This is literally how every business functions.
You either get a job, or create a job.
The thing that needs to be looked at is the muscle in the industry that does not allow for small developers to exist and sell games.
Things like ea’s deal with the nfl that limits the ability for other developers to make an nfl game, or engines with ridiculous loop holes to use.
We all have to do our job, if that job has deadlines, rushed projects etc.. that is not on the developers. They are doing their job.
But all of the strongholds on licenses, distributions, and marketing makes creating your own job very hard in the industry.
It is not like you can just write a song and sell it on iTunes, or open your own restaurant after years of experience...
Even IF these developers could create their own studio... the probability of releasing a game becomes a even bigger obstacle with grabbing any world wide attention.
This means, even if a developer creates something.. they then have to get into another contract to distribute their vision... which means you are working for someone and most likely have to play by their rules.

I agree that a civil dialogue is always the way to express frustrations, however, to run away from the conversation because of a few bad apples speaks more to their ability to be professionals.

Folks paid their money for the lies that were promised with this game and so they are pissed off and leaving Reddit just proves that point. It doesn't help either that they are backed by EA which is just one of if not the number one hated company in gaming....They just NOT helping themselves with the Anthem mess.

For me these issues ARE UNACCEPTABLE...you have been developing the game for 6 years....give me a damn break Bioware...

Broadly speaking on the principal, and not focused at any one dev.

I want them to release a good game. I couldn't care less if they address the community. If they do that, then they shouldn't have to worry so much about the community. If they have to explain themselves after the fact, then they've done something wrong.

They shouldn't even be addressing the community concerns before release, unless there is some misinformation going around, and then it should be curt and professional. They should avoid addressing the "It sucks" people, because before release, no one can really know that. After release, if it does suck, then we're at the point where they didn't do what they were supposed to do, and while being civil is nice, they are the one's asking us to spend money. We have no obligation as consumers to help them fix their product that they couldn't get right out of the gate. We're talking flawed products out the door, not ways to improve a good, or reasonably finished/good product after release.

These guys don't need the community telling them how to fix their game. Bioware and EA especially have pools of hundreds of paid game testers who test their game endlessly, and they have huge databases of the problems. Devs at these levels generally understang game design, and what it actually takes to make a good game. The dev knows how the game is supposed to play, and if the game isn't good when they play it....which they should do....then the players aren't going to think it's good. The game testers are going to certainly tell them the game isn't good, because they are allowed to say whatever opinion they have of the game, and even if they weren't, they will talk.

It's not the communities fault for them pulling away from Reddit. That's just a scapegoat to try and avoid the frustration from those who don't know how to express themselves. If they want to manage the community, they need to learn how to manage the community if they're going to address it. When I did management, I couldn't just shy away from the pissed off customer, I had to sit there and listen, even if they were unreasonable and berated me. Then, I could work on a solution. This is no different, except they're using a public venue where they're going to have that happen from all directions, from countless people all at once, and if they try to appease everyone, they're going to fail miserably. Hiding in a hole isn't going to help, and as a consumer, I won't be shamed because some people are not good at how they express themselves.

One of the biggest things I notice about how these devs, or pubs, address the community when it comes to managing concerns is that they don't acknowledge that they released a unfinished product. They don't say, yeah, we didn't do it right. They make excuses. They make promises, but they don't set expectations. They don't often even apologize for not being truthful about their product. I mean, a simple...."I'm sorry we released the game in such a state. We humbly accept that we failed to deliver on expectations. We want to make it right". Then either say what they're going to do, offer some recourse(either refund or free crap), and then follow through. Then thank them for being a customer.

It's nice and ideal to say that we should all stay civilized, and I even agree we should all do our best. But the internet isn't an ideal social network. It's a cesspool of vitriol and hate, coupled with valid concerns which often go unaddressed because people lump everything into the extreme of "Hey, everyone liked it", or "Everyone sucks".

Of course people should be civil, but saying the devs aren't at fault is erroneous. They had SIX years to make this game.

Not so. The producer will handily tell the publisher the progress of the game. These publishers are not kept in the dark with a project that runs in the tens of millions of dollars. There are more meetings than most people can comprehend with the dev team leaders, the producer, the publisher, and everyone else that goes into discussing the progress of the game. Milestones are set for certain progressions of the game.

If the dev continuously can't meet expectations, then there are issues that need to be addressed, and the publisher doesn't get left in the dark to determine when, and if, that needs to happen.

Replacements happen, but more often than not, that is very disruptive, and only puts things even further behind.

I agree with you, that if you look critically at why a product has failed it's usually a multi-faceted issue. Socrates' claimed that nobody does wrong knowingly. I don't believe a game developer creates a bad game intentionally, although it can sometimes be because of a bad developer. Most of the time it is because of time and budgetary constraints placed on the dev by the publisher. However people will nearly always blame the person/s directly responsible for the product, even the higher ups will do this.

That's why being a movie director is such a hard job, regardless of circumstances, they will always get the most heat. My metaphor about the restaurant isn't a reflection of how I believe the world should be, but that is the nature of the beast. Is it good? No. That's why it's best to stay independent, when working for EA expect the worst. However I do believe (and hope) that people know that the dev closures was because of EA and not because of the devs.

I believe devs should be more transparent about the problems they face, then maybe people would not be so quick to judge them. As a dev myself I do however know that rubbish do occur a lot because of mismanagement on both sides. The dev promises the world to keep the publisher happy and the publisher expects even more. Anyway, it's neither here nor there.

Thanks for the reply.

Well at the end of the day when you are given 6 years and a quality development team there is no excuse for releasing garbage. Everyone is quick to blame EA but they are just the paycheck. Just like if a DC movie sucks they blame Snyder not WB. Point is regardless what reason there was it's up to you to release the best work you can which is going to reflect your skills.

If the chef had 5 years, and 50+ million dollars to make said burger, then yeah, I can be mad at the chef. Especially if I'm personally paying $60 for that burger.

Unlike burgers, games can be fixed, but the fact remains that they put out a bad burger, and they knew about it. It's not the chefs fault if the restraunt owner comes in and says, "Send that burger out", but if the chef is yelling out the kitchen window at the customer, telling them that it's going to be a great burger, then I'm going to be mad at the chef.

In this case, the customers aren't demanding that the burger be sent out before it's finished. So, the responsibility does lie on the restraunt owner, and the chef themselves.

In the case of Anthem, it's not like the issues that people have with it suddenly cropped up at the last minute. The lack of content, and the dodgy game play would have been well known probably at least a year ago. I don't expect devs to fix every single bug in a game before releasing it, because the game would never be released, but I expect them to release a working product. Things can always crop up that are never found, but no one, anywhere, can ever make me believe that the issues that Anthem or FO76 had were due to lack of knowledge of the problems. Both these devs have acted like they were oblivious to these things being a problem, which either means they couldn't be objective about their product, or they ignored informing people about them, and relied on marketing to sell the game, hoping to fix it later. I'm putting my money on the latter, because it's all too common nowadays.

That's no excuse. They knew the deadline and failed to complete the job. You don't give a student an extra two months to finish the essay they didn't complete. Patches are there to further improve the game (small bugs they didn't catch, small goofs that simply happen because programming isn't perfect), not finish developing a game they just didn't finish. Developers that are releasing half a game with the excuse that future patches will make the game whole while still asking for $60+ is ridiculous. You don't buy half a book or album or movie and find it acceptable that it's not finished because maybe in a year the rest will be out.

Excellent Phantom. Couldn't have said it better. I shouldn't have to pay to be a tester. I'm not getting paid for it.

What? And how do you know they were "Forced" to do anything? After many years . delays and millions a pub has a right eventually to put a deadline and the game out..Developers need to be better as well. These are business not charities.

They sure as hell will not see what I say if I don't say it, now will they? And game devs will bask in the glory of a successful game. Should they not get credit? Of course. And so when they deliver a shit game they have to deal with the backlash. Sorry, but you can't argue it both ways. Game devs know what they are getting into in this business and typically they have some pretty thick skin. And there is a big difference in "blaming" devs and "insulting" devs. You seem to be under the false impression that they are the same thing. You are wrong.

"You should complain, at the end of the article you have a great example of what you should complain about. "

Why? I might as well rail against publicly traded international corporations across the globe. Why are you under the impression that this is unique to the gaming industry? Also seems that you want to deflect away from bad games by talking about bad practices of evil corporations. Two separate issues entirely. Regardless, I don't need your counsel on what I should complain about.

I have a few high profile AAA games on my release portfolio. I read many things about all of them. All of them were highly rated games(85-92 Meta), and generally, are games that the community seems to have good feelings about.....one being a rather well established and pretty well loved franchise.

Even with that, there are those that have bad things to say, and seeing that, I first determine if that criticism is something worthwhile. As in, is it constructive, or just, "It sucks". If it's the latter, not much I can do with that, because I don't know why they think that, and I don't know if they're one of those people being pissy about stuff. So, I let that go. But if someone has what I'd consider a valid concern, I consider it. In my case, since I wasn't the designer of any of the games on my portfolio, I'd consider if what they criticized was something I had a hand in helping implement.

Anyhow, constructive criticism I took to either make myself better, or consider how I might do things differently in the future.(I had no part in any updates for said games). The rest is just noise, and easy to tune out.

Did I feel bad about the criticism? No. I appreciated that people would take the time to express such things if it was useful. But, more so, I was confident and proud of the work that I had a part in making. I had no reason to feel ashamed, because I know the games were quality games by any reasonable definition.

In this case, these devs, and the pubs, know that these aren't quality games, aren't what they promised, and they will know that there are problems with the design in some way. There is no way that these devs don't know the problems, and even if you have one primadona dev on the team who can't see the bad, there are going to be plenty of people who will say it is in the process of making the game. There is no ego bubble in game design, but there are unreasonable directors or producers who will ignore those things(Randy Pitchford being a good example).

I can't see how they could be proud or confident in the game they released. Quality devs care about the products they release. They may not be able to do everything they hoped to do, but good devs don't just ignore feedback to make themselves feel better, nor are they oblivious to quality. Those that are, are the one's that don't deliver good games, so they don't fit into your example anyways, because they aren't seeking feedback.

If, by chance, one of those games had as much outward disdain that the games being talked about here had, and I felt they were good, then I'd reassess my own metrics for such things. But, I tend to be a pragmatist, so I compartmentalize everything, and am a harsher critic of my own work, than other people ever could be.

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse