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The gaming community has long branded Entertainment Arts (EA) as the worst video game company in the industry. Ruining multiple promising studios and franchises, milking players for every last dime, and releasing titles riddled with microtransactions, these are just some of the offenses that the company is known for. Now, a former BioWare employee is adding fuel to the flames of speculation by confirming that EA only cares about money and nothing else.
For those who remember, BioWare used to be a studio that was known for creating superb, story-driven, high-quality games. They are responsible for the BioShock franchise and the Mass Effect Trilogy, after all. Unfortunately, based on how the recent Mass Effect: Andromeda game turned out, the studio is losing its touch. In a recent podcast interview, former BioWare designer Manveer Heir revealed how it happened.
A veteran video game designer, Heir was part of BioWare for seven years and worked on Mass Effect 3 and Mass Effect: Andromeda. According to him, the reason why EA is so hell-bent on moving away from linear stories like those in previous Mass Effect games is that they could not be monetized as well as multiplayer or open-world games.
"The words in there that were used are 'Have them come back again and again,'" Heir told the interviewers. "Why do you care about that at EA? The reason you care about that is because microtransactions: buying card packs in the Mass Effect games, the multiplayer. It's the same reason we added card packs to Mass Effect 3: how do you get people to keep coming back to a thing instead of 'just' playing for 60 to 100 hours?"
Apparently, this is also the reason why BioWare is now putting out Anthem, GameSpot reports. The game is basically set up to be a massive, online, multiplayer, open-world title much like a MMORPG. It’s the first time that the studio is focusing on a game that has absolutely no linear story. Basically, Anthem exists only to serve EA’s bottom-line.
