Fanbase Phenomenon: The Latest ME is Always the Worst

In retrospect, this was such a brilliant marketing move that I can hardly believe the entire industry hasn't adopted it.

The "16 Free" DLC was a sham in my eyes, it was all basic content that if any other developer were to take that approach they would be ripped apart with comments of "that should have been in the base game.  The final Free DLC was New Game+, that is something BioWare still gets crapped on for not including in Dragon Age.

The EA in the making is going by the Glassdoor postings and CDPR's response to it combined with what other places have reported over the last couple of years from people who left CDPR.

BioWare has done the exact same thing in the past about their products and what people don't like.  In Mass Effect 3 talking to Conrad Vernor you would have a discussion about Thermal Clips and Heat Sinks with him or in the bay you will have Cortez and James talking about the differences with the Mako and Hammerhead.  BioWare also had Project $10 for Mass Effect 2 so if you bought it new you got more content such as the Hammerhead and a few small missions for it and also included Zaeed, or with Dragon Age: Origins it included the entire Shale DLC.

So what if they didn't have multiplayer in The Witcher 3, people wouldn't shut up about co-op in Mass Effect after the first two games, so they included something to try and give the experience people were asking for, but again because it is not what an individual wants it becomes a negative instead of giving others what they want.

So they are hiding Cyberpunk 2077 and that is fine, but I remember all the news articles with Andromeda and the posts around here that EA was hiding Andromeda from people by not talking about it.  So I guess EA hides their games in a negative way, but CPDR does it in a good way.

Great Andromeda is the worst game you have ever played, doesn't mean it is mine.  I am fine with that, I am just tired of being told I am wrong for not agree it is the worst game of all time because other declared it to be so.

Ah yes the 16 free DLCs, where one DLC is composed of only a new outfit for your Geralt to wear! Such high quality!
There were still gamebreaking bugs months after release. They only fixed the most obvious ones. They were nowhere near as crucified as BioWare was for them.

Keep living in that reddit echo chamber.

The "Free DLC" for me is an example of that for BioWare has added additional things to their games when they release patches they just don't go looking for fanfare to announce it to make people think they are getting something for nothing when people paid for it by buying the game.

Yes, I will judge them how they treat their employees, I think bad crunch demands are bad regardless of who the developer when they don't directly address the issues around crunch and include a statement of "this approach of making games is not for everyone" makes me really wonder how their employees are treated.  I cannot judge how they treat their employees based on a game they release for studios can make bad games and treat their employees well just as easily a studio can make a good game and treat their employees like hostages.

I am always confused when Manveer Heir is brought up, for people were unhappy he wasn't dragged through the building by security to fire him for comments he made on a personal account, now everything he says is treated as the complete truth even though he didn't decide to leave his contract was not renewed.

That is personal opinion that EA rushes games for they seem to give a lot of time to develop a game, but in any project it gets to the point where it has to be released or they will lose money.

I don't see how I treat CDPR the same as any other developer as shitting on them, I don't trust their motives just like I don't trust the motives of any other developer out there.  Because it always will boil down to the same thing for them making money so they are looking for a way to mislead or take money from their customers.  The "Free DLC" for me is an example of that for BioWare has added additional things to their games when they release patches they just don't go looking for fanfare to announce it to make people think they are getting something for nothing when people paid for it by buying the game.

actually, "crunch" has been a long issue with BW/EA ( infamous "EA's spouse" article) and many other devs and we have direct statements from former BW employees, not just Heir, on the same. Not to mention how DA II/ME III were also rushed, in less than two years of production ( you can do the math here).
I'll need to dig it up, but I distinctly remember a few former BW devs ( who formed KnightMayor with project Mooncrest) who talked about these problems. 
As far as I know, there haven't been any clear, direct statements from former CDPR employees...only some "reviews" on glassdoors, which are completely unverifiable and anyone can make.
So-o...Fake news!/Glassdoors is the truth? Same thing as that drama with Schreier?

I agree, but from what I understand it might not be true is that crunch has been improved at EA over the years, it still exists and I doubt it will ever be eliminated for I have had crunch times as well and I don't work in software development when a project comes due.  I could have been mistaken as well, but there seemed to be a lot of Reddit postings of people that worked at CDPR as well about the working conditions in response to the articles about Glassdoor, of course they might be fake accounts as well.

Just to note on Schreier, I don't have any problems with his first article it was well thought out and it sourcing seemed legit.  The problem I have is the followups that felt like a far step backwards from the first piece and I just wanted more information for those pieces.  What I dislike the most about his isn't his writing, but his attitude and actions when he copied and pasted people's articles from here to his Twitter account.  If he wanted to talk about what was posted fine, but I didn't like what felt like the possible start of harassment from his Twitter following.

As far as Glassdoor goes, again I use it because we were told we had to believe it with what was happening with Andromeda.  Otherwise to me it is just an unverified piece of information by anonymous sources.  Mainly I use it because I was told to get over myself when I again wanted more evidence about BioWare then just Glassdoor reviews.  I personally have a bigger concern with the statement from CDPR themselves, but that is because it might be just a language barrier.

I feel like TC is simplifying a little bit.

It's true that there were fans who felt that Mass Effect 2 had fewer RPG elements than Mass Effect 1, but that's afar as it went. Mass Effect 2 was declared "the Empire Strikes Back" of the series for crying out loud. There simply wasn't a way to argue it being a worse game in general.