Pachter: ME3 "Whining" May Have Driven BioWare Docs Away

[MasterMace]

If you don't make a game right, you will get complaints. Get over it. What you need in a video game for gamers to like it is straightforward. Does it require work? yes. Lots of it.

In the end, you will have a loyal fanbase that will buy your work.

 

[teh_chem]

First of all, this guy sounds like a self-righteous douche.

Second of all, I don't think the consumers "whining" over ME3's ending had much to do with pushing the two guys away. I'm sure it has to do with fundamental philosophical differences between what they want in a product vs. what the higher-ups are now demanding. You could take out the customers whining and the same would still be true. If their higher-ups are telling them to push a product that doesn't align with their ideals, there's no reason for them to stay--irrespective of whether a customer ever sees it or not. It's called having values and ethics.

Lastly, I didn't play the game, nor any of the others in the series, but the apparent recurring problem to me is not (only) the varying quality from game studios, but most importantly the self-entitlement and instant gratification issues of customers (this also rings-true with the D3 "always on" DRM that so many people yelled about at debut). I've purchased some wretched games--truly awful ones that were apparently big-budget titles--but in the end, it's my responsibility as a consumer for what I buy. If people truly are so enraged (except I still believe that what we experienced was the vocal minority, not the representative majority), they ought to be careful with what they buy, and speak with their wallets in the future and not buy something(s). And not be so mindlessly willing to pre-order something just because it is the continuation of a franchise. As an example, I'm embarrassed by the recent COD franchise titles--nothing at all (IMHO) of what the core of the franchise used to be. But of course, that's my opinion, but it guides what and how I buy things, and it seems to be a very common sense sort of thing that most (vocal) consumers completely disregard.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]tgoods44[/nom]I mean... they talk about the whining etc etc... but we all know what EA does to companies it buys. It happened again. EA has a perfect track record of this. It becomes about money, and not great games. Look at any of their IPs and you will see it. Not saying they don't occassionally make good games, but money is the defining factor sitting on them.[/citation]

one of the current guys at ea went into a press conference recently, and patted his own back saying that "i never green lit a game unless it has some multiplayer functionality"
now take a look at launch mass effect 3 requiring you to play online to get 5000 points.

[citation][nom]boogalooelectric[/nom]Lots of immaturity to go around here. The whiners for sure as they are typically a vocal minority that ruin things for others.But I have a problem with this attitude of 'If you don't like my game, I'll take my ball and go home.'Where is the professionalism? How about taking the criticism and other pro's and con's then using it to refine the next game?[/citation]

people who went online and complained, yea, somewhat a minority
but people who really didnt like the endings?
they were acually the majority.

[citation][nom]BigMack70[/nom]These people need to get a clue...For one thing, the complaints (at least the legit, non-trolling ones) had nothing to do with ME3's ending not being "happy". The ending was horrible in a number of ways, and none of them have to do with it being "sad".For another, one of the guys who left already said on Twitter that he didn't leave b/c of the fan feedback on ME3 and SWTOR.[/citation]

the only way for that last 10 minutes to make sense with the original endings was indoctrination
after the patch... they made it not so much...
honestly, indoc was the only thing that would have saved that ending and made it a masterpiece
with the red waking shepard up on earth only to see nothing he/she did mattered in the long run.
what we are left with now however, is just a crap ending on one of the better storys in gaming this generation.

[citation][nom]timw03878[/nom]"whiners"lolAttention stupid people.. We bought a product. We are the consumer. We are entitled to make our complaints known as to avoid more bullshit endings and bad games.This is how the consumer exercises their power...By complaining, by boycotting, by not voting with their dollars.Blizzard is the perfect example of this..Consumers rewarded blizzard with money in essence saying "we approve of how Diablo 3 was handled"If you are an uninformed consumer, an emotional product buyer, you can't blame anyone but yourself for making poor purchasing decisions.This is why I never pre order games, and wait till reviews come out from USERS, not paid reviewers.Video games is a very competitive industry. I'm glad those guys left. They could obviously not handle it, which will free up room for more talented people who listen to their customer base and provide products we want.This "Michael Pachter" is dead wrong in this regard.[/citation]

they left due to ea, not the pressure of the fan reaction...
though the fan reaction probably was the last straw, just not the same way pacter thinks.
the game got delayed for multiplayer, and probably got rushed when multiplayer was done as ea doesnt give a crap about single player, they than saw the reaction that people had... and just couldn't continue with working for ea.

[citation][nom]ddpruitt[/nom]It wasn't whining, the ending in ME 3 made no sense when compared with the rest of the game. And it was ending, not endings.It wasn't the ending in particular, there was a big difference in the quality from ME 1 to ME 3. Any studio sucked up by EA tends to go downhill.[/citation]

again, indoc theory, it makes all those ends make sense, and explains the breathing scene as the very end.

[citation][nom]spartanmk2[/nom]How about growing a pair and realizing that maybe instead of blaming the fan base who pays your bills, you could "retire" and start a new company outside EA's sphere of influence, like how Blizzard North devs left and created Runic games and still do what they like (TL2) and do it better.[/citation]

spending how many years creating a AAA gaming company. and lets not mistake anything here, ea isnt the sole thing to blame... its anyone who wants money out of games fast...

they would not get an investor and would really be putting up the bills themselves, sure they probably have the money to do it... but how many people know who they are? outside of bioware makes great games, how many people look at the people behind the company?

i doubt they would make a return to AAA game makeing within 10 years, if ever depending on financial situations.

[citation][nom]pocketdrummer[/nom]They made promises then they broke them. There's too much of that going on in the gaming industry, so if we're getting less of that, so be it.Pachter is a (edit for language) wit if he thinks this is true. The gaming experience on a PC is quite different from that of a console. Not just due to the controller, but the platform in general. Do you have a 3 monitor setup for consoles? No.Sorry, but PCs have been held back by consoles for YEARS! Low rez textures, capping out servers at 32 instead of 64 in BF3, dumbed down controls and interfaces, etc. If they released the "Xbox 720" 2 years ago, they'd still be too late.Michael Pachter is a moron. I've never heard of him before, and now I know why. Nothing this man says has any real merit. I'm sure he's doing all of this just to gain public awareness of his existence. Pay this idiot no further attention.[/citation]

consoles hold back the visuals, and thats really it. you want to blame gameplay on anyone, blame it on ea and activision for deciding "bare minimum for single player" is ok

textures... they are always higher resolution than the consoles if the games are made for the pc and ported to the console. blame the devs for not doing that

all the consoles really hold the pc back in any way is the visuals, and that is mostly only in games that are deved on the console first, not the pc.

also, pachter is one of the bigger game annalists. his job is to help people with their investments, so he is privy to details that others dont get their hands on. over all, his opinion isn't what we want to hear, but if you take it for what it is, someone who is trying to make money off gaming, than yea, its fairly accurate.

[citation][nom]shin0bi272[/nom]Maybe if the guys at EA had looked up what it means to die a hero's death there wouldnt have been so much complaining about the ending. But hey that might get in the way of profits right? I mean the tale of Mass Effect's downfall can be traced to one guy and its not this tool Pachter... its Drew Karpyshyn. He was the lead writer on ME1 and the co writer on ME2 and on ME3 he was gone... so all that talk about how it was their vision for the end is BS and they know it! EA is dragging down another dev team for the sake of profits over story, canon, and enjoyability. Hey lets take a poll who would rather wait 5-7 years for a great 2nd or 3rd generation to a game and who would rather get the next iteration of a franchise in a year no matter how much it sucks?[/citation]

look at it like this.
you want to devote all your time to game design
but you cant, you are the head
along comes someone who will deal with all the crap the head has to, and you can design games.

i really think thats how it went. not "got to have moar money naow"

 

[Guest]

"You might get good games, [but] they won't be the same."

Whether the Docs stayed or left... I would never get my beloved Bioware back from the days of Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR.

After the utter bastardization of Dragon Age: Origins, as far as I'm concerned, They retired years ago.

 

[bllue]

Yep. A dumbass "analyst" knows more about the doctors' own minds

 

[rohitbaran]

[citation][nom]BigMack70[/nom]These people need to get a clue...For one thing, the complaints (at least the legit, non-trolling ones) had nothing to do with ME3's ending not being "happy". The ending was horrible in a number of ways, and none of them have to do with it being "sad".For another, one of the guys who left already said on Twitter that he didn't leave b/c of the fan feedback on ME3 and SWTOR.[/citation]
Agreed. While no happy ending was a point, the main reason for the outcry was the logical leaps and virtually no connection with the rest of the trilogy. If many people don't like it, they can raise an outcry. What's stopping Bioware from releasing their next game? Also, the docs themselves said they didn't leave because of the outcry. Pachter should rethink what he said.

 

[bigdragon]

Michael Pachter is another clueless talking head. He does not know what he's talking about. He won't badmouth EA because they feed him data that his job depends on. We, the gamers, unfortunately continue to feed EA for some reason. Cut them off and we get rid of people like Michael Pachter belittling gamers for demanding a great level of polish and care for the products game factories like EA have been cranking out. With the indie gaming seen getting bigger and bigger, Kickstarter funding AAA projects now, and the industry moving away from closed consoles to mobile and PC games developed with a very low entry-barrier gamers are no longer tolerating rushed, unfinished, and overly DLC-monetized products.

Michael Pachter's whining makes it clear that the jet setters running companies like EA felt the backlash too. They're on notice. Good job everyone!

 

[madjimms]

So, you people are mad because you didn't like the ending? THAT"S THE FUCKING STORY! DEAL WITH IT.

 

[Guest]

Of course, it was the fans whining that the games were bad that drove them away. Not the infamously crushing work conditions that EA employees have to suffer through, or them not being allowed to make good games they can put their heart and soul into. Why would you think that? Of course it was the whining...

 

[oxiide]

[citation][nom]Hueahueahuea[/nom]Of course, it was the fans whining that the games were bad that drove them away. Not the infamously crushing work conditions that EA employees have to suffer through, or them not being allowed to make good games they can put their heart and soul into. Why would you think that? Of course it was the whining...[/citation]
This is like the eighteenth post basically suggesting that EA had something to do with ME3's ending. By the time anyone found out, the initial buying rush would have ended—so what would be EA's motive to coerce Bioware into anything? In actuality, ME3's ending may have hurt later sales. Definitely not in EA' interests.

 

[Zingam]

I love speculations. How about that one: The docs have grown up and find females more interesting than games now.

 

[bigdragon]

[citation][nom]oxiide[/nom]This is like the eighteenth post basically suggesting that EA had something to do with ME3's ending. By the time anyone found out, the initial buying rush would have ended—so what would be EA's motive to coerce Bioware into anything? In actuality, ME3's ending may have hurt later sales. Definitely not in EA' interests.[/citation]
Coerce? You appear to be coming from the assumption that Bioware is fully independent from EA. It's not anymore. EA works on schedules and budgets. Developers are required to fit the game into a schedule and budget. You make it or you trim the game to make it fit. EA has a very long history of acquiring studios, transitioning them from creation-first to marketing-first, and driving out all the talent that worked at the acquired studio. It's very hard to feel proud about kicking something out the door before it's done. Then of course there's all sorts of stipulations on bonuses, revenue sharing, and other employee benefits that didn't exist prior to acquisition. There's also a ridiculous increase in the number of willpower-draining pointless meetings. Customers whining about an unfinished game is the next best thing to not buying it at all. EA only cares about its sales. The ME3 debacle affected sales.

 

[boferwdkoi]

he said. "The Xbox 360 is probably more powerful than 85-percent of the PCs out there. Again, I'll wait for the flamers to tell me that's wrong, and that it's 79-percent."

http://www.metropolitanlogistics.com/truckload-freight-carrier/

 

[uglynerdman]

I firmly believe they wanted to quit because of EA, they wanted shepard to die. EA woulda probably made the game in "installments buy each piece for 20 bucks etc. multiplayer different segment etc. look@ battlefield. EA is way too greedy

 

[Maxor127]

Old news that's already been denied. Either way, if you're going to make bad design decisions, then get ready for fan backlash. It was a bad ending. There's really no debate except for some misguided belief that there's some sort of artistic vision that needs to be protected and shouldn't be influenced by fan wrath.

 

[magnetite]

I did a slow playthrough of the entire trilogy which took roughly 3 weeks. Based on all the stuff I gathered, the ending is an indoctrination attempt. I'm sure if anyone does the same as I did, they'll probably come to the same conclusion. Before anyone says that Bioware didn't intend this indoctrination plot, there are several indications of indoctrination.

Not to mention, Shepard is showing pretty much every single symptom of going through an indoctrination attempt during the ending (read the codex, and verify it yourself if you want).

Most people who hated the ending just rushed to the end, and when they took the story into a literal sense, that's where they may have gotten lost. One of the designers on the Mass Effect 3 team stated that there are several non-literal interpretations throughout the game.

If people took their time with the game and gathered all the facts, instead of finishing it in a couple days, then the reaction to the ending could have been avoided. Games weren't meant to be finished in a couple days. They're usually meant to be finished slowly. Honestly, I understood what was going on before the ending started. I was not one to rage about the endings because I had all the facts going in. If everyone had all the facts, then they probably wouldn't be as mad.

 

[slabbo]

This is one reason why I'll support Nintendo more than MS or Sony. They are willing to take creative risks first and kinda not give a shit what the whiners say and hope it creates them money to prove the whiners wrong, while MS and Sony will only do it if they know for sure that they can squeeze a few more coins into their pocket. MS and Sony don't lead their industries, they just follow what Nintendo does or waits for Nintendo to do it first then do something similar in their own way.

 

[m32]

My eyes bleed from reading about this jerk.

 

[kyuuketsuki]

[citation][nom]magnetite[/nom]Honestly, I understood what was going on before the ending started. I was not one to rage about the endings because I had all the facts going in. If everyone had all the facts, then they probably wouldn't be as mad.[/citation]
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the indoctrination theory, and I *wish* it was the actual explanation for the ending. But, according to BioWare, it's not. The ending is supposed to be taken at face value.

On topic, this "analyst" is obviously a hack. Better to just ignore him; giving him undeserved attention will only feed his undeserved sense of self-worth.

 

[dimitrik]

Actually the people who are really "entitled whiners" are gaming company execs and their butt-kissing hangers-on.
They take their customers for granted, since they think that releasing an inferior copy of last year's game with updated graphics is enough to fool gamers into parting with their hard earned cash year after year. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

Just go into all these articles about whining and replace the word "gamers" with the word "consumers".

Not "whining gamers" but "whining consumers". Sounds stupid doesn't it?

 

[Marcus52]

I tend to agree with him about the whining, but he was clearly off mark about PC gaming. That being said, developers that cave in to the minority of whiners in a game have only themselves to blame for diluting their own creativity.

 

[blppt]

[citation][nom]oxiide[/nom]I happened to like ME3 much better than ME1, with ME2 being my favorite by far. I say that not because I think my opinion matters more than yours—it doesn't—but because I just want to point out that its not an objective fact that Bioware went downhill after acquisition by EA. Other opinions exist.You do realize, this wasn't a Bioware employee...right?And "whiners" might be a little too diplomatic. Many of them were outright lunatics.[/citation]

I liked ME2 the best as well, but overall, I think ME3 being too short and confined-feeling made it fall behind ME1 for me.

 

[manny_bones]

Yes, because when audiences and critics whine about how bad a movie is, that director usually quits Hollywood and goes into cooking or something. That's why Michael Bay hasn't made a movie in ten years.

Wait...

 

[jscynder]

Remember this guy called us whiny not the game devs.

 

[Timberwolf_CLT]

So, Michael, do you:

1) Actually play any of these games or any games at all? You sound like an "Angry Birds" king of player to me.

2) Do research (as in actually talk to the folks involved) or do you just regurgitate rumors?