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Post by ticktak77 on Apr 5, 2017 14:22:11 GMT
So much to consider, here.
Firstly - publishers and retailers have conditioned consumers into a culture of pre-ordering / purchasing on day one, without informing themselves about the game first.
Therefore, most of those pre-orders and day one purchases remain unaffected by ME: A's awful launch.
Secondly - even if the game sold well, within the gaming industry, perception is reality. The perception surrounding Mass Effect is not a good one - essentially it's a broken $40 million meme. While that might be harsh, we live in an era where anything glitchy, buggy, or unsatisfactory we see in a video game, is one or two button pushes away from being all over the internet.
That negative perception of the game will hurt things like long-tail sales, as well as DLC / micro-transaction projections.
So, TL;DR - while the game might have sold well initially, EA will be highly concerned about the long road success of this game, which is surely under jeopardy given the negative perception of this game.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2017 14:35:18 GMT
I just don't see how people are seeing this as a fail or as a not good game. Yeah it needs work and they are in the process of fixing some of the biggest gripes people had. But overall it is a solid game. And it's far better than some of the garbage out there. I was not a fan after ME3 ending and some of that game's design, but I think they did a good job with it. Sure it has some things that could be fixed and many are being addressed in patches that are upcoming. Some of them were clearly them not really thinking about what we wanted. But I just don't see this as this sort of crappy or mediocre game people are making it out to be. Could it use work and more polish? Yeah. Could the story have been better? In some ways yes. Could the worlds have offered more than what they did, probably but for this story, I don't really think much more. But from my perspective it's not the borderline trash some are working hard to make it out to be. I feel like it's so subjective and people will focus on either only the worst or only the best and that is how the lines are dividing.
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Post by guynice on Apr 5, 2017 14:53:40 GMT
The 40 million figure is the development budget and does not include marketing. Usually the marketing budget for AAA games and EA games in particular is about 2-3 times the development cost. So in total EA is likely to have spent in excess of 120 million dollars on the game. This is of course not based on insider info, but on past precedent and conjecture. If the "marketing" I saw costs 80+ millions dollars, then I'd recommend to fire a few dozens of people involved. Well to be fair they needed to show gameplay and in-game cutscenes. You can only polish a turd so much...
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Post by smilesja on Apr 5, 2017 15:36:07 GMT
Does mass effect seem like a game that had an aggressive marketing campaign though? It feels like it's much more modest compared to the past, I'd bet on 20 to 30 million onto the overall budget. All speculation of course. No way to confirm. I think that the problem was more with how they did it rather than how much they spent on it.
From a corporate perspective it's obvious to me why a corporation like EA would be willing to spend double on marketing than the actual making of the game. Investing in making a better product is not quite as sexy as just upselling sequels for an established franchise.
Gotta pump them sequels out. Ubisoft might be the worst when it comes to that, but other AAA publishers aren't very different.
That's why ME:A is a mediocre soft-reboot rather than an awesome reinvention of the franchise. They could have gone mad with it, caused a new generation to fall in love with the ME franchise, they could have made ME:A something akin (in concept if not scale) to Star Citizen.
That's why it frustrates me to think of all that money being spilled on marketing. It's not like all the marketing did ME:A any favors, it became a meme regardless. Hell, ME:A might even sell well for all I know, but that likely won't be because of marketing.
Marketing? Bioware spent money on marketing?
Anyway after the ME3 ending disaster, I'm not too surprised they went with a soft reboot.
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Post by smilesja on Apr 5, 2017 15:44:37 GMT
Marketing? Bioware spent money on marketing?
Anyway after the ME3 ending disaster, I'm not too surprised they went with a soft reboot.
A soft reboot could be exciting and interesting if done well. In theory. ME:A is just... okay, when it could have been much more.
Very much like DA:I in a sense, perhaps slightly better.
So far I'm enjoying it, don't spoil me but I have a feeling that there's more to Andromeda than the game let's on.
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Post by Iakus on Apr 5, 2017 15:49:20 GMT
ME:A commercials are still running. I saw one two days ago. I can't remember where; best guess is Comedy Central, either Daily Show or @midnight. I've only ever seen commercials for it while watching The Walking Dead on AMC
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Post by ShadowAngel on Apr 5, 2017 16:00:27 GMT
This game "really had to deliver" after the fiasco of ME3. Are you just going to keep moving the goalpost? Nothing is riding on MEA2. If it turns out to be better than 1 it'll be a happy accident. How so? ME3s ending is years past, the trilogy was perfect besides the last twenty minutes. I'm not letting that effect my expectations with Andromeda. What I am however doing is letting Andromeda set my expectations for its sequal as Andromeda has no ties to the original, is a completely different series, etc etc so the sequels to it have to do better.
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Post by Ianamus on Apr 5, 2017 16:02:07 GMT
This game "really had to deliver" after the fiasco of ME3. Are you just going to keep moving the goalpost? Nothing is riding on MEA2. If it turns out to be better than 1 it'll be a happy accident. Why? Despite the controversy Mass Effect 3 was very financially successful. If I remember correctly, It's multiplayer in particular was a huge cash cow for the company.
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Post by ShadowAngel on Apr 5, 2017 16:03:46 GMT
So far I'm enjoying it, don't spoil me but I have a feeling that there's more to Andromeda than the game let's on. I finished the game. I think I did everything aside from a few fetch quests. It was okay, a decent enough entertainment but I'm not particularly impressed.
It's hard to say why after so much time in development that game still feels rushed and unpolished. And that's without going into the writing quality of the plot and the characters, which is rather mediocre.
Just meh, nothing particularly memorable and too many cringy moments.
I don't think the time devs are given matter. There are games that get so little time, some more than that, and some get longer cycles than most out there. Duke nuke had 11 years I believe and it was awful. Really a dev just needs 3 years as a good time figure and they just need to do what they can. To much time and not enough are both bad.
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Post by Link"Guess"ski on Apr 5, 2017 16:06:11 GMT
It was, but not the campaign, as you say. The storytelling and reactions towards it has been falling off a cliff since ME3 and it does not seem to be recovering. People played these games to find out what happened next. We're not invested in that aspect anymore, but we'll gladly take whatever they can come up with... but it's just not something you can invest in as an ongoing story IMO. Few things have potential but there's too much proof in the pudding that MEA wastes a lot of potential on its plot and premise, enough that I'd say as I did above, that 2 will most likely not be good but if it does it's just a happy accident. Banging, max-monetized-playtime open world zones and Multiplayer seems to be the selling point now. It's more addictive but not as much something to invest in.
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Post by ShadowAngel on Apr 5, 2017 16:10:04 GMT
It's to early to judge its financial success since it's only going into two weeks now. So far it's #1 in U.K. Sales and I've heard it's selling better than ME1 in that span and better than the other AAA games out there. I haven't seen anything on world wide sales yet but I imagine that one is going to be waiting a while. I speculate Andromeda will be a success commercially and that alone will be enough to get further sequels regardless of the critical success it is failing to get. I think "this franchise is doomed" is still to early to get into as various games make up for flops or take various flops before it starts actually hurting them. We also don't have accurate numbers on marketing, production cost, sales to retailers, etc etc untill they speak up on it. It's all speculation really.
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Post by joglee on Apr 5, 2017 16:20:59 GMT
Here's good news.
ME:A remains #1 in UK physical sales during week 2 and has come very close to outselling Ghost Recon: Wildlands in physical copies.
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Post by Sanunes on Apr 5, 2017 16:50:42 GMT
Here's good news. ME:A remains #1 in UK physical sales during week 2 and has come very close to outselling Ghost Recon: Wildlands in physical copies. I don't want to group everyone the same way, but I find a lot of discussions on the internet have become echo chambers with groups of people not being to understand they don't represent everyone. I do think there are people that don't like Andromeda for there choices BioWare made aren't what they like in games, but I think at the same time there are plenty of people that like the game, so it isn't the same thing as "Assassin's Creed Syndrome" since it is just a polarized response to Andromeda instead of a pretty common thread of "meh" or "I didn't like it" which is what happens with Assassin's Creed now.
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Post by llandwynwyn on Apr 5, 2017 17:04:40 GMT
So the game got cracked. I wonder how it'll affect the sales on pc. Especially on countries where EA got greedy.
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Post by Fredward on Apr 5, 2017 17:07:35 GMT
Hopefully it sold well enough to get a second game but not so well that substantial backwash lands in DATevinter, those fetch quests need to die.
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Post by smilesja on Apr 5, 2017 17:10:01 GMT
This game "really had to deliver" after the fiasco of ME3. Are you just going to keep moving the goalpost? Nothing is riding on MEA2. If it turns out to be better than 1 it'll be a happy accident. How so? ME3s ending is years past, the trilogy was perfect besides the last twenty minutes. I'm not letting that effect my expectations with Andromeda. What I am however doing is letting Andromeda set my expectations for its sequal as Andromeda has no ties to the original, is a completely different series, etc etc so the sequels to it have to do better. Ehh... There were more problems with ME3 than the last 20 minutes.
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Post by ShadowAngel on Apr 5, 2017 17:19:00 GMT
How so? ME3s ending is years past, the trilogy was perfect besides the last twenty minutes. I'm not letting that effect my expectations with Andromeda. What I am however doing is letting Andromeda set my expectations for its sequal as Andromeda has no ties to the original, is a completely different series, etc etc so the sequels to it have to do better. Ehh... There were more problems with ME3 than the last 20 minutes. Absolutely, but nothing I needed to harp on about nor did anything else bring it down. That ending alone is what many view as what ruined the series.there was no numerous amount of bugs, you had a story many liked, the combat still improved game by game, you still had your character development. beaides the ending itself I'd only say the other issue is the entire series being nothing but contradictions, but because it's the entire series I said screw it, and it's followed it's way to Andromeda but I've no issue since i said screw it with the other three games. besides alien pornographry, it wasn't talked about much negatively
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Post by griffith82 on Apr 5, 2017 17:26:18 GMT
Did this get a Super Bowl ad? Because those cost millions.
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Post by KaiserShep on Apr 5, 2017 17:28:30 GMT
How so? ME3s ending is years past, the trilogy was perfect besides the last twenty minutes. I'm not letting that effect my expectations with Andromeda. What I am however doing is letting Andromeda set my expectations for its sequal as Andromeda has no ties to the original, is a completely different series, etc etc so the sequels to it have to do better. Ehh... There were more problems with ME3 than the last 20 minutes. This is certainly true, but I can't help but feel that a capper that was seen as significantly more satisfying would probably make it easier for people to forget the rest.
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Post by Steelcan on Apr 5, 2017 17:49:12 GMT
Ehh... There were more problems with ME3 than the last 20 minutes. This is certainly true, but I can't help but feel that a capper that was seen as significantly more satisfying would probably make it easier for people to forget the rest. it certainly worked for ME2
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Post by KaiserShep on Apr 5, 2017 17:50:24 GMT
ME2 is a perfect example. The plot logic of the Collector abduction of the Normandy is annoying as hell, but hey Suicide Mission.
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Post by joglee on Apr 5, 2017 17:58:37 GMT
Hopefully it sold well enough to get a second game but not so well that substantial backwash lands in DATevinter, those fetch quests need to die. It's close to surpassing ghost recon wildlands in physical sales in the UK. I'd say it's doing well.
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Post by Andrew Lucas on Apr 5, 2017 18:28:33 GMT
EA is expecting this to sell around 3M copies, so far so good.
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Post by Revan Reborn on Apr 5, 2017 18:30:49 GMT
Not exactly. When it comes to major franchises, such as Mass Effect, expectations are heavily inflated. There are certain numbers investors expect and the game needs to meet that demand. MEA cannot just be a moderate success. It needs to be a huge success, which is obviously what EA wanted. I still believe that is largely possible, but early stumbling and bad press, overall, doesn't help the game sell.
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Post by garrusfan1 on Apr 5, 2017 18:53:25 GMT
Also, there many other costs to releasing a game - Like on the consoles Microsoft and Sony takes a substantial cut and Marketing is also a huge expense. The common saying is that for every 10 million in dev budget you have to sell 1 million copies <- this is just a loose rule of thumb but it usually checks out unless your game is an MMO or something that gets extra payment after launch. So loosely ME:A would have to sell around 4 million copies in all to break even. Except that ME:A has multiplayer with in game sales, so it will make more money than just by selling the base game. You know that is so sad but true. I admit to doing it once or twice with ME3 multiplayer.
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