Bioware: “The real EA doesn’t hurt (us)”; confirms future ME3 DLC

"A Q&A session with several BioWare employees and community managers earlier today revealed the company's thoughts about about its parent company, EA, as well as teasers about the company's next title and content (sadly, it's not Jade Empire)."

[user5467007]

What a load of bullcrap

They don't give you the freedom man thats the problm, ME3 felt rushed and the ending didn't help, although that was bad writting on your part. I mean fans give you a way out with the amazing theory they put out but you didn't take it

"I don’t believe so but that is far above my pay grade!...Harby as he’s affectionately called is just one of many many reapers. He was important in ME2 because he was the herald, the reaper who scouted ahead and foreshadowed what was to come"

Still you guys established him as the main reaper Shepard would most likely come head to head with so people didn't feel they were just battling any other reaper in the final fight. He finally shows up on earth just as your about to finish the fight in your final assault but then blasts you back with a laser. I honestly thought "Right this is it...it's time to battle that b*stard and finish him off once and for fall" BUT THEN we get the crappy ending. Harbinger just flies away, not even checking if you are dead, so much for being a intellectual being huh and then totaly "misses" the Normandy who is in the area...and even though he misses them, dosen't go after them, the guys who have been helping Shepard stop the Reapers.

Honestly if they went with the Indoctrination Theory they could of done a massive Epilouge DLC where Shepard wakes up after being hit by the laser and managed to win his own Indoctrination which sends Harbinger into "rage mode" because he knows he will loose if Shepard gets any futher so they have a massive level where Shepard needs to fight through another section of London in another final assault to reach Harbinger and have a one on one fight. Once you defeat him, he relises that the cycle is broken or Shepard realises that Harbingers defeat singals the other Reapers t fall back (or some ending scenario) and then a nice lovey ending.

.....sadly we didn't get that but thats what happened in my mind....thats how I will remember the ME trilogy ending.

[Godmars290]

You're ignoring/missing an important and telling detail: how do you know the Reaper that comes down and blasts Shepard towards the end is Harbinger?

While its somewhat forgivable in a game to have one character point to some shape and say, "Hey! Its THAT bad guy!" with no other indication, in a story that's Ed Wood level lazy storytelling.

[Nitrowolf2]

what I find funny is them referring to EA as the "real" one. Didn't know there were other ones out there lol

they prob. mean subdivisions though or the EA that is in charge of all region EA

[SilentNegotiator]

The title should be: "EA: “The real EA doesn’t hurt (us)”"

Bioware is a subsidiary. They ARE Electronic Arts. They're not going to say bad of themselves, or else they will be promptly fired.

This is like a manager of a corporate store saying "This chain of stores is great! Corporate treats us very well!" ....in an interview for Corporations Monthly.

Only the biggest of fool fans would go "Well, if he says so! It must be true! It's not like his superiors are going to read this when it's published and fire him if he says something negative that could only hurt their image!"

[nrvalleytime]

It's unfortunate, really. We know they cat say anything too specific about EA, but I'd hate to see time be the only way we uncover what's going on at the studio. We saw that happen two months ago with the Kingdoms of Avalar developer, and it wasn't pretty. I don't think BioWare will go that route, but we're on the outside looking in.

[sjaakiejj]

This sentence was aimed at you:
"So how do I answer this with you believing my answer is genuine and not influenced or whatever?"

Think about it, would EA really gain anything out of treating Bioware like shit? They bought the company because of their talent, and demonstrated ability to make games. Why would it be in their interest to destroy that work ethic?

[GUNS N SWORDS]

@ MikeCosgrove

Harbinger?

I thought i read Hamburger. lol, i need to get my rest it's 3 AM where I'm at.

[fossilfern]

Your right ME3 did feel rushed and I'm not just judging the game on its ending, im talking about the entire game. It just felt like a Sci-Fi TPS with lacking content compared to ME1 and 2. To be fair ME2 felt more like a TPS than an RPG but the areas you explored and the missions you went on were so much more interesting compared to ME3.

[Heavenly King]

I also wanted to fight Harbringer :(

[lonesoul65]

ya know...what is truly lost here is imagination. No one freaked out when Inception left the story up to USE YOUR BRAIN. I personally really enjoyed ME3 and had no real issue with the end of the game. Sometimes not knowing everything, is knowing enough. It's kinda sad to me that someone can tell another person that their vision of something just isn't good enough. Will never make sense to me but I guess some things just aren't supposed to .

[user5467007]

Film....video games

Two very differn't things

Lets not forget Nolan is a genius when it comes to script writting and directing.

[lonesoul65]

I totally agree that they are two different mediums and you are correct about he Genius comment = ) Nice to get a constructive comment instead of a flame...thanks MikeC = )

[NewZealander]

for some reason i kept reading "pay grade" as "gay parade" lol

plus the indoctrination theory sucked, thank god they didn't take that option!

[ALLWRONG]

now that's funny

[Knight_Crawler]

Its called Dyslexia and you should get it checked out by a doctor before it gets any worst.

Dyslexia is a very broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person's fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read,[1] and which can manifest itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, or rapid naming.[2][3]

Dyslexia is distinct from reading difficulties resulting from other causes, such as a non-neurological deficiency with vision or hearing, or from poor or inadequate reading instruction.[4][5] It is believed that dyslexia can affect between 5 and 10 percent of a given population although there have been no studies to indicate an accurate percentage.

[Falloutxii]

Your comment looks like it was copied and pasted from somewhere.

[NewZealander]

hell thanks for getting me all worried lol, off to the quack i go :p

[bubblebeam]

@Knight_Crawler

"Its called Dyslexia and you should get it checked out by a doctor before it gets any worst."

Nah, I think your dyslexia is **WORSE** than his. Just my opinion. Yours actually might be the **WORST case I have seen.**

Oh by the way, nice copy paste from Wikipedia lol. You must be mad at that Kiwi guy lol.

[Irishguy95]

The indoctrination theory made more sense than the actual ending

[zeal0us]

"Bioware: “The real EA doesn’t hurt (us)”"

So I'm guess the fake EA, the entity that fanboys fantasize doing no evil and the best company in the world, does hurt you?

[sjaakiejj]

Did you even bother to read the article? It's EA's reputation that hurts Bioware, not EA as a company.

[Summons75]

yeah your right they only brainwashed you and now your just as greedy as they are

[rdgneoz3]

I'm thinking the later seeing how things have turned out lately.

[Falloutxii]

Did anyone honestly think they were going to speak against their bosses?

[Moby-Royale]

They were..... indocrinated....

Well that's just my THEORY.

[ALLWRONG]

Tell the first game that

[modesign]

isnt bioware victory butchering the next command and conquer. RIP great Title

[Mikefizzled]

Don't write off anything we have seen so little of

[swat_teem]

bioware victory is not related to bioware they are two differant developers

[Megaton]

There's no saving BioWare. They are too far gone under EA indoctrination.

[ninjahunter]

Ok, Well, first i didnt buy it because EA ruined it. But now im not going to buy it because your writers and a good portion of your dev team suck. :O

WOW, what a weight off your shoulders

[NovusTerminus]

EA is not ruining Bioware, I think this is Bioware fault.

EA was behind Dragon Age: Origin's, which was praised, and Mass Effect 2, which was praised. I think BW is just on the decline.

[aliengmr]

EA probably hasn't helped, but BioWare deserves the largest share of the blame for sure.

[greatcrusader44]

DA:O was in development for around 4yrs before Bioware was bought out by EA. Only thing I know they contributed to that title was making them take Shale out of main game and make her dlc that came with the game new. Mass effect 2 was lacking a lot of rpg components combat wise but I do agree it was great (Still prefer first one). DA2 was only in development for around 13 months and they made a new engine for it so it's no surprise how it turned out. ME3 team wanted an extra 6 months to work on it some more, but were only given 3. Can't say an extra 3 months would've made it better, and ending was already written, but joining EA def did ruin the development of DA2 (had 1/5 time it took to make DAO) and who knows how much better ME3 might've been with another 3 months.

[ProjectDeputy]

learn some facts dude

EA ONLY published DO back then bioware was not bought.
Same for ME2...bioware was already working on me2...EA had nothing to do with these 2 games they where ONLY publishers

[LAWSON72]

I highly doubt that bioware would say ea has f'd them up the ass. I think both each and bioware are just full of shit. All they both have ever done is ruin my favorite games. They are both doing it for the money because greed is ugly but hey without we would not get the big expensive blockbusters that advance are genres and push them in new directions (at least they are suppose to anyway).
All bioware does is make there rpgs into some generic action game or shooter.Sometimes I wish games would stop being so simple and easy. I understand making games like this so everybody can pick up and play but fans don't like being fucked up the ass by their favorite developers and hopefully in the end bioware fails hard at something and comes to their senses. I wish developers would go back to what makes games awesome and unique. If only it was cheap and wasnt a huge risk to make a game, because everybody just copies others or sticks with the same formula, I guess creativity in gaming just doesn't come cheap. That's why the past few years have been sequel after sequel and shooter after shooter.

[pompombrum]

Only a complete idiot would speak out against their bosses. Then again, you'd have thought only a complete idiot would want to sell their studio to EA.

[FrightfulActions]

So who won Worst Company in America Award - real EA or fake EA?

[Kin23g]

lol

[BDSE]

I never knew so many disgruntled employees of EA/Bioware spent their time commenting on N4G.

[sugadaddy]

In his capacity as "Community Coordinator" he's essentially a PR guy--of course he's going to say the "real" EA doesn't hurt them.

[nrvalleytime]

Sad, but true. Maybe the newest round of layoffs at the company will give someone the freedom to tell us how it is, one way or the other.

[cleft5]

A guy says something positive about EA and the whole internet calls him a liar. It's sad that gamers have become this jaded and cynical.

[nrvalleytime]

Consumerism in general gravitates this way; reporting on someone doing his job, unfortunately, exists as news in a digital age. Companies are being questioned about their practices like never before, and the Internet (and all of us behind our computers) leads the charge, even if many of us have no idea about a better solution.

What the majority of people are really saying is, "give me the product I want"; meeting that demand is classic economics, despite the jaded, cynical nature it often takes within our genre.

[cleft5]

Well said.

[Persistantthug]

I have a friend here in the Bay Area who works for EA,
and I asked him about Jade Empire (Actually I asked him about several games), and he told me that a sequel would likely never be possible, because Bioware, as a good of a developer as they are, they were terrible as business and deal makers.
His words were
"Bioware's business sense was like a turnip".

Basically, EA doesn't own Jade Empire, and cant, rather, EA won't pay to get the IP back.

They somewhat did it with Mass Effect, where EA has the franchise IP, but even then, they couldn't work a deal out where they got all of the particular game (MASS EFECT 1) as a game IP back to itself.

Maybe I'm not articulating that last part well enough, but that's the gist.

[ProjectDeputy]

i hope the rumors of ea searching for a company to buy them is true...jsut not something worse (no activision or nexon plz)

[Perez]

Do I hate EA? or do I hate the image they cant shake off?

I'd say the image more then the company, I understand perfectly as a corporate entity that EA aims to make money and pay its shareholders, there is nothing wrong with this at all.

Yet its always been the way EA and Activision and a big swathe of gaming companies (and retail in general ie. Gamestop et al) have gone about making the Big green dollar that makes consumers jaded and cynical.

Its always been nickel and diming in recent years.
Online passes, DLC (on disc and launch day), buggy unplayable game launches (D3 anyone?), rushed games (there are a few in that ol' EA stable) will always rile people in the idea that didnt we just pay for a whole product that works and that you don't have to fork out more for the full picture.

P.S
DLC done right is a fine thing but its getting harder to find in a sea of gimmicks and blatant money grabbing.

[Blacklash93]

While I'm sure EA had made some bad decisions for ME3's development that hurt the game in terms of budgets and time... the weak story and writing and stupidly concieved plot points, which were ME3's main faults, are soley on Bioware.