Mass Effect Andromeda is abandoned by EA. A big warning sign for the "Games as a Service" Culture.

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Mass Effect Andromeda was plagued with bugs, a lack of caring, and the desire by EA to sit down and get ready with the milking process. Sadly, there was just so much negative hype around the game that it severely failed in the eyes of Bioware and EA to the point that it closed the studio that produced it and said that the final patch that was released was the last one for the single player ever [https://www.masseffect.com/news/mass-effect-andromeda-update-from-the-studio]. This includes all planned DLC, including the Quarian Ark.

This makes me recoil in repulsion and anger.

This is the new world of "Games as a Service" mindset. Not only are our games carved up so to get a complete experience, but now we only get a complete experience if the higher ups deem it profitable.

How are we still accepting of this? I don't mind DLC. As long as it's an addendum to a story. "Oh, we found this portal to a new world that has it's own problems. Let's go!" is a perfectly good DLC in my mind if I love the game. But "Hey, hey kid. This super important part of your quest will always be hinted to, it's something that you directly know about, and you can't do anything about it until the developers decide to realize it" fucking sucks. These developers know where they are going. They plan it out. And they hold it back for more of our money.

Because games are a service. And they need to do something always to keep you playing (read: paying). But this is my opinion. I'm sure there are others. I'm sure there are others who are actually ok with "Games as a Service" culture. If you're reading this, I simply just have one thing to ask you:

Do you not feel tired of gambling your money and your time to see if the developers will honor their promises to give you a full experience? Or do you think "Core" games are enough and everything else (even if hinted in the main game proper) is just icing on the cake?

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I am more than a little pissed that they abandoned that game. Did it have problems? Yes. Oh my yes. But it had a chance to iron out all the bugs--or most of them--if they kept going. And they didn't resolve ANYTHING in the main game, and then they had the nerve to put that Quarian Ark tease at the end.
If I could, I would return my copy of the game and get a full refund, but alas it is well past that point. All I can say is that the Mass Effect team has lost all of my respect. Casey Hudson has a damn mountain to climb if he wants me to ever even consider looking at anything Mass Effect related again.
Yes, that even goes for if they re-release the original trilogy on current consoles.

 

[Zhukov]

Doesn't really bother me.

Regarding the whole OMG-they're-carving-up-muh-games thing, let's take a worst case scenario. Let's say a story-based game is released with the final 30% of the game including the ending sold separately as on-disc DLC. That's effectively just a price increase. Price increases suck, but they're just part of a free market economy, not some sinister anti-consumer conspiracy.

As a consumer, I'd obviously prefer that publishers not increase prices or pull their various shenanigans. But what I prefer doesn't mean shit. After all, as a consumer I'd also prefer they sell every complete game for 50c. I know that's a completely unrealistic expectation though, so I don't get angry when it doesn't happen.

Same goes for expecting publishers to continue releasing content for a financial failure (and in this case all-round shit game) like Mass Effect Andromeda.

Same goes for investing in quirky passion projects or taking big risks with the massive amounts of money involved in game development.

This is a marketplace. The people who make and sell games will make as much profit as they can get away with. If they overstep in their profit-seeking then people will not buy their luxury goods and they will either change their practices or go out of business. The fact that people are still buying into games-as-a-service and DLC despite all the moaning and complaining indicates that publishers have not yet overstepped.

If you're someone who is genuinely opposed to these various business practices and who actually refuses to financially reward them but is frustrated by the hordes of "sheeple" who don't care and continue to hand over their cash then welcome to being irrelevant. The market is not catering to you because the money is elsewhere. If that bothers you then too bad. Maybe things will change in time.

Meanwhile, hey, now you know what it's like to not enjoy open-world games, or to want more diverse protagonists, or to enjoy squad-level turn-based strategy, or to not like Borderlands etc etc.

 

[Dalisclock]

I'm bummed about this. I was holding off on buying this hoping the patches and maybe DLC would fix the game into something I'd want to buy. I guess now there's no point, since apparently the game still has major issues structurally which will now never be fixed or improved upon in a sequel.

 

[Saelune]

I am more than a little pissed that they abandoned that game. Did it have problems? Yes. Oh my yes. But it had a chance to iron out all the bugs--or most of them--if they kept going. And they didn't resolve ANYTHING in the main game, and then they had the nerve to put that Quarian Ark tease at the end.
If I could, I would return my copy of the game and get a full refund, but alas it is well past that point. All I can say is that the Mass Effect team has lost all of my respect. Casey Hudson has a damn mountain to climb if he wants me to ever even consider looking at anything Mass Effect related again.
Yes, that even goes for if they re-release the original trilogy on current consoles.

Dont blame the Mass Effect team! Its not their fault. They were too busy not working at Bioware anymore ;P

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

 

[Kerg3927]

Zhukov pretty much nailed it. It's a free market.

I don't care that much about the presence of DLC in games as long as the base game is good. IMO, the best recent Bioware games were Dragon Age: Origins and the Mass Effect trilogy. All 4 of those games were great because of the core game, not the DLC. The DLC was just bonus material. That said, I almost always buy all of the available DLC for games I play, because I am a completionist.

The ME trilogy, which I view as all one big game, is maybe my favorite game of all time. But I hate the massive open world direction Bioware has taken with DAI and MEA, and the quality of writing seems to have fallen off by quite a bit.

I was very apprehensive about MEA's release, because I was fully expecting DAI in space, and I very much disliked DAI. I was curious but dreading it at the same time. But as the release date approached, I figured, hey, it's freaking Mass Effect, my favorite game series. I will HAVE to check it out no matter what. So I pre-ordered it for $60.

The release came, followed by the disaster reviews and the almost universally negative community feedback. I played through the first few hours of the game, just to get a feel for it myself. Meh. Story seemed really dumb. None of the characters in the early going seemed interesting, including the protagonist. Bioware said they were rolling out patches to fix many of the issues and improve the game, so I decided to shelve it for a couple of months and take a wait and see. Then Bioware basically acknowledges that the game was a failure and says they are pulling the plug on future support.

I probably wasn't going to like it anyway, because it's massive open world and fetch-quest heavy like DAI by all accounts. But now I'll probably never play it. I wasted $60. And I'm just going to pretend it never happened. Bioware is a dead company to me now... unless Casey Hudson is somehow able to resurrect it, but I'm not holding my breath. How much of a difference can one guy make? The cynic in me says he's probably there to make a cash grab before Bioware's ship finally disappears beneath the waves.

 

[Saelune]

Zhukov pretty much nailed it. It's a free market.

I don't care that much about the presence of DLC in games as long as the base game is good. IMO, the best recent Bioware games were Dragon Age: Origins and the Mass Effect trilogy. All 4 of those games were great because of the core game, not the DLC. The DLC was just bonus material. That said, I almost always buy all of the available DLC for games I play, because I am a completionist.

The ME trilogy, which I view as all one big game, is maybe my favorite game of all time. But I hate the massive open world direction Bioware has taken with DAI and MEA, and the quality of writing seems to have fallen off by quite a bit.

I was very apprehensive about MEA's release, because I was fully expecting DAI in space, and I very much disliked DAI. I was curious but dreading it at the same time. But as the release date approached, I figured, hey, it's freaking Mass Effect, my favorite game series. I will HAVE to check it out no matter what. So I pre-ordered it for $60.

The release came, followed by the disaster reviews and the almost universally negative community feedback. I played through the first few hours of the game, just to get a feel for it myself. Meh. Story seemed really dumb. None of the characters in the early going seemed interesting, including the protagonist. Bioware said they were rolling out patches to fix many of the issues and improve the game, so I decided to shelve it for a couple of months and take a wait and see. Then Bioware basically acknowledges that the game was a failure and says they are pulling the plug on future support.

I probably wasn't going to like it anyway, because it's massive open world and fetch-quest heavy like DAI by all accounts. But now I'll probably never play it. I wasted $60. And I'm just going to pretend it never happened. Bioware is a dead company to me now... unless Casey Hudson is somehow able to resurrect it, but I'm not holding my breath. How much of a difference can one guy make? The cynic in me says he's probably there to make a cash grab before Bioware's ship finally disappears beneath the waves.

Zhukov nailed nihilistic complacency. Just because something is how it is, doesnt mean it is how it should be.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I don't really see the danger in this.

Andromeda got cut loose, not because the publishers just decided it wasn't profitable enough by their unreasonable estimations, but because the game was a giant piece of crap/critical dud/pr nightmare. EA decided not to put in anymore money and effort into a product so severely despised by the public.

And ignoring that, I don't really lose any sleep over whether or not a game gets post-release content. Games that are made for the sole purpose of squirting out DLC for the following years I tend to stay away from anyway. And RPGs like Fall-Out, Mass Effect, and The Witcher are large enough on their own.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I couldn't agree with OP more.
Games as a service is downright ridiculous and heads the loooong list of problems with today's current gaming market.

In the case of ME Andromeda, it isn't even profitable by their own standards. Not to mention the negative press.
Look at No Man's Sky as a comparison. They've kept churning out update after update and bugfix after bugfix.
One of the most disappointing releases ever has managed to turn it around and won the hearts of their detractors.

That said however, even NMS still suffer from horrible console thinking and UI.
Should have been made as a PC game first and foremost, then ported.
It would still be better than the other way around.

 

[Hawki]

I don't see how Andromeda fits the "game as a service" model. That model, as I understand, is to have a core product and add to it over time. MMOs are an example of this, in that they'll only operate as long as the servers are running. So you pay a subscription fee (in the classical model) to continually get content. Even without such a fee, the idea still exists.

Andromeda is more a single game with DLC. There was no preposition of Andromeda being supported indefinately. In theory, there'd have been a Mass Effect 5 if it had sold better.

 

[Imre Csete]

My franchise is tired.

I am a Battleborn owner, and even that game got more post-release support than Mass Effect Andromeda.

This isn't a games as service issue, the writing was on the wall for this game ever since they announced it. Even the Kotaku article got proven, this was a mismanaged project given to the B team.

 

[Ogoid]

I once got an impassioned "Games as a Service is the future" speech from a friend over my refusal to buy Diablo 3 because of its business model. My response?

"Then that future will have to do without me."

It's not like I don't have plenty of other hobbies (not to mention a huge backlog of games I can play or re-play instead) and just need to put up with that predatory, anti-consumer horseshit.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

This has also happened with Mankind Divided, if anyone cares to remember. That didn't have that much negative PR, only slightly disappointing sales and a shitty few Squeenix enforced business practices (including splitting the game in half). So now the story is not concluded, ended with a cliffhanger/twist and they shelved it to work on something superhero related cos that's where the monies at, kiddos! Complete story arc? Hell no!

Oh and Hitman. Which I'm guessing will have no bloody conclusion now too. 6 levels and no satisfying finish. The game just peters out with a sad dying whimper and of course nothing gets resolved, only more empty promises held behind their idea of some sequel hook. I was legitimately interested to see a conclusion of some sort there, but nevermind. Good thing i stick to pre-owned for these types.

These are specific publishers choosing to do this. Plenty do not still, and their titles are all the better for it. It's a choice, not a necessity. Stories deserve endings, even controversial ones like Mass Effect 3! That's what people buy single-player adventures for. Otherwise people can tell they're being led on purely to increase profit margins, and that, funnily enough, turns a few of them away from those specific entertainments when there are far more trusted creators that provide complete narratives.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

this was a mismanaged project given to the B team.

But we have to ask ourselves why did EA decide to give one of their most prized IP's to Bioware's B team?

It's because they thought that it would sell regardless of the quality. EA doesn't give a fuck about the quality of their games. If they think that the game will sell on name alone, they'll do whatever they can to reduce the costs of developing the game. And if it fails, that's fine too. They'll just blame someone else, kill the franchise and move on to milk another IP.

EA is practically known for doing that. And despite all of their promises every time something like this happens, they keep doing it over and over again because they know that most gamers are stupid and they have very short memories. And they will keep doing the same thing until people learn to ignore their games like they don't exist.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

This in my eyes is just one of those "you get what you deserve" kind of situations for anyone who supported them. If you buy it, they will keep doing it. Just play other things. There's definitely tons of less "popular" or "big name" series out there that don't pull this crap.


But no, people will just play this because it has the name Mass Effect, so of course they'll get taken advantage of.

 

[sanquin]

This in my eyes is just one of those "you get what you deserve" kind of situations for anyone who supported them. If you buy it, they will keep doing it. Just play other things. There's definitely tons of less "popular" or "big name" series out there that don't pull this crap.


But no, people will just play this because it has the name Mass Effect, so of course they'll get taken advantage of.

I agree. Right from the start when games started to become a service rather than a full product to buy, people warned about what the future would hold if we went down that path. Always online games that could be taken offline and thus made unplayable. Publishers deciding that they don't want a game to be played any more so they get removed entirely. Or in this case, a game with tons of problems that gets cut loose before everything that was hinted at or promised is released.

This is not the gaming experience we need/want, but it IS the gaming experience we deserve because people keep buying into it. Because "omg, new shiny game with tons of hype! I can't NOT buy it! Who cares about the future, I want to play this right now!"

 

[Kerg3927]

Zhukov nailed nihilistic complacency. Just because something is how it is, doesnt mean it is how it should be.

And if you don't want to be "complacent," you have exactly two options...

1) don't buy it
2) convince others not to buy it

Anything else is just shaking your fist at the weather.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Doesn't really bother me.

Regarding the whole OMG-they're-carving-up-muh-games thing, let's take a worst case scenario. Let's say a story-based game is released with the final 30% of the game including the ending sold separately as on-disc DLC. That's effectively just a price increase. Price increases suck, but they're just part of a free market economy, not some sinister anti-consumer conspiracy.

As a consumer, I'd obviously prefer that publishers not increase prices or pull their various shenanigans. But what I prefer doesn't mean shit. After all, as a consumer I'd also prefer they sell every complete game for 50c. I know that's a completely unrealistic expectation though, so I don't get angry when it doesn't happen.

Same goes for expecting publishers to continue releasing content for a financial failure (and in this case all-round shit game) like Mass Effect Andromeda.

Same goes for investing in quirky passion projects or taking big risks with the massive amounts of money involved in game development.

This is a marketplace. The people who make and sell games will make as much profit as they can get away with. If they overstep in their profit-seeking then people will not buy their luxury goods and they will either change their practices or go out of business. The fact that people are still buying into games-as-a-service and DLC despite all the moaning and complaining indicates that publishers have not yet overstepped.

If you're someone who is genuinely opposed to these various business practices and who actually refuses to financially reward them but is frustrated by the hordes of "sheeple" who don't care and continue to hand over their cash then welcome to being irrelevant. The market is not catering to you because the money is elsewhere. If that bothers you then too bad. Maybe things will change in time.

Meanwhile, hey, now you know what it's like to not enjoy open-world games, or to want more diverse protagonists, or to enjoy squad-level turn-based strategy, or to not like Borderlands etc etc.

I don't mind the concept of DLCs themselves. In fact, I look forward to DLC in a world that I like, as I mentioned in my OP. Addenda
are all I ask. Parts of the world opened up that had nothing to do with the main story. The idea of reaching a conclusion to a game to hear "That was fun, wasn't it? But you don't know the whole story. 20 dollars to complete the story, please." is galling to me.

Why? Simply because our voices are more important than we think. Save for fighting games (and today, even THAT genre has completion issues) and my Switch, I try not to buy day one any more. I rather wait for the Game of the Year edition where I personally think I'm actually getting my money's worth.

But now, it seems like enough of us think that way that we hold out. And where does the problem lay? In the fact that enough of us want a less buggy and more polished game that we're not told from the beginning "You're not getting the whole story for full price!" that we wait... which harms their sale predictions and desires... and then they decide if they want to really finish the game or not from how many people said that what they received is good enough.

This is the harm of the marketplace. Selling customers less, asking for full price, and then pulling the product from the market because they failed to meet expectations instead of improving on the product. Stockholders demand high return on their investment. It costs a lot of money to keep dev studios open. 5 Million copies at launch or first year still being enough to abandon an IP.

The problem I have with this new system of selling is that my enjoyment isn't enough for the complete experience any more. Everyone else has to agree with me so I can get a completed experience.

My favorite Analogy is the Restaurant one.

You go to a restaurant that you've loved for years. The rub they put on their steak just keeps your taste buds going in all the right ways and their garlic potatoes are the excellent pairing. Their salad is top notch, and they serve drinks with just the right amount of alcohol. The entire meal is at a set price that you deem fair for all the food you get. That meal is pretty much the only reason you go to this restaurant, but you'd go to it every weekend if you could.

One day when you go in, you learn of the new "Portion" selling model. They've added a different blend to the steak rub, something they consider more potent and robust. But with all that time perfecting the right coating of spices, they can only serve you half the salad (sans dressing) and you need to come back in a few weeks to get the garlic potatoes and the rest of the salad. The meal has the set price it always had, but you'll have to pay again when you come back for the rest of the food in a few weeks, due to their reasoning that they just prepared it when you arrived weeks after you paid for the "core" part of your meal.

Oh, and they watered down the drinks for no reason what so ever. In a year, they'll release a classic throwback meal with the regular steak, potatoes, salad, and drinks just the way it used to be. If you want the experience that you've always enjoyed, come back in twelve months time.

You didn't come for portions of your meal. You came for the meal. You came for the same kind of meal they served you for years. The proportions you like, the flavors you love, this is the only reason you come to the restaurant. You stop going. And frankly, a lot of other people stop as well. Of course they'll be shuttered down after a month or two of this, not getting the funds they are accustomed to.

But their direct damage to themselves (causing damages to us consumers) were brought on by stupid practices. It's not that we don't want to pay for our meals. We love the food. We love the experience. But it's that when we pay, we just want the entire dish. I don't want to have to come back in two months time for the potatoes, half a salad, and some dressing.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I don't see how Andromeda fits the "game as a service" model. That model, as I understand, is to have a core product and add to it over time. MMOs are an example of this, in that they'll only operate as long as the servers are running. So you pay a subscription fee (in the classical model) to continually get content. Even without such a fee, the idea still exists.

Andromeda is more a single game with DLC. There was no preposition of Andromeda being supported indefinately. In theory, there'd have been a Mass Effect 5 if it had sold better.

They branded it a "live service [http://kotaku.com/sources-bioware-montreal-downsized-mass-effect-put-on-1795100285]"

When reached for comment, publisher Electronic Arts sent over the following statement, attributed to BioWare Montreal studio director Yanick Roy:

"Our teams at BioWare and across EA put in tremendous effort bringing Mass Effect Andromeda to players around the world. Even as BioWare continues to focus on the Mass Effect Andromeda community and live service, we are constantly looking at how we?re prepared for the next experiences we will create."

 

[Kerg3927]

You stop going. And frankly, a lot of other people stop as well. Of course they'll be shuttered down after a month or two of this, not getting the funds they are accustomed to.

But their direct damage to themselves (causing damages to us consumers) were brought on by stupid practices. It's not that we don't want to pay for our meals. We love the food. We love the experience. But it's that when we pay, we just want the entire dish. I don't want to have to come back in two months time for the potatoes, half a salad, and some dressing.

Here's where your analogy breaks down. The scenario you describe is obviously not what is commonly happening in the gaming industry. For the most part, people are still going to the restaurant. Most of these developers are not "damaging themselves." On the contrary, they are likely making more profits than they were before they instituted these new practices. Otherwise, under pressure from stockholders, they would ditch those practices and go back to the old way of doing things or try something different.

Consumers may not like it, but in the business world, it's never a "stupid practice" if it works, i.e. increases profits.