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.
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.