Mass Effect: Andromeda is a game that suffered from animation issues and a number of rough edges that hurt the enjoyment of the story itself. It’s nearly impossible to sit back and get lost in a world when that world has yet to be finished. Yesterday, BioWare announced that a series of patches would fix many of these problems, and these patches would be released “over the next two months.”
Congratulations, you bought an early access game that you thought was finished. If you know that changes this large are going to be made to the game in the future, why the hell would you pay for an unfinished game today?
This is kind of a big deal
“We like to think of games and game development as services that grow and evolve with the involvement of customers and the community,” Steam says about early access games. “There have been a number of prominent titles that have embraced this model of development recently and found a lot of value in the process. We like to support and encourage developers who want to ship early, involve customers and build lasting relationships that help everyone make better games.”
This description matches what BioWare is doing with Mass Effect: Andromeda, down to the use of community feedback to inform patches.
“Since launch, our team has been poring over your comments and feedback, looking to discover what you like about the game, as well as areas we can evolve or improve,” BioWare’s blog post explained. “This Thursday, we’ll release a new patch that addresses technical fixes (crashes, improved performance), but also adds a number of improvements we’ve heard you ask for ...”
The problem is that people who purchased Andromeda likely assumed that the game was done, and ready for purchase at the full retail of $59.99 and up depending on the edition being offered. As our own Arthur Gies so succinctly put it on Twitter:
My answer is yes, you wasted 70 hours. The final experience sounds like it’s going to be much stronger than the game that was released at launch, with significant changes made to everything from character romances to the technology that drives the game itself.
BioWare isn’t calling this an early access game, nor are they taking much responsibility for the state of the game at launch, because doing so would limit sales. This situation punishes the series’ biggest fans in multiple ways, and it decreases transparency about what we should have expected from the game at launch.
Our own review made it sound like Andromeda was a promising early access game.
“After a number of complaints, it might seem odd to end on such a positive note,” our review stated. “Let’s be clear: I’m conflicted about Mass Effect: Andromeda. There’s a lot of roughness throughout the game, and the technical issues, while not game-breaking, are often incredibly distracting ... And if I’m judging a game by where it leaves me, Andromeda succeeds, even if it stumbled getting there.”
Now that we know so many of these problems will be fixed in a few months — and in that time the price of the game will inevitably come down — it’s impossible and almost irresponsible to recommend that anyone buy the game today. It’s a shame BioWare didn’t tell us it was releasing an early access game before so many people put their money down.
Comments
Another great example of pre-order bonuses including a Gold Plated Slap in the Face
By siberianhamster on 04.05.17 12:25pm
This is precisely why I did not buy this at launch nor do I ever intend to. Publishers like EA are pushing out more and more unfinished games because people keep preodering/buying them. It’s gotten to the stage that even if this game is fixed up a year from now, they’ve lost me as a consumer and I will not be supporting EA or BioWare in the future.
By HyprJ on 04.05.17 12:28pm
With as much as i dislike EA, i dont think it is necessarily fair to blame them completely for this mess. The reality is this game was in development for 5 years, which is a really long development window for games like this one. At a certain point a publisher has to put their foot down and tell the studio to release the game. At a certain point game production starts to not be profitable, not only that but the gaming world continues to change around you. Every month that passes it becomes more and more likely your ideas, design options and game elements will become obsolete.
While i do think EA is party responsible for not checking the state of the product the released i dont blame them for telling Bioware to basically release what they had.
By btifultwilight on 04.05.17 2:30pm
I don’t understand how you can not blame EA for this. This is a restart to the series, so they shouldn’t have screwed it up so badly. If they were so concerned about money they should have allocated the resources towards improving the quality of the game rather than the quantity. Even if it still had good facial animations it still suffers from terrible go from point A to B and press Y side quests, stilted dialogue, and extremely bland characters. Its people like you who are sympathetic to corporations why they could continue to get away with this type of behavior. They don’t give a crap about you, trust me.
By DJ_Stanki on 04.05.17 3:08pm
I blame the decision to go super open world with the game complete with bad sidequests etc. Dragon age inquisition was the same. The zones and planets were pretty cool but the single player mmo feel to quest design comes off as extreme padding and it’s very boring and adds to a lot of these problems.
I also always wanted the older mass effect games to have larger spaces and let you visit the home worlds of its aliens to learn more about them but there’s gotta be a better middle ground
By sigilyph on 04.06.17 10:06am
" they should have allocated the resources towards improving the quality of the game rather than the quantity."
You’ve for me explained the difference in viewpoints on the reception of the game. I read so many counter arguments of "it’s a great game, you guys are just haters." I get it, it’s a huge sprawling game, but it has flaws. Flaws that were enough for me to return mine. To overlook one because you like the other is why unfinished games like this get released.
By R0n1n on 04.06.17 12:20pm
I can’t imagine using this excuse for any other product. If something isn’t ready it isn’t ready. You don’t sell a new appliance or car just because you’ve been working on it for a while regardless if it’s ready.
By ericseverynewday on 04.05.17 3:13pm
Umm. Clearly you haven’t been paying attention to consumer electronics. Flawed products are released all the time just to make sure they hit deadlines for quarterly earnings.
By agies on 04.06.17 11:18am
Here’s an idea. CANCEL THE GAME. When you are talking about a franchise like Mass Effect, releasing a sub-par product can do more damage to the IP and it’s fanbase monetarily than what it’s continued development would have. EA has lost a lot of integrity by putting out this half-baked product and it is likely that many people will never buy Andromeda or another Mass Effect game from them again. There’s no excuse for this, Bioware and EA have effectively ruined ME’s comeback and may have damaged it for years to come (remember that they still have to make a new trilogy from this turd).
By Roujin on 04.05.17 7:47pm
I’ll be honest with you, just based on the comments here and on a few other Andromeda related articles on other sites I’d say that’s pretty unlikely. I think there are enough people or who are fine with the game, or will be fine after it is patched that this series isnt in any financial risk. You have to keep in mind that for all those that are upset there are also plenty who aren’t. And that latter group is likely going to buy more Mass Effect games.
By greyjk on 04.06.17 12:29am
Yeah, Blizzard did exactly that MULTIPLE TIMES. ME trilogy are my favorite games of all time. I keep thinking as I play Andromeda, "how is it POSSIBLE for the same people to make another game with such bad writing."
The animation and other bugs, while horrible, are the least of the problems. The world-building is flat and boring, and the characters are just plain ridiculous.
It’s so bad, it’s made me reconsider how good the original trilogy was. Very similar to the Star Wars prequels.
By snugglez on 04.06.17 8:11am
You know that it’s not really the same team, right? There was a lot of turnover at Bioware since 2012.
By agies on 04.06.17 11:19am
To you. Which is fine. But there are plenty that don’t feel that way, which is why doing something like cancelling the game would likely be a very poor financial decision on EA/BioWare’s part.
By greyjk on 04.06.17 4:36pm
I understand you’re a consumer advocate publication but, "did I waste 70 hours" is not a question that can be answered by anyone but you. Either the game was fun and worth it, or it wasn’t. That it could be better is irrelevant.
There’s some seriously bizarre reasoning to get from "the game will be better" to "the game now is garbage, don’t buy it."
Moreover, buying the game now sends a strong signal to EA to push the resources to BioWare to develop the aforementioned patches and improvements – in the same way preorder sales will calibrate the back-half of the DLC strategy.
The Early Access Analogy is a bizarrely specious argument – you’re a smarter analyst than this argument. "right down to using community feedback" – are you suggesting that released games should ipso facto, not use community feedback to direct development? Early Access is a revenue model, not a development model – you know this, which is why this analogy is bizarre.
I can only surmise you meant something more profound than the inapt analogy and the basic observation that "games ship incomplete now" – which I think Penny Arcade lampooned something like 10 years ago.
By jeremyvernon on 04.05.17 12:30pm
Your argument is bizarre, considering you say this just one paragraph before:
Revenue begets development, making his analogy valid.
By mellerad on 04.05.17 12:38pm
Revenue and development use different models. The system by which features are selected and deployed is development. The system by which that effort is funded is revenue – obviously there’s an interface between those two things, but they are two things and not one thing – whereas Mr. Kuchera’s argument conflates them.
By jeremyvernon on 04.05.17 12:45pm
because they’re related, you can plan all the features and the kitchen sink, but when the revenue isn’t there to fund it what are you going to do?
By acme64 on 04.05.17 3:42pm
But why would you call on early access unless you already had the money available to you?
The purpose of early access is strictly to get revenue. It doesn’t serve any other purpose. EA has its own revenue and income sources it can draw on, but it doesn’t open its doors to the public to just buy in and start playing. Early Access requires the devs to give their incomplete games out, but otherwise they retain development control. It is up to the community to decide if they want to see the game get finished by buying in.
EAs situation is different as the game is technically finished. Patches can go undone and you would still think it was done. Due to the flexibility of the internet, devs can release updates quickly in a cost efficient manner, but the core product is still completed. Not all games are SFV.
By KevAnLee on 04.05.17 3:51pm
compare the state of an early access game to Andromeda and you’ll have your answer
By acme64 on 04.05.17 4:35pm
Sure.
Andromeda is a finished game. So what are you getting at? There is a clear difference between what gets on early access and what Mass Effect Andromeda is. Most early access games are literally not finished. Making quality of life improvements and implementing modes and core features after the money is collected aren’t the same thing either.
Also, I didn’t really ask a question that I didn’t already answer.
By KevAnLee on 04.05.17 4:38pm
Something’s not finished if it’s still being worked on.
You could make the case that it’s close enough to finished, or that it’s feature complete, but just by the plain meaning of the word, it is not ‘finished’.
By The_Ewan on 04.05.17 6:02pm
Was Star Wars a finished movie? Okay, bad example :). Finished does not mean perfect. You can almost always continue to improve something.
By ench on 04.05.17 6:11pm
Seems pretty straw man to swoop in with ‘lolbutpatches’. When that applies to nearly every game in the past ten years.
ME:A Is finished as is. It even got a 7.5 from Polygon. They didn’t hide their awkward animation in any of the trailers so there was no funny business.
I see no problem with making some changes just for the benefit of their fans.
By domsays on 04.05.17 8:25pm
What strawman argument? There isn’t. As long as something is being worked on by someone, it’s never done.
Whether that someone is an official developer, a modder, etc. is completely irrelevant.
Official development on it is done… is more specific and true. Done in general is false.
By Rizing on 04.05.17 9:38pm
Actually it’s quite relevant. It’s asinine to state that a game isn’t finished simply because some random person on the Internet decided they wanted to play modder for a month.
By nathanielklee on 04.05.17 10:54pm