What EA/Bioware should say about recurring revenue before Anthem's release

The internet has become very predictable when it comes to their reactions to the gaming industry

Funny how toxic even the idea of lootboxes is.

I was in ME3 multiplayer earlier today, still active after 6 years.
It has fairly grindy lootboxes but that doesn't spoil the game.

If MEMP launched today it would be kicked to death perhaps...

I randomly looked at the first 20 'Anthem-related' videos on YouTube (excluding the trailer).

Fully 50% were negative, 45% neutral, 5% positive.

In reaction to prior BioWare comments, facing a sea of:

• Anthem in Serious Trouble | BioWare's Problems Continue
• Anthem Is Absolutely In Trouble | EA's Sinking Ship
• ANTHEM: Why I'm Worried (Spoilers it's EA)
• Anthem's Best Developer Leaves EA Bioware (Skill Up Cries IRL Tears)
• Bioware’s Anthem will Fail
• DELAY! BioWare Struggling to FIX Anthem
• EA's "Live Service" Plans For Anthem Are Troubling...
• Is Anthem The Inevitable Death Of Bioware?
• WAKE UP and STOP Hyping up ANTHEM
• Why Anthem Should Scare You | Has EA Destroyed Bioware?
  

I'm not surprised that BioWare holds their tongue...

Different things - he's referring to an incident where the Dutch Advertising Commission said one of their advertisements from FIFA wasn't that clear and could be misconstrued after a law student brought a complaint after they didn't get the players they wanted. It's.... really not as big as he seems to be suggesting. Considering that these chanels would usually jump at the chance to discredit EA, shows you it's not really that big.

Different things - he's referring to an incident where the Dutch Advertising Commission said one of their advertisements from FIFA wasn't that clear and could be misconstrued after a law student brought a complaint after they didn't get the players they wanted. It's.... really not as big as he seems to be suggesting. Considering that these chanels would usually jump at the chance to discredit EA, shows you it's not really that big.

This isn't a direct response to anyone here, just using this quote to address this guy's (ask a game dev) narrative.

In my view, he's both right and wrong here: He's right about the style of accusations of course, and indeed many of the above mentioned Youtubers did use those.
And while I often agree with their sentiment, and respect the fact that they are engaging in consumer advocacy (regardless of any other motivations) because after all it's not like consumers have (usable) power in this equation, SOMEONE needs to give voice to this type of criticism, and it certainly isn't going to be the likes of EA. But all that aside, this isn't the topic here.

The issue here is that Ask a Game Dev is using the part that's obviously wrong about these accusations (attributing concepts like "hate" to corporate entities like EA) to dismiss even the valid part of the criticism. (that they seek profit above all)
I agree that EA doesn't "hate" SP games, I agree that they "merely" want "engagement". (or to put more bluntly, they want all the money that can be made, and they want it as fast as possible for as little investment as possible).

And while the above is an entirely legitimate thing for a corporation to aim for in theory, that's obviously directly opposed to the consumer interest in this equation. This corporate interest is why games are increasingly more derivative and streamlined, why there's so little risk taken these days, why every third game falls flat as mediocre "meh" because it had to aim for the illusive "wider appeal". (which ironically means that trying to minimize risk in this way actually opens the door to new risks, though it is possible that often such a failure is less of a total loss and more a failure to reach projected revenue, but that's just a guess.)

I suspect that Ask a Game Dev knows all that and prefers to ignore it in favor of shilling for the interests of corporate.
(which on some level is understandable considering his job, hell, he might be literally a shill directed by corporate PR, though that's somewhat unlikely given the limited reach and impact such an approach would have)

I'm not really disputing that there's a click-bait industry around this issue, all I'm saying is that enough of this is warranted (IMO) to make me more sympathetic towards that narrative than towards the guy you quoted.

Though, YongYea and his ilk really need to step up their game if they want to stay relevant and/or be taken seriously.