Hot on the heels of Kotaku's in-depth report on the serious troubles of ANTHEM's development, BioWare has issued a statement. "We’d like to take a moment to address an article published this morning about BioWare, and Anthem’s development," it begins.
"We chose not to comment or participate in this story because we felt there was an unfair focus on specific team members and leaders, who did their absolute best to bring this totally new idea to fans. We didn’t want to be part of something that was attempting to bring them down as individuals. We respect them all, and we built this game as a team."
"We put a great emphasis on our workplace culture in our studios. The health and well-being of our team members is something we take very seriously," it continues, after Kotaku's article outlined worrying reports of depression and anxiety spreading throughout the studio.
"As a studio and a team, we accept all criticisms that will come our way for the games we make, especially from our players. The creative process is often difficult. The struggles and challenges of making video games are very real."
The statement goes on to hit back at the article, to some extent: "People in this industry put so much passion and energy into making something fun. We don’t see the value in tearing down one another, or one another’s work. We don’t believe articles that do that are making our industry and craft better."
Indeed, it's been an incredibly rough few months -- or years, as we're led to believe -- for BioWare. At this juncture we've got no real reason to disregard Kotaku's report, especially given the state that ANTHEM launched in, but now that the developer's had its say on the matter, it'll be interesting to see what the future holds for both the game and the studio.
[source blog.bioware.com]
Comments 23
Such a shame when you know what the developer is capable of. Or used to be, hard to know if they still are with so many having left now. What are the odds of Fallout 76 and this coming out so close to each other and both being so broken and unfinished?
The silence from EA is deafening
How the mighty have fallen. Or can't fall. Who's even keeping track of these bugs anymore?
"We don’t see the value in tearing down one another, or one another’s work. We don’t believe articles that do that are making our industry and craft better."
Er... how about not creating work that literally falls apart in your hands? What's the point in only picking out positive points of something that is literally held together with string and wishes?
But it gets clicks amirite
I read the article and I thought it was well written. Obviously based on the opinion of a small group but things were clearly troubled. I found it amazing that the E3 trailer was basically all they had done. I also don’t think it was pulling down BioWare or be industry but showing how hard large games are to get wrong.
Kotaku is the TMZ of game news.
@3MonthBeef Ok then its ok. 😑
@3MonthBeef You are too right sir, I work in the power industry, owned by the third richest man in the world. We use black electrical tape to tie our boots, use as plasters, and to fix faults on the LV network, because - its cheaper and no-one notices anyway, that is the state of modern industry!!
@3MonthBeef Low voltage - sorry, but basically we joke that our whole company is held together with black tape, and we supply power to nearly 4 million people, its a massive embarrassment and intrinsically dangerous but, hey ho, its cheaper and no-one will really notice, will they?
"We don’t see the value in tearing down one another, or one another’s work."
Perhaps that's why Anthem was such a clusterf*ck... people were 'scared' to tell each other "sorry, that's a bit sh*t" in case they hurt their feelings.
They can argue about truth or fact reports and statements all they want but the fact if the matter is they made a terrible game, so someone has to be accountable for that. For a game studio that has a rich history of great games, they need to be looking at the honest reasons why they made such a stinker if they want a future in the industry.
@3MonthBeef very true and is even the case where I work...
The folks at BioWare who gave the green light to that response and chose those words are cowards. Plain and simple.
Of course it's true. Very questionable development. However, the way the press is throwing Bioware under the bus is sickening.
@JJ2 It's more like BioWare grabbed a sleeping bag and decided to lay under the bus and now is defensive and pointing fingers when the bus plows them over.
@TowaHerschel7
I'm not sure you understand. I'm not defending Bioware. I'm saying what's happening. Some outlets even claim Bioware went rogue on EA and rushed their DA trailers on their own. Sharks smelling blood is what it is
@TowaHerschel7
There's one thing close to defending them I will say though. I found ironic that they insisted on getting animations right to avoid MEA type memes. That's bloody listening to 'feedback' from the general outcry about some animations in MEA instead of more important matters. It's kind of funny.
Having played the game it was obvious very quickly that this was thrown together by people who seemingly had no idea what game they were making for the majority of the time. These workers were doing the best they could for years only to have management constantly changing direction of the game and even what type of game it was and throwing out all of their hard work so far and having to start again from scratch.
The management are 100% to blame for this mess of a game and the sad thing is that just like Activision if their are casualties it'll be those on the ground doing the work, being ignored when pointing out all of these issues. All while those at the top collect huge bonuses and continue as if nothing happened.
For once it's not entirely EA's fault that Bioware twiddled its thumbs for 5 years before cobbling together that E3 demo of a game that essentially didn't exist. They should have had the sense to postpone it and give them time to make a worthwhile game and once again Nintendo show they world how it should be done by doing that very exact thing with Metroid Prime 4
I do not feel bad for Bioware at all. They chose to release a game at 60 dollars knowing it had essentially come together in the last year. Stitched together from disparate parts. Unfinished. No endgame and a broken loot system in a looter shooter. Then on top of that they continue to lie to the community and are completely tone deaf to them as well. Asked about Elysium chests one dev. said on three occasions armor could be earned by playing the game through the chests. This was of course untrue. But they claimed he misunderstood the questions. And the list goes on and on. I do not think the article is tearing the company down. Just relaying the truth after the company is trying to release unfinished garbage at 60 bucks with microtransactions. Try being truthful and taking a page out of CD projects red's playbook and give your customers respect and value!!
This is such a dreadful response. It was posted like twelve minutes after the article even went up which means they hadn't even read it. How about - "Yeah, sorry, we made a bunch of mistakes, and we'll try to be better in future."
Not hard.
Bioware as in EA.
DA:I was the last good game they ever made. Sucks to see that that happened on accident basically. Also interesting to see anthem had a similarly troubled development much like OG destiny
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