This makes it pretty clear that Bioware themselves are as much to blame for the mess. EA forced some things on them but Bioware also made a lot of bad calls on their own.

KILLED IT on this one Jason.

I think “F EA” is an extremely simplification of the whole thing. Just as with Andromeda is feels it was more leadership problem inside Bioware than EA forcing them to do stuff.

Huh, going to take an unpopular opinion here and say that outside of forcing Frostbyte, and more importantly not supporting it’s mandated use (and yes, that one _is_ huge), EA as a publisher didn’t, according to this story, take any drastic actions that caused this disaster of a development cycle. They perhaps should…

Some people will just always blame EA for everything despite this story proving that there is so much blame to go around for everyone.

It’s worth noting, however, that the original FFXIV is a byword for a studio being so caught up in its own mystique that it never even looks at the competition.

EA set a deadline but that deadline was like seven years after the project started. It sounds like the biggest problem is that Bioware couldn’t decide on anything so little was accomplished in most of that time.

...so, you didn’t read the article at all and just felt like shooting your mouth off? Because that’s not what the article is remotely about.

...you’re reaching a bit. My reading of the article was that the direction for the game, aside from standard check-ins by upper management and those fucking stupid Frostbite and Live Service requirements, largely game from within Bioware.

Happens more often than you think. The original director for Final Fantasy XIV famously never played World of Warcraft.

Other than Frostbite, Bioware seemed to be their own biggest enemy on this one.

Don’t get me wrong, EA sucks, but from reading the article, this really doesn’t seem like EA’s fault. EA set a hard deadline, but it really seems like the problem was a lack of leadership within BioWare.

I mean F EA, but this seems to be a bioware boondoggle all the way down. 

Beyond has a connotation of being outside the norm, the boundary, or the pale. Beyond has whiffs of the alien, the unusual, and the unknown.

The most damning part of the article, in my opinion, is this:

This. Even after all that shit EA put the game development through, Anthem still has that potential to be great. It’s So. Fucking. Close. to being a solid game, but being built on Frostbite? It might very well be impossible to get there.

Also in the “I am about to read this but need to comment first on how I’ve been desperately waiting for Jason to make this article” boat.

And yet, I’m still playing. But only when I can even log in. And after all those loading screens. And only if the mission isn’t bugged. Just let me play your crappy game, BioWare!

Was waiting for this. Will read later on but just wanted to say continue doing the lord’s work.

I’ve been waiting for the Schreier breakdown of how this fell apart far more than the game itself.