The Pixel Crashers

Mass Effect Andromeda Post-Mortem Disquisition

Preface

Recently, I had this impulse that it was about time I sat down and put my thoughts on Mass Effect Andromeda to “paper” in a more coherent manner than previous comments, and in a conclusive way that gives everyone the explanation behind my decisions that they deserve.

This turned out to be an amazingly horrible idea. I’m overly verbose at my most concise of times, and this was a very complicated matter. Needless to say, these penned thoughts now rival the Encyclopedia Britannica in length. Seriously, if you all make it through this in one sitting without falling asleep, you deserve a bloody cookie or something.

Now, as many have noticed, my build guides and live streams for the game have stopped. My future content planned for map guides and strategies have also been canceled.

The reasoning? As a pro-consumer advocate, I cannot justify continuing to make content that supports a game that I personally would not recommend anyone buy. Each build guide, live stream, or other content I make for this game perpetuates the idea that I support the game and that you should buy it. Such is no longer the case. This decision unfortunately took much longer than it should have, as I spent literally months in a state of cognitive dissonance.

So now here we are. To keep things orderly, this will be broken down into a clear format: Opening, Single Player, Multiplayer, Community, and Summary. Mostly so I don’t get lost and start wandering around a supermarket in my underwear like a dementia patient.

So, without further distraction, allow me to present my disquisition on Mass Effect Andromeda:

Opening

Mass Effect Andromeda has been a game of unparalleled and divisive controversy. Even the months leading up to launch, there were lines of people in camps looking for both ways to love and hate the game. It was abundantly clear this game had a lot of passionate people anticipating its launch.

Unfortunately, the game made a really poor first impression on people due to issues that were anywhere from aesthetic like facial animations to tedious like stellar flight animations to game-breaking like multiplayer server outages. First impressions are everything, and the game’s first impression was reason why the game was received so poorly.

After most of those issues started clearing up so did the criticisms. It was then that one started to get a clearer understanding of what Andromeda did well and not-so-well outside of fixable bugs.

Single Player

The gameplay of Andromeda was, for the most part, a vast improvement over previous games. Before launch, I was vocally concerned about the “sticky-cover” being introduced, especially after playing Ghost Recon Wildlands that has a horrible sticky-cover system. I can happily admit my concerns proved to be unfounded. The game is generally fun to play… Be it driving in the Nomad or in combat.

The worlds were also quite well made, for the most part. The first planet I’m pretty sure had colour-swapped art assets ripped from Inquisition’s Breach. Or was it actually the Breach?

[#SharedUniverseConfirmed]

Otherwise, the game looked great. Harvarl was honestly my favourite as far as design goes, but that’s not shocking considering is was much smaller than the other planet maps. Smaller maps mean level designers can get more detail in the same timeframe as larger maps with only a small impact on game performance.

Unfortunately, that’s where most of my praise ends. See, Andromeda is, as is BioWare’s forte, an RPG. It’s not an action-adventure game that is focused primarily on action and environmental storytelling. It has a very clear narrative. The problem is that the narrative is largely re-using most of the story elements from Mass Effect 2 while poorly trying to copy the companions from Mass Effect 1.

Why is copying ME2a problem? Wasn’t that one of the best titles in the franchise? ME2 was the second story in a trilogy. That kind of story presumes the player already is entrenched in the current environment… Lore, protagonists, antagonists. You should already have your “compass” in the story, but that’s not very easy when everything is new.

The examples of this start early with the death of Alec Ryder in the very beginning. The player has no real emotional connection with Alec, so an extremely influential character had no more weight than a red-shirt like Jenkins from ME1. The way I equate that is to imagine if ME2 were the first ME game you played… Shepard dying 15 minutes in would really mean nothing to you as the player. You have no attachment to him by 15 minutes in… Unless, of course, you just spent the entirety of another game playing as him and cultivating relationships with him and the crew.

And then we get the poorly copied companions. In ME1, you have 2 permanent human companions (after Eden Prime) with Ashley and Kaiden. Both fit on the crew because they are assigned to the Normandy by the Alliance military. Personality-wise, you had the Kaiden the emotionally conservative and Ashley the emotionally radical. You other companions: Liara, Garrus, Tali, Wrex… You were able to experience the motivation of why they joined you first-hand:

Liara was a scientist specialising in Protheans, and you needed her help to better understand the Prothean Beacon and information it gave you. Socially, she was nerdy and socially awkward in a “quirky cute” way, making her more endearing to some.

Garrus was a C-Sec officer convinced Saren was bad and determined to prove it even without the Council’s approval, and Shepard was in a unique position to facilitate that. Socially, his strong convictions and aspirations to bring justice make him a strong moral compass for some.

Tali found evidence of a bigger plot behind Saren, and, having some insight into Geth enemy you were facing, was ideal for the mission. Socially, Tali’s soft-spoken idealism act to brighten the mood of the story.

Wrex claims to “just want in on the action” after you help him take down Fist, but deeper inspection finds that he admires Shepard and sees him displaying attributes he thought of as what a Krogan should be.

Compare that to Andromeda: Two humans, male and female, assigned to the mission with Cora and Liam. Inverse the genders of the ME1 humans, where Cora is the emotionally conservative one and Liam is the emotionally radical. And by “radical" I mean immature. Seriously, he’s like a bloody preteen. Sadly there is no Virmire on which to leave Liam.

As far as the aliens go:

Peebee joined because you’re investigating Remnant vaults and she is somehow an “expert” on “RemTech”, despite only studying it for a few months by herself. It’s trying to match to Liara, except Liara had been studying Protheans for decades with teams of researchers. Peebee has the same “nerdy and socially awkward" trait found in Liara, again trying to get that “quirky cute” vibe.

Drack joins because… He likes killing Kett, I guess? It’s essentially distilling Wrex into “just a thug” and trying to copy that. Unfortunately, whereas Wrex peels personality layer back like a turtle-shaped onion, Drack never really evolves and grows as a character. You just find out his organs are failing because he’s so badass.

Vetra joins because she can help you with “stuff” and serves as a sort of quartermaster for a ship of maybe a dozen people. Despite the fact that her apparent talents in wheeling-and-dealing would be better served to both Tempest and Nexus if she were on the latter not the former. Makes perfect sense if you don’t think about it. However, BioWare determined we “need” a Garrus on the crew. Except Garrus was so much more complex even just within the story of ME1. Vetra sadly will never match Garrus’ reach and flexibility.

Jaal was the only exception here. Superficially, he’s a copy of Javik from ME3 in his archetype, true, but he at least felt like he had a reason for being on the ship: A liaison/ambassador to the Angarans. Surprisingly, his character also has actual depth and dimension, albeit at times he felt like the “man-meat" in a Harlequin romance novel… Surprised he was missing full head of long flowing hair and wasn’t introduced to us by galloping a horse down a beach at sunset whilst shirtless. He’s the Fabio trope in an alien body, but that makes him interesting nonetheless, even if only comically so.

Why am I focused on the companions so much? Because that has been one of the foundational pillars of BioWare storytelling… From HK-47 to Kang the Mad to Mordin Solus, BioWare has defined themselves by crafting memorable and endearing companions. Mass Effect 3 was all the more memorable because you got to experience the effects of the Reaper War on each of the people you had befriended along the way. BioWare felt as though it lost touch with that cornerstone by recycling character archetypes from Mass Effect 1.

BioWare has not been as solid with major narrative writing of late, however. Case in point, Andromeda’s was seemingly copied directly from Mass Effect 2. Archon is a generic bad guy. You could insert Coryfish or Harbinger-Possessed Collector#212 instead and I’d be unable to tell the difference. His motivation is ripped straight from ME2… I was honestly waiting for him to announce that he was the Harbinger of our perfection at several points. This is honestly the gravest problem to me… So few stories nowadays can give us a compelling antagonist. No one ever makes the bad guy relatable anymore. Saren, despite his reasoning being warped by Indoctrination, thought he was SAVING everyone. Loghain was convinced that fighting Darkspawn would leave Ferelden open to attack from Orlais, which he judged to be the worse of two evils. Eredin’s home world was on the brink of annihilation. You hate all of those antagonists because they all did something you find reprehensible as the player, but all of them have motivations that at least you could find understandable albeit going about things the wrong way.

And then we had the conversations. BioWare got rid of the really thematically weak binary morality system… And replaced it with something worse. They tried to copy Dragon Age 2’s"mood" choices, where you’d be given choices that would fit a certain personality style you could use to better role-play your character. Which would have been fantastic, albeit I can’t imagine why anyone would choose anything other than Snarky.

Unfortunately, the writing team appeared to have not really fleshed that out since you are rarely given a full gamut of choices. Most times you are given the choice between “logical" and “emotional” responses and that’s it. Even then, there were times when those two options were the exact same line! This was naturally compounded with the long-standing problem with “summarized conversation wheels” where what the summary of a choice sounds like it means and what your character says are often two completely different things.

The combination of all those things made the main story feel like fan-fiction, not BioWare’s famous storytelling.

Then we get the side quests. The MMO fetch quests forced into the game as filler because BioWare had to shoehorn in the “open world” gimmick into a game that really did not need it. It is content padding… It fills the world with “stuff" and keeps the player in the game for longer. Worse yet, larger side-quest arcs were left unfinished. Those both are design choices based on deliberate tactic used to maintain market demand for DLC. I know a lot of people are still angry about not getting any single player DLC, but the truth is that many games are releasing nowadays as DLC-selling frameworks rather than actual full-featured titles, and that’s horrible for consumers. This was no exception.

Overall, the sheer lack of creativity in the single player story really lend credence to the rumours of project leadership woes during the process of creating this game. This feels like a game made in eighteen months, not five years.

Multiplayer

Then we go on to the multiplayer. Before the game launched, I had a lot of concerns about the multiplayer when coming from Dragon Age Inquisition that had extremely flawed design choices. Many of the developers/producers were actually very forthcoming with assuaging my concerns. There would be no promotion system that allowed player stratification and the RNG loot table would be more akin to ME3'smultiplayer where you gain items from packs until they reach Rank X and they are removed from the drop table. Seemed great.

My first complaint from the beginning was that the multiplayer character skill points were now tied into the RNG drop table… Whereas ME3 awarded you appearance options for repeated drops of the same character, MEA also added skill points every other drop, meaning you now had to get a character dropped to Rank X before you could use them to their fullest. Furthermore, whereas previously each class had a linked XP pool for all the characters of that class, Andromeda separated them all out. Both were done to extend playtime in order to increase potential microtransaction sales.

The second complaint I had was that powers, weapons and combos all felt grossly underpowered. An often-quoted statistic in games difficulty balance is “time to kill", or TTK. As the name implies, this is the time it would realistically take a player to kill an enemy. The TTK on average in Andromeda was nearly 70% longer than ME3’s multiplayer. It didn’t make the game more difficult, just more tedious. Enemies taking too long to kill are often called “bullet sponges", and are generally not liked in games primarily because it’s a done to make the enemy more difficult, which it does not do.

Then, once the game officially launched (I was playing the multiplayer before launch), the multiplayer matchmaking servers would experience frequent disconnections and almost daily outages. That meant that the times when you could even get into the multiplayer mode, chances of finishing a match would extremely small.

Needless to say, I did my due diligence and carefully outlined these problems to BioWare.

The server issues were a high priority and fixed within the first week or two. Then BioWare started giving new content and balance changes for multiplayer. Fortunately, the feedback that I and many others had given to BioWare helped them to better balance the damage output of players, leading to a more enjoyable experience. My other feedback was ignored, which I waved off because I suspected there wasn’t much to be done about some of the more deeply engrained design problems.

However, ME3veterans would quickly notice that new content delivered was considerably less substantial than what ME3 received. Whereas ME3 received tons of new characters, weapons, and maps in bulk drops every month or two, Andromeda saw a trickle of content… A new character here; A new weapon there… Maybe a map once and a while. The amount and variety of content delivered to the multiplayer was next to nothing, which not how you keep people playing a horde-mode multiplayer bordering on being completely forgettable.

Then Patch 1.09happened. For those not acquainted with this horrendous excuse for profiteering, BioWare released its largest content drop to date… Which saw very little actual new content. Instead they doubled the amount of drops you could get for a single character (from Rank X to Rank XX) and quadrupled the amount of weapons drops in a similar fashion… Now, each weapon had three variants that would start dropping once that weapon was Rank X, each themselves dropping up to Rank X. The three variants, or “augmentations”, each had a generic added effect that was the same for each gun. BioWare called it “extending the progression" for the multiplayer.

Now, why was that a big deal? It means you have more to work toward, right? Unfortunately, that’s not actually it. See, as I said, all the loot is based on RNG lootboxes. YouPlay some matches, buy some “packs” (lootboxes) and get random items as a reward. There are different grades of lootboxes that offer differing rarities of items. Simple, right? Well, sure, until you start looking at the numbers.

During the same time period (March-September), BioWare has released 28 new weapons and characters in ME3MP compared to 13 new weapons and characters to MEAMP. You’d think that would mean there’d be less “grind” to MEAMP, but unfortunately, this is where things get unsettling:

For those 28 new weapons and characters, it totaled 172 drops one would need to get to max your manifest. With the 13 new weapons and characters in MEAMP, it totals 540 drops to max. This is due to the “S” variants of common weapons, the additional character ranks, and weapons augmentation that pad drops without actually adding anything new. MEAMP has added more than three times as many RNG drops while adding less than half of the new content. And those numbers are only for new content… If I factored in what was available at launch, the difference would be even more insane.

Sounds a bit shady, right? That’s because it is. More drops means more “grind”. More “grind” makes microtransactions look more appealing. I’ve written out thoughts before on how delicate balancing the “grind” of free-to-play games is, where you have to respect the time of the free player while still encouraging microtransaction sales. This is an example of an unbalanced system, mostly because it relies on RNG lootboxes. If you think all I’ve said sounds malevolent now, just wait.

See, this RNG lootbox system is employed by a lot of games, most of which are free to play. It relies on manipulating the player into falling for a mixture of the Gambler’s Fallacy and the Sunk-Cost Fallacy.

The former is when a person assumes the statistical probability of past events affect the outcome of statistic events in the future. For example: Losing thousands at roulette is acceptable because it means I’m about to win big on the next spin.

The latter plays off the fallacious logic that the more time/money/effort you spend on something the more indebted to that something you become. For example: Losing thousands at a craps table means I have to keep playing until I win because otherwise all I’ve spent up to now was wasted.

The comparison to gambling is deliberate.

The RNG lootbox system is frankly a manipulative and unethical business practice. Even if the game is rated M, children and young adults still play these games where their minds are still not fully developed, and companies like BioWare are legally allowed to effectively get them addicted to gambling with this system. Most governments don’t see this as gambling because the reward has no material value. You know what country has actually taken a stand against this? China. China is the country forward-thinking enough to realise how bad this practice is and have classified it as gambling. “China” and “forward-thinking" are not two words you often hear in the same sentence in the Western World.

I understand BioWare is a business and wants to make money. That’s quite fine. Instead, they could employ more ethical microtransactions like those employed by Digital Extremes in Warframe: If I want to unlock a specific character or weapon, I can buy that outright for real money. The cost should be dependent on the difficulty to obtain. To acquire them for free, I have to earn them from more time consuming tasks like playing a specific map, against a specific enemy type, or both. Of course, in order to maximize revenue from the more ethical business model, BioWare would have to commit to releasing a considerably greater amount of new content for the multiplayer than what Andromeda has.

To be completely honest, given the level of separation ME multiplayer has from its single player even in the development cycle and that they are targeted at two separate audiences, I’ve honestly been suggesting that BioWare should consider spinning it into a standalone free to play title. I think the same should happen to DA multiplayer as well. Then it can see a small team of continuing support with new characters, weapons, maps, and balance changes. All funded by those new, more ethical microtransactions I suggested. But I digress.

Community

Now this is where things get unpleasant. Andromeda itself, despite my criticism, is an overall above average game in its current state. It is not terrible, but also not very good. This is why I used to not recommend purchasing it unless you got it on sale for at least 50% off. That’s what I felt the game is worth.

However, what turned that recommendation from “Get It On Sale” to “Avoid Like The Plague” is the community.

While many, if not most, of the community around BioWare games are amiable enough and just enjoy the games, there is a sinister fanaticism that lurks in the dark places of the community. This fringe fanaticism either fervently hates or passionately loves the game, and harbors and intense level of bigotry.

Months before Andromeda was released, videos were being made openly calling for a boycott of BioWare games due to the political ideologies of individuals working (at that time) for BioWare, while others were praising BioWare for those same ideologies. Both positions were a Fallacy of Composition… Assuming that something true of one part of a body must also be true of the whole body.

If only that were the end of it. As launch got closer, so did the intensity of turning any developer interviews or updates into some kind of political clash. In all fairness, this was not exclusive to Andromeda… In fact, I could posit that it might just be a reflection of the then-current state of modern society. Regardless, Andromeda was controversial without ever having posed a single controversial position.

Then BioWare made a mistake. It gave out press copies of Andromeda to review outlets and “influencers”, the latter of which I will be discussing more in a moment. However, while reviewers were under an embargo that prevented them from releasing their review until the day before the game was released, BioWare allowed “influencers” and people that subscribe to EA/Origin Access to play and stream the game for 10 hours one week before release.

By the time professional reviews came out… Which were generally positive… There was so much confusion already permeating the internet. Clear, concise, and fair-minded criticism was drown in a sea of angry denouncement and cult-like devotion.

After a few scathing criticisms and popular memes arising due to issues in the game, a few of BioWare’s loyal influencers" set about attempting to counter much of the criticism leveled at the game either by justifying mistakes and design choices or by outright attempting to discredit critics themselves.

Let’s take Mass Effect Follower (now known as BioWare Follower), for example. He made a video titled Addressing the Criticism in Mass Effect Andromeda where he attempts to simultaneously justify the existence of bugs in the game while discrediting those that was put forward with comments like:

“Now, the reviews are people’s opinions and nothing but that. […] That should not deter you from trying out the game and seeing if you enjoy it yourself. Some people are not a fan of RPGs or open-world games and from there they’re not going to like Mass Effect Andromeda and therefore they’re going to write negative things about the game. Plus, as many of you know from being on the internet, some people just like to cause negative feedback. […] They just want to say bad things about a game just to fuel hate. […] Try to ignore them if you can.”

Yup, he just tells people to ignore all negative reviews, because they either don’t like RPGs/open-world games or they are just trying to promote hate. Or like this:

“All the story missions I’ve played have all felt well written and set up. The side missions I’ve done are widely varying in what you have to do and they feel like they have a meaning. The random characters I come across feel alive and like they have a purpose for being there.”

Which feels like a legitimate public statement written by BioWare themselves. This first point made there I’ve already outlined my heavily diverging viewpoint, and the second two points are outright falsehoods. Essentially the video asks people to ignore negative criticisms of the game and just buy it based on his questionable claims on quality. Then, for all the bugs, hope that the game would be fixed and hope that the story would get better based on nonexistent future content.

On a small level, I pity channels like BWFollower. Once a channel becomes a certain size, it becomes beholden to the content it makes. When that content relies on an amicable relationship with a corporate AAA developer, a channel might feel pressured to make content that portrays work of that corporate AAA developer in a favorable light or risk being black-listed by that developer. It’s an unenviable position, but it’s entirely self-imposed.

This kind of content is what’s known as subversive advertising, and it’s not always done knowingly. BWFollower may not have realized that he was manipulating people into making a purchase that they may not have wanted. Nonetheless, it does not change the effect it had. When you are a public figure… One that a major AAA game developer would consider to be an “influencer”, you have a responsibility and a trust… One which BWFollower completely failed. It is about the most anti-consumer reaction to a game possible because it crippled the ability for consumers to get fair and honest information before making a purchase.

Not everyone has money to waste on a game they won’t enjoy, and so-called “trusted” voices countering healthy consumer feedback undermines the trust consumers have in those of us that with any measure of public responsibility. This utter deception perpetrated by several similar such “influencers” was, without a doubt, one of the most pivotal elements leading to the consumer backlash against Andromeda. The Streisand Effect, they call it.

Summary

Overall, I think Andromeda was indicative of the overall state of BioWare during the development of Inquisition and Andromeda… Including the upcoming Anthem. They were creatively rudderless, sailing whatever way the wind was blowing, denoting a lack of proper creative leadership and overall project vision.

Now, that may have changed. BW Montreal was merged into EA Motive and Aaron Flynn was replaced by Casey Hudson as GM of BioWare (essentially their top spot in the company). The only beacon of hope that Anthem won’t turn out to be as bland as Inquisition/Andromeda is that Drew Karpyshyn (the main reason BioWare games are popular) is the lead writer on the project.

As I write this, the multiplayer is still currently receiving updates but the single player support was ended a few weeks ago. I imagine that Andromeda’s multiplayer will continue receiving updates for months to come as they continue to unethically on money out of players through manipulative microtransactions that really should be legally classified as gambling.

Going forward from here, there are several lessons and opportunities for BioWare. They have already made changes to their organisation that may see their content improve. However, I will not presume that. Time will reveal what, if any, effect those changes create.

The lesson I have learned is that corporate greed inevitably diseases creativity. Not only has this experience made me extremely distrustful of BioWare, but AAA game development as a whole, which is honestly for the best. Businesses should not be entitled to your patronage. They should earn it. Something which BioWare has seemingly forgotten.

In writing this, however, the most unexpected realization result from the release of the latest entry of BioWare’s most popular franchise: Where their path forward became much less certain to many fans, mine became clear. More information on that will be coming soon.

That, in its totality, is my post-mortem of Mass Effect Andromeda. Feel free to share your thoughts on the game and stayed tuned for some new things coming soon.

Will Mass Effect: Andromeda Break BioWare’s Formula?

Let’s be honest: BioWare has never been a risk-taker. Their RPGs have largely been a rinse-and-repeat formula… A formula, I might add, used long before EA came around. KotOR, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect… Hell, even SWTOR class stories stick to an expanded version of that formula. Inquisition, for all it’s faults, was really the biggest risk they’ve take in over fifteen years, and even that stuck somewhat to their formula.

Does that mean those games were bad? Not at all. It just means that BioWare has not really been the most radical of developers, and now that they are owned by EA, I can imagine the likihood of taking radical chances is monumentally less.

That said, not all risks are good ones. Inquisition’s risk, I think, was trying to do too many things at once while still trying to keep to that formula, which is where a lot of criticism comes in.

Open-world (peregrination) often finds itself at odds with story-telling. The Elder Scrolls is all about peregrination, whereas the Witcher is narrative-heavy. Both are beloved for the way they’ve handled open-worlds. This area does not seem to be one that allows for much balance, to be honest, which is why Inquisition felt shallow. It tried to focus on an explorable world while sticking to their same narrative-driven formula. As a result, both concepts suffered.

Multiplayer can often find itself at odds with single-player. I honestly do not believe that BioWare intended to support ME3MP as long as they did. It was only after launch, when they saw the popularity of it, that they decided to put a heavy focus on MP. It was the resulting diversity of characters and maps that kept people playing it to this day. Inquisition, conversely, was prepped for heavy support to MP, but after BioWare royally botched the Destruction DLC launch (and subsequent fixing), the MP never got the momentum of ME3 and thus it really seemed like the prepared heavy focus on MP was quickly diverted elsewhere.

Not only that, the promotion system in Inquisition’s multiplayer was too heavily influenced by the gameplay of single-player, hence why it completely broke the difficulty curve when put in production, where players will grind for thousands of hours. The results of the god-like Promotion Lords caused BioWare to create two difficulties catering specifically to those players, which further fractured the ailing community.

Political ideologies often are at odds with creative expression. Krem was plain insulting to everyone, most of all transgender people, yet some lauded how his inclusion was handled (none of those praising it were transgender, of course). Handling inclusiveness should never be a heavy-handed affair. Instead of giving us a “The More You Know” PSA, just make said alternative group(s) a natural part of the cast, like it’s no big deal. Like Cortez from ME3. Yes, he was gay, and no one bloody cared. Because, like it or not, that’s actually how most real people are.

How To Kill Or Grow A YouTube Channel 

By A.D. Mortiel

———————————————————————————————

So some of you all frequently hear me preaching about not paying any mind to your subscriber count or views when you are just starting off and how doing the “sub4sub” thing is about the worst idea possible. About how sub4sub hurts your channel in the long term. If have not heard me say this before, you have now.

To demonstrate this, I have some numbers to throw at you. I have two channels I picked to illustrate the point, although I will omit the names of said channels. You can see what I am about to explain in the photos above, take from future projections from SocialBlade comparing the two channels.

Two channels I picked: Channel A has around 9k subs and 150k views; Channel B has 4k subs and 15k views. You can already see a huge difference in the sub/view ratio as it is, but SocialBlade gives and interesting prediction on the future growth of these two channels… Assuming, of course the former channel continues making quality content and the latter continues doing the sub4sub thing. Notice the view predictions? Channel A explodes whereas Channel B flatlines. Its a fairly accurate prediction based upon previous studies done. 

“But Mortiel!” you may counter, “I’ve seen [insert channel name here] get huge from sub4sub and I want to be successful too!”

Let me break down what Sub4Sub does:

Another channel sees you doing sub4sub, wants to grow too and subs to you. You sub back. Great, right?!

But what then? The new channel may enjoy your content and watch it, but that is extremely rare for two main reasons. 

1. Usually they are on the same path as you, spamming out on social media to get more sub4subs… And not watching or interacting with your content.

2. Since both your and that channel are both spending so much time spamming for more sub4subs, you are not putting much time into improving your content and channel. Yes, that means that average viewers think your videos suck.

What happens when random viewers click on your videos and find them uninteresting? They stop watching. This is where YouTube’s Audience Retention system comes in, tanking your video’s search rating because it, like average viewers, have determined your content is not interesting.

So what are you left with after that? A bunch of subscribers that do not watch your boring videos that will never show up in YouTube search results. You end up with no views, and ultimately, no growth. Congratulations! Your channel looks huge with a ton of subscribers, but has officially become a hollow shell with no future.

”But Mortiel!” you may additionally counter, “But I do shoutouts based on those that subscribe and interact with my channel!”

Let’s explore that doomed model as well:

You put out there that you will make a video essentially shilling for other channels if they subscribe to you and interact with your, again, uninteresting content. This would resolve the problem I mentioned before, right?

This has several flaws, so I’ll start with the Retention issue first. Since the only thing you can track is if they comment on your video (likes are anonymous), they will launch a video, comment (maybe like), and leave without watching it more. Why? Because they are only there to get their shoutout, and not because they enjoy your content. Your Retention Rating again tanks, and your videos fall into a black hole, as does your channel.

But what happens to the other channel to which you gave a shoutout? Certainly they benefit? Well, since they’ve been spending so much time interacting with your content and not improving theirs, they end up in the same black hole, and worse since those that subscribed to their channel only did so because they are required to (if they did so at all).

”But Mortiel!” you may desperately counter as a last resort, “I bought views to boost my Audience Retention back up!”

I congratulate you making the worst mistake that trumps both my above mentioned doomed models. While Sub4Sub and Shoutouts can send your content into a black hole, it can be recovered simply by changing your focus to making better quality content, buying views will inevitably end with your channel being permanently terminated, but not before YouTube’s automated system detects the fraudulent traffic and filters it from your video, negating those views. So you are left with no views, no subscribers, and no channel.

How To Not Kill A YouTube Channel

“But Mortiel!” you ask in exasperation, “What can I do to grow?”

Before I go on, the first thing that you need to burn into your mind is that all of these following steps are an ongoing process. Always be researching, refining, and revitalizing your content.

First, start by researching what you want to make. How many other people are making these type of videos? How many people are watching these type of videos? Research is the first and most important step. There is no excuse for skimping on this, as Google is free.

Second, come up with a method of production. Not only is it good to have a consistent pattern of releasing videos, it also saves you time in actual production of a video. Have a few hours on one day to prepare the video outline, a few hours another day to film the content you need, and a few hours on a third day to do post-production (if needed).

As I myself have personally discovered through trial and a lot of error, this should be a major focus to avoid burning yourself out. Very few of us can do YouTube full time for a living, which means we are juggling it with school, work, and our social lives. Having an established and scheduled method to producing videos can go miles to helping your balance YouTube with the rest of your life.

Third, devise branding. Channel art, logos, thumbnails, channel trailers, etc. You want to make a distinction between yourself and others doing similar things. Generic branding or branding that alienates the viewer are not always obvious to you. This one may require going back to the first step I mentioned multiple times in order to find your “thing”. It is also completely acceptable to rebrand occasionally as you develop a more unique identity online, and refreshing video thumbnails can often bring new life into an aging video.

Fourth, ask for feedback. When first starting, it’s always smart to get technical feedback on your content. Mic volume, video structure/coherency, and entertainment value are always the first things I ask about from a viewer. After I get some technical feedback from viewers, I will often consult more established channels on more abstract/behind-the-scenes feedback such as suggested capture/editing programs, hardware, or tips on improving branding. There is a lot of feedback to be had, but you should remember to view it objectively and logically. Supplement it with your own research, and always ask questions to distill the feedback whenever possible so you can understand what the feedback really means to you.

Fifth, and finally, network with people. Viewers watch and interact more with people as opposed to channels, so do not be scared to interact with comments (granted they are not spam or trolls). You’d be surprised on how well it can help you grow your channel while simultaneously giving you direct access to all valuable viewer feedback I mentioned in the fourth step.

Also network with other YouTubers that make content similar to yours. Share ideas, make collaboration videos, and don’t be afraid to reference their videos in your own videos. Remember that YouTube is a community, not a competition. A viewer/subscriber often watches the similar-styled content from multitudes of different channels, so you pointing them to another channel they might not have known about (and like) will demonstrate to them that channels are not islands, and helps develop a strong positive following for you and others making similar content. It also has the side benefit of teaching YouTube that people enjoying that channel may like yours, and vise-versa, which increases your visibility to more people. As both a demonstration of how networking works and in order to cover another facet of properly growing a channel that I have neglected in this post, here is an excerpt from Doncharted’s excellent post on social media marketing for YouTubers:

“Snapchat is a huge player for attention in social media. You receive a Snap and you have a few seconds to view it. It demands attention! So, if you make a snap of your video or a “behind-the-scenes” with your channel name, whoever sees it is paying attention! Creating valuable and/or entertaining content on Snapchat is a great to get people’s attention and then let your content do the talking.”

The full post can be found here: MARKETING YOUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Summary

There are sadly no shortcuts to YouTube Fame and Riches. In fact, the chances of you being the next PewDiePie is less than the odds of you winning millions of dollars from a lottery. The desire to be “YouTube Famous” has unfortunately attracted a ton of greed and impatience. This has bred the infatuation with shortcutting the hard work that PewDiePie, Markiplier, TotalBiscuit have poured into becoming as big as they are. So far, all attempts at shortcutting have been doomed, because they are motivated by greed rather than the content being made. Just consider that when flirting with the idea that Sub4Sub or Shoutouts benefit your channel.

The Content Conundrum

by A.D. Mortiel

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In the process of making a game, the creative minds want to pour their hearts into just the creative tasks. It’s only natural. The problem is that sometimes pure creativity doesn’t make for much of a marketable business plan. Like it or not, making video games costs money, which means the creative vision of a game needs an initial monetary investment from somewhere (usually a publisher) to see the light of day… And unfortunately investment is hard to conjure without a plan for monetization. Will your game have a high number of up front sales? Will you have a recurring income from monthly subscriptions? Will you have additional piecemeal sales from DLC or microtransactions? These are all things traditional investors will look for before signing a check.

An easy way to increase marketability of a game is to offer rapid saturation, and the best way to do that is with no entry barrier (e.g. free to play). In a game that makes no income from initial sales, how can a developer market to investors? Yup, microtransactions.

On paper, microtransactions would seem to be the best monetization strategy for any game: People with less money can enjoy a free game, people with more money buy things here and there, and the publishers/developers earn continual income. The issue that arises is an old one. 

The Greed in the Grind.

A free to play title gets it’s first following and the publisher starts seeing a return on investment… But why just sit back and relax? There is more money to be made! And how would the developers make more money for the publisher? By encouraging more players to spend money, of course!

This is where we enter into dangerous waters. See, many games have developed gameplay mechanics that require a certain amount of “grinding” to achieve goals. Diablo II was well known for randomized items dropping from enemies, leading players to kill hundreds of said enemy to get what they wanted. Some players even enjoy that, for some reason that I cannot fathom because the concept of grinding to me has always reeked of lazy development.

When I saw “lazy”, I don’t mean that the developers aren’t working hard. It’s actually usually quite the opposite. The developers are working hard… at something else. Instead of developing progressing rewards for more challenging quests, isn’t it easier to just have all the loot stacked into a randomized reward? 

For a developer, randomizing rewards offer two benefits:

1. Less time structuring specialized quests with specialized rewards means more time polishing gameplay mechanics and graphical fidelity (or whatever else they might want to focus on).

2. More importantly, randomized rewards means players now have to complete the same quest multiple times in order to get the reward they really want.

It is that second point that started this mess: I am absolutely certain that marketing studies have been done that show quantifiable data equating the average time a player spends in a monetized free to play game to the average money spent per player. This, my friends, is where the ugly troll named Greed rears it’s hideous visage. A developer can do less work on certain areas while grossing more money from microtransactions.

The Macroeconomics versus Microtransactions

Here we have this free to play game with it’s microtransactions. It has developed a tremendously large playerbase over it’s years of growing. The developer has a fine assortment of goods to purchase with real money. They have largely neglected story and quests for the sake of developing cleverly addicting gameplay to mask the grind, keeping players hooked on a devious mixture of Sunk Cost Fallacy and the Gambler’s Fallacy. The overall monetization of the product has gone well, right?

Well, we have a problem here. See, the microtransactions are usually structured on the macroeconomics of the game system. The prices and products are sold based upon the overall metrics of sales, not on a per-item basis. For that matter, any items sold that overlap items acquired in-game are usually treated no different from a metrics perspective.

The Hanlon’s Razor Effect

The challenge of maintaining the strategy of the aforementioned example above is that it walks a razor’s edge: Too much grind alienates players but too little grind fails to reach the necessary retention to get sales. The issue I notice is that it is nearly impossible to balance on an edge that is at multiple places at once, as different players have different tastes. Still, some developers hold that they can, likely basing that conclusion off some sort of flawed analytics.

The comparison I have drawn in the past between Mass Effect 3 multiplayer and Dragon Age: Inquisition multiplayer. Both had similar “grind models”. Play missions, earn money, buy randomized loot. While it became quickly clear that Mass Effect 3 had the better model because it had a depreciating loot table, that still glossed over the more important point: While some may see this model as a malicious cash-grab (and in some ways it is), I choose not to blame on malice what can be attributed to stupidity of the developer.

Conclusion

No matter what model of randomized loot system is used, they are fundamentally flawed as a monetization platform and only end up boring or annoying players for the proportionately small monetary benefit they offer. It only takes a small amount of research to realize that forcing a player to grind for 1,000+ hours to complete a game through tedious repetition nets the same amount of money from content-skipping purchases as would be gained from high-quality aesthetics in a game with more quality-based content. Warframe, for example, occasionally shows promise of getting away from the grind, only to then go and further dilute loot tables, making the grind worse. It’s a confusing contradiction.

The Morality Dilemma

by A.D. Mortiel

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I had some thoughts on the rather tired morality systems in BioWare video games.So I was reminded tonight about one of my many annoyances about decision-focused RPGs, predominantly BioWare’s style. So as a preface, the morality systems in BioWare’s RPGs has taken many names: Open Palm/Closed Fist, Light Side/Dark Side, Paragon/Renegade. Call it what you will, but one side focuses on what many in our current society might think less acceptable (we’ll call them the “dark” choices) and choices many would see as socially upstanding (we’ll call the “light” choices). What BioWare has done well in such a dichotomy is give incentive (notably moral questioning) to each side.  This kind of moral dilemma actually is good. It shows that not all decisions are “good” or “evil”. Jade Empire’s Open Palm versus Closed Fist was probably the best example, with each morality having mutually exclusive goals that, while never coinciding, never actually compete. To boil it down, however, the light choices are usually rather typical: Be nice to other people, be honest, don’t intentionally hurt anyone. That last part is key because light side focuses typically on intent. If your intentions are benevolent, the consequences are irrelevant. You rationalize your actions that the means justifying the end. The dark choices are not so typical of what you might think: While you may hurt people, lie, and come off overall as the biggest asshole around, you do it because you know strength comes through adversity. You don’t get as much about the intent as the result. The tangibles. Whether your roleplay focus is selfish or selfless, you rationalize dark decisions in the end justifying the means. The truth hidden there is that neither side is “right” or “good”. Both have failings. The means and the end are equally important, and by focusing on one, you neglect the other to the detriment of all. And that, my friends, is called “replayability” in a video game. By what, you ask, happens if you want to play like Jolee Bindo, the well-known Grey Jedi? Well, this is often punished with either lack of character skill progressions, items, or even a fitting game ending. This is gripe #1. The Neutral Path:

No game maker really seems to reward a neutral player in a meaningful way. That’s if the game even gives you the option of remaining neutral… In many cases you are pigeon-holed into one of two doors. Or worse. I’ll get to that, but first… ***SPOILER WARNING***

In a series like Mass Effect. the only “neutral” options for an ending (which was added to the game much later), is either to sacrifice yourself to force everyone, willing or not, to become Synthetic organism, or, the even better one: Give the galaxy the finger and shoot the Catalyst. That gives you the horribly depressing ending that your choice killed everything. Good job.

***END SPOILER***

This gives the crazed opinion that neutral players are apathetic. That’s if the play is even given a neutral option at all. It seems like a completely wasted potential for a more complete game.

This is also to point out that a neutral path also tends to see the player forfeit character progression, gameplay, or items that require certain levels of either morality, such as Jade Empire’s amazing Tempest stance or Mass Effect’s Paragon/Renegade persuasion options. The only exception, if I remember correctly, was a robe in Knights of the Old Republic that could not be worn if you were over a certain Light or Dark level, but I could be remembering that incorrectly. It wasn’t that spectacular of an item, whatever the case. Remaining neutral is hard as hell. The rewards should be not only amazing, but fitting to a neutral player. A good neutral bonus would be a perk that grants the player heavy resistances to light- or dark-focused abilities. Just a simple example.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, why should there be only three paths? This is gripe #2:

The False Pentachotomy:

There is a common conception that there is the light, dark, and neutral path. Little is it known anymore outside of tabletop RPG circles that morality was actually split into NINE choices. There original primary paths were:

Lawful, Chaotic, Good, Evil, and Neutral.

But those weren’t fixed choices. From those primary paths, you would diverge into one of nine combinations of those five, with two dichotomous scales in three degrees of severity. Calling it a Pentachotomy would be a misnomer, because that would denote only five choices, hence my saying a “False Pentachotomy”.

Unfortunately, in earlier stages of making video games, morality from this traditional system were distilled, with most cases seeing Lawful being combined with Good and Chaotic with Evil, or Lawful and Chaotic were discarded entirely. This lead to a more stale style that to me has always felt a bit contrived and rather limiting.

While that was understandable in the early days of morality systems in video game RPGs, I think technology and script writing has evolved to be able to incorporate more than the stereotypical two systems. The brilliant part is that “Lawful” and “Chaotic” fit into almost any morality scheme without the need for much alteration, unlike “Good” and “Evil”. 

The popularity of the comic book character Batman and his arch-nemesis, the Joker, was not based from Batman being “good” and Joker being “evil”. It is the reason why, among all the other villains in Batman’s world, the Joker stands on top. Batman lives in a world where typical “good” and “evil” are so unrecognizable, the only two extremes he understands is “order” and “chaos”. The Joker is the personification chaos, which is why the Joker is traditionally depited as not wanting to kill Batman… He knows that without Batman, his “chaos” has no “order” from which to define itself.

That type of hidden philosophy would bring a refreshing new light to the typical morality-based RPGs like Star Wars and Mass Effect. As long as the choices you make actually effect the outcome of the game… Which brings us to gripe #3:

The Ultimate Sin:

Arbitrary, poorly devised, and frustratingly constricting morality systems have grown old, but they are tolerable or even enjoyable compared to the worst offense that I have encountered in at least three different BioWare titles: No matter how light/dark you have been through the course of the entire story, you are given a final light/dark choice that determines the outcome of the game, ignoring your previous choices. You could be the most evil, selfish son-of-a-bitch possible, but no worries! I can still choose to talk Bastila down and be magically transformed into a perfectly light Jedi! I can be a perfect angel and still put on Jack of Blades mask and be instantly pure evil. That “Ultimate Choice” is what I consider to be the Ultimate Sin in morality-driven RPGs.

A game that has an ongoing morality system tracking your decisions should never have a final decision to determine the ending. It should be automatic. Dishonored, while being a simplistic example, is how it should be done:

***SPOILER WARNING***

In Dishonored, you are faced with the “violent” and “pacifist” in each mission, ultimately shaping the end. If you are violent and kill all of the marks, your friends turn on you and Emily goes down a dark path. Be a pacifist and things are much happier in the end. You get no final choice on that ending; It is determined by your actions through the entire game.

***END SPOILER***

For a morality-driven story to flow naturally, my actions through the entire story should shape the ultimate end, much like my actions throughout life shape my life. I don’t get a magical “ultimate choice” once I’m 65 to determine if I retire peacefully or with a trail of metaphorical ashes behind me. That is determined by the choices I make over the next three and a half decades.

The Summary:

Overall, I have become disillusioned with morality systems in games. Being forced into one of two roads that are the same in every game has become incredibly stale. What’s worse, having said stale morality system and ignoring it with a final Ultimate Choice Sin.