Mass Effect Legendary Edition (General Discussion)

Not to mention that new direction is so specific that it will probably alieniate yet another piece of the fandom.  Those that liked the endings, Andromeda, etc.  

Thanks for the info, as I don't recall the reviews that praised them or not.. Howewer, in this case the change of the camera shots don't affect the results in regards of the ending. They loved them either way, and if they'll talk about the endings again, they'd praise them once more, regardless if those shots are in or not.

Sure. Sure, they could. If they wanted to kill off the franchise, in the worst way possible, they absolutely could. Undo everything they achieved with the trilogy and still make a worse ending. I don't see the reason. Unintentional and sheer Bioware incompetence? How would that work any better, if they simply ignored the issue, yet again and made ME:A2 instead? We're basically making the case that Bioware is incapable of ever making another good game ever again. At which point, EA may as well close the studio.

Not today. Today, Kotaku and Polygon would complain about the blatant sexism and exploitation of fantasy females, for the enjoyment of the male gaze. Also easy is way too difficult and I can't get high enough EMS, so I only got low EMS destroy. 3/10, too much ass.

What lesson was that supposed to be?  

Actually though I must say it is one of the weirder legacies from this sort of thing because from where I sit BioWare seems to have learned the main lesson I wanted them to learn.  The whole nonsense about shoe horning in massive choice at the end because RPGs are supposed to be all about that player choice/ agency.  But given Inquisition and Andromeda...heck even Anthem...all ended without some earth shattering 'choice' at the end which would make their franchises impossible to continue in the future and their linear end point seems to indicate that they have indeed done so.  

Such as if they repeat what tore the franchise apart in the first place.

And I never played Anthem. But from I've heard, it was Bio's very own Fallout 76. Minus the Devs actually not quitting on it.

Making choices not mattering. For example, the Rachni queen, the peace between the geth and quarians. Oh and how the little choices in the side missions from ME1 to ME2 were completely dropped.

Last I checked Anthem was being worked on by a different team after the previous one abandoned ship on the same year it came out.

But they could not put MENext on ice till DA4 was finished while they do the fixes to Anthem.

It sounds like that they would rather run away from a problem that they created or simply make it someone else's. Doesn't exactly fill anyone with confidence. What if let's say DA4 or MENext faces the same problems? What then? Will they run away once more? Or make it someone else's problem once again?

If that's the case, why not have Austin make Anthem while the other team made DA4.

I think they kept a part of their core audience. Not all of the core audience.
Let's make some "assumption" math.
The endings were controversial, no getting around it.
Which percentage of the fanbase liked the endings? 50%? 70%? I'd figure it's less than 50%, but let's go with 50%, an equal split.
So you just angered half your fanbase. Still, even among those that disliked the endings, some would turn up for the sequel, in hopes that it fixes the endings. Even when you're being explicitly told ME is going to a different galaxy, to avoid them.

Would you say a 25% is a good number? I'd say it's a good number. So 25% of 50% means that 12.5% of your fanbase returns.
Out of the crowd that liked the endings, how many would be back? 100%? I think that's unrealistic. A lot of the people that showed up for ME3, where people who didn't have a large interest in the franchise, but where interested to see how this big trilogy ended. For example, even as TW3 is not the best place to start the trilogy, it sold as much as TW1 and TW2 combined. ME3 outsold ME2 2/1 in its opening month. So factually, it seems there were some one and dump kind of people in the fanbase.

While logic would dictate a 50% drop, from title to title, from lack of equal FOMO between the end of a trilogy and a new trilogy's first entry, even if Andromeda wasn't supposed to be one, it would be perceived like one from the public, let's say that no, not 50% of the 50% that liked the endings returned. Let's say 80% of them returned. It's a good number, right? 80% of 50% is 40%. So combined, we have a little more than 50%. 52.5%, to be exact. Of course, we won some new customers along the way. But it wasn't another 50%. We know that, because we have the data and we are at about ME2 levels of sales, which Andromeda seemed to have hit. We've got EA's financial reports to back that up, analyst estimates google data statistics that put it all around that ball park. And 52.5% of ME3's is a good, close enough number to account for our total sales of ME:A. So either we gained no new players, or we vastly overestimated our returning audience. My guess is in the later.

So we lost more than half our fanbase between games and what new fanbase we did generate, did not compensate for that loss. Which wouldn't be a problem, but our sales projections by EA where in the 3 million copies range, we have no growth to show for and our budget shot up to 100m CAD. This fanbase, even if it returned 100% intact for the next game, which it won't, due to public and critic reception, would need to double, just to get back to ME3 levels.

But of course, this is a new trilogy. EA couldn't possibly have the same expectations from it as ME3. Well, they still expected to sell 3 million copies before the end of March, which it did not. So that's how you retain parts of your fanbase, while bringing in more and still lose. When the parts that you retain are smaller than the ones you lost, what new blood you bring in, doesn't compensate for it and your company expects double the sales from your previous title, only you sell as much as the one before it.

And I'm going to say it again. Andromeda wasn't the game it needed to be, but even if it were, there was no chance it would be as successful as ME3, not even close to what EA expected it to be. And had it been the game it needed to be, well, it may not have been Andromeda at all, but even if it had been a great Andromeda, it still wouldn't have sold that much better. I'd expect a 25% increase over its current sales. But it would have made ME:A2 more viable. Right now, it is guaranteed to lose even more fanbase, from the move from ME3 to ME:A and again not generate enough new fans to compensate for the next title's financial needs.

What is going on ? I've saw some articles that LE will be censored bit here and there ?!