Mass Effect: Andromeda & The Bioware Crisis - Part 2
Originally published April 2017Welcome back to my multi-part analysis of Mass Effect and Bioware I was compelled to write, due to the excitement and anxiety surrounding the most recent game in the franchise, Mass Effect: Andromeda. Last time, I gave a brief overview of Bioware as a company and Mass Effect as a franchise. Today, we'll be looking at the events that led them to the impending Andromeda crisis.
Part II: Death Threats and Downhill
Rising Pressure
There was a bit of a Mass Effect problem before Andromeda with the release of Mass Effect 3. I say "problem" because it really shouldn't have gotten any bigger than that. However, with the way things tend to explode in dramatic fashion on the internet, the problem grew into something of a catastrophe. This time, the teams at Bioware weren't dealing with the typical controversy of "who is sleeping with whom". Nor were they dealing with people who didn't play video games, or people who didn't understand that sex can be acceptable in entertainment mediums. This time, they were dealing with pissed-off people who played and loved their games.
Mass Effect 1 did well enough to pull a crowd. Mass Effect 2 is considered one of the best games of the last generation of games, and even of all time. So the excitement and anticipation surrounding the release of Mass Effect 3 was immense. It came out in 2012 and got some good reviews from critics, but there was obviously some disappointment surrounding the title. Some very vocal Mass Effect fans were not happy with the conclusion of the trilogy, much like some are now about Andromeda; they put up a really big stink about it. Between the release of the first game and the third game, however, some significant events had taken place at Bioware.
For one thing, they had been bought by the publisher Electronic Arts and no longer developed games independently. This was a huge change for the company because it allowed them to be more financially ambitious with their projects. With a publisher backing them from the start, they were assured income for the game's development and didn't have to go hunting for a publisher later in the development cycle. However, Electronic Arts also had an "evil empire" reputation as a publisher. They were known for acquiring studios, controlling their efforts too much, and then promptly shutting them down when a game didn't sell as well as they expected. Fans were worried that Bioware might end up like so many others. At first, however, it didn't look that way.
Midway through the Mass Effect trilogy, the developers at Bioware appeared well-adapted to their new overlords, and EA seemed to be keeping its tendrils out of any projects. Bioware was doing well enough that it started working on multiple projects at once, starting with the Dragon Age franchise. Dragon Age is a fantasy RPG series with dragons—as you might expect—and monsters. It's very traditional to Bioware's wheelhouse. The first game in the series seemed to do well enough to put most people's initial fears to rest. It even spawned a few sequels in the process, for better or worse. Dragon Age II bombed and was not well-received at all by fans or critics. However, they managed to pull it together for the third Dragon Age game that came out a few years ago, Dragon Age: Inquisition. Overall, Dragon Age seemed to do well, but the consensus around the community was that it was that Mass Effect got the A-team and Dragon Age the B-team.
Image: Electronic Arts
In addition to that, developers at Bioware also had been working on their massive multiplayer online (MMO) follow-up to their biggest hit, Star Wars: The Old Republic. The Old Republic was a huge, ambitious project that took years to make. Its lengthy production ended up costing millions of dollars after multiple delays. Electronic Arts has issued public statements that the game has been a financial success, but the skepticism is strong with it. Despite its so-called success, it was still a huge project that took a lot of time and effort to complete. It likely impacted other projects in the process. I don't think any direct evidence or statements ever surfaced confirming this, but there's plenty of speculation that Bioware just got a little too big for itself, and Electronic Arts got too involved in decision-making around the time Mass Effect 3 was in development, which was the reason why it had its issues.
The Turning Point
What were Mass Effect 3's issues, anyway? Good question! Unfortunately, as an outside spectator, I don't have all the answers. I haven't played any of the Mass Effect games other than the first, so I can't attest to anything personally. However, I do remember what everyone was so pissed about on the internet. Apparently, the ending of Mass Effect 3 was "terrible", "atrocious", and "badly written". You might be thinking, "What's the big deal?" Again, good question! I mentioned in my “story in video games” articles how a bad story can really negatively impact an experience, but so long as the rest of the package holds up, it's not the end of the world. From what I've heard about Mass Effect 3, it was a fun, well-polished experience with some fun gameplay. People were just upset with how the story went.
Even though I still haven't played the game, I know how it ends. Academic curiosity led me to investigate if the ending was as bad as everyone said. Of course, it wasn't. It was lame, sure, but not bad enough to make me do and say what so many angry, prepubescent, indignant millennials did. I could tell immediately that it was the result of the developers writing themselves into a corner and simply running out of time on the project. It was a quick and simple method of just putting a cap on the trilogy, that's it. This was certainly disappointing, considering the fact that, from the start, the developers had touted that each game in the trilogy was going to account for decisions that players made in previous installments. The repercussions for those choices were supposed to follow you throughout the rest of the trilogy and have some sort of significant impact on the characters and story. An ambitious promise that they couldn't fully realize. They still held up their end of the bargain by having those promised conclusions, but a majority of them were regarded as cheap resolutions and mere references. The ending itself was a culmination of this.
Image: Electronic Arts
The bad seeds of the internet, not forgiving of this minor disappointment, demanded the ending be fixed or changed in forum posts and letters to the developers. If these requests were formal or polite, this wouldn't have been an issue. Since it's the internet, though, you and I both know "polite" is almost impossible. Betrayed by a sub-par ending to a video game trilogy—which was probably really, really difficult to accomplish anyway—the vile gremlins of the web made their demands known in the worst of ways. Among the informal and impolite change requests Bioware received, death threats were also sent to the developers and their families. Yes. Death threats over a video game's ending! Some said they were willing to kill another person and their family because a video game did not end the way they wanted. It was absurd.
Unfortunately, but understandably, the developers caved into the demands of the angry and vocal mob. Eventually, a new ending was tacked on, but it still didn't quite satiate the ravenous morons who wanted the game to end their way. They had already dealt with some criticism on their Dragon Age sequel, but it was the first time where the developers had caved into demands from anyone on their products. Of the various mistakes made in Mass Effect 3, the one that bothered me the most was the fact that they caved into the whining and threats. It sets a poor precedent for the company by showing that they're willing to change their art for the sake of some whiny assholes on the internet. They hadn't changed anything when the questions were about sex in their games—then again, the prudes and government buffoons didn't send numerous death threats to the developers. It was because Mass Effect had gotten so big that people of all sorts had fallen in love with the franchise and were disappointed by its finale, scorned lovers that they were.
Image: Electronic Arts
The fallout from the Mass Effect 3 faux pas was rather substantial. After this debacle, the doctors who had founded Bioware, likely worn out by the toxic nature of so many in their community, retired from the games industry. Since Mass Effect 3, there has been something of an unspoken understanding that Bioware isn't what it used to be. Slowly, over time, Bioware has become more and more a part of Electronic Arts. Its writers have shifted and moved through the studios. Some studio locations have closed. The rate at which new ideas are coming out of Bioware seems to be a lot slower. Unlike the ambitious and innovative Bioware of old, the teams have stuck to the same franchises throughout the years. No new games have been announced by them outside of the familiar Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Star Wars universes.
Now, Mass Effect: Andromeda is here to either turn it around or send public opinion further downhill. So far, the gremlins would have you believe that the world has already ended. Level-headed players, however, have been reporting back that, while deeply flawed, Andromeda is not a terrible game.
Next time...
In the final Mass Effect analysis article, we'll discuss Andromeda as a product and what it means for Bioware going forward. See it here.
Sources
Most of this is from my memory of the events, but if you wish to see some sources:
Do you agree or disagree? Tell me what you think in the comments below!
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