ME: Andromeda Dev Chalks Up Some of the Game’s Problems to a Lack of Diversity

Megalith

Megalith

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Longtime game designer Manveer Heir, who spent years at BioWare working on Mass Effect 3 and Mass Effect: Andromeda, talks frankly about the problems he and his colleagues faced in getting the latter to ship. When the game debuted earlier this year it caught some criticism for glorifying colonialist fantasies, for example, and now Heir says there were people within the team who spoke up about the issue years in advance -- and in vain.

"I wasn't the only one. There were other people, there were other white people, white men, who spoke up. There's a lot of really good people inside of BioWare who spoke up on this stuff," he said. "This is what happens when, I think, you have a homogeneous leadership. The leadership of Mass Effect: Andromeda was all white men." He also ruminated on what it was like to be someone who works at a large, high-profile studio and also speaks publicly about topics like diversity, race, and representation in games. Heir describes being "talked to all the time about speaking up" and feeling like some people in the company wanted him to stop rocking the boat.
 
That horse is beaten. I think it's body has already decomposed.


Management problems.
Animation Problems.

Fingers everywhere to point. If Anthem isn't a solid winner I can already see adding BIOWARE to the list of EA's dead developers. Hell, given the public outcry and backlash, I'm surprised Anthem wasn't shelved and given to another developer with BIOWARE dissolved.
 
Seems like a typical click bait article where the actual original comments were twisted and blown up to attract the "Those SJWs ruin everything!" crowd.
 
Sitting in a diverse work environment right now. It's a shit show most days and it doesn't matter how many bathrooms we have!

Like Andromeda, it's bad management. Simple as that.

Cold ones tonight all.
Cheers!
 
Forced "diversity" is the reason the game failed. Hiring a woman as a lead designer with a degree in nothing related, employing this person in the article who is whole heartedly a white hating racist. Focusing on diversity elements in game instead of story or gameplay. These are the reasons it failed. I hate that this shit is seeping into the video game world.
 
Woody Harrelson just got a call to star in the docudrama White Guys Can't Animate.
 
Tiburon1186 said:
Forced "diversity" is the reason the game failed. Hiring a woman as a lead designer with a degree in nothing related, employing this person in the article who is whole heartedly a white hating racist. Focusing on diversity elements in game instead of story or gameplay. These are the reasons it failed. I hate that this shit is seeping into the video game world.
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You must not have been around for the whole Development Hell portion of ME:A? https://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-troubled-five-1795886428. It's a good read into what really happened from the development stand point to created the turd.

Summary:
The development of Andromeda was turbulent and troubled, marred by a director change, multiple major re-scopes, an understaffed animation team, technological challenges, communication issues, office politics, a compressed timeline, and brutal crunch.


Honestly I played through some of the game and I didn't find the game "Bad" as people say. Especially with the patches, it's worth a pickup now. I need to finish the game... but like all games these days, I just stop playing after a while.
 
I doubt the game would have been any better with more diverse characters of different ethnicities...it's a frakkin game set in space with aliens...can't get more diverse then that :D
 
Looks like the #MeToo club has truly found its ultimate scapegoat for blaming everything remotely bad on - White Straight Males.

Good luck to you if you’re one of them.
 
The real problem is you're a studio started up for the game essentially that was unprepared to take on a game of your intended scope so you shipped a mismanaged game becuase shipping on time mattered more than getting things right
 
I see the deluxe version of the game for ps4 is down to $11 on Amazon lol. The market has spoken. Its cheaper than No Man's Sky.
 
I'm pretty sure this animation translates into "I just farted" in all cultures:

1li1sj.gif


Lack of diversity my ass. That's a bullshit excuse.
 
As a white guy, I just want to apologize for...everything. Every single bad thing that has ever happened. My fault.

Can we move on now?
 
RogueTadhg said:
You must not have been around for the whole Development Hell portion of ME:A? https://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-troubled-five-1795886428. It's a good read into what really happened from the development stand point to created the turd.

Summary:
The development of Andromeda was turbulent and troubled, marred by a director change, multiple major re-scopes, an understaffed animation team, technological challenges, communication issues, office politics, a compressed timeline, and brutal crunch.


Honestly I played through some of the game and I didn't find the game "Bad" as people say. Especially with the patches, it's worth a pickup now. I need to finish the game... but like all games these days, I just stop playing after a while.
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I bought the game and beat it, seemed fine to me. Never noticed any issues that everyone was bitching about. Although also never played the first 3 so don't know how much that plays into anything.
 
Exavior said:
I bought the game and beat it, seemed fine to me. Never noticed any issues that everyone was bitching about. Although also never played the first 3 so don't know how much that plays into anything.
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Found the disconnect.

The issue is that Andromeda cost more and took longer than any other Mass Effect game yet was worse than any previous game on nearly every level. When you have character animations that look worse (or at best, about the same) today than a previous game in the franchise ten years ago, there's just no forgiving it.

Not joking or exaggerating btw:


And that's animations. I've never even heard of any reviewer or player preferring the dialog or story of Andromeda over any of the previous three.
 
Exavior said:
I bought the game and beat it, seemed fine to me. Never noticed any issues that everyone was bitching about. Although also never played the first 3 so don't know how much that plays into anything.
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The game is fine. Not good, not bad, just fine. In no way does it feel like a AAA title. The writing is pretty bad (there are some good lines and good characters, but not many) the plot is pretty terrible, Ryder (both male and female) is terrible as a protag they're just dull. The gameplay itself is probably the best in the series, but everything else around it feels lacking. Then there are the animations. They've been improved in patches, but games only get one chance to impress people and Andromeda failed hard at that. Also, the game is filled with a lot of dialog that can get pretty overly preachy and "look at us, praise us, we're so progressive" feeling which makes some of the characters seem fake and their situations forced.
 
Lets see ...
Diversity got injected post ME2 and then ME3 and Andromeda sucked.
Diversity got injected post Dragon Age Origins and DA2 and DA3 sucked.

He's right, Diversity +IS+ the issue. Relying on the tag of "Diversity" to overcome significant software deficiencies is exactly the problem. They think its a magic band aid.

Also, this guy is a racist sexist piece of crap if everything about software development boils down to the skin color and sex of the people in the room. As if all the same sex and race all think the same is about the most racist/sexist statement this diversity clown could make.
 
Taldren said:
Lets see ...
Diversity got injected post ME2 and then ME3 and Andromeda sucked.
Diversity got injected post Dragon Age Origins and DA2 and DA3 sucked.

He's right, Diversity +IS+ the issue. Relying on the tag of "Diversity" to overcome significant software deficiencies is exactly the problem. They think its a magic band aid.

Also, this guy is a racist sexist piece of crap if everything about software development boils down to the skin color and sex of the people in the room. As if all the same sex and race all think the same is about the most racist/sexist statement this diversity clown could make.
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DA3 sucked?

Derangel said:
The game is fine. Not good, not bad, just fine. In no way does it feel like a AAA title. The writing is pretty bad (there are some good lines and good characters, but not many) the plot is pretty terrible, Ryder (both male and female) is terrible as a protag they're just dull. The gameplay itself is probably the best in the series, but everything else around it feels lacking. Then there are the animations. They've been improved in patches, but games only get one chance to impress people and Andromeda failed hard at that. Also, the game is filled with a lot of dialog that can get pretty overly preachy and "look at us, praise us, we're so progressive" feeling which makes some of the characters seem fake and their situations forced.
Click to expand...

To which I bought the game after the patches so never noticed any real animation issues. Noticed one or two minor glitches, but nothing that I wanted to go off on a rant about. Shit acts up at times and a game freezes for a moment during animation. As for being a AAA title. Not sure what you are comparing the game too. The game may not have been the greatest game ever created, but there was a story line, which is far more than can be said for something like Destiny. Personally I found the story to be decent. Few long games have great stories. Instead you get fluff such as spend 5 hours going to collecting these items for me only to have another person give you quest to do the same type of BS. At least in ME:A I had an idea of what was going on the entire time instead of being lost as to why am I even bothering with this. never once noticing anything being preachy. Trying to decide if I want to keep suffering through a game right now where the story line is terrible to the point where I don't understand anything about the main character or whey they are even involved in the story. In ME:A if you went through all the various side missions and did everything that you could you got a nice flushed out story and knew what happen to your family, why you were there, got to know more about your crew.. At some point part of the issues are people making their be issues in their head vs there actually being issues. People can make a game like Breath of the Wild be considered the best game every made, everyone can give it 100% 10/10 or whatever scale they rate it on and go on and on about how no game will ever top it as a better game. Or they can take a game that is ok, nothing great but is ok and turn it into the worse game ever made by twisting every possible thing they can. Doesn't matter in either case what the game actually is like, they go into it knowing that they are supposed to love it or are supposed to hate it and will do their damnedest to make sure they are like everyone else. And try to be the one person that says the breath of the wild was the worst game ever created and is a piece of shit or that something like ME:A is an ok game and you can just watch everyone flip their shit because you aren't agreeing with the sheep.
 
Exavior said:
DA3 sucked?



To which I bought the game after the patches so never noticed any real animation issues. Noticed one or two minor glitches, but nothing that I wanted to go off on a rant about. Shit acts up at times and a game freezes for a moment during animation. As for being a AAA title. Not sure what you are comparing the game too. The game may not have been the greatest game ever created, but there was a story line, which is far more than can be said for something like Destiny. Personally I found the story to be decent. Few long games have great stories. Instead you get fluff such as spend 5 hours going to collecting these items for me only to have another person give you quest to do the same type of BS. At least in ME:A I had an idea of what was going on the entire time instead of being lost as to why am I even bothering with this. never once noticing anything being preachy. Trying to decide if I want to keep suffering through a game right now where the story line is terrible to the point where I don't understand anything about the main character or whey they are even involved in the story. In ME:A if you went through all the various side missions and did everything that you could you got a nice flushed out story and knew what happen to your family, why you were there, got to know more about your crew.. At some point part of the issues are people making their be issues in their head vs there actually being issues. People can make a game like Breath of the Wild be considered the best game every made, everyone can give it 100% 10/10 or whatever scale they rate it on and go on and on about how no game will ever top it as a better game. Or they can take a game that is ok, nothing great but is ok and turn it into the worse game ever made by twisting every possible thing they can. Doesn't matter in either case what the game actually is like, they go into it knowing that they are supposed to love it or are supposed to hate it and will do their damnedest to make sure they are like everyone else. And try to be the one person that says the breath of the wild was the worst game ever created and is a piece of shit or that something like ME:A is an ok game and you can just watch everyone flip their shit because you aren't agreeing with the sheep.
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I didn't really dig Breath of the Wild either, so I'm with you there.
 
By the time the patches got up, the shit had already hit the fan. Splattered all over and begun making a crust on the fan. Causing the fan to slow to a crawl and eventually overloading and exploding.
 
Dude- when I want to play a video game or watch sports, I do so because I want to escape the godawful reality people like him are shoving down my throat at every opportunity.

Just make a good game. That's what we pay you for.
If I want to worry about diversity, I'll listen to a sniveling university student or turn on the mainstream news.
 
craigdt said:
Dude- when I want to play a video game or watch sports, I do so because I want to escape the godawful reality people like him are shoving down my throat at every opportunity.

Just make a good game. That's what we pay you for.
If I want to worry about diversity, I'll listen to a sniveling university student or turn on the mainstream news.
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Can I up vote my own post? I feel like this is one of my better grumpy old man posts.
 
I take it that is the unhinged character who would post anti-white racism on his Twitter page, and endlessly mock and insult people for being white?

If he was actually fired from BioWare, that makes sense, since he was a PR nightmare, and probably a basket case to work around and made the work environment extremely stressful. He seems to lack self-awareness - and that probably comes across as a gross understatement to many people. Instead, to him, everything boiled down to white privilege, and racism.

Maybe he was bullied as kid and teenager. But if so, and he hasn't been able to cope with it at this point, then he should be checking out some therapy, instead of flailing around at everyone in the world, including entire races, that have no idea what point he's after, other than to spread hate and gratify himself by verbally attacking people based on their skin colour.

The guy thinks he has non-white privilege to be racist towards white people, without it counting as racism - and so, he's a hypocrite.
 
Software is the only item I can think of at the moment where they can sell you pure trash and not have to give a refund.
 
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