This post was inspired by two things I saw recently: The connection between these two items is not obvious, but it is interesting. The lemon problem WeFunder, for the uninitiated, is a crowdfunding platform for (primarily) technology companies. It allows community-oriented startups to sell a small % of ownership to their users and supporters.
He’s right on all counts. Larian is – today – in an unparalleled position as a developer of RPG games. They have great experience, multiple studios, a supportive community, and a huge IP.
All of that, except maybe the supportive community, are traits which the huge gamestudios/publishers like EA and Ubisoft also have. I’m pretty sure it would be hard for ubisoft to claim inexperience when developing the next assassins creed for example.
I think the main difference, as mentioned in the article, is the vision. Ubisoft wants to make the next games in their money making franchises. Larian wanted to make a good game.
I agree 100% with you! Just a tiny thing I’d like to add: Ubi does, aside from some shitty practices, microtransactions and a ton of stupid money grabbing games, actually makes also a lot of good games. Their “Indie” games series form a couple of years ago had some games where you could feel the love the people making them put in. Valiant Hearts will forever be one of my favorite gaming experiences be!
The gaming industry is designed to fail in this economy. The objectives of “maximize return” and “make something fun” rarely overlap. Best they can do is trick people into habitual play and hope they can’t distinguish between an occasional dopamine drip and fun.
Games with narratives, no financial gimmicks, and good old-fashioned fun mechanics (subjective) will always get my attention. Fuck EA, Activision, ubisoft, Bethesda. Got too big. Priorities got twisted. I pity the designers and creators with passion there.
The saddest one to fall was definitely BioWare. Larian stands on the shoulders of a giant but that giant is currently a shell of its former self.
For all it’s flaws, Mass Effect Andromeda was beautiful (if you ignore character models and focus on scenery). It’s story was weak, but the gameplay compelling. It’s actually disappointing it was so badly received, because in many ways it was quite a good game. There was a feel of BioWare returning to the style of the original Mass Effect, but we’ll probably see less of that considering how badly it was received.
How exactly is a game with by your own admission weak character and story writing a return to form? BioWare’s killer advantage for a long time was their excellent character and story development.
The environments. ME2 and ME3 felt like everything was in a long hallway, just very much funneling you down a path you didn’t have a lot of exploration choices in. Mass Effect had grand and large environments to explore in the Mako, and MEA was the first entry in the series since that had large open areas for exploration on planets. Whatever you feel about weak story, the environments were beautiful and well designed.
Great article. Make your community your unfair advantage. But why call it unfair? Unfair to whom? To those who try to nickel and dime their players with MTX and the same shit every year? Nah i don’t think that’s unfair. Unfair only perhaps to indie developers, but then again everyone starts somewhere and they could imagine that when they are doing quality work that a community will flock around them.
I’d say unfair to the really big players (Ubi, Activision/Blizzard, EA) who push out broken games with predatory mechanics and little of actual value. The companies that don’t see their players as a community, but a cash pit to dig value out of for their shareholders.
Then I’m absolutely fine with it being unfair :)
I think the author was using the word “unfair” semi-sarcastically as a reference to the twitter drama.
