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In what realm of sanity did EA believe forcing all their devs to work on Frostbite was a good idea?

Twenty5Thousand

Twenty5Thousand

Banned
Nov 4, 2018
486
I think at this point it's safe to say this decision by EA was easily one of the worst they've ever made.

BioWare has been severely affected by this decisions, siting it to be a major cause of the flaws found in Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda, and now seemingly Anthem.

Stories of EA's Star Wars game by Amy Hennig called Ragtag also site issues with Frostbite being part of the reason the game ended up being cancelled.

So far, the only dev team to not have issues with the engine is Dice themselves and it begs the question of why this decision was ever made in the first place.

The idea of having all teams working on a shared engine makes sense so that skills and tools between teams can be shared. What doesn't make sense is the engine chosen is a pre-existing one that was developed with only first person shooters in mind.

The benefits from this decision have yet to be seen as the issues caused by it become more and more prevalent, and I'm wondering if this will EVER end up being a good decision in the long run.
 
Last_colossi

Last_colossi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
4,262
Australia
So EA Doesn't have to spend extra money on licensing or making others engines?

I'm pretty sure it's a cost saving measure?

Edit: I mean from EA's point of view, doubt it saved them anything though.
 
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Emily_Lux_Noire

Emily_Lux_Noire

Member
Nov 25, 2018
13
More than likely because Frostbyte is already an EA owned Engine capable of getting some really solid visual results regardless of per game performance, which has been overall positive, even including the mentioned games.

My guess is they opt to use FB because it'd cost them money and dev time to create a new engine, or to make their dev teams learn how to use UE4, which also comes with having to pay royalties.
 
CallMeShaft

CallMeShaft

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
3,385
They probably did it so if they needed to move a team to a different game for whatever reason, the developers wouldn't have as many issues.

Also, as others have said, they own it.
 

Deleted member 1413

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,617
Makes sense on paper.
All developers working on an internal engine means a lot more experienced staff that can help on projects. Less time making new engines or paying to license things like UE4

Imagine the biggest issue is that the engine was likely not made for the kind of games BioWare was trying to make
 
ASaiyan

ASaiyan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,228
Nothing wrong with wanting to have all of your developers on the same base engine. And it even makes perfect business sense to exclusively use an engine you developed yourself, and thus avoid having to paying any license or royalty fees.

If however, your developers make many games of a variety of genres...maybe make sure said engine is actually built to well accommodate all those genres, before making the decision to use it exclusively.
 
TheDarkKnight

TheDarkKnight

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,601
On the surface it makes sense. It generates eye pleasing graphics and you don't pay license fees.

I'm more asking how is it that they couldn't improve frostbite to be more flexible?
 
Cort

Cort

Member
Nov 4, 2017
4,369
With Titanfall, Titanfall 2, and Apex on source engine, here's hoping Respawn stays on the source engine
 

HockeyBird

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,677
Using the same engine saves time and money creating new assets and tools. EA probably thought that all the studios using the engine would help streamline development and result in better games overall. The issue is that Frostbite might not be as intuitive or flexible as they thought which lead to development problems. But an easy to use engine definitely helps make development easier. That's why Unreal is so popular.
 
Piotrek

Piotrek

Member
Oct 28, 2017
128
Warsaw, PL
They must have envied Ubisoft with their highly optimised pipeline for pumping out game after game after game and their rumoured move towards a unified development around Snowdrop. EA probably wanted to get a head start and fucked up royally.
 
Samaritan

Samaritan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,709
Tacoma, Washington
The idea itself was incredibly sound. Have a single, internal engine that all studios can contribute to and help each other with when necessary. It eliminates the need to license out a 3rd party engine and the fees that come with that. They just picked a really bad engine to do this with.

The smarter move would've been to spin out an engine development division and build a new, all-purpose engine for future titles instead of reusing an relatively restrictive FPS engine and then forcing some existing projects to switch mid-development.
 
Nintendo

Nintendo

Prophet of Regret
Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,388
Props to Sony and Ubisoft for letting their studios develop engines for their specific needs. Heck, Ubisoft Montreal alone works with at least 3 or 4 different engines!
 
Simo

Simo

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,896
Michigan, USA
Bioware weren't "forced" to use Frostbite. This narrative needs to stop.

Aaryn Flynn went on record saying they voluntarily chose the engine over UE4 or developing their own internally.
 
BossAttack

BossAttack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
43,186
Samaritan said:
The idea itself was incredibly sound. Have a single, internal engine that all studios can contribute to and help each other with when necessary. It eliminates the need to license out a 3rd party engine and the fees that come with that. They just picked a really bad engine to do this with.

The smarter move would've been to spin out an engine development division and build a new, all-purpose engine for future titles instead of reusing an FPS engine and even forcing some existing projects to switch mid-development.
Click to expand...
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.
 
Afrikan

Afrikan

Member
Oct 28, 2017
17,080
DICE's next version of FB will probably take into consideration most of EA's other developers, to make it as flexible as possible.
 
Cranster

Cranster

Prophet of Truth
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,788
Falconbox said:
What were the flaws in DA:I regarding Frostbite?

I had many issues with the game, but it ran well and looked good.
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https://www.tweaktown.com/news/57906/dices-frostbite-play-rpgs/index.html

"When BioWare first got its hands-on Frostbite, the engine wasn't capable of performing the basic functions you'd expect from a role-playing game, like managing party members or keeping track of a player's inventory. BioWare's coders had to build almost everything from scratch."
Click to expand...
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Last_colossi said:
So EA Doesn't have to spend extra money on licensing or making others engines?

I'm pretty sure it's a cost saving measure?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I doubt they ended up saving any money on ME:A and Anthem.
 
Orbit

Orbit

Banned
Nov 21, 2018
1,328
Falconbox said:
What were the flaws in DA:I regarding Frostbite?

I had many issues with the game, but it ran well and looked good.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

They did turn out a good product but from what I have read, development was really strained by having to basically rewrite the engine to feature third-person etc. The game was really good but I think comments from devs stated it would've been fantastic if they had been able to smoothly transition to frostbite.

In regard to OP, I think the reason being like the CEO or whatever said: how he doesn't like putting out IP (like star wars) that EA doesn't own, i guess due to royalty payments and stuff like that. So i assume he feels the same about the engine: one unified engine that they own, instead of going to unreal and having to pay percentage of profits and stuff like that.
 

Deleted member 4852

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
633
Falconbox said:
What were the flaws in DA:I regarding Frostbite?

I had many issues with the game, but it ran well and looked good.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Would the game breaking bugs be a result of the engine? I really dont know. I just know that at a certain point I couldnt progress through the game until a patch came out which was some time after release so i just had to shelve the game, I plan to get back to it sometime.
 
Hailinel

Hailinel

Shamed a mod for a tag
Member
Oct 27, 2017
35,527
TheDarkKnight said:
On the surface it makes sense. It generates eye pleasing graphics and you don't pay license fees.

I'm more asking how is it that they couldn't improve frostbite to be more flexible?
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It seems that very thing was being done no a per project basis. Frostbite couldn't do all of the things Inquisition neeeded, and so new elements were added to the engine in the process. The same goes for EA's sports titles as they migrated to Frostbite.

Andromeda's development had a lot of documented issues that weren't Frostbite's fault. The state of Frostbite obviously didn't help matters, but the engine wasn't the sole thing holding the game back. Especially given the initial scope of of the project (basically Mass Effect: No Man's Sky) was unworkable. And we don't yet know what all of the issues Bioware had with developing Anthem were, but there are definitely technical issues that appear to be the basic fault of making a game that the engine wasn't designed for.
 
ckareset

ckareset

Attempted to circumvent ban with an alt account
Banned
Feb 2, 2018
4,977
Unless we assume developers are lying they dont force people to use frostbite right now
 

fr0st

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,502
Yeah I'm guessing it's cause they don't need to pay others to use their engines.
 
WhoaIsThatMars

WhoaIsThatMars

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,563
湘南
Bioware chose to use Frostbite. EA didn't force them. It was once thought that EA made them use it, but this was proven incorrect by Aaron Flynn. I'm sure there was some "hey, you should use our engine" talk though.
 
Serene

Serene

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
52,588
Simo said:
Bioware weren't "forced" to use Frostbite. This narrative needs to stop.

Aaryn Flynn went on record saying they voluntarily chose the engine over UE4 or developing their own internally.
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Pretty interesting coincidence that every AAA EA development studio just so happens to choose Frostbite
 
JCG

JCG

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,546
I imagine they were trying to save on costs, but in several cases the outcome has been the opposite of that. Saving money is good as long as you don't need to rush and invest more as a result of low quality, poor performance or a particularly bad audience reaction to the product. That and the development headaches already mentioned above.
 

Deleted member 1413

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,617
Piotrek said:
They must have envied Ubisoft with their highly optimised pipeline for pumping out game after game after game and their rumoured move towards a unified development around Snowdrop. EA probably wanted to get a head start and fucked up royally.
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Yeah, that's a good point.
It helps (is the reason?) why Ubisoft games are so similar.

But even then Ubisoft has like 2-3 internal engines and are willing to make new ones when needed.

Taking an engine for first person multiplayer shooters for all their games was not their best idea.
But, if they invest in a new engine for open world action RPGs/action adventures, that would be a good compliment to a more multiplayer focused engine
 
dodo

dodo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,000
did people saying DA:I had no technical issues play on PC? because on PS4 nearly any cutscene with anything more complex than a conversation was practically unwatchable due to funky animation triggers and texture/model pop-in.
 
Xumbrega

Xumbrega

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,080
Brasil
Bioware chose Frostbite, it was Bioware call, they even did an interview saying that. Bioware is the one to blame in here, you can't just push this narrative everytime Bioware fucks up with "EA forced them", maybe you know, things just didn't work out and Bioware is not the developer they used to be.
 
Nightengale

Nightengale

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,712
Malaysia
The decision was perfectly sane, imo.

High quality internal engine, uniting the tech pipeline for all EA studios, allowing workforce, training, competency synergy and ease of collaboration between different studios, and allows innovation built for one game to be used for another.
 
Gamer @ Heart

Gamer @ Heart

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,723
Presumably OP, the plan was to have a dedicated engine team able to hop from team to team to help them build or optimize any tools and performance as required. All those efforts would then continue to be shared project to project, team to team. I have to imagine they dropped the ball in that regard.

At the start of any production they run a risk check of everything that can or could go wrong. Building the tools necessary to support whatever their non fps vision required would have been a part of that and one the leader ship and project managers of ALL these EA games would have looked at and said, we can overcome. So they all walked into those challenges willingly, it's not like they were blindsided.
 
BloodHound

BloodHound

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,082
Serene said:
Pretty interesting coincidence that every AAA EA development studio just so happens to choose Frostbite
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Maybe because developers on this site are on record saying that it is a powerful engine, capable of creating great games and that the developers have easy access to the creators of the engine to ask questions?
 
Liam Allen-Miller

Liam Allen-Miller

Member
Nov 2, 2017
6,837
Shibuya
I mean, the reality is that all of their studios are highly skilled and staffed teams. Using a new engine is always going to involve growing pains (be it Unity, UE4 or any other engine), but there's nothing insane about their choices to use Frostbite and the vast majority of games released on it haven't really had visual or tech issues. Also want to add my hat to the pile of "I don't think anyone is being explicitly forced, it's just a powerful internal tool they can leverage".
 
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