Everything Wrong With Mass Effect 3 Redux by GCN

They make a billion out of each Madden and Fifa every year. But EA doesn't have a hold in the traditional gaming segments. At least, hasn't had one for a few years now.

Battlefield V failed on multiple fronts. It was a disappointment on release and it never really recovered. While it does have a dedicated fanbase, V didn't bring in the revenue of previous titles. Remember, we were hearing before its release that it was trailing as far as 80% behind the competition. As DICE challenged its fanbase, they didn't buy it.


Apex Legends was their only hit, after three, if recall correctly, failed launches, 4, if you count Anthem, which had also released close to that date. They were really lucky Respawn was there for them, but from what I hear, most of the people that made Respawn have already left Respawn and made yet another studio, without Zampella this time, though. We'll see how Respawn does from now on.


Battlefront 2, while sticking closer to its roadmap, still didn't outdo the previous Battlefront 2 in content and gameplay and the live service ran for two and a half years. It's a good game, great even, it didn't outdo the original. DICE did give it their best shot at it and that's all that anyone could ask of them. It's a shame what happened to it, from release to EoL.


Activision has its market locked down with CoD still, Rockstar still has a grasp on a large part of the gaming crowd with GTA and RDR online, Bungie is doing great with Destiny 2, Ubisoft still has a large player base on Division 2, which I have also picked up, there's Warframe cornering the Anthem market, that Anthem failed to capture. Fortnite is still bigger than Apex Legends. I fail to see EA "dominating", as you put it. They're competitive, but I wouldn't say dominating. Not by a long shot.

I'm playing with exactly 4 friends, so I wouldn't know. And we just started. Like, we're casual players and only play once a week or two. We just made level 5. So, I don't have any incentive to party with other people. Division 2 is still in the most played list. Anthem is still nowhere in sight.

Well, Fallout 76 actually never left the most played list. As far as I can remember, at least. It's still a shit game, but a shit game that has been consistently played.

According to Steam it seems to get 30,000 concurrent players. That's pretty decent considering that doesn't count consoles.

Agreed.

Well, we could also thank EA for that. They've rushed BioWare by giving them 2 years to finish up ME3, instead if allowing them to take their time to make it. That's why ME3 looks like it's been rushed.

I don't doubt for a moment that it was the best game that they could make in 18 months and I argued with Allan Schumacher back in the day with this, but there is no award for "best game made in 18 months". In the end, if the division of the fanbase was what the game wanted to achieve, it did it brilliantly. 8 years later and we're still going on about it. Meanwhile, Disney is already thinking of decanonizing the SW sequel trilogy.

You can say that, but ME:A proves that a lot of people gave up on it. So many, in fact, that the franchise died. So something happened and nothing was as big as the ME3 ending debacle to justify such a huge drop in attendance.

Arguably the most controversial ending in video gaming history didn't ruin it? lol. Take off the rose tinted glasses. The ending was absolutely garbage. The damage to the brand has already been done. Even the most average player can realize how non-sensical the writing is in ME3 pertaining to justifying the Catalyst's "logic". 

It was kind of incredible how vitriolic people got about it. Time and tweaks via the Extended Cut tempered a lot of the hard feelings, but I suspect that if the EC didn’t exist, we might not be as fond of the trilogy as fans in general seem to be now. I know for certain that I’d never touch it again, because fuck that ending. 

Big words from someone who has never written anything in his life