Kotaku news on Anthem

Grimm_Reaper

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https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964

Damn, was a shit storm if its to be believed. Bioware messed up sitting on the game for 4+ years. Can't believe EA was not responsible. For a years worth of work on a new Frostbite engine thats impressive. Makes me appreciate how SC has come along now that I have a better understanding of game development. Still 1 year dev, you pay $60 to test their game that they havent had time to test.
 

Phil

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Wow that is a long read but Its exactly as many of us said, its an unfinished, unpolished disaster and there is the proof. We basically paid to beta tested their game. I feel a bit redeemed after taking a beating from some of the members in the forums over how bad this game was haha. Now you have their own developers saying this game was a disaster. :P
 
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Doyzer

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is there a tl;dr?
The game was in development for 5-6 years but the direction of game extremely mis-managed. Developers didn't know what game would look like until 2017 E3 demo. So they had about 12-18 months to flesh out game. Flying was in, then out, then in. Developers would work on something but they were never sure if it would be used. Severe crunch time, stressed out devs, and Frostbite has a lot of issues. Leadership failure at Bioware. Sad.
 

Printimus

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The game was in development for 5-6 years but the direction of game extremely mis-managed. Developers didn't know what game would look like until 2017 E3 demo. So they had about 12-18 months to flesh out game. Flying was in, then out, then in. Developers would work on something but they were never sure if it would be used. Severe crunch time, stressed out devs, and Frostbite has a lot of issues. Leadership failure at Bioware. Sad.
Ahhh, sounds like the ball was dropped.
AngryJoe has a 40 something min video on it.
If I can't bother to read an article on a game I have little interest on, what makes you think I will watch a 40 minute video on some moron ranting on the internet about bad stuff is? I have more productive things to do than listen to internet complaints and gripes.
 
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DarthMatter

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Ahhh, sounds like the ball was dropped.

If I can't bother to read an article on a game I have little interest on, what makes you think I will watch a 40 minute video on some moron ranting on the internet about bad stuff is? I have more productive things to do than listen to internet complaints and gripes.
It's still a TLDR as I understood it. As there where multiple articles to read to get the full picture. 😲
 
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Harkonan

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5+ years of "development" and the only thing to show for it was in-game assets ... that's a big oof. IMHO, EA's only fault in all of this is their stupid policy that forces developers to use the frostbite engine. If you're going to force an engine down the throats of your studios, you better have an entire engine team devoted to working with those studios for modification and support.

Given that the game was essentially made in like a year and half ... Anthem is actually impressive. But that fact that essentially nothing was happening for 5 years in the development cycle is absolute insanity. EA had every right to put their foot down and set a date at that point IMHO.
 
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Radegast74

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Yeah, I own EA an apology! I blamed them!
To be fair, I believe EA laid a lot of the groundwork for the disaster. Mandating everybody use Frostbite, then not documenting it...and furthermore, doling out help from their Frostbite gurus based on how much they expected your game to make...

I get the impression that the top people at Bioware saw the writing on the wall and threw in the towel, and left as soon as they could (sounds like that Improbable dev group is the closest living link to the old Bioware). EA then promoted people, didn't check up on them, and fostered a "competitive" culture (wtf was going on with "Edmonton vs. Austin" and why is that even a thing? They both are the same company), without really supervising it closely, and it got out of hand.

Coming from a military background, I'm always amazed at how much "managers" are paid, and at the same time, poor performance from them is tolerated. If anything, it is always the people on the ground who get blamed, and get the shaft. The problems and issues they brought up early should have been acted on and resolved. For that, the Bioware management is principally at fault.
 
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