Anthem Twitter Thread

They are not - sorry, I don't usually mind SkillUp, but it's clear that he's BSing to keep the controversy going. It's just 'it's EA! They already know how much they want to price MTX!' with absolutely no other substance in the argument whatsoever, just to easily claim that they either lie or know the truth that they don't want to share.

Well, that's pretty ballsy, given that SkillUp posted a negative review of Anthem after the public demo. "Thanks, and please give me more things to criticize. Thanks again."

Well, we do know that the balancing in the demo was different than what we can expect in the full game.

The substance of the argument is SkillUp making claims about things he clearly has only uneducated guesses about. So do I, for that matter, but I'm not making bullish, unsubstantiated statements to a considerable audience willing to gobble a convenient narrative I can make money from. The Bioware dev has stated in his response on reddit that the MTX will be pretty much constantly adjusted - prior or POST-launch. And why shouldn't they? I don't know if you've noticed, but gaming market is a very dynamic, if not a volatile place where things (or what is acceptable in the public view) can change within months, and that's entirely aside from constantly updated projections for a single title like Anthem.

I mean, by your logic EA is so skilled and experienced in pulling money out of people's pockets that it'd be absolutely impossible for them to bungle it the way they with Battlefront II little over a year ago. Yet they DID. And that was 2017 and not 2014. They had to backpedal adding the FIFA-ish card system to their other titles so fast that you can still see skid marks on their charts Suddenly the MTX in their titles like Anthem or that BR Titanfall game are cosmetic only, when not so long ago it wasn't necessarily the case. And it's not just them who are rapidly shaking up their monetization practices, as the market changes yet again.
You mean just like the WHOLE of tech industry did, together with wild swings all over the stock market? Sheesh, it's not like we saw big gamer youtubers who made claims like that they had to backpedal furiously themselves once they realized how uninformed they made themselves look....

Why are the only two possibilities LIARS or IDIOTS? Why should EA be held to a higher standard for financial disclosure than any other public company? Particularly when a reasonable argument can be made that revealing mtx economy details ahead of launch could materially effect stock value? In either direction. Pumping up the stock with inflated mtx values is just as bad as depressing the stock with appeasement mtx values.

Not to mention that revealing mtx economy details could trigger the revenue recognition clock.

What I find idiotic are over-simplified arguments that are ignorant of the fiduciary responsibilities of public companies, not to mention common sense. SkillUp and Tarmack need to go take some classes on basic investment and company balance sheet interpretation.

I think this is absolutely a real risk. Once you officially confirm the price of a thing, you have to officially account for that thing.

midnight tea: BF2 was a minor inconvenience at this point. And Apple and social media companies are dragging EA down... because herd behaviour? lol

And I was referring to 2014 in regards to Big Data technology in general, not in regards to EA specifically.

PapaCharlie9: I don't care about EA playing it close to their chest. But if they want to do that, they should stop lying about it. Just issue a simple statement as an answer to all inquires regarding MTX:

Our roadmap for MTX in Anthem for the first three months is done, we will release the pricing model one week prior to the launch of the game.

Done. It's not really that hard.

It's disheartening to see some folks switch off critical thinking faculties the moment they encounter a 'David vs. Goliath' narrative - they rile against Goliath, while ignoring that David is making a decent living out of their outrage.

And I'm not going to accuse ALL youtubers/critics of that, nor going to defend EA or other big corpo entities for questionable practices - but I don't see how cases of over-simplified, black-and-white stories people tell themselves are supposed to make things better for anyone.

Yeah, it's right that you shouldn't accuse all.  There are some YouTubers presenting balanced, nuanced arguments and breakdowns of video game development and the business side of things.

We should absolutely always remember that EA/BioWare are a business and will try to maximize profit.  They are not our friends.  The relationship is transactional - you tell me what you are going to put in the game and I'll decide if I'll buy it or not.  It's all neutral and fair until they muddy the water with mid-dev changes and backtracking.  

You can't correct that, though, if the "evidence" you are presenting on your YouTube is equally shady.

BioWare @bioware
Ice blasts. Lightning strikes. Flame bursts. The Storm has a solution for all life's challenges. Stylish cape included. #AnthemGame
📷@henchstudios