I’m not optimistic about the future of Bioware games. I’ve been playing their titles since Baldur’s Gate, and I’ve written about my love for Anthem. But a new article from Jason Schreier over at kotaku.com suggests that there may be a conflict between EA’s demand for games as a live streaming service and players’ hopes for games that are unique and fun. Listen to the details of a game design/prototype:

The goal was to focus as much as possible on choice and consequence, with smaller areas and fewer fetch quests than Dragon Age: Inquisition. … There was an emphasis on “repeat play,” one developer said, noting that they wanted to make areas that changed over time and missions that branched in interesting ways based on your decisions, to the point where you could even get “non-standard game overs” if you followed certain paths.

That sounds like the kind of game I WANT TO PLAY RIGHT NOW! Unfortunately, EA didn’t agree; the iteration of Dragon Age described above has been junked, in favor of something that features a ‘live game service.’ I’m guessing that the EA suits dream of establishing a franchise like World of Warcraft. They aren’t likely to succeed, for a bunch of reasons.

The MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) market (of which WoW might be the best example) is saturated, and player inertia is firmly on the side of WoW, Diablo and other first movers. The MMO game model itself is well established, but ‘well established’ is another way of saying ‘predictable quest types and player experience.’

I want something innovative… maybe a LMO (Limited Multiplayer Online) experience? A game I could play alone, or with a small group of friends if they happened to be around. I can’t be the only one who finds strangers with experience-shattering names, running around on my screen, to be a detriment rather than a benefit to a game. And I can’t be the only one eager to try something different.