Concerning Bioware, Eurogamer quoted EA COO Peter Moore saying that:
“You say the last 12-18 months, I think of three things: I think of Star Wars: The Old Republic, I think of what Mass Effect 3 has done and all of the offshoots we've done of that, and then a little bit further back Dragon Age. So from that perspective I think the studio has done great“
In the May Investor Relations financial report, EA announced Mass Effect 3 had generated $200 million in sales. However, there was a well known backlash by fans over the game's ending for various reasons debated across video game websites. In my opinion, he did a good job as a COO supporting the consumers, but not necessarily as a supporter of Mass Effect 3 as an art, supporting those who contributed to creating the game.
“It's been interesting with the whole ending thing. It's a fascinating debate. More power to gamers. They have the outlets now. I always
say, people are passionate about movies, people really like music, people are into their TV shows. Nobody in entertainment has more passion and a bigger megaphone than gamers. And to their credit they put their hands up. A lot of them said, we're not sure about this ending in Mass Effect 3. So the team at BioWare, again, to their credit, said, all right, we're going to stop a few things right now, the team's going to go back and provide some DLC, no charge, to provide more context around what went on there. We delivered that recently.”
Concerning their Old Republic strategy after their subscriptions dropped:
“We do exit interviews. When people say I'm churning out, I'm going to step away for a while, we ask them why. 40 per cent of people said, I just don't want to pay $15 a month. I love the game, but I'm just not into the subscription business.
“The reaction to that is, okay, let's retool this game later this year into one you can both play on a subscription basis and not worry about it and have everything you need, or one you can play for free and as you manoeuvre on you can choose to continue to play for free and there are micro-transactions that help you accelerate in the game. We're just reacting to consumer feedback by doing that.”
Do you agree with Peter Moore or do you think this talk is just there to strengthen Bioware's (and also EA's) brand?
