Ule's View - Not Even Anthem's Developers Like Anthem & A bit On Overwork "Pride"

[UleTheVee]

You know.. Something I've seen someone do as of late has driven me more and more sick about how the current gaming community is well okay with having bad "LIVE SERVICES" as games. Not only that, but in their rush to defend Anthem, it has become well synonymous with approval of extremely toxic practices and problematic issues within the industry. It's no longer a secret that Bioware has had a lot of issues as of late and that they came under fire after an article published by Jason Schreier.

In this articke, the respected gaming journalist talks about the extremely painful and awful working conditions in Bioware. It is basically a nightmare to be in a position in the game industry. I'd like my readers to take a look at the article so they get the entire context. I definitely can't paraphrase the amount of sickening, vile, and disgusting things the so-called "AAA Gaming Market" has done to the game developers.

I mean, the final product is far from being what was originally conceived. From the whole "EA decided to go with Anthem because it was easier to trademark" to the fact that nobody (not even Anthem's development team) had any idea of what the god forsaken game was about until 2017's E3 is just a good testament as to how bad Anthem really is. The main problem is the fact that people are seemingly complacent with such practices and it really has become quite disturbing to keep seeing people trying to defend Anthem when not even the developers want to defend it.

However, it really speaks of a bigger problem that has become quite frequent in the industry as a whole. Game developers and publishers (And I must say, in some cases, even gaming journalists) are being overworked and squeezed out of every single talent they have until they get tossed aside and replaced by the next target of squeezing. What makes me sick is the fact that there are plenty of devs who think this is actually OK and "Worth it". Much like how Masahiro Sakurai ended up going to work on Smash Ultimate with a fucking IV drip... No.. JUST NO.

Jim Sterling released a video a few hours ago regarding this issue. Pointing towards other instances of overwork conditions in the industry such as Rockstar's "We worked 100-hour shifts" or Telltale's magnificent "Tales from the Non-Existant Severance Paycuts" saga. The fact that game developers and publishers treat these unethical working conditions as achievements or something to be proud of is insane in and of itself.

Thankfully, the push towards having some sort of union for workers within the industry has begun to become more prevalent over the months. There will always be a breaking point and Anthem's disastrous launch seems to be exactly that. Whether or not we'll get to see some sort of results from it is up in the air but we will see what'll happen in the coming weeks.

As for Anthem, I seriously think it's such a mediocre product that it basically drives you to never want to pick it up again after seeing all the controversial aspects. I mean, I would've certainly enjkoyed the moment where the rarity of items was bugged and people got more rewards and loot in the LOOTER SHOOTER GAME. However, such time didn't come and I was unfortunately calling it quits before I reached the point in time where I would've been put against 4 different grindwalls in the endgame.

As such, don't expect me to review this game because of my vote of commitment towards finishing a game before reviewing it. I definitely must say that Anthem's defenders are sounding awfully close to want this sort of game to be published in the future. Of course, that's MY assumption and it really doesn't encompass other people who do legitiately enjoy Anthem. But, goddamn do they look like they want Bioware to continue delivering mediocre game titles and to continue overworking people to the point where they become useless rags made out of skin.

Anyways, I think that Anthem is a mediocre game.. Not so much of a "Trashbin" as other people make it out to be. Maybe that's the reason why I decided to give the game a shot. Not that it would be the first time I do something of the sort for the sake of getting my own opinion of something across, that's for sure. But still, the developers of the game have started to voice their concerns and Jason's article pretty much say that the writing was on the wall ever since the magnificent company at EA took reigns over the game's development.

Hopefully the wake-up call for game developers, publishers, journalists, and the community as a whole comes up sooner than later.

[killamch89]

The overwork culture is an issue that affects many people globally and most companies are not doing much to help solve the issue because they believe the number of hours worked is equal to productivity. Most of these corporations have a slavemaster culture where pushing workers to go way beyond their capabilities is standard and you are deemed "lazy" if you oppose to this style of business.

[UleTheVee]

19 hours ago, killamch89 said:

The overwork culture is an issue that affects many people globally and most companies are not doing much to help solve the issue because they believe the number of hours worked is equal to productivity. Most of these corporations have a slavemaster culture where pushing workers to go way beyond their capabilities is standard and you are deemed "lazy" if you oppose to this style of business.

It's definitely a problem that has to be addressed in almost every industry out there. However, I also am keeping the topic to gaming since this is what this is all about.

[killamch89]

45 minutes ago, UleTheVee said:

It's definitely a problem that has to be addressed in almost every industry out there. However, I also am keeping the topic to gaming since this is what this is all about.

It's hilarious that even Anthem's own devs don't like the game and some the things he revealed like them planning to put more mechanisms in place so that the game would be even more grindy but couldn't because of time constraints was disgusting and shows what EA's focus is.

[UleTheVee]

2 hours ago, killamch89 said:

It's hilarious that even Anthem's own devs don't like the game and some the things he revealed like them planning to put more mechanisms in place so that the game would be even more grindy but couldn't because of time constraints was disgusting and shows what EA's focus is.

It's a tragic development, unfortunately. However, it seems like developers are getting tired of that shit so... Yeah.

[Alyxx]

I'm sad to hear about the troubled development. For what it's worth they did make a game I love. But they should definitely do something about the working conditions at BioWare...

Edited April 11, 2019 by Alyxx

[killamch89]

3 minutes ago, Alyxx said:

I'm sad to hear about the troubled development. For what it's worth they did make a game I love. But they should definitely do something about the working conditions at BioWare...

The worse part is there is even more information coming from that developer about the future of Dragon Age and it didn't sound very promising. I did make a post about it yesterday as I know there are quite a bit of Dragon Age fans here.

[Alyxx]

Just now, killamch89 said:

The worse part is there is even more information coming from that developer about the future of Dragon Age and it didn't sound very promising. I did make a post about it yesterday as I know there are quite a bit of Dragon Age fans here.

Yeah. I'm not much of a Dragon Age fan myself but just the fact they've been shot down so much by EA is really disappointing.

[killamch89]

1 minute ago, Alyxx said:

Yeah. I'm not much of a Dragon Age fan myself but just the fact they've been shot down so much by EA is really disappointing.

And don't even get me started on Star Wars because quite frankly that franchise is as good as dead. Disney couldn't care less about what happens to Star Wars and EA will put out any old dribble and slap on the Star Wars name and claim it is a Star Wars game. I'm not even a huge fan of Star Wars and it irritates me to no end what EA is choosing to do with Star Wars.

[Alyxx]

Yeah I think EA pretty much killed that franchise with their loot box bullshit.

[killamch89]

10 hours ago, Alyxx said:

Yeah I think EA pretty much killed that franchise with their loot box bullshit.

They're killing every franchise they have with loot boxes.

[UleTheVee]

On 4/11/2019 at 10:22 PM, killamch89 said:

They're killing every franchise they have with loot boxes.

You can't be serious.

This isn't about Loot Boxes dude.. Anthem doesn't have Loot Boxes, neither does ME:A. The problem is that they are trying way too hard to bring live services to players with content that clearly has been rushed out to the market.

[Alyxx]

2 hours ago, UleTheVee said:

You can't be serious.

This isn't about Loot Boxes dude.. Anthem doesn't have Loot Boxes, neither does ME:A. The problem is that they are trying way too hard to bring live services to players with content that clearly has been rushed out to the market.

And the main problem is the working conditions...