EA Boss Says Mass Effect: Andromeda Got Too Much Criticism, Franchise Could Return

Didn't read the whole article, just the part quoted in the OP. All that tells me is EA/BW learned nothing from MEA. "Maybe" there were some things they could have done better? Really? Next is he gonna tell me "maybe" fire is a little warm to the touch?

All in all he thinks MEA "is a great game". Well, guess that tells me all I need to know.

He acknowledges the games flaws. I don't get why some people say that he's blaming gamers.

Once a Ryder JR. is the protagonist of anything else than a game you know that we - as players - are not returning to Andromeda. I'm not saying that can never happen (of course they could decide that the next ME game takes place elsewhere), but it's not happening with the stuff that comes out in the near future (because that was all pre-planned and I think BioWare/EA is still in the "what do we do now with Mass Effect?"-phase).

Would be interesting to get into one of the upcoming strategy meetings.

EA executive: "so what are our options? Put everything on the table!"

Mac Walters: "we had planned to do this."

EA executive: "next."

Casey Hudson: "we could go that direction."

EA executive: "next."

Everyone in the room tries not to look the executive in the eyes.

EA executive: "anyone? Any ideas? C'mon. Yeah we fucked up lately, but there are still five million probable buyers out there. Let's go people, we need ideas!"

No he's right. Too many people were just waiting to bash the game, including those who never touched it.

Partial blame in my book, as it follows the whole "thought leader" mentality of people pushing the myth of a belief, regardless of it's validity, as the truth.

And when enough people buy into it...it becomes the truth. To the EA execs...why beat that dead horse when they can focus on something else.

It kind of reminds me of other games, some inexplicably considered good still. Take, for example, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines. A lot of people laud the game as being one of the best ever made...but how many people have actually played it?

And more importantly, how many have played it recently for the nostalgia kick? You have, at best, a subpar game with half-baked ideas, troubled development cycle with a relatively small dev team, very mediocre storytelling, weak combat mechanics, decent characters but a poorly constructed user interface. Still, by many a grognard it is considered one of the best ever because of the circumstances of it's release and cancellation by Activision, among other things like the "purity" of it's role-playing mechanics.

In a lot of ways, Vampire is as middling as Mass Effect: Andromeda. But it is interesting to see how people latch onto one over the other despite both having the same amount of flaws baked into it's design. If we were going by pure objective accounts, both games are in the same boat.

But we never do, it is always subjective our analysis, and what we have increasingly seen is a ton of people who have used, and I would argue, abuse their position to promote a subjective analysis for an objective truth. That is all academic ultimately, arguing what is true or not, but for the general public...what becomes the truth is more important than what is true after all.

BioWare and EA rightfully get the blame they deserve, but the general gaming populace also needs to shoulder some of it too. This is not the first time this has happened, this wont be the last. Either they get better at promoting games or discussing them, or they continue to just act without much regard to accuracy. 

I prefer the former, personally. 

Tell me about it. I had $120 spread out over several patreons for the last year or so. Some are $10, some are $5, some are $1. I re-arrange by content. When AngryJoe blew up, I lowered my contribution not because of anything other than wanting to support other folks. Anyway, this summer I re-arranged a lot over Andromeda. The ones that just crapped all over BioWare were dropped like a hot potato because it's not about being right or wrong, it's about having choices. I choose not to endorse that bashing even though... it's well deserved. EA's pulling the plug is pretty much a breakup letter you get in the mail while serving overseas. It happened. Move on.

What about the trickling info on Anthem?

Which is? i do not care much about online games. I have no time for them. As of now me being in the forums right now i have some days off.

Why of course, if you're EA Boss Guy, you're not gonna throw shit at your own stuff. He thinks the game is still great and it received too much criticism (negative criticism, I presume), of course he does.
Most reviews around the internet say the game wasn't very good, that shows that either EA didn't pay enough people for reviews this time, or that maybe the reviews are right and the game wasn't actually that good at all.

I doubt they're cancelling the franchise altogether, it's like one of the best IPs EA has under its claws, but here's hoping they do way better next time.

why not the possibility that many reviews are total b.s? i dont have faith in reviewers anymore. I ve found myself disagreeing with many many reviews the last years. Revewing a game is a process where you must play the game in order to epxerience it not the sake of reviewing it . this is a task.
The best most honest reviews come from this perspective imo.

It WAS one of the best IPs.  But they burned down the setting in ME3 and still haven't found a good way to bring it back, as MEA demonstrated.