EA doesn't get it

[Frank]

Do you guys actually think that BioWare specifically sat down and said, "you know, DAO was awesome, but I think we need to go out of our way to make something decidedly mediocre and unimpressive, which we shall call Dragon Age 2!"?

They took a gamble on what they thought players wanted, and they ended up really wrong, and paid for it by only selling 2M copies of the game.

Bullshit.

It was a rushed, EA Style, mess. They didn't take a gamble, they crapped out a quick buck sequel to cash in as quickly as possible on the original. Which is why the game director behind the first game quit.

 

[SpecialKO]

Bullshit.

It was a rushed, EA Style, mess. They didn't take a gamble, they crapped out a quick buck sequel to cash in as quickly as possible on the original. Which is why the game director behind the first game quit.

They took a huge gamble by trying to fix everything that people complained about in the combat in the first game and tried to make the story tighter because some people also complained about that. Where they went wrong wasn't that it was rushed, it was in listening to all the wrong people when they tried to fix things that didn't really need to be fixed.

 

[Bubble181]

Wait, what if it sucks because it just sucks, not because of multiplayer/social/whatsis? Who gets booed then?

EA, obviously.

Serious question, when has anyone here ever been forced to play multiplayer for a predominantly single-player game?

A predominantly single-player game? Maybe not. A single player IP where they either drastically changed gameplay or game design with the express purpose to force you into multiplayer? Diablo III, Command and Conquer 4, Red Alert 3, and more. All EA games from franchises of previously independent developers. Not a coincidence. C&C4 is generally considered a huge failure; RA3 is considered a cheesecake factory. D3 - numbers aren't in but I don't know anyone who's still truly active in it...

 

[Frank]

Diablo 3 is ActiBlizzard, not EA.

 

[Bubble181]

Diablo 3 is ActiBlizzard, not EA.

True. My apologies. I'm drunk at the moment. Drunk typing is bad for you.

 

[Ravenpoe]

For as terrible as the D3 endgame is, and as badly as everyone who wanted to love the game now hates it, it's still a huge commercial success.

 

[SpecialKO]

A single player IP where they either drastically changed gameplay or game design with the express purpose to force you into multiplayer? Diablo III, Command and Conquer 4, Red Alert 3, and more. All EA games from franchises of previously independent developers. Not a coincidence. C&C4 is generally considered a huge failure; RA3 is considered a cheesecake factory. D3 - numbers aren't in but I don't know anyone who's still truly active in it...

The pub thing aside, Diablo hasn't been a single player IP since the first one. It just hasn't. That you could play through the entirety of D2 single-player with enormous amounts of effort/over-gearing didn't make it one (and technically, you can do it in D3, though it's even more ludicrously difficult).

I'll give you the C&C games, since I don't know any public info about them (beyond beating RA3 by myself in single-player while finding the whole game annoyingly mundane).