vg247: "New Dragon Age, Mass Effect titles will be heavily influenced by Anthem, says Bioware"

[SPCTRE]

Speaking at PAX West this weekend, the team at Bioware said that Anthem’s story structure, which will be delivered as part of a live service allowing the team to continue to write and release new storylines post release, is a method it expects to employ for its other much-loved franchises.

Anthem is structured so that its hub world, Tarsis, is where players will experience the more traditional RPG elements and story-telling of the game, while it’s online open world is where players can get stuck into the looting and shooting.

So we can expect the upcoming DA and ME titles to be structured more in the vein of GaaS / Live Games, including the delivery of story content.

Hardly a surprise in today's marketplace, but I thought this might be interesteing to some here as these have, traditionally, been singleplayer focused franchises (DA:I and ME3 multiplayer offerings notwithstanding, as these were entirely optional affairs) with a more conventional, DLC-based model of distributing additional story content.

Personally speaking I do enjoy GaaS/live games - if I want a more traditional, offline experience there is plenty of premium indie games that fill that particular niche (think: the Pillars games).

 

[John Clark]

Well, Anthem has yet to be of interest (to me) and I'm really not a multiplayer type. I guess I'll be waiting for the reviews when this drops. Earlier Bioware games have been pre-orders for me so we'll see how this goes.

 

[Owain Taggart]

That doesn't really say much beyond sounding like the next games could be competitive multiplayer games, although it does sound a little ridiculous for those franchises.

 

[Jax]

The Live Service model cannot become the norm and succeed because people don't have enough cash to support the majority of the AAA gaming industry simultaneously running numerous live services at once...

This new model is going to burn HARD.

 

[kirk55555]

Well, it looks like I won't be playing any DA or ME games. ME2 is my favorite game of all time, but I don't want to play Destiny type games, no matter what paint job EA gives it.

 

[Reverend]

Yeah, games that depend on an constant revenue stream either from subscription fees, microtransations or frequent content expansions have two main problems.
First: as pointed out already it's a zero-sum game. Most people can't afford to keep up with more than one such game (if any!) which means they tend to have a very short lifespan and leads to problem number two: population crashes. As the next new game comes out, most of the early adopters will jump ship and move on. Those left behind will find the game less appealing and thus no longer worth the cost and will also go elsewhere. Word generally gets around if a game is dying and thus it is usually dead soon after.

What it all boils down to is that there can only be so many such games around at a time since that's all the market can support. The more a company rolls into trying to knock the top earner off it's perch, the more they risk loosing and the more desperate for quick revenue return on their next attempt before the company goes bankrupt and the corporate overlords cut their losses and liquidate.
I suspect this cycle is at least partly why so many publishers have been more and more aggressively pushing what are essentially software based gambling machines into AAA games (on top of the retail price!)

Bottom line: it's not sustainable and the winners in the end are going to be the smaller studios that can turn out quality single player experiences on a modest budget for a sustainable profit margin.

As far as future Bioware games are concerned: I have less and less interest in 'Anthem' the more I hear about it and MEA has made me very wary of investing in any new ME or DA game before the reviews are in and the first round of major patches are done.

 

[Owain Taggart]

The Live Service model cannot become the norm and succeed because people don't have enough cash to support the majority of the AAA gaming industry simultaneously running numerous live services at once...

Yeah, exactly. There comes a point where there's a line of diminishing returns. All these games as services, a format previously made popular via MMOs, are all fighting for relevance. The more of them there are, the more will crash and burn and the harsh reality that these companies will have to realize is that pockets are not infinite and the market will soon become saturated. Some will see the light of day, some will not, and I feel bad for those developers of those that have their projects fail. But what can we do, right? The sad thing about this model is that it prioritizes the big developers over the small ones, because the small ones just don't have the leverage to do this kind of thing.

On the other hand, I agree that the small developers will end up winning out in the end due to them being able to be flexible and deliver unique experiences. The profit chasers will end up losing their tails.

 

[SPCTRE]

y'all are talking about money being finite and I'm over here wishing I had the fucking time to keep up with several GaaS type products simultaneously!

The Division is fun, but it's going to have a hard time keeping my interest if I'm already invested in Destiny - same will go for Anthem. I don't agree with all assessments here, but this aspect I think is very valid. There is a finite market for AAA live games that require this level of investment (money, time, attention).

 

[SPCTRE]

currently pre-loading the Anthem Demo (Xbox One X), VIP Access for preorders starts on Friday

 

[Owain Taggart]

y'all are talking about money being finite and I'm over here wishing I had the fucking time to keep up with several GaaS type products simultaneously!

Time is money. And money is time

 

[matthunter]

Wait, Bioware are still interested in more ME games after the Andromeda farago?

Good news - that universe was too interesting to just die.

 

[McDuck]

^^^
Andromeda wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be after the launch problems that were the headline story of every gaming site from here to Mars. It was unpolished, but a rather fun extension to the ME franchise on the whole.

I don't know much about Anthem yet, but I do wonder how a competitive multiplayer Mass Effect would work. My initial reaction is to turn around and run in the other direction as all I can think of is Destiny and Star Wars Battlefront II, neather of which appealed to me, but who knows how they'd do it at this stage.

 

[-Brett-]

If Mass Effect and Dragon Age weren't already dead to me, they would be after reading this.

 

[matthunter]

^^^
Andromeda wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be after the launch problems that were the headline story of every gaming site from here to Mars. It was unpolished, but a rather fun extension to the ME franchise on the whole.

I don't know much about Anthem yet, but I do wonder how a competitive multiplayer Mass Effect would work. My initial reaction is to turn around and run in the other direction as all I can think of is Destiny and Star Wars Battlefront II, neather of which appealed to me, but who knows how they'd do it at this stage.

Yeah I enjoyed the story of Andromeda and was sorry they decided not to progress it further.

Destiny is a pity as the backstory to the world is great, but they are focusing less and less on single-player story content (Forsaken gave us a bit but I was hoping for more) and more on group-grind. Which is fine considering it's an MMO but they have really prioritised the hardcore "spends hours a day" players.

 

[BillJ]

Much like Fallout '76, these would be a hard pass for me.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Anthem is exactly how i expected it to be, a mish mash of Destiny, Titanfall and The Division, and all wrapped up in a games as services saftey blanet. lol

 

[SPCTRE]

I'm not satisfied with what's on offer in Anthem right now, and I'm running out of patience with GaaS-type experiences at this point (I want an enjoyable game now, not 12 months down the line after a series of updates and improvements)

three major criticisms:

• loot is bland and unexciting (which is a problem if you're trying to make a loot shooter)
• the core gameplay / combat mechanics don't spark joy for me (contrast this with the "30 seconds of fun" loop Bungie has perfected)
• the game feels way too janky as soon as there is a slight lag in the server connection (especially jarring with the otherwise fantastic flying mechanics)

I will say the game looks very good on a technical level (art direction is... eh, not the most inspired) and I could live with the forgettable story and overly quirky characters, but the game simply is not going to be able to hold my attention beyond the main story. Content drops per their roadmap won't be enough.

 

[Reverend]

Not really surprised about the uninspired loot. Bioware have a pretty poor track record with this, even with the DA games where loot was part of the core mechanics. Even then it was mostly just a handful of designs endlessly re-skinned with *slightly* better stats. Hell, what they did with the loot pool for MEA's MP was downright obnoxious to the point it turned getting good or fun gear from "a bit of a grind" to "an interminable sisyphean chore" and pretty much killed what little interest I still had in the game.

 

[JD]

I wonder if the reception that Anthem seems to have gotten will change their minds on this.
As much as I loved the Mass Effect games I've pretty much found myself kind of meh on Anthem from the beginning. I prefer story driven single player games to MMOs or competitive online games, so I'd hate to see ME shift to the later style.

 

[captainkirk]

I wonder what the chances would be of another publisher buying Bioware away from EA. I imagine very low, but I can dream. If their future games are influenced by Anthem then I hold out very little hope for the future of Mass Effect.

Disclaimer: I have not played Anthem so I cannot judge it based on plot and characters, but I do know that I don't want ME to become online only, to become more focused on microtransactions and loot boxes, or to become part of EA's games as a service model. That's fine for free-to-play shooters like APEX: Legends, but ME needs to remain a single-player RPG.