Bioware's "Anthem"

Qhue · Apr 3, 2019

It isn't that Frostbite caused them to fail so much as that it was a 100 lbs weight hanging around their necks that made everything much more difficult than it should have been. It's been a perpetual handicap that just drains stamina from teams. The whole studio suffered from it for Inquisition and then suffered again for Andromeda then did the same suffering for Anthem all the while having to give up talented engineers who could use the thing to FIFA or just losing people entirely who didn't want to work with the 100 lbs handicap and went elsewhere.

Now the downright stupid thing was not building Andromeda from Inquisition or not building Anthem from Inquisition or Andromeda. They came out and said DA4 will be built using the RPG elements they added to Frostbite for Anthem which will,at least, prevent them from having to reinvent that particular wheel a 4th time.

Its not the sole reason, but it provided enough overarching burden,like a persistent headache, that crippled any other work that was done in parallel.

Zindan · Apr 3, 2019

Stave said:
I don't buy the whole "game failed because Frostbite". That doesn't make the game not suck and the horrible decisions not happen. A lot of things obviously work great in Frostbite and decent in Anthem. The world, the flight, the combat. Yeah it may be more tricky to develop for. But it's better than them rolling in with the Creation or Gamebryo engine, which I wouldn't doubt for a second EA would do. Imagine if SWToR was done in Frostbite. It would probably have done much better. Frostbite is actually a very solid engine and has been well proven in many games. Performance is good, it is immensely scaleable, and the graphics are great. It has made everything from FPS games, to NFS racing games, to FIFA and Madden sports games, to Dragon Age RPG's. Fact of the matter is, they spent like 5 years fucking around not doing shit, and then built the game in the last 15 months or so, in the engine they say is so bad. Now imagine if they had spent all 6 years actually developing the game.

EA's internal help team for Frostbite may suck, and that's definitely something they should probably improve on and invest in, along with mandating that new game teams have access to other studios prior code, and actually use it building upon previous works, but again, I find it hard to believe that Frostbite is what made them fail, nor do I believe for one second that if they had used a different engine, that Anthem would have been amazing.

I agree. The article makes it clear that the Edmonton teams leadership was inept until Darrah arrived, but even then they ignored the issues that the Austin team brought up (the team with actual mmo experience).

Vlett · Apr 3, 2019

Also, I remember DICE front loading frostbite with bullet range, damage, and drop modifications that were very impressive when done right. This article admits they didn't have any of those experts.

Super bummed for these teams. I'm surprised none of them focused on their own savant engine team since they KNEW this would be the foundation.

We are still playing anyway. Super hero landings are just too cool.

Namon · Apr 3, 2019

I think Frostbite is perpetuating the problem for sure, but honestly it sounds like the leadership at Bioware are just window licking retards who put their pants on their heads in the morning. I mean really, this game was in pre production for 5 of the 7 years it was in development. If I was footing the bill for that (EA) I'd be pissed too. It sounded like they had a lot of nifty ideas at first that just did not translate into a game with any kind of legs. The whole "see how long you can survive" thing sounds cool for a limited couch multiplayer session: IE a night of gaming with friends. And it also sounds like they got the free spirit minded people actually running the company and didn't have enough balls to actually pull any triggers so they just went in endless circles for years and years. After reading that article, legit it sounds like Bioware is being mismanage by a bunch of snowflake types who like to sniff their own farts, and that accounted for the majority of the problems Anthem faced since they slapped it together in 18 months after over five years of LARPing. It was also telling they basically told the branch of the company, who has years of experience making online games, to get fucked.

kaid · Apr 3, 2019

Vlett said:
Also, I remember DICE front loading frostbite with bullet range, damage, and drop modifications that were very impressive when done right. This article admits they didn't have any of those experts.

Super bummed for these teams. I'm surprised none of them focused on their own savant engine team since they KNEW this would be the foundation.

We are still playing anyway. Super hero landings are just too cool.

If the story is right they managed to slap together a really fun base game in a very short period of time. One that is also really amazing graphics wise. I also imagine how it could have been if they had an extra year or two of working on the game itself instead of spinning their wheels. Management problems seem kind of endemic to the gaming industry. The whole crunch till you burn out half your work force is a pure sign of terrible management and it has been going on in the game industry for as long as long as it has been around. Management counts on the workers loving games so much that they are willing to self destruct to get one made. Shit like this and what actiblizzard and other big production houses are signs that its not going to get any better unless the workers are willing to unionize. Present a strong enough front to force the higher ups to pull head from ass before you are at the 1 year till launch mark and you don't have a game started yet and start going into mega ultra crunch mode.

Vlett · Apr 3, 2019

Reading up on the history of Frostbite had me curious about the engine that Capcom used for MHW. (My 500 hour game last year.) They used MT Framework. Created for Dead Rising and Lost Planet. Are you kidding me?

Asking the wife if we can buy Capcom stock. I find this even more impressive than what Respawn pulled together from the Source engine(Valve) to make Apex. (They had history with the engine for the Titanfall IP while also being EA published.)

Utnayan · Apr 3, 2019

Namon said:
I think Frostbite is perpetuating the problem for sure, but honestly it sounds like the leadership at Bioware are just window licking retards who put their pants on their heads in the morning.

This is endemic of the entire industry save a few, very few, solid developer houses.

It also doesn't help the entire snowflake generation is now developing games, had participation trophies handed to them their entire life, and won't ever improve because no one ever tells them what the hell they did wrong for fear of them crying in corners for years on end and needing "Stress vacations" ... What in the actual F. Wish I could take off for 3 months anytime something didn't go my way in life. Give me a break.

This is a business. They are employees. We are customers. Pure and simple. We are entitled to a game we pay for, the producer/publisher/developer is entitled to profits if they make a great game. That's it. The sooner the entire industry realizes this the sooner everyone can start cracking the wooden spoons on each other and get back to work, learn from mistakes, fire people that need firing, and get it all back on track.

Hosix · Apr 3, 2019

Reading this thread just makes me more angry at what Anthem or Dylan could have been.

Doing a looter/shooter with three strong holds at launch? Really?

No stat screen?

The guns....all look relatively the same. Pistol damage on a LMG? Really?

I am not a game developer. I don’t know anything about coding. But I have played a fuck ton of games like everyone on this forum. I find it hard to believe some intern wasn’t like “hey, should we have a stat screen?”.

Namon · Apr 3, 2019

Vlett said:
Reading up on the history of Frostbite had me curious about the engine that Capcom used for MHW. (My 500 hour game last year.) They used MT Framework. Created for Dead Rising and Lost Planet. Are you kidding me?

Asking the wife if we can buy Capcom stock. I find this even more impressive than what Respawn pulled together from the Source engine(Valve) to make Apex. (They had history with the engine for the Titanfall IP while also being EA published.)

Now that I finally "got" Monster Hunter and am playing it non stop now, I agree. Capcom is going to be a monster next gen building off their huge successes this gen where they laid the groundwork. I also like where Capcom is going: release one "main" game and then expand on it over the gen (Street Fighter). Hopefully they have learned to make the initial release a little more beefy, but I think that is a good model for games that aren't locked down story modes and are a bit more open ended in gameplay like Street Fighter, Monster Hunter etc.

sukik · Apr 3, 2019

Ladro said:
How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong

It wasn’t even supposed to be called Anthem. Just days before the annual E3 convention in June of 2017, when the storied studio BioWare would reveal its newest game, the plan had been to go with a different title: Beyond. They’d even printed out Beyond T-shirts for the staff.

kotaku.com

Good read, explains a lot. What a fucking shit show. I've never been on the "fuck EA" bandwagon, but honestly fuck game development period at this point by any company that does this shit.

Great article. An act of actual gaming journalism committed by Jason Schreier of all people. The magic of Bioware is gone. There's not much hope to be had for the future of the Mass Effect or Dragon Age franchises.

Punko · Apr 3, 2019

Hard to believe the people that made Mass Effect 3 would launch a bad game.

I forgot why I decided to ignore this game, reading the article reminded me why. Bioware is dead.

Approach all their games with care, since they have a large marketing budget and there still are idiots that trust the brand.

goishen · Apr 3, 2019

Xexx · Apr 3, 2019

Remember, just like working anywhere else, if you arent in charge you personally shouldnt take to heart what the people above you greenlight - It seems like everyone in upper management just let the turd roll down hill and ignored a ton of feedback. Sucks more how e3 was nothing but a mock up that had shit behind it.

Utnayan · Apr 3, 2019

Xexx said:
Remember, just like working anywhere else, if you arent in charge you personally shouldnt take to heart what the people above you greenlight - It seems like everyone in upper management just let the turd roll down hill and ignored a ton of feedback. Sucks more how e3 was nothing but a mock up that had shit behind it.

Once again, good point - but something that has plagued the industry since ET was launched for the Atari 2600.

The entire industry needs to change focus, and something that a few good studios get right by empowering their developers.

Meetings need to turn from "Throw me your ideas so I can take credit and implement a few or shoot you down" to, "I am a manager - Dev 1, 2, 3, 4 - fantastic ideas and we are going to implement those - the decision has been made" and keeping the publisher OUT of the equation - who sole concern is cornering profits by forcing a game to be what it isn't to fit in the publishers own agenda.

Guerilla games did the former. They listened to their developers, had managers that weren't egotisical assholes, and funneled through one of the most financially successful and popular/fun games we saw for the PS4 in Horizon Zero Dawn. Same for God of War. Witcher 3.

Unfortunately 95% of the industry are the latter. It's why we see such shitty games or crash and burns rather than solid games. Imagine if that was reversed and we saw a few misses but the majority of games were done correctly with the correct input and talent. Not only would the work force be a better place, so would games, and ultimately, going back to opp. cost, profits and revenue that would come along with it.

Xexx · Apr 3, 2019

I agree, i just think its getting old that we blame the people who didnt get a say for everything the company does. I work in the IT dept for a cable company, they rag on the company all day for all kinds of reasons and i personally dont care because nothing i do has anything to do with the brand. However devs directly work for the brand and have no say in anything most of the time and then on the net they have to go incognito to avoid people bashing them as if they directly made the decisions.

The argument of if you dont like then leave well every single individual can say that with ease but with people with families and other responsibilities just leaving your job to go elsewhere isnt so simple especially if the next available game company is clear across the country.

Utnayan · Apr 3, 2019

Oh for sure, I get it. I think all the angst comes from knowing the upper management of development and publishing are inept and shouldn't be making these horrible company wide decisions that on paper, look great. But 100% of the time it's a wrong decision.

Management in the industry should be relegated to lead developers with upper management taken out of the equation all together except for VERY high level business direction - not dictating what tools are needed or not required for various projects.

Same shit happened with Gordon Dicky Walton and Roch Vogel when Gordon made a decision to use Hero Engine (Cheap and untested) to develop SWTOR. The damn thing barely compiled and was a horrible engine for the game - but was sold on cheap and simultaneous development in real time across geographic areas without any of the tools needed where Walton tought they could engineer anything they wanted

All those types of directors need to get their ass out.

Xexx · Apr 3, 2019

Well they dont see games as games, its just the next big revenue source. The people with all the power behind game development nowadays arent even the ones making games and likely dont even care about them beyond how much money they will bring in. What studios are actually in control of all their decisions?

Utnayan · Apr 3, 2019

Xexx said:
Well they dont see games as games, its just the next big revenue source. The people with all the power behind game development nowadays arent even the ones making games and likely dont even care about them beyond how much money they will bring in. What studios are actually in control of all their decisions?

Quite a few that work for Sony directly. Microsoft is seeing that value and trying to catch up again. They used to have that mindset until they got burned by McQuaid.

Vlett · Apr 3, 2019

Utnayan said:
Quite a few that work for Sony directly. Microsoft is seeing that value and trying to catch up again. They used to have that mindset until they got burned by McQuaid.

Oh lordy. I can't even imagine.

kaid · Apr 4, 2019

BioWare Boss Addresses Studio Issues, Vows To 'Continue Working To Solve Them' Another bit in this discussion. Sounds like the higher ups in bioware basically agreed with the artical but did not support calling out specific developers which is probably a valid point. If the place is that shit is going on its probably not just down on a couple specific people it seemed far more systemic than that.

Bioware's "Anthem"

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