Should Bioware be trying to attract old Bioware RPG fans?

Ideally, no. But what they actually do is try to split the difference, compromise, cover all bases, toss a bone to the old guard, and basically make do with a very minimal marketing budget.

First of all, they would deny that Anthem isn't character-driven storytelling like any good old Bioware game. So if that's what "traditional Bioware fans" want, they'll get it with Anthem.

See what I mean by splitting the difference?

Second of all, "traditional Bioware fans" are not a monolith. There is the Mass Effect crowd, the Dragon Age crowd, the Baldur's Gate "when CRPGs were good" crowd, and then a bunch of splinter groups off those crowds. And of course, a lot of overlap, but not so much you can just lump then all together into "traditional."

Given that mess, how exactly are they to spend what few marketing dollars they get from penny-pinching EA?

Finally, there's the bottom line, literally. There's only two possible business cases. One: "traditional RPGs" (read, DA and ME) will generate modest to flat ROI (in term of revenue) and all significant revenue growth has to come from live service and/or MP games or other high potential ROI investments, or Two: "traditional RPGs" will decline in revenue and/or will have reduced I in order to maintain ROI, and live service and/or MP games have to make up the difference AND provide growth.

Neither one of those cases would justify spending marketing dollars on traditional RPG fans. Corollary, DA and ME will look less and less like traditional RPGs as time goes on. For example, they'll shift to more Action RPG in style. Arguably this has already happened between DAO and DAI.

My assumption was that "Bioware fans" primarily played their games for the story and branching options in choices. It didn't necessarily matter how they handled the gameplay. If the issue more or less lies in the fact that the game is multiplayer-centric, then I think fans who dislike this method of play will have to continue waiting until the next single-player Bioware game comes out; which they're already working on. I mean, Bioware already split the baby (on that front) with Anthem, as you can play most of the game entirely solo from what it sounds like. Can't really do anything about there not being romances or companions, but I imagine Bioware envisioned that having people (specifically friends) to play with would ultimately serve as your companions. That might make it less of a personal experience, but I don't think anyone can deny that it does still create experiences.

They should want as many people as possible to buy their games so... Yes?

Bioware's marketing has always been abhorrent.

I do feel like they're trying to avoid mistakes they made in the past, but in this process are making new mistakes.
In any case, Bioware actually has a luxury problem. They have such devoted fans, which is both a blessing and a curse. At worst, they're entitled, at best, they'll preorder en masse regardless of what you churn out.

In my humbly opinion, bioware should do whatever the ef they want to do. And fans can choose whether or not they like that. And act accordingly.

“Know your audience”. Should BioWare attempt to appeal to its RPG fans? Of course. More customers, more money. Should they focus on those fans? Probably not. Nothing I’ve seen so far suggests that Anthem was designed to appeal to those folks, so they probably aren’t the target audience. Anthem appears to be designed for the crowd that likes to go out with other people, shoot thing to get loot, and then go out and shoot things with the new loot. That’s who BioWare should be focusing their market budget on. They should be showing folks how the shooting will be fun and exciting, and giving examples of the cool loot to chase.

That isn’t to say they can’t throw a shoutout to story and character fans now and again, probably via convention showings and interviews, but the bulk of their money should focus on fans of the primary engagement loop. To do otherwise is to risk diluting their message and garnering less interest from either crowd.

I think it's best to expand the fanbase while making sure to keep its core elements that made Bioware who they are.

Who says EA marketing sucks? That sounds like somebody in marketing was on the ball.

This is all consistent with distancing new Bioware from old Bioware. Which, as I argued above, is both expected and necessary. It won’t matter if some traditional fans are left behind, if they pick up higher value fans (read recurring revenue spenders) at least 1 for 1, though the potential is there for many to 1.

Obviously, they aren’t purposely trying to alienate traditional fans and are trying to throw enough bones to at least keep them from going full ME3 ending riot mode. If true fans choose to be alienated anyway, that’s probably an acceptable loss businesswise.

Anthem's success or failure will be irrespective of its ability to attract "traditional Bioware fans", and it's not really there to fill that niche, so it makes sense to market to looter-shooter fans, because those are the people who are going to put the money into it that they want put into it.

ME:2, which then spilled over to DA:2.

That's kind of the point of the article. Not that Bethesda did a better job about getting people excited, but a better job at getting the game's target audience excited. The drew very clear lines about what kind of game it was and what to look forward to. And yes, that made a lot of traditional Fallout fans unhappy, but Bethesda also had "there will be something for our more traditional players coming down the pipeline" as well. Whereas BW stuck to the same marketing jargon they've been using with Anthem for the last year or so: "it's a looter-shooter, but by BW, so it'll be totally different, guys, you'll see!". They tried to play it off as the best of both worlds, but the audience was no-sold on unsubstantiated promises, so it just came off as wishy-washy.

Not for the intended audience. The Destiny and Division folks I’ve seen are mildly positive and curious, which is a fantastic result, considering how jaded that segment is.

With how people reacted to the romance and combat companion things you should know exactly how people would have reacted and the YouTube videos that would have sprung up in moment about how "BioWare hates its fans" and other garbage.

I don't see how Bethesda got people excited when more people are still wanting to know more about Anthem, but are going to ignore Fallout 76 because they were told its not for them.  BioWare has made comments about Anthem, but they are always conveniently ignored until its something that makes clickbait and those are the only things remembered.  They have talked about the conversation system, how it won't have romances, they are aiming for deep friendships with NPCs just not having combat companions.  They have said plenty to get people interested if they actually wanted to be.

Unlike Bethesda where people will cheer if they completely gut a game franchise for money, BioWare has to be careful because people will bitch and moan about anything in the game even if it was something they were asking for before.  I remember how bent out of shape people got when Cassandra beat down a keep door herself in an early Dragon Age: Inquisition video or how people kept ignoring what BioWare was saying with "we will say more when we can" about Andromeda DLC.  They would have taken anything BioWare said and twisted it to their own personal narrative and then tried to make clickbait YouTube money instead of actually talking about what BioWare said just their version of it.