EA CEO talks Mass Effect 3 and Star Wars numbers

[Shawn Knight]

EA chief executive John Riccitiello has shared early numbers regarding the recent launch of Mass Effect 3. Speaking at the Wedbush Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference in New York City, Riccitiello said that he is feeling awfully good about the release, estimating that the game sold 890,000 copies in the first 24 hours in North America and 3.5 million copies have been shipped to retailers.

Riccitiello further noted that the launch-day DLC available for the game was purchased by 40 percent of GameStop customers alongside the title. This is the highest tie ratio in store history; all good news for EA and Bioware but many fans of the series are feeling exploited after (optionally) having to immediately shell out more money for launch-day DLC that some claim is already present on the disc.

In other EA news, the CEO also gave those in attendance an update on Star Wars: The Old Republic. Riccitiello said there were currently 1.7 million active subscribers to the online game. As Venture Beat indicates, this isn’t much of a change from the numbers EA reported during their earnings call last month, save for one small detail.

Many of those in the initial subscriber count were using 30 day free trial subscriptions. The majority of those trials have probably run their course and the revised 1.7 million count is likely comprised of paying customers only. Riccitiello said that Star Wars was the most successful MMO through this period in the history of the industry but there is a much larger opportunity in front of them moving forward.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/47755-ea-ceo-talks-mass-effect-3-and-star-wars-numbers.html

 

[Guest]

I haven't reached the ending of ME3 but if it bad as people say those 3.5 millions will be minus 1 in the rest of their trilogies. Oh and will never read an IGN review again.

 

[Guest]

Will buy ME3 when it's $10 or less.

 

[Mister_K]

Personally ME3 is a solid game although iv played the Demo. Just for the multiplayer part is worth the money. That said, the DLC shenanigans is fING disgusting, shame on Bioware and damn I hope EA ... bankrupts -.-

SWTOR is a solid game as well, 1-50 is great although 40-50 was a drag for me but that is because I was racing to the cap considering iv seen the story for my class. The end game is quite poor although there is solid concept and structure there but it lacks greatly.

Hoping for patch 1.2 to be good.

Still, both better then MW3, Crysis 2, Far Cry 2 and other games that have came out recently (imho).

 

[Puiu]

IGN makes the worst reviews. I stopped watching them since "Alice: Madness Returns".
Don't trust them, just play the game or watch some other reviews (at least 2-3 more).

 

[Guest]

I love Mass Effect 3, even though I did not like Mass Effect 2; color me surprised!

 

[EXCellR8]

It's just wrong what they did with the dlc content... it's in the game but disabled so u have to pay for it later. That's pretty greedy if you ask me. There's even a video online of one user modifying one of the binaries and accessing some of the content. Doesn't really surprise me but still wrong...

 

[ramonsterns]

Multiplayer part is mediocre at best, and the rest of the game a 7/10, with its worst component being the story itself.

Clipping issues that were in ME2, persisted into this sequel, Bioware couldn't take the time to sit down and make sure that at least human-like aliens had proper, standing, non-clipping animations, much less give Krogan and Turians their own. Never mind the blatant improper recycling of textures, the low quality sprites, and the lower amount of choices during dialogue, and the fact that nothing you did in the past games really matters as you're given a choice of 3 separate, color coded endings that end in a rather disappointing manner.

The only thing they improved on was the combat somewhat, to which the crown is still given to infiltrators as there's little they can't do.

Also, for being such a powerful empire, the protheans never invented helmets.

 

[Guest]

I'm not surprised that John Riccitiello talked about the money, since that seems to be the only point EA/Bioware had with this game.

Don't get me wrong, Mass Effect 3 was a good solid game, in which it sewed up a lot of plot arcs, and answered a lot of questions in vast epic style.

Sure there were technical glitches, animation problems, and texture problems - but hey, I could forgive them to conclude a story that I'd literally spent 100s of hours constructing.

And that's really been the strength of the Mass Effect series: it was a collaborative effort between writers and players. The writers built lots of little plot threads - some downright touching, funny, or ingenious - and as players, we got to choose which ones we incorporated into the stories of our particular hero. That was it's appeal, its novelty, and its strength.

Mass Effect 3 started to go downhill when it became clear that the writers were railroading our choices to mean nothing:

Did Shepard compassionately spare the last queen of dying species in ME1, or exterminate her? Doesn't matter - the baddies will just recreate her.

Did Shepard endorse his/her old "tough but fair" career soldier as Humanity's representative, or the scheming politician? Doesn't matter - our old commander will "retire".

Did Shepard keep his/her status as a "Spectre"? Doesn't matter - s/he will be reinstated and has no say in the matter.

etc.

ad naseum.

But where the writers finally decided to screw over the players was when it mattered most: right at the end.

In the end, your hundreds of hours of choices and crafting the plot, personality, and morality of your version of Commander Shepard mean exactly ... nothing.

No matter what you've done, or become, you get 3 push-button endings. Do those endings relate to who you are? No. Are those endings affected by what you've done? No. What's the difference in those endings? The *color* of the special effects of the end cut scene.

What happens to the crew of friends and crew members that you've built up over three game? No idea - you're never told. And you're meaninglessly dead (unless you thread a particular solution path which give you a bonus of a 3 second blurb which hints you MAY still be alive),

It's an ending tacked on the end which is on the maturity level of "and then everyone died, the end".

It's Bioware/EA shoving the players' faces in a big pile of "you don't matter, we have your money, screw off".

Until they want us to buy DLC, of course...

 

[QuaZulu]

2nd bomb in a row - Dragon Age II, then ME3. To me it's the overall downer of the story lines that's the worst. If I want to hear of friends who turn out to be unbalanced terrorists, mothers cut to pieces by murderers, war stories where you can never win no matter how long or hard you try, I'll watch the news. Games like Skyrim and Witcher, while not perfect, still managed to explore the dark without crushing the gameplayer's heart and spirit. In the end, I came away from those games feeling triumphant and wanting to do it again. I came away from DAII & ME3 saying, "never again."

 

[DanUK]

Won't be buying ME3 just because i bought ME1 and 2 and couldnt get into either of them.. same with oblivion and skyrim. Don't get me wrong they're all probably excellent games.. I just really struggle to bring myself to play "single player games" these days.. I crave the online experience and interaction.

As for SW ToR.. loved this game and played it since release... up until a few weeks ago. It became apparent quite quick that while there was quite a bit of endgame PvE content.. there was next to NO endgame PvP content. Massive shame really.. it was quite promising. I'll keep an eye on future patches to see what they add but don't really have my hopes up.

 

[Guest]

of course this is all about numbers that all EA sees i hope those at bioware are happy that they compromised a truly fantastic story of 2 series now just so they could get a massive amount of $ because now we know.

i put 100s of hours in ME1 maybe 100 in ME2 and i dont think im going to do a 3rd playthrough for ME3 it doesnt even make it worth it and there isnt a point of even playing multiplayer after a few days because youve now unlocked everything and all your classes are maxed.

DA1 again 100s of hours DA2 i could only beat the game once because o wait even the ending was screwed up. and all this about a DA3 really who wants to buy a game that sends the series you remember down the gutter. im going to stay on ME1 and DA1 thank you

note: before completing mass effect 3 i had purchased all dlc for DA1-2 and ME1-2
i dont think im going to waste anymore money on EA

 

[Guest]

I would have to concur with this message.

 

[Guest]

Shouldn't take more than a month to get down that low, considering the prices dropping at this rate (which is completely justified by the kind of product Bioware incorrectly thought would suffice for the masses)

 

[Guest]

I don't -like- the ending of ME3, but I could live with it if it didn't have so many logical errors (people being places they shouldn't have been able to be) which I can't really say more on without spoilers. If there was some clarification on that, I'd be able to live with a disappointing conclusion to the game. On the whole it's really solid.

But the logical errors are so bad that I -sort of- have been buying in to the whole "red herring" theories out there that have said there's some future DLC coming to tell us what the truth is.