EA Reaffirms Its Commitment to 'Live Service for Anthem' Despite Not Meeting Expectations

SBFord

EA Reaffirms Its Commitment to 'Live Service for Anthem' Despite Not Meeting Expectations

The EA earnings report for Q1 2019 is in the bag with the gaming conglomerate reaffirming its support to "the live service for Anthem". EA's Andrew Wilson admitted that the game had not lived up to expectations but said, "We believe in the team at BioWare, and we also believe in what they set out to achieve with this game -- building a new IP and melding genres to reach a new audience."

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UNH0LYEV1L

They really shouldn’t. While the flying and combat is fun, the loot/character building is so bad and boring it’s unrewarding to play. The game is also completely devoid of content... Perhaps worst of all the game has no MMO traits. Its just a match making service. Even their trailers straight up lied by showing bustling cities filled with NPCs and players.

Just let it die! Fire the employees and regroup with an actual decent game.

[Deleted User]

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Aeander

I still do want this game to grow into something great. It's like playing a demo of the most fun looter shooter ever made, only to realize that the demo is the full game. They need more content and a better progression system.

OhhPaigey

Even if the team was in shambles does anybody expect EA to come out & say it?

That's not a good thing to say, that's how you directly decrease sales and profit.

gunklacker

i guess the 2 devs left and the janitor emptying the garbage cans is what they consider Commitment - dumpster fire

gervaise1

OhhPaigey said:

Even if the team was in shambles does anybody expect EA to come out & say it?

That's not a good thing to say, that's how you directly decrease sales and profit.

Yes I do. I'm not saying you don't have to read exactly what is said but in general they haven't been going out of their way to sugar coat their results. When the launch of Battlefield IV went wrong, for example, they said so. And when it comes to reporting their results they focus on GAAP numbers these days (non-GAAP introduces "interpretation" - our results are bad but let me tell you why they are not!).

And in the case of Anthem I think their comments reflect that the game wasn't an unmitigated disaster. It wasn't a No Man's Sky or the aforementioned Battlefield IV say. Nor, however, was it a runaway success.

gervaise1

"our expectations for fiscal 2020: in dollar terms, we expect the gaming software
market to grow 7% over calendar 2018, with mobile up 12%, console up 4% and PC flat."

Unlike many estimates we see EA have a lot of actual data - rather than responses from panels say - on which to make these predictions. On the plus side as far as PC gaming goes its not a decline!

Xasapis

I think that at this point Bioware spent any remnants of goodwill sales they didn't manage to lose with Andromeda. I would be surprised if the pre-orders of the new Dragonage aren't practically zero.

3dom

They've said they are "doubling down on Anthem". I guess it's Anthem 1 * 2 = Anthem 2

Thane

imo EA can do whatever they want right now, they HAVE done enough in the past time.
and all that we (gamers) saw was one permanent statement: we are about money, we don't care too much about what you guys think or want (or maybe they just couldn't understand it anymore, who knows).

and THAT is the only thing that actually comes up to my mind when thinking about EA.
they used to make great games, but that.... is in the past.

if they wanna fix their reputation, then they should finally stop talking and show us they actually are able to change something.

ofc every production is about money, but if that becomes your primary focus, this is what it ends like.

anemo

The dev team wasted so much time on things ranging from leader incompetence, to making Frostbite a useful engine for something besides Battlefield.

It no surprise it's a hot mess.

sipu

Thane said:

imo EA can do whatever they want right now, they HAVE done enough in the past time.

and all that we (gamers) saw was one permanent statement: we are about money, we don't care too much about what you guys think or want (or maybe they just couldn't understand it anymore, who knows).



and THAT is the only thing that actually comes up to my mind when thinking about EA.

they used to make great games, but that.... is in the past.



if they wanna fix their reputation, then they should finally stop talking and show us they actually are able to change something.



ofc every production is about money, but if that becomes your primary focus, this is what it ends like.

Cool, cool, but EA didn't made Anthem, nor they did Battlefield, Battlefront etc. They are only publishers in this case. Your ignorance pushes you into unnecessary hatred.

Arglebargle

skadad said:

with what they did to Battlefield, battlefront and mass effect, I am not preordering any EA games.

I haven't bought a bioware game of theirs since DAO and ME2.  Nor any other.  Certainly not considering it at anything like full price.  Just another small reason their PC sales are flat.

gervaise1

sipu said:

Thane said:

<snip>

Cool, cool, but EA didn't made Anthem, nor they did Battlefield, Battlefront etc. They are only publishers in this case. Your ignorance pushes you into unnecessary hatred.

EA is the sum of the studios it owns. And these days most of them use the same game creation software as well - which means that "help" can be co-opted from other studios if needed. And the EA board has ultimate managerial and financial control of all of their studios; they assign the studio heads, the agree their budgets. 

There are occasions when established companies publish games that are 100% made by others. This is not one of those cases.

There is also the more complicated case of e.g. Activision Blizzard contracting Bungee to made Destiny, or EA contracting Respawn to make Titanfall - before EA bought Respawn. These relationships are more nuanced and contractual. This is not one of these cases either.

EA made Anthem.

goboygo

"We believe in the team at BioWare, and we also believe in what they set out to achieve with this game -- building a new IP and melding genres to reach a new audience."

Or they could just make quality games again for their existing player base and they wouldn't have to go out to "reach a new audience"

Octagon7711

EA making Bioware use a game engine that that had to be modified to do what they needed it to do is really what messed-up Anthem.   From what I've read you end up spending more time getting the engine to do what you need then actually working on the game.

esc-joconnor

Aw, so nice of them to do what I'm pretty sure they are legally bound to do.

Iselin

sipu said:

Thane said:

imo EA can do whatever they want right now, they HAVE done enough in the past time.

and all that we (gamers) saw was one permanent statement: we are about money, we don't care too much about what you guys think or want (or maybe they just couldn't understand it anymore, who knows).



and THAT is the only thing that actually comes up to my mind when thinking about EA.

they used to make great games, but that.... is in the past.



if they wanna fix their reputation, then they should finally stop talking and show us they actually are able to change something.



ofc every production is about money, but if that becomes your primary focus, this is what it ends like.

Cool, cool, but EA didn't made Anthem, nor they did Battlefield, Battlefront etc. They are only publishers in this case. Your ignorance pushes you into unnecessary hatred.

They're the ones pushing Frosbite and GaaS down the throat of every studio they own so "only publishers" is a pretty idiotic take on their influence/fault.

cmacq

Still....it's better than hearing the game is not going to be supported.....