Reputation

This is going to be a long post today but the concept of reputation is something which has been on my mind lately as a result of a rare personal convergence of TV shows and the gaming industry and I really wanted to get my thoughts on this down before I forgot them.


Recently, I've been watching the first season of Glee which, although the concept is a bit hypocritical, is a really entertaining show. One of the concepts explored in one of the episodes is around how a good reputation can take a lifetime to build but only a moment to destroy. Although the show was focused on the reputation of an individual, the concept also applies, to a certain extent, to companies as well.


Which brings me onto BioWare and Dragon Age II.


Who is BioWare
BioWare is a Canadian company which develops video games. Although founded in 1995, with its first game released in 1996, it wasn't until the release of Baldur's Gate in 1998 before I was made aware of this company. If you are aware of your video game history, then you would know that BioWare arguably brought about a renaissance in computer role playing games with the release of Baldur's Gate. They further cemented their reputation with the release of Baldur's Gate 2 in 2000 which many people, myself included, consider the finest cRPG to be released on any platform.


Since then, BioWare have continued to release a plethora of highly successful and critically acclaimed role playing games across multiple platforms. It is fair to say that BioWare are one of the premier, if not the premier, western developer of story based role playing games. And over this 16 year history (with 18 games/expansion packs), BioWare has deservedly built up an almost rabid fanbase. This is noticeable as, despite having some very valid criticisms labeled against the "formula" which BioWare uses in their games, their games have continued to enjoy critical as well as commercial success.


Which makes it fascinating, from a reputation point of view, to see the public reaction to the launch of Dragon Age II - BioWare's newest game. In brief, there has been a massive public backlash against DAII from some of BioWare's fans. A backlash which is probably unprecedented for BioWare. And a part of me wonders if this is due to the drop in reputation which they have suffered in recent years.


EA Effect
Looking back, the acquisition of BioWare by EA in 2007 was probably when some fans started to question their faith in BioWare. In fact, I mentioned on my gaming blog at the time that the forums were already ablaze in hate mail. Although I don't have the same level of hate for EA that other fans appear to have, I do have to admit that EA's history with purchasing developers did make me worried.


EA is a company which, despite starting with noble intentions and building an impressive reputation not long after it first launched in 1982, is now a company which is hated with a passion by many hardcore gamers (a hatred which has been acknowledged by EA as John Riccitiello, their CEO, has made excellent progress in repairing some of the bridges which EA had burned under previous ownership). In EA's defence, some of that hate is definitely misdirected. For example, EA acquired BioWare just prior to the release of Mass Effect and certainly at too late a stage to have any impact on the development of Mass Effect. Despite this, there were many claims by fans that EA had already ruined BioWare as was evidenced by the direction which BioWare had taken with Mass Effect.


Nonetheless, the impact of EAs negative reputation amongst hardcore gamers was clearly seen in the criticisms leveled against BioWare.


Dragon Age: Origins
Although the Mass Effect series of games was a radical departure in style for BioWare, it was an undisputed success for BioWare. It brought in a whole new group of fans who were less interested in the hardcore mechanics of ye olde cRPGs. Meanwhile, BioWare's older fans, some of whom were not fans of the new direction which BioWare were taking with Mass Effect, were comforted by the knowledge that they would still get some love with the release of Dragon Age: Origins - a more hardcore cRPG which was billed as a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate.


And in fact, the release of DAO seemed to placate many fans. The game was another critical and commercial success. It garnered a metacritic rating of over 90% and picked up numerous awards. In addition, although I don't have any actual sales figures for this game, reports indicate that by February 2010, the game had shipped over 3.2 million units.


Which finally brings us to Dragon Age II.


Dragon Age II
From an older, hardcore fan point of view, problems with Dragon Age II showed straight from the start. Some of the changes being planned for the sequel had been announced in previews and the forums had been set alight with complaints about the direction which BioWare were taking. In essence, some fans were afraid that BioWare were turning the Dragon Age franchise into an action RPG.


And then the game itself was released.


Despite receiving critical acclaim, the game was disappointing to many fans who stormed onto the user reviews section of metacritic to pan the game (BioWares extremely clever response to this was to blame 4chan and to get their employees to post positive user reviews - there is so much wrong with that but I will have to skip for now as this post is already too long!). In essence, a lot of fans were disappointed that Dragon Age II had departed from the hardcore cRPG style of the original Dragon Age and was geared more towards the "console" crowd who liked Mass Effect.


But what is wrong with Mass Effect "style"?
The answer, of course, is that there is nothing wrong with the Mass Effect "style". I suspect the reason that fans are so up in arms is twofold.


Firstly, the Mass Effect franchise was always developed more as an action RPG. So when BioWare released ME2 with an even greater focus on the action elements, the fans generally accepted this as it was a refinement of the style of game they were always making (although its worth mentioning that there were also a lot of fans who weren't happy).


I suspect the other key reason is that the Dragon Age franchise was originally billed as a more hardcore cRPG style game. The switch to an almost, but not quite, arcade RPG style with DAII meant that a lot of the original fans of DAO felt they were being left high and dry. And with no other hardcore cRPG in the works by BioWare, it really does feel as if BioWare have moved away from this particular niche of fans. Is it any surprise that the older hardcore fans are pissed?


The upshot of all this is that a lot of the reputation and goodwill which BioWare has built up over the years has been eroded. And this lessened reputation is having an interesting knock-on effect.


How many people believe what EA and BioWare say?
The biggest recent uproar surrounding Dragon Age 2 is to do with the EA account which your BioWare games are tied to. In brief, a forum ban for a user lead to him being locked out of the game he legally purchased although EA very quickly apologised and said that this was a mistake. You can get some more details around the controversy here.

What I find interesting here is that EA and BioWare aren't being given the benefit of the doubt by many people. In fact, there are a large number of people who have already decided that the only reason EA backed down was simply due to the amount of bad press they had been getting. Looking at it another way, if EA and BioWare had a better reputation - would people be so cynical?

Long term impact
At the end of the day, I have no idea what long term impact, if any, there will be from this. In fact, I can't even tell you whether a good reputation is important to a company selling video games. After all, the only people who pay attention to the issues outlined above are hardcore gamers which only make up a small portion of the market.

One thing I do know though. Now that BioWare has lost their halo - it will be extremely difficult for them to get it back.