It doesn't make any sense from a storytelling perspective *and* a business perspective
From the business perspective of damaging your reputation in the long-term for short-term game, it doesn't make much sense, especially when you factor in that BioWare had a damaged reputation anyway from the DRAGON AGE II debacle (although, as said upthread, that didn't stop it from selling well).
However, there is another perspective. We know that ME3 was launching in what was, for many territories, the end of the financial year. The game HAD to come out before the end of March 2012 and if possible, at the start of March 2012 so they could get first-month sales (which is usually where the bulk of sales are made) in before the end of the financial year.
This has a big impact on budgets for subsequent projects, their reliability and reputation within the EA corporate structure and so on. Also, thanks to Obsidian blowing the lid on it, we know that game companies are paid big bonuses by their publisher for getting games that score high metacritic ratings. We can assume this happens with BioWare as well.
So, BioWare may have had no choice but to launch before the end of the financial year and to get as good a critical response as possible to maximise their earnings. Whilst BioWare are a big developer, in the current climate they are only as good as the success of their last game, and to secure greater support from EA for DRAGON AGE III and whatever other projects they have coming up, they may have had zero choice about the release date. I bet they only got away with delaying it from the end of last year because they had the launch of THE OLD REPUBLIC to cover it anyway.
This does explain the DLC situation. Javik was always supposed to be in the game (just check out how much inter-character dialogue and development he has compared to Zaeed in ME2) and a fair bit of his stuff was developed during the original game development process (some of it is even on the disc). However, with the game running out of development time his stuff was put on hold until the rest of the game was done, and then worked on after the rest of the game was finished and had gone gold.
This does explain the DLC situation. Javik was always supposed to be in the game (just check out how much inter-character dialogue and development he has compared to Zaeed in ME2) and a fair bit of his stuff was developed during the original game development process (some of it is even on the disc). However, with the game running out...
If this is true, it proves my point somewhat, to add insult to the injury of releasing something greatly anticipated before it was ready, you all paid for it seperately when it was supposed to be in the game to begin with.
This is why I like Blizzard's "when it's done" approach to the big titles.
Mass Effect 3 or Sword of the Stars 2?
I am torn between the two for which was the greatest disappointment for me.
This is why I like Blizzard's "when it's done" approach to the big titles.
Yup, but Blizzard get to do that because they are partnered with Activision, with a great deal of self-autonomy (and millions rolling in monthly from WoW), whilst BioWare are flat-out owned by EA and have to kowtow to them.
In another universe, BioWare would have made THE OLD REPUBLIC solo with LucasArts and could have used funds from that to have remained independent. But that didn't happen, and now they're stuck relying on EA for funding and support.
Valve took the best option by creating a totally separate and highly lucrative income system with Steam. Though them taking 4 years and counting to produce what is effectively just a four-hour DLC (HALF-LIFE EPISODE III) shows that this freedom can have negative side-effects :-)
EDIT: That said, everything we know about the final days of ME3's development suggests a screw-up of tragic proportions. The lead writer bypassed all editorial and review processes by holding back on a key milestone until the absolute last second, then hammered out a product in an afternoon with the producer with just enough time to get the actors in for a callback session and the artists to recycle and rehash environments used elsewhere in the games. The man should count himself lucky to still have a job.
And there went the vaulted 'artistic integrity'. Some people have said we shouldn't want a change in the ending to protect artistic integrity, but the artists didn't even actually wrote the bloody thing.
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I was going to post a lengthy response but this has really been gone around and around. I don't like the ending and knowing that it was handled the way it was (very poorly) which I didn't previously know just makes me slightly more annoyed. Thank you to magnuskn for posting the links. If that information is true about the ending being done as stated the "artistic integrity" argument is out the window.
I love the entire Mass Effect story and the ending of it didn't make me stop loving it. I can imagine whatever ending I want, regardless of what I saw. To that point:
I didn't believe the indoctrination idea at first but then I played through my 3rd time and specifically looked for all of the times indoctrination is talked about and it was an eye-opening experience. I must say that if they wanted to plant the idea in there and not be overly-obvious then they succeeded.
Once you are on the indoctrination wagon the entire ending sequence, to me, is fake and completely constructed in Shepard's mind. I have reasons for this but let me just give one: The fact that Red for Renegade and Blue for Paragon are opposite of what they should be and that the special "last breath" scene (if you have a high enough military strength) only happens with the "destroy" option pretty much seals the deal.
Anyway thanks for the discussion and the "favorite" moments. I'll post mine later.
I was going to post a lengthy response but this has really been gone around and around. I don't like the ending and knowing that it was handled the way it was (very poorly) which I didn't previously know just makes me slightly more annoyed. Thank you to magnuskn for posting the links. If that information is true about the ending being done as stated the "artistic integrity" argument is out the window.
I love the entire Mass Effect story and the ending of it didn't make me stop loving it. I can imagine whatever ending I want, regardless of what I saw. To that point:
** spoiler omitted **
Anyway thanks for the discussion and the "favorite" moments. I'll post mine later.
The problem with the indocrination theory, as a Forbes article mentions, is that if it's what they meant to do, it kills the 'videogame as an art form' thing people have been discussing for years. Because it means you can end a game in the middle and offer the ending as a DLC, destroying artistic integrity and breaking narrative flow and angering the audience all for some extra bucks.
See if this sounds alright to you:"Hey, to see the climax of this super cool movie/book you have to pay an extra five dollars and wait a couple months"
To me it doesn't. Frak that BS.
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The problem with the indocrination theory, as a Forbes article mentions, is that if it's what they meant to do, it kills the 'videogame as an art form' thing people have been discussing for years. Because it means you can end a game in the middle and offer the ending as a DLC, destroying artistic integrity and breaking narrative flow and angering the audience all for some extra bucks.
See if this sounds alright to you:
"Hey, to see the climax of this super cool movie/book you have to pay an extra five dollars and wait a couple months"
To me it doesn't. Frak that BS.
And I agree with it being a totally crappy way to write the ending. I just meant that I can see it being one that is at least plausible where trying to piece together the complete nonsensical madness that is everything the star child says will never make any sense. I think the ending should have been exactly what the original writer meant it to be.
The human race sacrificing itself fits right in line with the whole "human race as the underdogs" that has been going on since ME1.
Mass Effect 3 or Sword of the Stars 2?
I am torn between the two for which was the greatest disappointment for me.
Mass Effect 3, Even with the terrible end it is still a great game.
Late Edit*** Is TOR your first MMO? Just curious.
Hardly. I've been playing MMORPGs since the original Neverwinter Nights on AOL, followed by a private UO shard, a bit of Everquest, some EVE, some SWG, some Guild Wars, a lot of WoW, and now SW:tOR. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, especially the f2p games I've dabbled in.
The reason is that computer game websites and reviews are dependent on advertising revenue from the game companies to survive. They will therefore give major games high scores almost no matter what, to appease the companies and retain their advertising spend. Games journalists risk getting fired if they give Tripl-A games bad reviews. That's why games journalism has a really bad reputation.
If that were true, we'd never see any AAA titles with poor reviews. To boot, we wouldn't see games like Mass Effect 3 getting 90+ ratings. If a game reviewer were afraid of ticking off a publisher with a negative review, they'd play it safe and give it a moderately good review - probably something in the low- to mid-80s. There's no need to throw a 93/100 at a terrible game just to make sure a publisher doesn't cut you out. But Mass Effect 3 has excellent reviews. Not just good. Excellent.
I know it's easy to see professional reviewers post well-written opinions that seem to fly in the face of internet people and their rage, and to then blame that discrepancy on corruption, but that's silly. A few moments' thought puts that to rest. Reviewers gave Mass Effect 3 excellent scores because Mass Effect 3 is an excellent game. The people giving it 0/10 reviews aren't just "not being fair"; they're idiots who don't understand what it means to review a game.
Mass Effect 3, Even with the terrible end it is still a great game.Mass Effect 3 or Sword of the Stars 2?
I am torn between the two for which was the greatest disappointment for me.
Good point. I was seriously looking forward to SotS 2 but it's barely playable even now, after months of frantic patching. It doesn't help that Mecron seems to be taking up the mantle of Derek Smart.
Seriously, after digging some into it, I get vibes that feel like some kind of social event designed to gather attention to the game. I also noticed that the game checks the current date when installing, allegedly to check for leaked copies. However... As bad as some may consider ME2 and their writing nowadays, I really think this is something else. My guess is the real ending is already on the discs, just time locked for some pretty soon date. We'll see.
Well, in that case it might well be in a patch instead. After all, you always need to connect to EA servers when you play, so it's eminently possible. I stand by my hunch, though I am aware it is just a hunch. There are a few points that I feel especially point out the possibility. One is that Bioware in their letter told us to TRUST them to put out the best possible something. That is something you say regarding FUTURE content, not content someone has already seen and didn't like.
You only need to connect to the EA servers if you're playing the computer version. Playing the game on the console, no such need but you're not allowed DLC. So even a new ending comes out or a timed release of something free for all players that have X-Box Live or Origin or the Playstation Network, people like me who have no interest in connecting a video game console to the internet are out of luck.
And before I'm asked. I've generally enjoyed the ME series and Bioware, but they're permanently off my Day One purchase list and they have nothing coming out that interest me.
The problem with the indocrination theory, as a Forbes article mentions, is that if it's what they meant to do, it kills the 'videogame as an art form' thing people have been discussing for years. Because it means you can end a game in the middle and offer the ending as a DLC, destroying artistic integrity and breaking narrative flow and angering the audience all for some extra bucks.
See if this sounds alright to you:
"Hey, to see the climax of this super cool movie/book you have to pay an extra five dollars and wait a couple months"
To me it doesn't. Frak that BS.
This has happened before though. Stephen King re-released THE STAND with 200 pages of extra material (some think it's better, some think it's worse). Arthur Conan Doyle brought Sherlock Holmes back from the dead on reader demand, retconning the end of a prior book. Bethesda rewrote the ending of FALLOUT 3 when BROKEN STEEL came out. And so on. A work of art is not necessarily 'finished' at the point it seems completed, or is announced as such. People can go back and add to it, sometimes improving it (BROKEN STEEL immensely improves FALLOUT 3 in a whole host of ways; no sane person would play THE WITCHER without the Enhanced Edition installed). Although more often they George Lucasify it instead.
If that were true, we'd never see any AAA titles with poor reviews.
Indeed. Which is why we very rarely see any AAA titles with poor reviews. The last such title I recall was ALPHA PROTOCOL, and only because the publisher had basically indicated they had no faith in it and weren't advertising it very much, so the reviewers had a free-for-all on it (probably going a little bit too far in the opposite direction, actually).
To boot, we wouldn't see games like Mass Effect 3 getting 90+ ratings. If a game reviewer were afraid of ticking off a publisher with a negative review, they'd play it safe and give it a moderately good review - probably something in the low- to mid-80s. There's no need to throw a 93/100 at a terrible game just to make sure a publisher doesn't cut you out. But Mass Effect 3 has excellent reviews. Not just good. Excellent.
There was strong rumours at the time of release that 2K was making noises about pulling advertising from magazines that did not give OBLIVION at least a 90% score upon release, despite the fact that the game was buggy on release and had broken levelling mechanics which everyone who played it noticed almost immediately upon booting it up. It is not feasible that professional reviewers would not be aware of these problems on launch.
EA, being a much bigger and more powerful company, would almost certainly make similar noises. And, as mentioned above, most reviewers only had game code a couple of days ahead of the actual release. Unless they played non-stop for 30 hours in a row, it's highly unlikely that most of them finished the game before submitting their reviews, and hence didn't see the problem.
I know it's easy to see professional reviewers post well-written opinions that seem to fly in the face of internet people and their rage, and to then blame that discrepancy on corruption, but that's silly. A few moments' thought puts that to rest. Reviewers gave Mass Effect 3 excellent scores because Mass Effect 3 is an excellent game. The people giving it 0/10 reviews aren't just "not being fair"; they're idiots who don't understand what it means to review a game.
Certainly. As I said before, I reviewed the game on Amazon and gave it 4/5 stars, or 80%. That seems a reasonable score given the problems the game has in its closing minutes. But certainly the ending can colour the appreciation of what has come before. MASS EFFECT 3, as a whole piece of art, is tarred by a massive flaw. If it was a painting, it would be a painting where the artist has taken a dump over the far right end of the picture. You can enjoy the rest of the picture, sure, but you can't quite ignore the fact there's excrement sitting in the corner of the picture.
Personally I think the people giving the game 0 or 1 star or whatever are being harshly unfair. But the ability of an ending to retroactively ruin a franchise in the minds of formerly hardcore fans should not be underestimated (see also the ending to the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and, although of a much lesser intensity, LOST).
they have nothing coming out that interest me.
Right now, BioWare don't have any announced projects. There's a new studio under the BioWare umbrella which is working on COMMAND AND CONQUER: GENERALS 2 (which might actually be quite good, given the people working on it, certainly better than C&C4) but that's nothing to do with the core studio. They've heavily indicated that DRAGON AGE III is their next big project, but it's not been officially announced yet, and they have two big development teams. It's not been revealed what the MASS EFFECT team will be working on next.
I think BioWare will learn from this and come back with a stronger game in the future, but their reputation will certainly suffer in the long run.
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Indeed. Which is why we very rarely see any AAA titles with poor reviews. The last such title I recall was ALPHA PROTOCOL, and only because the publisher had basically indicated they had no faith in it and weren't advertising it very much, so the reviewers had a free-for-all on it (probably going a little bit too far in the opposite direction, actually).
I have a soft spot for Alpha Protocol. Yes the combat is messed up, some weapon choices are utterly useless (SMG's I'm looking at you) and it's as buggy as hell. But there's just something about it that I like. It's like an incontinent puppy, needs work but basically loveable.
Maybe it's that insane boss fight with the drugged up Russian gangster set to 80's hair metal or the actually quite decent Mass Effect style dialogue options but if you can overlook the problems there's a fun little game here.
I think Three Panel Soul has a good not related explanation as to the anger for the ME3 ending.
So many odd bugs in the multiplayer. One would think they weren't in the habit of making over the shoulder shooters *innocent whistle*.
This has happened before though. Stephen King re-released THE STAND with 200 pages of extra material (some think it's better, some think it's worse). Arthur Conan Doyle brought Sherlock Holmes back from the dead on reader demand, retconning the end of a prior book. Bethesda rewrote the ending of FALLOUT 3 when BROKEN STEEL came out. And so on. A work of art is not necessarily 'finished' at the point it seems completed, or is announced as such. People can go back and add to it, sometimes improving it (BROKEN STEEL immensely improves FALLOUT 3 in a whole host of ways; no sane person would play THE WITCHER without the Enhanced Edition installed). Although more often they George Lucasify it instead.The problem with the indocrination theory, as a Forbes article mentions, is that if it's what they meant to do, it kills the 'videogame as an art form' thing people have been discussing for years. Because it means you can end a game in the middle and offer the ending as a DLC, destroying artistic integrity and breaking narrative flow and angering the audience all for some extra bucks.
See if this sounds alright to you:
"Hey, to see the climax of this super cool movie/book you have to pay an extra five dollars and wait a couple months"
To me it doesn't. Frak that BS.
I don't know about The Stand, sounds like a 'directors cut', but the other two example are actually examples of fan outcry forcing the authors to make changes, both actually making the story better. You know, like the 'entitled' fans of Mass Effect are trying to do.
I sometimes wonder if people know that "entitled" means that one has an actual right to something. The current meaning has sprung mainly from the attack on entitlements like Social Security.... things which are somehow seen as living on another ones dole, while in reality one paid for said entitlement.
So, yeah, we are damn much entitled to complain. We were sold a severely defective product. If there is a massive flaw in a car, auto companies also don't get to cry about their artistic integrity ( which is a joke, anyway, as seen by the numerous examples of authors changing their stories and so on. Day one DLC also destroys this argument ).
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We were sold a severely defective product.
We were sold a car that works great, drives fine, has excellent interaction with other cars, comes with a bonus trunk add in on the day it was released, and when you put it in park, it shocks your butt thru the seat. It works fine, not defective at all, definitely not severely defective. It just has a horrible ending.
The analogy is of course imperfect, but I'd consider a car which "shocks your butt thru the seat" ( and every car in the line does it ) as "severely defective", especially if the producer whines about "artistic integrity" when people complain about it.
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Good point. I was seriously looking forward to SotS 2 but it's barely playable even now, after months of frantic patching. It doesn't help that Mecron seems to be taking up the mantle of Derek Smart.Mass Effect 3, Even with the terrible end it is still a great game.Mass Effect 3 or Sword of the Stars 2?
I am torn between the two for which was the greatest disappointment for me.
For myself, a poor last ten minutes does change the fact the rest of the game including multiplayer was a lot of fun. I was particular surprised at how much I enjoyed multiplayer.
Severely defective overstates things. This series has lasted hundreds of hours providing as many memorable and fun moments. It seems over zealous to call the game severely defective for 10 minutes you didn't like.
I didn't hate the ending. I was a little unsatisfied but didn't hate it.
Which explains why you don't find the game severely defective. The majority do.
I sometimes wonder if people know that "entitled" means that one has an actual right to something. The current meaning has sprung mainly from the attack on entitlements like Social Security.... things which are somehow seen as living on another ones dole, while in reality one paid for said entitlement.
So, yeah, we are damn much entitled to complain. We were sold a severely defective product.
The product works fine. Stop being ridiculous. The ending was a design decision with no bearing on the product's functionality. Hell, it barely has an impact on the product, since by the time you experience it you've already played through the fantastic campaign.
Which explains why you don't find the game severely defective. The majority do.
No, they don't.
A bunch of really loud internet people like you find it "defective". The majority of people who own the game probably haven't even finished it, much less cared enough about the ending to b~~#~ about it online.
You're trying to make your inflamed opinion look like it isn't inflamed, and then justifying it by falsely claiming that everyone else is just as loud and angry as you.
Scott, how many gamers have you talked to that have finished ME3? What are their opinions on the game and on the ending?
All my friends that played the ME series have already played and completed the game. Out of the forty people, only one person thought the ending was decent/not a game breaker and one other person just shrugged and went back to playing games he considers better. Everyone else either instantly loathed the ending or just sat back, when huh, tried to puzzle out the ending, and then went online to watch the other endings as they put their copies of ME3 in the Do Not Play again pile of their collections.
Okay, slight lie. One of the thirty-eight has replayed the game and is playing multilayer as he's sick of playing Hat Fortress 2 right now.
If you were to ask all of the people I know who have finished ME3 what they thought of the game all of their first responses would be about the craptastic ending. If you asked them if they enjoyed playing ME3 most of them would say yes. If you asked just the ones who thought it was a good game and enjoyed playing it if they when on Bioware website to B*&$+ about the ending they would all say yes. Why? because eventhough it was a fun game to play the ending craped on three games worth of inventive storytelling and 90 hours of their emotional investment.
Yup. And the various polls hosted by different forums and websites overwhelmingly say people are annoyed about ME3's ending, usually at a ration of about 4-to-1.
This poll, for example, has 83% of 20,000 respondents saying the ending sucks and should be changed. 20,000 is the sort of sample size polling companies use for exit polls at national elections here, so is certainly not an insignificant amount.
Scott, how many gamers have you talked to that have finished ME3? What are their opinions on the game and on the ending?
All my friends that played the ME series have already played and completed the game. Out of the forty people, only one person thought the ending was decent/not a game breaker and one other person just shrugged and went back to playing games he considers better. Everyone else either instantly loathed the ending or just sat back, when huh, tried to puzzle out the ending, and then went online to watch the other endings as they put their copies of ME3 in the Do Not Play again pile of their collections.
Okay, slight lie. One of the thirty-eight has replayed the game and is playing multilayer as he's sick of playing Hat Fortress 2 right now.
I imagine the sort of person you choose to be friends with is very different from the sort of person I choose to be friends with, then. At least, in this respect.
Yup. And the various polls hosted by different forums and websites overwhelmingly say people are annoyed about ME3's ending, usually at a ration of about 4-to-1.
This poll, for example, has 83% of 20,000 respondents saying the ending sucks and should be changed. 20,000 is the sort of sample size polling companies use for exit polls at national elections here, so is certainly not an insignificant amount.
You should know better. Sample size isn't nearly as important as selection. Open internet polls are about as close to meaningless as you can get.
You should know better. Sample size isn't nearly as important as selection. Open internet polls are about as close to meaningless as you can get.
Indeed. The people most likely to vote in such a poll are those who care the most about a subject, which is rarely the "everything is okay" crowd.
I would, however, say that the original ending poll on Bioware's forums was rather impressive. Last time I checked, there were nearly 70,000 votes with 95% saying they hated the endings. Even with self-selection, that many votes (which require registration on the forums) with that level of agreement is substantial.
But I would say that the greatest evidence this isn't some tiny minority is "they are doing something about it." Bioware is no shrinking violet, scared of a few harsh words on their forums. They are a business, with more access to sales and gameplay metrics than anyone else. That they, as a business, have decided that enough of their customers are angry enough that it merits a response from both the Executive Producer of the game and the General Manager of the studio, as well as some sort of game content to deal with the situation, should be taken as strong evidence this is no tiny minority.
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My point is even if you didn't like the ending it doesn't undo the fun you had playing the 95% of the game. The game doesn't retroactively ruined the fun you had deciding the fate of the Krogan, or finally beating Kai Leng into a fine paste. There was more enjoyment in that game than lack of enjoyment.
Severely defective is an over statement.
The product works fine. Stop being ridiculous. The ending was a design decision with no bearing on the product's functionality. Hell, it barely has an impact on the product, since by the time you experience it you've already played through the fantastic campaign.
You must be a corporate spinmeisters dream.
No, they don't.A bunch of really loud internet people like you find it "defective". The majority of people who own the game probably haven't even finished it, much less cared enough about the ending to b#$+~ about it online.
You're trying to make your inflamed opinion look like it isn't inflamed, and then justifying it by falsely claiming that everyone else is just as loud and angry as you.
Yeah, only that for every disgruntled consumer who speaks up, twenty-six do not. And, no, I am not pulling that out of my behind, that is the result of empirical research recognized for decades by governmental costumer service research.
So, just taken the one poll at BSN ( and disregarding the ones from other places, which also have tens of thousands of people saying how much they hate the endings ), that'd make... 1.638.000 people who hate the ending. Hm. I wonder how that correlates with actual sales numbers ( not units delivered ).
But of course that won't count with you. Because whenever you see a crappy product, you feel that urge to defend it to the death against the masses of people who hate it. ^^
Severely defective is an over statement.
No, it isn't. If you don't care about the characters and the setting, it becomes more true. People who do care, feel more strongly about all of it being destroyed, after building it up for 90+ hours.
Indeed. The people most likely to vote in such a poll are those who care the most about a subject, which is rarely the "everything is okay" crowd.
I would, however, say that the original ending poll on Bioware's forums was rather impressive. Last time I checked, there were nearly 70,000 votes with 95% saying they hated the endings. Even with self-selection, that many votes (which require registration on the forums) with that level of agreement is substantial.
But I would say that the greatest evidence this isn't some tiny minority is "they are doing something about it." Bioware is no shrinking violet, scared of a few harsh words on their forums. They are a business, with more access to sales and gameplay metrics than anyone else. That they, as a business, have decided that enough of their customers are angry enough that it merits a response from both the Executive Producer of the game and the General Manager of the studio, as well as some sort of game content to deal with the situation, should be taken as strong evidence this is no tiny minority.
It's not tiny, but we have no indication that it's anything other than a minority. What is true is that it's loud. There has been enough noise made about the ending that it has become the defining story of Mass Effect 3's release, and as a result is the go-to mention in any media report on the game. That alone is enough to make Bioware pay attention and do something. It's one thing when some fans complain. It's another thing entirely when the media starts reporting that some fans are complaining.
You must be a corporate spinmeisters dream.
No, I'm just not rabid enough to believe that a mediocre ending destroys the 100+ hours of fun I've had playing through the game.
Yeah, only that for every disgruntled consumer who speaks up, twenty-six do not. And, no, I am not pulling that out of my behind, that is the result of empirical research recognized for decades by governmental costumer service research.
So, just taken the one poll at BSN ( and disregarding the ones from other places, which also have tens of thousands of people saying how much they hate the endings ), that'd make... 1.638.000 people who hate the ending. Hm. I wonder how that correlates with actual sales numbers ( not units delivered ).
Except the 26-to-1 figure only applies to particularly active forms of complaints, like calls, letters, or emails to customer service agents. A one-click internet poll throws that way off.
But of course that won't count with you. Because whenever you see a crappy product, you feel that urge to defend it to the death against the masses of people who hate it. ^^
Yes, that must be my motivation. It certainly is telling, however, that you hate other products with an equally-inflamed fervor.
Severely defective is an over statement.No, it isn't. If you don't care about the characters and the setting, it becomes more true. People who do care, feel more strongly about all of it being destroyed, after building it up for 90+ hours.
See, this is a good strategy - make this an issue of devotion to the franchise. If the ending makes you made, you're a True Fan, and if you're cool with the ending or it doesn't make you punch a hole in the internet, you obviously must not care much about the Mass Effect universe.
And you accused me of cowing to corporate spin. You're engaging in way more spin here than Bioware ever has with this release.
What can I say, I still have passion in my life, besides telling other people off about how "inflamed" they are.
It's not tiny, but we have no indication that it's anything other than a minority. What is true is that it's loud. There has been enough noise made about the ending that it has become the defining story of Mass Effect 3's release, and as a result is the go-to mention in any media report on the game. That alone is enough to make Bioware pay attention and do something. It's one thing when some fans complain. It's another thing entirely when the media starts reporting that some fans are complaining.
The problem with this theory is that it would require "people who hate the ending of Mass Effect 3" to be disproportionately louder than the people who complain bitterly about the perceived problems in ANY game. Mass Effect 2 had plenty of complainers who were plenty loud, but it didn't manage to have the kind of effect this has. Dragon Age II was, even for critics, a disappointment. For some vocal fans, it was an absolute betrayal. Lots of online yelling ensued with both, but with no response like this.
I guess you could also argue that the media is just, for whatever reason, more interested in this game's complaints than others. However, I would not find that convincing. Most of the early articles were vehemently opposed to the "Retakers," with most outlets still seeming to side against the idea of changing the ending. Why would Bioware feel pressure to respond when critical reviews and news story are supporting their position, unless they were seeing evidence that their customer base really was exceedingly upset? Why encourage the news cycle with press releases, unless there was good reason?
We could go around forever with attempts to "prove" what portion of people are upset. However, we really don't have access to enough information to make an informed determination either way. What I think is less disputable, however, is that the outcry here is disproportionately larger than than outcry about most other games. Weeks after release, the Mass Effect twitter is still flooded with not just complaints, but disappointment. Every news story has its comment section swarmed by fans. Heck, it has had enough effect to keep us debating in this very thread! So either the ME3 complainers have made amazing advances in complaining technology, unavailable to other raging gamers, or there is more widespread dissatisfaction than in other protests. Perhaps you are right, that that portion is still a minority. However, it is a large enough minority that Bioware has decided it would be bad business sense to try to ignore it and make it go away.
And you accused me of cowing to corporate spin. You're engaging in way more spin here than Bioware ever has with this release.
And this only once again shows that you haven't bothered at all of keeping track of what actually has happened, instead of just jumping in defending the latest target of fan anger, no matter how much spin you yourself must put on it. You are ill-informed.
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I have 4 friends who have played and finished ME3. None of them accepted the ending.
The response to the ending is probably the biggest I've ever seen, considering that I noticed the backlash while I was still playing the game just browsing lots of different sites, and memes were popping up on all of them.
Bioware f*@&ed up ME3's ending. Some people reacted to it badly, some better. I'm extremely disappointed by Bioware, and I probably won't buy anything else of theirs. I have posted my reasons, and how I reacted to those games they released. I was already on the edge, as I didn't really trust Bioware at that point for anything new other than maybe a new KotOR and to finish off ME. But they couldn't even finish ME properly.
And as many, including me, a sad ending is fine. Even if we got the KotOR endings of kill all Reapers (the "light side one", or controll all Reapers (the "dark side" one), that would have been fine. Even blogs of how the characters did afterwards was fine. I just wanted an end because I helped create that end.
This isn't like the Sopranos or Lost where we just watched. Mass Effect is a video game that was BILLED as our choices matters, much more so than other video games where there are no true choices (and even ME doesn't have radical changes). So in the end, our choices didn't matter, because Bioware went with what they wanted to do due to "artistic integrity". That's BS. I am much more pissed off at Bioware and the defenders of this than I was originally because of that inane defense.
Bioware f&$*ed up. Fix it. It might help others find the magic again. But unless it was really good, I doubt that I'd care. The magic is gone.
I actually am someone who can be pretty easily mollified if a good fix is delivered.
And I don't expect a rainbow unicorn ending. I think, nobody does. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't want a "happier" ending, where Shepard and friends survive, dust themselves off and begin rebuilding the devastated galaxy. That's still be pretty bittersweet, with Earth, Palaven and Tessia in shambles, nobody really sure if Wrex and Eve can pull the Krogan through a renaissance in a good way and so on and so on.
For the end, I'd like to see is a flash forward of a few hundred years where the consequences the player caused by his or her paragon or renegade choices. The only rainbow unicorn concession I'd want would be to see something like Urdnot Shepard become the first Krogan on the council.
I have to agree with magnuskn about a good fix smoothing things over, or at least being a good start.
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Okay, I'm bowing out of this thread.
Congrats Magnuskn you win. The last 10 minutes retroactively destroyed the enjoyment I had for the other 120+ hours I played. You convinced me that Mass Effect 3 was so broken that it reached into my brain and unplayed the death of Ashley on Virmire, meeting the Thorian, getting my entire crew (including non-essential personnel) through a suicide mission beyond the Omega relay and Mordin's song.
It completely undoes
You're the bigger fan.
Peace.
Actually, those things mean little to nothing, because the ending undoes all the progress you've made throughout the game. Well, besides the Joker/EDI romance, if you chose the Synthesis ending.
Mordins death? Meaningless, the Krogan are stranded on Tuchanka, which cannot sustain their now growing numbers. Or part of them are on a devastated Earth, where they will probably war against the other races stranded there.
Geth/Quarian peace? I guess if you didn't choose the Destroy ending, which kills all Geth, the few Quarians left on Rannoch may get something out of it. The ones on Earth? They'll starve soon, as Earth doesn't support dextro-food.
I guess Kaidan making peace with you counts for something, although he is stuck on Planet Gilligan and your Shepard is most likely dead. And Miranda... well, who knows where she is stuck, now that the Mass Relays are all gone and the galaxy has been plunged into a new dark age. I hope she and Orianna are on a garden world, otherwise its starvation for them, too.
Do you understand now why people who care about the characters and the setting may be more than a bit upset? The setting was trashed in those last few minutes. A good number of the characters we love and cherish were banished to what amounts as probably a slow, agonizing death of hunger.
What exactly were we fighting for during the three games? A chance to remember this "oh so artistic" ending where all three victories mean the setting is completely trashed?
Yeah, excuse me when I say that I care more about the setting than you do. Because if you find the situation where the game ends satisfying for those characters and races you mentioned, then you either didn't think through what those endings meant or you really didn't care as much as I did. As a great lot of people did.
In a sense, I envy you. Because getting involved in a fictional setting in this way, it hurts like hell when the writers decide that its time to comb their hair emo-style and do deep and profound aaaaaart.