Mass Effect Andromeda failed because of Zelda and a crowded RPG release window?

Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah

I’m going to regret this in half an hour but let’s talk “did MEA get a fair shake”

First off, the question was not “is MEA secretly a great game and did mean Nintendo make us fail?” MEA is a deeply flawed game. Especially at launch.

But the review environment was crowded. Nier, Nioh, Horizon, and Zelda all launched in MEAs window. Each does something better than MEA (again, a flawed game)

As a result, even systems that are pretty decent get scrutinized against superiorly implemented ones. Does launching in a different window turn 72% into 90? Certainly not. 72 into 77/78? Maybe.

Does that affect sales? Some. But word of mouth matters so much these days.

And here’s the thing. That’s the nature of the industry. You don’t have full control over when you launch and no control over when others do. DAI benefited by how tough a year 2014 turned out to be for games

You launch the best game you can. MEA has a lot of problems and got lapped by genuinely better games.

Another hate thread?

Stop playing games then. More and more people want that.

Also blaming a single game on the Switch is just dumb because it is such an easily defeated argument. I have an Xbox One and a PS4 (as well as Game Boy Advance, Windows 10 PC, an OG Xbox, Xbox 360, and a PS3 that all still work) so either I can't afford or I just don't time management skills to play games on multiple platforms. The former is true up to a point and the latter is bullshit. I can play ME:A and lets say HZD and spit my time up between the games, because have done since 1990s and still do it too this day.

I'm having trouble following this. What "mental illness quotas" and "everyday life hokum"are you talking about, exactly?

"Cuz we are hetero BITCH! We keep the species alive by reproducing thus we are more important and should have all media catered to us!" (I know you types aren't very good with sarcasm so I should point out that was sarcasm if you could not already tell)

You know that is not what he was talking about so stop trying to twist it to make yourself out to be the victim, Bioware has always been pretty representative in their games having both gay and straight characters and allowing the player character to choose their own sexuality and there is nothing wrong with that, however lately Bioware has been pushing certain topics and agendas in their games that seem totally out of place and seem to be there not out of some creative vision but rather more as a way for the company to virtue signal about how great and progressive they are, to be fair it isn't just Bioware who are doing it but a lot of other studios too, and while I will always support a developers choice to put whatever content they want in their games I can't help roll my eyes a little whenever these things come up and they are so hamfistedly transparent that everyone and their dog can see what they are doing.

To be honest I don't really have too much of a problem with Bioware doing this sort of thing (outside of finding it a bit cringy and bad writing) as Bioware has always been pretty progressive and it seems to be among the agenda for most of the people they hire these days, however I do have a problem when other developers are seemingly strongarmed into including this sort of stuff by "journalists" who threaten to pull coverage or give them bad coverage if they do not conform to their ideals, and don't tell me this stuff does not happen as I can find plenty of examples of developers who have been threatened over a revealing belly button or not containing the political message in their games some Journalists want them to convey.

Yeah but those people aren't quite as prevalent in this day and age as the media would have us believe, most reasonable members of society look down on such types.

No, we are not doing this.

We are not going to throw around the notion of 'Gender Dysphoria' as a 'mental illness'. Medical condition, sure, but there was enough unpleasantness (which falls under our rules about 'slurs') to melt the page.

That's not going to happen again, please. If you want to debate the topic, take it to another forum.

Also, if someone does stray into this territory, the correct response would be to report it for attention, not to start throwing flames and insults back turning the thread into a dumpster fire (irrespective of any good intentions under the shouting).

Trust both things are clear.

Reoccurance will result in a more one-to-one conversation.

Thanks.