It has not been a good month for BioWare and EA with the release of Anthem, the online futuristic co-op game that allows you to fly like Iron Man. Since its release in February, the game has received mixed reviews and a lot of hate from fans due to bugs, consoles crashing, PS4s being powered down, lack of content, loot scarcity and more. The fanbase has been feeling very sore, making their frustrations known to the BioWare team, with some even opting to harass them. Well, Jesse Anderson, the community manager for Anthem, gives out a detailed response addressing many complaints.
In the long letter to the Anthem players, Anderson addresses the lack of content, communication between developers and consumers, loot, patch notes, discarding feedback, and more. One of the main issues gamers have with the game is the lack of content, and Anderson doesn’t reveal much since he admits that he’s not privy on the exact information.
“I’m not going to go into this too much as it’s areas that I don’t have control over, or I don’t have the exact info on how the team is addressing,” Anderson said. “Know that I relay the feedback from the community to the team on ALL of these issues. The team is aware, and they are doing a lot of work to address these concerns.”
The Anthem community has been harsher after the game’s release, and it has scared away the developers. Anderson wants things to be civil so that in time, the developers can come back to answer questions.
“To start, things used to be a lot friendlier here for dev team members who normally don’t talk on social channels or forums,” he said. “They could answer questions, give information and know that they aren’t going to have people getting upset at them. Why would a dev team member take time away from working on the next update to post when they know it’s likely to be met with hostile replies, or they get flamed because can’t answer other questions that players are asking? I don’t mind posting here when things aren’t so nice, but that’s because it’s my job. For the devs it isn’t their job, and I’d like to ask that people remember that when replying to them. When some people say ‘be nice or the devs will stop posting’ it’s 100% true. Be respectful and constructive with your feedback and more team members will likely reply.”
Angry fans had issues with the patch notes since they believe things were omitted. Anderson explains that the patch notes were transparent as possible.
“I said this before, but nothing was hidden on purpose in the patch notes,” he said. “The truth is patch notes come together late in the update process and I do everything I can to ensure they are accurate, but sometimes things slip by with all the moving pieces. I’d much rather put together patch notes even if they are missing a few things instead of doing generic ones that just say ‘various bug fixes and improvements’. I’ll work with the team to get this process better, but we still may miss something from time to time, especially if it is something that gets added to an update late in the process. We will never hide a nerf or change in the patch notes on purpose, even if it’s something we know the community won’t like. And if we do put in something that the community doesn’t like we’ll do our best to explain why that particular change was made.”
Other fans felt like their feedback were discarded.
“Honestly, reading this stings a bit because I never discard feedback,” Anderson said. “I love this community and am very thankful for everything that has been brought up such as feedback, bug reports, funny posts (༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ Summon the loot update ༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ) and everything in between. I’m open to feedback on what you’d like to see the community team do to make you feel welcomed and appreciated. We do our livestreams, blog posts (like the inscriptions write up), patch notes, helping out with issues when we have the info and more. I am always listening and willing to make changes so please, let us know.”
Anderson thanks the community in his closing comments and reassures that the team is listening to feedback.
“Again, I want to thank this community for everything,” he said. “The team is listening to all of your feedback for Anthem on how you’d like to see the game improve, or how you’d like to see us engage with the community differently. I know that players want to see updates faster, but these things can take time to make sure they are done right. We’re very appreciative of this community and look forward to the days, weeks, months and years ahead. Strong Alone, Stronger Together.”
Are these responses good enough for the Anthem players? Well, there are players who feel that the fanbase can get very mean, and they just want to treat the team like human beings. Of course, there are frustrated players who think the PR response was a load of crap.
To read the full letter, you can check it out on the Reddit response.
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