Recently, BioWare veteran Mark Darrah released a new video dedicated to what happened with Anthem. This time, he examines the post-release period.
Electronic Arts studios had problematic launches before — The Sims 4 and Battlefield 4, but the projects were eventually saved. However, they didn't do that with Anthem, and Darrah explained why EA did that:
Battlefield had record sales, exceeding 10 million copies, so it was considered in some way too big to fail. It was already considered a giant franchise, so all efforts were focused on bringing it back to what it already was. Unlike something like Anthem, which was something new. There was no clarity, no obviousness [of prospects], no confidence that it would become so popular
There is another point. According to Darrah, "an even more important factor" was the structure of the development studio BioWare — it was known for the Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate, and Mass Effect franchises, but not Anthem. If such a new experiment fails, the developers can simply return to a time-tested series.
In the case of DICE and Battlefield 4, the situation was completely different: either fix the problematic game, or close the studio:
And for most of its recent history, EA has been very reluctant to close studios. Whereas at BioWare, where two or three, and sometimes four, games are fighting for resources, when something doesn't work out the way you want it to, there's always someone else desperately in need of those people, so there's always more pressure that takes those resources away