Hello @stukapooka!
I just want to ofer some of my opinions on the things you mentioned.
1) The petitions
I'm certain nearly all know long term support for BfN is not an option. The petitions still could end up giving us Iceburg Lettuce and the many customizations (some winter themed) that were found in the game files. Iceburg Lettuce is so close to being finished an the customizations are completely finished. There are so many awesome ones just waiting to be released. I know EA acts based on profit, not heart. The blog post says the announcement could change. I think EA is evaluating if allowing a few select employees to add the nearly finished content instead of just doing maintenance would be profitable. I think it would be. Iceburg Lettuce is practically finished and releasing it would get the game a final push in sales in December. There were many parents who bought the game for their children last Christmas, so I don't see why that wouldn't be the case now. parents don't care if a game doesn't have damage drop-off or no active content support.
2) BfN not being known, although designed around being more mainstream
This really isn't the devs fault. EA clearly had higher expectations after every title but allocated less resources, while still thinking it would outsell the previous entries. The gw games were lacking in some aspects the casual audiences would care about. BfN focused on these, while the "core gamer" aspects were cut short. In theory, focusing on the "mainstream" aspects like appeal of colorful graphic, soundtrack, story mode and nice characters could be way more profitable than focusing on stuff like damage drop-off, the lack of marketing funds provided by BfN made their efforts in making the game more appealing and accessible to the most players were rendered useless. If EA had provided proper marketing as the publisher, I believe BfN would have been a great success, even outselling gw1/2.
Without marketing, only dedicated PvZ fans looking for news on BfN new about the game, and many only after the release in October. Out of this target audience, many 1) didn't like change and were gw fanboys anyway (seriously, some steam review with 400+ hours just say "no variants it sucks" and don't recommend it) 2) focused more on core mechanics, the department in which BfN was lacking. Again, this wouldn't get noticed much with more casuals playing the game, but the "fan" base highlighted this. By putting fan in "" I'm referring to the reddit community. Pointing out issues in a gam is fine, but what they did was not. They only shared negative aspects of the game, while ignoring the positives. They never appreciated all of the good things that were added and told everyone not to buy the game. Yet, the devs listened to them and added some features they wanted and balancing adjustment, All of this was left uncredited by them. The reddit community also abused every bug in the game and celebrated itself for getting Chomper to be removed. The were saying "We did it!". Most of them were also happy about the death of BfN, because "We are voting with our wallets!!! Now gw3 will be made and we saved the franchise!". This clearly isn't the case. EA goes by sales, nothing else. With the low sales of BfN and PvZ 3 being a disaster, they are guaranteed to be killing the franchise. SO all these dedicated "fan" on reddit did was negatively brand a in many ways great game of which they weren't even a part of the target audience. great job.
3) Changes made like bots & private play
Clearly, the devs were pressured by EA due to the sales. They decided to focus on things that would improve the game in the long run. Sure, bots need to be tuned, but they will greatly improve the game after most stop playing due to no new content. This also is true for private play (and it was one of the most demanded features.). They decided to scrap Berry Brigade, because they wouldn't have been able to finish it in time. They continued working on Iceburg lettuce, though. They wanted to give us as much content as they could before EA would pul the plug. They decided to work on playable AI classes lie Wildflower and TV head, because they could finish them in time. After they were finished, they were able to nearly finish Iceburg Lettuce, but EA went ahead with the announcement anyway. This must be a huge disappointment for the team. Therefore, we should try to fight for Iceurg Lettuce.Overall, I think the devs acted in our best interest, being confronted with EA's pushing.
4) BfN over gw 1 & 2 in endgame
Gw 1 has huge balancing issues everyone knows about. You can't play the game anymore because of that. GW 2 also has many balancing issues, as well as a massive cheater problem. BfN will still receive balancing and bug fix updates and has nearly no cheaters. Therefore, BfN is in a 100 times better state than the gw games now.
