Anthem - What Happened?

welcome back to another depressing episode of what happened the show we dissect and discuss things like anthem yes it should come as no surprise but II am Bioware's latest title is also the latest in a string of big-budget Triple A games that have had rocky development cycles rockier launches hend the rockiest of post launches however the dark clouds for Bioware and Electronic Arts didn't just start and end with anthem know that that was a storm front that rolled in pretty much precisely when both entities first met to tell the story of anthem you have to start where all the trouble began and that's the moment Bioware signed on the dotted line and became part of the EA family but wait you're owned by one of the biggest most profitable video game publishers in the world a job security tons of money and resources there's there's no downside here just ask this programmer he'll tell you that being part of the EA family is great I still believe me well let's ask these other plucky and thriving developers jokes aside the number of studios that have been purchased and then shut down by the publishing Titan is indeed long and illustrious and unless things change really soon Bioware as a whole might be next on the list but how is this possible though how could the minds behind Boulder's game Mass Effect Dragon Age and Knights of the Old Republic be at risk well when you have a project that's been development for the better part of a decade was intended to have a persistent online life of ten years and coupled with some murky sales numbers well things start to get very WA happen D so let's all hop into our time cop cars and try to see how we got here in the year of our Lord 1995 which gave us such milestone advances Pierce Brosnan's turn as double-oh-seven did his conquests monkeying about on the SNES and the release of the greatest video guide of all time Bioware was founded in Edmonton Alberta Canada by like 10 or 12 doctors who quickly made a name for themselves with two releases on the PC the maxim shattered steel an incredibly influential RPG baldur's gate thus followed was a string of even more hits which by were produced under different publishing partners and included such standouts as mdk2 Neverwinter Nights Star Wars kotor and Jade Empire whose round this time that the bells of looming fate began ringing and Electronic Arts came calling since they seemed to have a bit of a fetish for buying top pedigree developers that cut their teeth on the PC market Bioware fans of course were overjoyed [Laughter] very quickly things started to happen a little too quickly the purchase of Bioware was made public in 2007 and over the subsequent two years a lot of key staff just quit the company Trent Osler one of the six original founders formed bean dog in 2009 who is joined by Brent Knowles one of the senior designers on several of their older RPGs these two big departures happen during the time of Mass Effect 2 and that was a series which of course was a commercial in critical darling at the time it didn't go unnoticed by fans however the sci-fi franchise was still a bit of a departure from the high fantasy the company is known for especially when it came to the moment-to-moment gameplay regardless the idea of an entire trilogy that were taken to account players choices was awfully ambitious and exciting speaking of which was also around this time that perhaps the ambition and corporate structure of EA started rubbing off on the Canadian developer a bit too much the company started multiplying seemingly overnight Bioware Montreal Bioware Austin Bioware San Francisco Bioware Sacramento Bioware mythic and Bioware victory were all either built from the ground up or companies renamed to better fit Bioware media all of these subsidiaries were formed in just a few short years right now though let's fast-forward to the release of Mass Effect 3 in 2012 a beloved sequel that capped off the epic trilogy with class and absolutely no controversy whatsoever featuring things RPG fans love flung down dialogue trees and narrative choices that changed the colors I'm not 5 shapes and colors the likes of which I've never seen this was not exactly the conclusion fans had waited for and it was all time because Dragon Age 2 released a year earlier had already experienced similar fan backlash this one-two punch of disappoint sequels with the first sign that Bioware was maybe stretching themselves too thin because their stories certainly were behind the scenes however things were just as tumultuous within the company itself just a few months after the of Commander Shepards glorious send-off two more old guards of the developer Greg Zeschuk and Ray Messiah announced they were quitting the studio they had founded the exponential explosion of growth for Bioware paired with both doctors promotions two vice-presidents within EA might have been maybe too much pressure or not enough creative control in the games they're making whatever was they both announced the retirements in the game industry in September of 2012 it was also around this time according to current Bioware producers that an idea began just dating within the company an idea they had no clue what to do with for years initially the project was codenamed Dylan because it'll it'll be the Bob Dylan of video games well that would be referenced for years to come which is an actual quote from 2014 often attributed to one Casey Hudson one of the senior writers at Bioware that had penned the Mass Effect trilogy Casey would then quit the company that's say here Jesus it's pretty clear by now that Bioware employees weren't enjoying their jobs for various reasons and the dumbing down of a lot of their games and the song which they made them was safe to assume pressure from EA or Bioware's new MO which was to make their games more accessible and mainstream stop that work continued on Bob Dylan for three more years in absolute silence until III 2017 we're at EA's conference anthem was shown to the world what was certainly nice to see a brand new IP from developer reception was a bit mixed there were clear similarities anyone can see between another lute based cooperative shooter destiny which released two years prior whatever Dylan was originally going to be it's obvious that more than a fair share of design choices were inspired by bungees IP it's an online-only sci-fi world that had you shooting monsters for loot and there seemed to be only shreds of an RPG left in the game Bioware however told fans not to worry but producer append irving worried the further with a following statement you think back to Bioware's history it's kind of famous for creating these really immersive worlds and amazing single-player stories relatable characters but there was always a sense of wanting to do multiplayer even looking way back at with Neverwinter Nights that had a multiplayer mode and the Mass Effect franchise has a multiplayer mode and Star Wars Old Republic is this huge online world while story has been important there was this real desire to create this shared world experience to have an immersive an amazing story that could share with your friends both the story itself and the experiences that you have while out in that world so that means no more romance options no dialogue wheels anthem was pretty much abandoning anything Bioware had done up to that point but hey change can be a good thing those javelin designs look cool and man the fly-ins pretty smooth looking okay you know let's just see how this goes Bioware boss erin-flynn quits the company shortly after anthems debut unbelievable you're right so yeah following the e3 reveal and don't forget the disastrous launch of Mass Effect Andromeda the general manager of Bioware Edmonton lasts only to be replaced by Casey Hudson again what is going on so apparently Erin wanted out and Casey wanted back in to the timing work to their advantage I guess Casey had spent the better part of three years at Microsoft farting around with Holograms and decided he wanted to finish up anthem in the end the game he had abandoned now this is not our first rodeo here at what happened you guys have seen enough to know that hirings and firings like this regardless with the newly reappointed Casey Hudson EA announced that anthem would see release in 2018 and they maintained they would support the game of various events in DLC for a good long while and we're confident to enjoy a 10-year life no want you know a game also enjoyed a 10-year life not destiny it seems that the announced sequels to your games that aren't even out yet strategy from a generation ago slowly morphed into the announcer games will have a 10-year long strategy with both of them being really stupid I know should make this a challenge yeah now it's time for a new segment nuts left Bioware well July 2017 saw Mike Laidlaw creative director for all three dragon ages saying adios followed by one true car Pasha the lead writer on KOTOR Jade Empire and Mass Effect one and two in March of 2018 now speaking of 2018 he announced that anthem would not make a 2018 date and would instead ship the year after well this seems really not very good at all ea damage-control was you know quick to act regardless of how it's being portrayed we're not looking at this as a delay we've chosen not to launch anthem in the fourth quarter the state is chosen by a portfolio balance not product readiness and we're really excited by the way the new battlefield is shaping up so it probably doesn't make too much sense to launch anthem right by it as new IP we should give anthem it's on launch window and you know what grow see a man that does make sense and he'll such a delay plus the five years the game has already spent in development will make for an easy issue free launch I'm sure so let's sum up Casey Hudson is now leading the fractured development of a game he hadn't seen for three years it needs to be always online have seamless co-op tons of weapon and loop balancing and needed a public demo a VIP demo ready for early 2019 to boot just like another big-budget triple-a release this demo also had no shortage of the troubles if you pre-ordered anthem you would get access to this VIP demo which would run for three days well I mean some people got access to it while others didn't there were three main problems with this thing the sheer amount a player is trying to access it caused issues that Bioware ahead of Life Services Chad Robertson assured were not due to underprepared servers but couldn't state what did cause these issues oh okay second where that some specific accounts were being auto blocked because of the way the game was flagging things and then the infinite loading issue the latter would prove to be the toughest nut to crack and Bioware mitad there was a chance they wouldn't be able to fix it before the three-day period is over anthem was scheduled to fully launch in less than a month they said they could handle it and the price was right then there was the chart this baffling graphic detailing when and how people could play the game was OK by a metric shitload of marketing people and everyone must have thought it was a good idea I mean it's a good move to try and explain things to your audience as [ __ ] is getting complicated but when you release chart looks like a periodic table of the goddamn elements maybe you kind of overcomplicated things from the start finally there was the game itself you and a squad of friends chose your class and kill a monsters to get loot and then you use said loot and weapons to kill more monsters for more loot rinse and repeat while there certainly is a story in anthem it was clear tending a longtime fan of the company this was a far cry from the RPGs they were known for him in fact this couldn't be any far cry from it so enthusiasm wasn't exactly at an all-time high leading to the February 22nd launch of the game and things didn't get much better post launched the ps4 version would crash ps4 s online stability was tenuous at best and then infinite loading bug from the demo well it was fixed just now it was the near infinite loading bug it's not exactly clear what a game is such a technical mess maybe because Bioware bit off way more than they can chew with the games online structure maybe with a constantly revolving door of game directors or maybe was because so many senior designers and programmers kept boozing out of the company's back door or more likely it was all of those things now while hindsight is 20/20 and you want to sell your game during interviews let's check back with Chad Robertson once more with a quote shortly before the launch cuz you know it's hilarious we always want more time the beautiful thing with anthem though is the fact that we're a live services game time is infinite we're always bringing more content new missions new stories into the fold later on so one of those challenges for us was how much content do we actually ship on disk at launch do we have the time to do all the things that we wanted to because quality is always king right one thing with anthem is quality over quantity absolutely do we have enough quantity we believe so but the quality is definitely what we shine on oh man that didn't age well now far be it for me to tell a company how to run itself but if your product is in the state where you have to issue patch after patch to try to salvage the product now is probably a bad time to target the players of your game for perceived slights only two weeks into anthems launch and people began reporting their accounts are being banned for simply playing the game as intended I'm sure most people are aware that the employees that band players are hacking a game are not exactly the same ones who fix bugs but it still comes off as very tone-deaf and a pretty bad look for their PR department in general especially when your PR department is probably on fire right now Welli the real humans won't that one won't burn quite so fast in there okay and at the end of the day yes players that use exploits and hacks are toxic to others should be addressed but maybe you should tackle that when your game isn't in tatters just a thought like previously stated both Bioware and EA are in damage control mode right now every other day there is a patch to fix some things but it winds up just breaking something else entirely also since launch players loudly complain about the quality and quantity of the drops the game is providing but the seemingly fell on deaf ears for weeks then on March 15th Bioware relented and increase the quality and frequency of the loop players are receiving now this is either an actual intended fix or a calculated move to satiate disruptive players worse than that however there seems to be an underlying issue that even the chunky as the patches will never solve that this is not exactly the game ardent fans of the developer wanted at its core it's an online loop based shooter and a sea of online lead based shooters a simple window dressing masquerading as actual characters or a meaningful story now it's in marble to want to make a product outside of your comfort zone but it's pretty clear that the prolonged unfocused and fractured development started with lot of talent leaving throughout the years hurt anthem from day zero while it's an exciting goal for your game to be referenced for years to come in this case it won't be for anything positive more so than that by war itself is a cautionary tale of a company reaching beyond their scope and expanding far far too quickly of the Afro mentioned by our subsidiaries all but one has been shut down or just renamed with that being Bioware Austin now while some may say that a developer of their pedigree could never be closed down due to its past successes the same was said of pandemic or visceral and a whole host of others so with all this it should not surprise that anthem is now the lowest rated game Bioware has ever released narrowly edging out its competitors sonic and the dark brotherhood this would also be the time to address the commercial prospects of anthem because while exact numbers are not public it was the number one selling game last month a month filled with holdovers from January and not much else in the way of competition aside from maybe Metro Exodus or far cry new dawn the a told investors they expect anthem to sell six million units in 37 days so it has until the very end of March to achieve this but right now it's a bit murky if they are on track for such a number because as of right now all EA has said is that anthem is Bioware's second most lucrative launch outside of Mass Effect 3 but again the units sold both physically and digitally are not yet known and now that most players have finished the main campaign the immediate concern is the end game as there isn't much reason for people to continue with it at least when stacked up against similar shooters now in terms of fixing that and the future of the franchise let's get one final quote from the man himself Casey Hudson we were of course very disappointed about the launch as were many of you I've been in there playing with you since those early days and it makes me sad to hear about any issues that would hold someone back from fully enjoying the game I take that very personally and it's been our top priority to get improvements out to you in the fastest safest way the safest what is he talking about we continue to listen to your feedback with more improvements to endgame loot and progression game flow and stability and performance coming very soon so there's a lot of work we intend to do but we understand there is skepticism out there you know we hear the criticisms and doubts but we'll keep going anyway working hard every day on anthem an ever-changing world constantly improving and growing and supported well into the future by our team of passionate developers Godspeed buddy Godspeed so while this tale might not have a definitive end yet you never know when it might get one but in the meantime let me know in the comments if you're aware of any other baffling videogame blockbusters that failed to bust any of the blocks or head on over to the flop house VIP lounge where you can officially vote on upcoming will happen topics see you next time and thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Matt McMuscles

Views: 973,469

Rating: 4.9107485 out of 5

Keywords: Anthem, Bioware, Video Game Disasters, Wha Happun, What Happened?, Mass Effect, Matt McMuscles

Id: xBjDhSdsjBk

Length: 19min 7sec (1147 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 27 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/The_Draigg]

Saying that you want to make “the Bob Dylan Of video games” is just an inherently repulsive statement to me. Like, that’s on the same level as Cliffy B saying that LawBreakers was “the Dark Souls of competitive shooters”. Those kinds of statements are just massive turn-offs.

[u/Theproton]

I feel this should have come 6 months from now so we can see if this killed Bioware or not.

[u/Oberon1993]

OK, but the hell did Casey meant about the safe experience? Did the earlier versions of the game eat players?

[u/PR0MAN1]

Honestly I think Matt jumped the gun with this video. The true trash fire of Anthem seems to have just begun.

[u/twatman24]

Matt's what happened videos are a really mixed bag. You get really unique ones like the guy game, but then you get stuff like this where he really seems like he's jumping on trends that he doesn't really seem interested in, same with the Fallout 76 video where he just said a bunch of stuff that everybody already knew. He should only really make these videos where he has a unique insight or piece of knowledge on a game I think.

[u/Dalek_Kolt]

I know this series is supposed to explain how a series of bad decisions led to the fustercluck that is the current game, but isn't Matt kinda lowballing Mass Effect?

[u/AlwaysDragons]

Awww, Matt didn't mention how they buffed the loot a little bit and how everyone on reddit realized they were having fucking fun

And then bioware took it away, ruining everyones fun.

[u/JokeDealer]

I think Matt rushed this out and was being hyperbolic to chase trends, especially when it seems like he didn't do very much research. He said that ME3 had deathmatch multiplayer when it didn't; it was a cooperative horde mode. He implies that Mass Effect was a result of EA, when it actually was in production for years before Bioware joined EA. Then he calls Drew Karpyshyn, ”Drew Karpyshy, ” which is wrong. Also, he totally ignores Dragon Age Inquisition and its financial and critical success. The closest he comes to mentioning its existence is when he mentions that there are three Dragon Age games.

I've liked his other ”Wha Happun” videos, but I wouldn't have known how much is wrong with this video if I didn't know as much about Bioware. It really makes me question the factual accuracy of his other videos. Anthem definitely has multiple problems, but I feel that Matt really misrepresented the situation for one reason or another.

[u/baylaust]

A good video, but still a bit too early.

Matt probably should have gone for Andromeda. Would have still been relevant to the Bioware discussion.