Who's accountable for the Mass Effect series being put on Hiatus?

If anyone has seen me post before, they know I'm a big fan of this game. However, this post, in my opinion, is going to take a critical look that will be as objective as I can. That being say, there is blame to be shared by everyone I'd say, but one party stands out far more than others..

Bioware launched an unfinished product that should have stayed in development for at least several more months. If reports are true that they outsourced the animations of characters, they, as a professional game developer with many AAA and highly rated titles under their belt, had the responsibility to play-test and ensure everything was running smoothly. Bugs and glitches in games are, sadly, just a part of the gaming industry. However, the amount of bugs reported by Andromeda, many of which I didn't experience myself but don't doubt they existed, should not occur. The animations should NEVER have been shipped pre-patch 1.05. Again, I had the benefit of not picking up the title until the day that patched was released. They launched an incomplete, buggy product. That's where mass criticism has come in and hurt this game's launch and that lays on their door step.

EA, as the parent company, also plays a part in this as well. Their unrealistic timetables and high pressure, as well as taking away creative freedom of their developers seems to stifle growth and innovation. Their focus on streamlined, "simple" games that are churned out like clockwork with heavy focus on multiplayer components has not done the industry any favors. I don't work for either company, but if reports I've read online (we know how reliable they can be) EA can be a nightmare to work for. Bottom line - they care about money. Not fans. Not good stories. Not even good games. They care how many copies they can push. They are certainly to blame.

Haters are absolutely part of the problem. The amount of people that have bashed this game everywhere from Facebook, to gaming article comments to blogs to.. frankly, everywhere and have NOT EVEN PLAYED THE GAME is astonishing. Many of these people either jumped on the bandwagon of hate or they are simply bitter still over the ME3 endings and quick to jump on anything that hates Mass Effect. There are plenty of people who enjoy the game, myself included, who are drowned out by the people who scream from the roof tops that they hate the game, many of whom only watched a video on Youtube or saw a meme.


However, all that being said, there wouldn't be a negative pushback, even by the mass of haters out there, for no reason if the game was solid at launch. Despite my love for this title, I must say that the blame for ME being put on the shelf, if the reports are true, can't be placed anywhere other than the developer who created it. EA's crunch time might be overkill. Maybe they gave no quarter to Bioware for extra time to fix the problems. However, Bioware dropped the ball with the release of a buggy, poorly animated game to people both overly hyped for the game and eager for any scrape to see them fail. Unfortunately, I have to be objective. The initial launch was awful. I don't think pushback would have been nearly as bad if the game had launched with patch 1.05 to fix the animations... or even if they had just animated the game in-house... or even CHECKED to see if it was properly animated. However, that's in the past. They launched it like they did and the blame for that falls at their feet.

you do not know them, and there's not enough time to explain

EA/Bioware

No one other than those who put the game on hiatus can be held accountable, it's pretty basic. As much as I think this game has gotten an extremely unfair treatment, there are several legitimate gripes to have with ME:A, and it's EA/BioWare themselves who don't have much faith on turning the odds if their kneejerk reaction is to shelve ME.

I would say EA's strict deadline to have the game's revenue count for last year's fiscal year is what lead to most of the issues. The story and characters are subjective as many people like it so you can't blame Bioware there.

Mostly, I blame the entitled, over-dramatic fan base as the game's great aspects far outweigh its flaws. People also look at a score of 7/10 and lose their minds when the game is good.

After the patches, I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys either RPGs or just a good single player story

No layoffs. No office closures. No adjustment in quarterly earnings. No official press release.

Yet there are still those who insist ME is on "hiatus".

And "SJW's"? hah. This poll just went into ludicrous speed.

The only one to blame here is Bioware. I suppose you could say EA shouldn't have given such a huge task to an unproven studio, but still all the issues with MEA are squarely on Bioware's shoulders.

Trying to blame fans or haters or SJWs for MEA's problems is just scapegoating to avoid the admitting the game's real issues.

You can also blame the overall direction, the bad writing, and at times, the cringe worthy dialog. Those are my fundamental problems with the game, not the cosmetic stuff. If the game was actually well written and exciting, I think the bugs etc wouldn't be as showcased by people. The uninspired direction and technical issues is what led to the uproar. This game doesn't have a whole lot going for it, which is why it's very easy to criticize.

The people that you know, made the game.

It's fruitless to even make this poll, but everyone needs to look into a mirror then.

It's what mobs do when the sky falls and the future is uncertain.

Essentially no RPG I have ever played (Final Fantasy series, Star Ocean series, Elder Scrolls Morrowind, Oblivion, & Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 4, to name just a couple) have been without their vast glaring flaws and bugs and issues. Andromeda is literally no worse than any of them. The fanbase reacted horribly and the overblown criticisms went viral and as expected - it has now killed the franchise. Like how Zelda fans praise and adore their games even if parts are bad - Bioware "fans" are the toxic opposite and viciously criticise pretty much everything even when it's good. The ridiculous vitriol over the sodding character creator for instance - it is just pathetic guys.

I adored the game, flaws and all, I've enjoyed hundreds of hours and while it isn't perfect, no game is. It's damn good fun, quintessentially Mass Effect, has interesting new characters and story, tons of content, exciting new worlds and romances, it's a great game and worth every penny I spent on it. I can see the team did their absolute best to create a Mass Effect game all the fans would love. It's a damn shame what our criticisms have caused and shame on us all for it, we've killed the franchise.