development that not only had to go through this but get fired recently) but the messenger is the problem. I might change my mind if the guy stops doing opinion pieces and sticks to being objective(not likely). I am willing the give the man a chance, after he has earned it(refer to previous sentence).
 
The problems with Anthem remind me of the problems with Mass Effect: Andromeda. No one had a clear vision of what the game was supposed to be, and the team leads kept leaving. Both games seemed to originate around abstract ideas as opposed to gameplay loops.

I don't understand why game developers and publishers can't stick to what they know and are good at doing. Why tackle something you have no experience in, no real fanbase for, and lack the technical ability to complete? Both Bioware and Bethesda went well out of their wheelhouse with their respective latest games, and they both failed miserably. Their fans wanted more of what made those studios successful, and instead got incomplete, buggy disappointments. Bioware could have made a solo/coop experience in a new universe that would have probably been easier on development, easier to sell to fans, and done better financially. Ugh.
 
Interestingly enough, while a big part of this seems to fall on EA, there apparently were some huge problems internally that had nothing to do with EA and more to do with Bioware's combating studios. Very interesting. I was all ready to say "Fuck EA man". Ok actually, Fuck EA man...but Bioware isn't really just a victim here. They messed up too in a lot of ways.
 
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I think a lot of misdeeds could have been forgiven had they just gotten loot right.

Almost unforgivable that customization was so barebones and loot was so borked out the box
 
Great article. Reading about the vast amounts of indecision the teams were faced with was especially telling. The fact they didn't think of simply putting DECISIONS TO A VOTE pretty much(because nobody told them to do it?!!) sealed the problems for them.

That being said, I believe in the game and Bioware. It's a new I.P. and not one EA is likely to give up on(or Bioware) because of the sheers amounts of money it probably took to get it off the ground. Both the Division and Destiny took a lot of time before their teams got them to where they're at now. Of course, you may not like the current direction of those games but they're arguably better a year/2 years after launch.
 
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wutnau said:
You can disagree with the site he is hosted at (and there are many very good reasons to do so), and also have issues with his Twitter presence (then again, personally I'm of the opinion that more we disregard Twitter the better of we are).

But the fact remains, he does have connections within the industry that while may want to remain anonymous, give some good insight into what really happens. As an analogy, his piece on ME:A was terrific (or terrifying, I suppose it's a matter of perspective). Attack the message, not the messenger; personally, I'm going to read it once I'm done with the more mundane aspects of my daily life for today.
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Indeed.
Just because Jason is demonstrably wrong on many topics, that doesn't render his investigative journalism automatically worthless. Facts are facts and if he's been able to dig them up, kudos to him.

However, given the lengthy quote already provided, I suspect his angle is how heartless corporations opress and exploit. So let me bring you up to speed, Jason:

1. Without capitalism, video games would not exist, The gaming industry would not exist. Heck, videogame journalists would not exist.

2. If Bioware employees were or still are dissatisfied, they can discuss the situation with upper management and ask for a change, they can unionise, negotiate. They can go on strike. Or they can simply leave and join some other better suited company. Or they can start their own company, for that matter, spending their own money the way they see fit. However, they do not have the right to dictate how others spend money. That they certainly do not have.

3. Apparently, some decided to leave. Those who after consideration decided to say must have had no better option. If they had no better option, with whom does the problem lie?
 
It mostly confirms what everyone suspected - lack of clear vision, miss management and being force to work in engine no one likes outside of Dice.

But still it's very well written and solid piece of investigative journalism.
 
Schreier's POV is very important when considering the validity of this article. I haven't read it yet but something tells me he doesn't have any interviews in there with people who disagree with his narrative. Choosing who your interview, what questions you ask and what answers you put in a story can completely distort the truth.
 
Read it, but had to give up.

Really not a fan of Schreier. He's always trying to pass himself off as some vanguard of investigative journalism, but it reeks of bullshit and anonymous 'sources' settling grudges. No one likes their bosses. This isn't a revelation.

And his subject matter doesn't deserve the pompous, evangelical tone. He writes like he's after a Pulitzer.

They made a bad game. That's it. No more, no less. It isn't a story.
 
I have not played Anthem (or read the article) but this was always a given, no?

Having followed MMORPGs closely for nearly 20 years, it was pretty clear that once these shared world action games / Looter Shooters came about to carry on the mantle from MMOs, that console gamers would get a real taste of what GaaS is. To a major population of gamers who didn't know what "endgame" was, they had to sit predictable through years of Destiny and The Division as the developers muck about trying to balance a never ending charade of balancing fast consumeable content with quality and at a time frame that keeps people invested.

Bioware has never made a game with compelling balanced combat, nor have they shown an affinity towards excellent online gameplay. Basically from its very inception, Anthem played high on areas where Bioware has always struggled. What was more, their previous MMO, SWTOR showed them how difficult it is to balance compelling story content with gameplay. I had no faith that they could do it justice. It looked like a me-too-Destiny with a Pacific Rim/Iron Man skin from the beginning. Trailers showed superficial and childish bravado. Gameplay demonstrations were super rudimentary and didnt display intricrate teamplay nor a high skill level. This always looked like a looter shooter. One where periodically releasing re-skinned weapons/armors/monsters with slightly higher numbers would count as "new content".

Bioware has just gone from failure to failure to failure. But thats not new from EA - A company that is well known for choking out the company culture of studios they buy out.


I am a big Bioware fan. I love the Mass Effect trilogy and the Dragon Age games, but I play those for the characters and world building. I sure as shit dont play Bioware games for the combat, or for the longevity, or online play. So Anthem has nothing other than a very shallow, but pretty skin.
 
mckmas8808 said:
It's weird to see people hate the article just because Jason Schreier wrote it. But it's good. I wonder why Bioware Devs are so depressed?
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It's sad because he's one of the few good investigative games journalists. Most of the whining seems to be that he is engaging in advocacy for specific positions and partisan narratives in the investigative lines pushed in his articles to the exclusion of a more careful analysis of evidence but most of the people complaining also link to blatantly hyperpartisan articles that fit their prejudices. I'd be more inclined to take it seriously if those people seemed to care about journalistic standards when it didn't score political points.
 
Shai-Tan said:
It's sad because he's one of the few good investigative games journalists. Most of the whining seems to be that he is engaging in advocacy for specific positions and partisan narratives in the investigative lines pushed in his articles to the exclusion of a more careful analysis of evidence but most of the people complaining also link to blatantly hyperpartisan articles that fit their prejudices. I'd be more inclined to take it seriously if those people seemed to care about journalistic standards when it didn't score political points.
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To me people's hate for Jason seems to get in the way of actual good reporting on the video games industry. But I guess that's where we are in the cesspool of the internet. Nobody trusting anybody, why also trusting "THEIR" youtube personality of choice like no other. As if they know them personally. It's weird.
 
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mckmas8808 said:
I wonder why Bioware Devs are so depressed?
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Maybe they need a safe space, rather than a empty conference room/office to cry in?

source.gif


In all seriousness I've been high pressure projects that have strict deadlines and fucking useless management, it's soul destroying.
 
When i played the demo and it wanted me to collect orbs around the map and bring them to the platform i knew the game was shit. its like gameplay mechanics from playstation 1 era.
 
mckmas8808 said:
To me people's hate for Jason seems to get in the way of actual good reporting on the video games industry. But I guess that's where we are in the cesspool of the internet. Nobody trusting anybody, why also trusting "THEIR" youtube personality of choice like no other. As if they know them personally. It's weird.
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I did critique Jason recently in a long winded comment

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/is-t...nd-game-reviews.1473719/page-2#post-253871917

but the ultimate point was that good journalism is hard. I can understand if a constructive argument was made that he doesn't understand corporate culture and games making enough to cut through some of the bs in office politics or synthesize individual opinions into a good accounting of events but more is better than less unless we're going to trust our outside opinions about what went right and wrong in a game's development.
 
It is pretty spectacular how badly EA has fumbled AAA this gen.

Mass Effect - dead
Dragon Age - on ice
Battlefield - wounded
Dead Space - dead
Mirror's Edge - dead
Star Wars - generating like 1/4th of the profit that an IP like this should

Titanfall is seemingly the only healthy non-sports one, and that "only" took one of the most talented FPS dev teams and pivoting into the BR genre to pull off.

And at this point, its probably not even just EA's fault. This article illustrates how Bioware itself dropped the ball. When it rains it pours.
 
Within the studio, there's a term called "BioWare magic." It's a belief that no matter how rough a game's production might be, things will always come together in the final months. The game will always coalesce. It happened on the Mass Effect trilogy, on Dragon Age: Origins, and on Inquisition.
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You can't rely on luck forever.
 
I should probably eat some crow now.

I predicted Anthem would flop.

I did not predict that it would leave this big of a crater.
 
Sub_Level said:
It is pretty spectacular how badly EA has fumbled AAA this gen.

Mass Effect - dead
Dragon Age - on ice
Battlefield - wounded
Dead Space - dead
Mirror's Edge - dead
Star Wars - generating like 1/4th of the profit that an IP like this should

Titanfall is seemingly the only healthy non-sports one, and that "only" took one of the most talented FPS dev teams and pivoting into the BR genre to pull off.

And at this point, its probably not even just EA's fault. This article illustrates how Bioware itself dropped the ball. When it rains it pours.
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Titanfall is super dead as well, Apex might be in the same universe but it's still a new IP.
 
Imagine being EA and seeing how well Ubisoft manages thousands of employees across a dozen studios for games that are much better than yours.

A few people who worked on the game said that trying to make comparisons to Destiny would elicit negative reactions from studio leadership.
(...)
Because leadership didn't want to discuss Destiny, that developer added, they found it hard to learn from what Bungie's loot shooter did well.
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tenor10eku.gif


EA needs to give their studios less rope.
 
So having now read the article (it was a good read IMHO), I stand by my previous assessment of Anthem:

BioWare set out to make the Bob Dylan of video games. Instead they ended up with the Bob Hope of video games.
 
The game industry seems to be filled with a bunch of whining babies who would die if they actually had to work a hard job.
 
SirKicksalot said:
Imagine being EA and seeing how well Ubisoft manages thousands of employees across a dozen studios for games that are much better than yours.



tenor10eku.gif


EA needs to give their studios less rope.
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This is just HORRIBLE leadership my GAWD! Why hate on Destiny? If you're making a new racing game called Forza, it'd be in your best interest to play and think about what Gran Turismo got right BEFORE you finish making your new Forza IP.

It makes zero sense to hate on Destiny if you're making Anthem.
 
I didn't read the article as I try and stay away from that website, but...

"How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong"

That one is easy, Electronic Arts is how it went wrong. I have no idea how you guys/gals stomach EA and Ubisoft games.
 
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DanielsM said:
I didn't read the article as I try and stay away from that website, but...

"How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong"

That one is easy, Electronic Arts is how it went wrong. I have no idea how you guys/gals stomach EA and Ubisoft games.
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I understand, somewhat, lumping in Ubi with EA but I mean, the last two AC games were great, IMO, and TD2 is great, IMO. I haven't played a FC since FC4 but FC 3 and 4 were great IMO. Never tried Primal, 5, or New Dawn.
 
Reading this, I have found that in some way Anthem may be an even bigger failure than Andromeda. While Adromeda has the misfortune of being associated with a major and beloved franchise, this was an A-Team Edmonton effort and up until now they were the golden boys. Andromeda was made by Montreal and that branch of BioWare was definitely C-list so Andromeda's failure at least be dismissed on that front, making Montreal the goats, in addition to blaming EA for rushing postproduction to meet a deadline

Also, Andromeda had one real goal early on--To be a AAA No Man's Sky and for a while it stuck with that vision. The problem there was both Frostbite and that the idea was too technologically ambitious for its time, the latter of which was not realized until far too late. Anthem had an early preproduction goal, but changed its stripes constantly during production. Seemingly a mess since 2015.

Jigsaah said:
Interestingly enough, while a big part of this seems to fall on EA. There apparently were some huge problems internally that had nothing to do with EA and more to do with Bioware's combating studios. Very interesting. I was all ready to say "Fuck EA man". Ok actually, Fuck EA man...but Bioware isn't really just a victim here. They messed up too in a lot of ways.
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That was also a takeaway here. While EA is hardly blameless here, mainly due to their insistence on the use of and conception of the Frostbite Engine which is a literal straightjacket it seems for any game not made in a certain narrow mold, it seems Bioware has some serious internal issues and currently lacks a real creative/management head. And that's a shame because there seems like a lot a wasted potential here.

It could be assumed that EA and Frostbite has been the catalyst of sorts, but it seems many of BioWare's failures are hardly all externally driven.
 
JareBear said:
I understand, somewhat, lumping in Ubi with EA but I mean, the last two AC games were great, IMO, and TD2 is great, IMO. I haven't played a FC since FC4 but FC 3 and 4 were great IMO. Never tried Primal, 5, or New Dawn.
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I'm not saying there can be some good games here and there the issue is their broader strategies, the way they treat gamers, etc. Not just poor quality. I just can't support those two companies, to me they are definition of what is bad in gaming, generally speaking.
 
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DanielsM said:
I'm not saying there can be some good games here and there the issue is their broader strategies, the way they treat gamers, etc. Not just poor quality.

I just can't support those two companies, to me they are definition of what is bad in gaming, generally speaking.
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What's the issue with Ubi specifically?
 
dark10x said:
That couldn't be further from the truth.

That's pretty damn ignorant and insulting, honestly. It's one of the most difficult jobs one could do these days in addition to insane hours and a mediocre to poor pay.

I honestly don't understand the reactions in this thread. Absolutely baffling.
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Yeah, dark, video game journalist is right behind astronaut, Navy SEAL, quantum physicist, and neurosurgeon IMO.










 
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