The Fall of Bioware......

LateX'Dog

LateX'Dog

LateX'Dog

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http://yougamers.futuremark.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146951

Fantastic little thread, i think it goes to show the problems Bioware where having when they where developing multiple games, with multiple company merges and basically taking on too much.

I remember not long ago, rumours about SWTOR becoming such a problem for the company, they had to bring everyone from Bioware into Austin to get the game back on track.
 
Looks more like the EA corporate machine ruining game companies again like they did with *cough* Bullfrog, Origin Systems, Maxis & Westwood Studios *cough*
 
That was a good read actually. I'm always optimistic, but i don't like some of the things i am hearing about ME3!.

btw, i recently played DA2 for the second time and i am about to start it again. Why? because i really feel that i have to understand where they went wrong. It is not the worst game ever made but almost nothing is done right, it is one of the strangest gaming experiences i have ever had. I found myself playing it and kind of enjoying it, but at the same time not liking a single thing about it.
I am on a quest to understand!
 
The more and more I read about ME3, the more it sounds like it has been dumbed down in the way that DA2 was. I really hope this isn't the case as it is one of the best series of games out there.
 
It's very sad that Bioware used to be an auto-buy :(

ME3 and SWTOR are of no interest to me and they pretty much killed the dragon age universe with DA2 so DA3 will have to be the second coming of Baldurs Gate before I even think of buying it..
 
Well the most interesting thing is, the sales graph, DA:O was relatively unknown but sales continued strong as more people heard about it. Pre-orders for DA:2 were huge based on DA:o, but as more people read reviews and heard about it, sales plunged.

Could there be a clearer indication to a company of which game was both, liked more, appeared to sell far more strongly, was better, was reviewed better and was more fun to play.

Now the issue is, which game was more profitable, hard to say, when you reuse an engine the second game becomes way cheaper. I'd assume DA2 was still far more profitable due to time taken and number of people working on it with so fewer engine people required as it wasn't built from the ground up, and graphically clearly less people used, reused textures and characters with not much new stuff going on.

It also does feel like having stuff forced down your throat for no reason, I have no issues with gay people in the slightest, but there was almost no way in DA2 to have a conversation with Anders and not have loads of love options come up, it was harder to NOT get involved with him than to get involved with him, while mostly you need the right set of combinations to get the woman to have sex with your character, again its like its being forced on you.

The writing on ME2/DA2 went down the pan, characters were more shallow, story lines painfully bad, the constant situations with Anders of agreeing or disagreeing with him throughout the whole game just to have every decision you made erased based on one line near the end, and another character refusing to work with you over the horrible stuff Anders has done, unless of course you say one line later on and he ignores all his beliefs in an instant.

DA2 was shockingly poor, I can only hope Bioware notice the sales, realise why, realise the reason it was more profitable wasn't because it was better, and fire the new writers they've been picking up.

Their games are starting to feel like afterschool specials with inane moral lessons than really good stories you're playing.
 
A slightly better graph going 10 weeks.

DA2DAO-2.jpg


Shame there is no PC sales figures for Origins but for DA2

Week 1 - 148,830
Week 2 - 38,002
Week 3 - 26,165
Week 4 - 16,082
Week 5 - 10,850
Week 6 - 9,551
Week 7 - 9,002
Week 8 - 5,723
Week 9 - 3,965
Week 10 - 3,002

Dragon Age: Origins supposedly went "triple platinum" so I can only estimate with 2mil console sales the PC sales were probably close to 1 million.
 
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drunkenmaster said:
The writing on ME2/DA2 went down the pan,
Click to expand...


I agree with all of that except i was perfectly happy with the writing in ME2 and i personally don't think it was dumbed down(eugh, i told myself i would never use that phrase) too much. I thouroughly enjoyed it and would put it at least on par with the first game

The main problem i had with it was that it didn't feel like the second game in a trilogy. I didn't mind the companion/loyalty missions but they seemed like they would have been better in a first game, and the whole suicide mission thing never worked because you know there is a third game coming, so would be better suited to that.


The one thing i am hoping for in ME3 is that they do not introduce many more characters, as it would practiucally make ME2 irrelevant if you have to build another set of characters
 
Pighardia said:
The one thing i am hoping for in ME3 is that they do not introduce many more characters, as it would practiucally make ME2 irrelevant if you have to build another set of characters
Click to expand...

Given that you can end ME2 without all your Team Alive and it'll continue from your save, I don't see that being very likely. :(
 
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Must agree. I never did try DA2 after loving DA1 and it's a good thing I didn't. I took one look at the visuals, and then found out that the story was totally different from the first parter and never parted with my cash.

ME2 remained quite strong I thought. No where near as good as 1, with its dumbed down inventory/weapon/armour systems but it did have more cinematics despite the overly dull new characters - none of which I even cared for.

I hope they can stop their own fall from grace though. Companies like Bioware nowadays are hard to find.
 
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