Ever since Anthem was released in February, players have been slamming BioWare and EA because the repetitive gameplay and lackluster story fell well short of expectations. This is sadly in line with a disturbing trend in gaming, where players criticize developers based on their own ideal version of the game and not what the creators were actually trying to do. People attacking Anthem need to understand the developer’s vision, which was a AAA third-person shooter that absolutely had to come out in the fiscal year ending March 31.
I’ve been playing Anthem for months now, and it’s become clear to me that players whining over the constant, long loading screens that destroy any semblance of momentum simply missed the point of a game that was solely meant to pad EA’s bottom line and make shareholders happy.
Fans have become spoiled. They think developers should cater to exactly what they want by giving them coherent character development and a rich, open-world environment crawling with enemies, but that’s not their vision for the game, which was a 200% return on the company’s investment.
You may dislike that Anthem isn’t fun to play, but that’s not what the game is about.
So spare me your complaints about a byzantine UI that withholds critical information and take the time to understand that fixing it would have completely hampered the February 2019 release date, which was the basis of the whole game. If you want to play a game that’s something more than an endless loot grind, go somewhere else, but don’t criticize the studio that was only trying to launch a new monetizable franchise. Anthem succeeded on its own terms, not the ones some angry fanboy had for it.
If games are ever to be taken seriously as an art, people need to realize they are subjective. Just because a game has no meaningful story choices and tedious missions doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means it’s not for someone like you. You wouldn’t attack Sesame Street for only entertaining kids, so why bother attacking Anthem when it worked so well for the segment of 45- to 64-year-old white game executives it was aimed at?
Stop complaining and attacking studios just because a game isn’t everything you want. Developers put too much stock in making games enjoyable and playable as it is. Planning to make something as profitable as Anthem was supposed to be and is a huge undertaking, so at least give them credit for trying. BioWare had 18 months to build a game that would sell millions of copies based on the goodwill they built up, and they hit it out of the park. You may not understand Q4 projections, but they do. Anthem is a game that exists and is funding CEO bonuses, and by that measure, it’s been a huge success.