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Posted By Austin Yorski about 1 year, 2 months ago
Look what you've done.
As I’m sure all of you are aware, there has been quite a nasty backlash to the ending of BioWare’s Mass Effect trilogy. From the “retake Mass EFfect” charity drive to a literal consumer complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, angry fans have let their displeasure be known. And BioWare has been listening.
In a morning blog post on the company’s site, co-founder of BioWare Dr. Ray Muzyka responded to the outrage with the promise that “Casey Hudson and the team are hard at work on a number of game content initiatives that will help answer the questions, providing more clarity for those seeking further closure to their journey.” The whole article comes off as incredibly articulate and professional, both admitting to some of the ending’s flaws, while standing behind the quality of the product as a whole. Perhaps most importantly, Muzyka reiterates that, “We’re working hard to maintain the right balance between the artistic integrity of the original story while addressing the fan feedback we’ve received.”
There you have it, folks. While I’ve seen quite a bit of pessimism about BioWare’s perceived “backing down” on the issue, it appears that this may be the most diplomatic solution possible. By ending his post with a simple, “Thank you for your feedback – we are listening,” Muzyka has essentially answered the reasonable criticism of BioWare not caring about fans. It remains to be seen if the company will completely cave by producing alternate ending DLC–akin to what happened with Fallout 3–but at least fans should know they’re not being ignored.
Let’s discuss entitlement and artistic integrity in the comments below.
Source: BioWare
ARtistic integrity is good…go ahead, Bioware…keep it if you wish.
BUT. IF you’re going to release DLC, don’t strip away the endings that’re there for those who enjoyed them…instead, add new endings that REALLY take your decisions into account. Such as the refuse action that was put in.
INdoctrination theory though? If that’s true that WOULD be partly ingenous storytelling partly “OH HOLY HELL WHY EA WOULD YOU FORCE THIS!”…and yes, I do blame EA for most of the controversies. Look at Pandemic, they do it all the time to companies that do nothing to them, they like to threaten people to make more money.
But I digress…either way, I would pay for it, because I love Bioware. I love their storytelling within games, it’s no groundbreaking totally original OMG BEST WRITING EVER. But it’s enough to make me care about a universe that they created, or a world. HEck, if they make a game about saving a guys’ front lawn they could probably make me care about that.
I don’t blame Bioware in the least bit…EA has the power to threaten and make examples of developers.(PAndemic everyone) Bioware has NEVER hated its’ fans in the past…EA hates everyone and just wants their money.
Does anyone else get the feel that this is all part of Biowares plan. Everything they have done up to this point including the ending to this statement, to me at least just screams buy our DLC.
Okay, I watched Angry Joe’s doctrination video, and wow for 2 reasons.
One, that is a very deep and methodical theory.
Two, Bioware is making us pay for the epilogue if this is true, I mean we’ve played it so far, can’t stop now.
Remember back when a trilogy ends, it ends for good, no holding back.This is a serious concern for me, adding content is one thing, but adding content to finish the conclusion of the trilogy of a very amazing IP!?
It hurts Bioware, 80 bucks for the collector’s edition isn’t enough?
Based on their facebook comments, I say they always intended to “expand” on the ending though DLC, offer post-log missions, its just that they didn’t expect the ending to get such a negative response.
Well you can’t really be that surprised. I mean the reason I think most people are up and arms about the ending is the same reason Bush senior didn’t get a second term. He promised us no raise in taxes to be elected, but during his term what does he do? raise the taxes. the same could be applyed here.
Bioware promised us and told us since ME2 that it would rap up shepard’s story with a fulfilling conclusion and they were planing to do more with the universe after ME3.
Yet the ending gave us no real resolution and in a sense killed the unvesrse since with no Mass Relays no galaxtic community.
You know for all the controversy and rage surrounding ME3′s ending. Mass Effect 3 could’ve been a hell of a lot worse, it could’ve been Final Fantasy 13.
Where instead of a mostly awesome game with a crap ending, you would get a 100% horrible game with bad insulting writing form beginning to end complete with whiny, incompetent manchildren characters, broken and boring gameplay and no redeeming qualities at all.
Woah hey! You just described the whole Mass Effect series for me! Thanks pal.
In light of all these demands from fans and Bioware’s moves to appease them, I only have one thing to say… When will they finally cave in to demand for Jade Empire 2?
This is in response to all the spurious statements that people keep making in regards to Bioware’s behavior as a company. Such as Sylveria in this very thread stating that the opening paragraph of the linked to blog post said “Our initial idea was to say ‘lawl fuck you, critics suck our cawks.’ but we thought that may upset your wallets, I mean, upset you” if only we read between the lines deep enough.
My reply, to both Sylveria and anyone else out there reading this, is if you really feel that is what he is saying, if you really feel that is how BioWare as a developer acts, then where is your goddam proof? When has BioWare ever shown itself to be a greedy company that does not give a damn about what fans want? Can you even name any concrete example beyond the weak claim of the ‘evils’ of Day 1 DLC or producing an ending that does not conform to your specific desires? Can anyone?
Because I can name plenty of examples of the opposite ranging from giving fans more Liara in DLC for ME2 once they made it clear that is what they wanted to the Dragon Age 2 DLC trying to be less repetitive with its dungeon layouts and environments. Or how about older examples like creating and supporting the Neverwinter Nights Aurora toolset so fans could make their own games and campaigns? Or when the company compiled a specific list of features the fans wanted to see in Balder’s Gate II before beginning work on the game?
This has been a company that has always been serious about taking in fan feedback and doing their best to both respond to it directly and accommodate it in future games. A company that has tried to create open forums for fans to express themselves in despite getting slapped in the face by said fans time and time again, often for something as innocent as a writer stating her own personal opinion on something.
This is a company that has made their fair share of mistakes to be sure. The aforementioned DA2 environments, the problems with PVP on Ilum, and the overly easy way of changing aliment near the end of Jade Empire’s campaign to name a few. No one is perfect and the people at BioWare do not claim to be so but they always do their best to correct these mistakes or avoid them in future games. So yes, I give the company the benefit of the doubt because you know what? They have damn well earned it.
Well said.
While I’m in the “butt-hurt” crowd, disappointed by the ending, I recognize that some members of the community get out of hand with accusations and finger-pointing.
Most of the anger comes from the fact that until recently BW had only responded to the community’s criticism and questions with silence, deflection,or, at best, with cryptic PR talk. But people have to realize that a game developer can’t respond to an “outrage” of that size without carefully planning their moves, nor is it easy for them to agree with the community and offer an apology, discrediting their product.
For the most part, the exchange between the players and BW has been in good spirit and I believe that the team recognizes this. Considering it’s only been 2 weeks since release, I believe they were in fact very fast in their handling of the issue, I hope they don’t rush the content to appease the fanbase.
On the other hand, we will never know how things would go if all BioWare got was the constructive criticism Dr.Ray said they like. My best guess, and I have nth to base it on but my gut, is that they would sweep it under the rag. Not because they are evil or because they don’t care, just because it would be easier for them to stand by their work. Some times “destructive” criticism, harsh as it can be, is more sincere and more useful for deconstructing a problem.
Bioware, we’ve officially experienced the best of times (KOTOR) and the worst of times (your last 3 games). Please, DA3 is your last chance. Shouldn’t even give you a 4th strike…Don’t make this one for the console kids this time (and use a d20 system again, since you know, that was the whole point of combat in the first one? Not mashing buttons? lol)…
edit. meant to post, not reply
I’m about to the point of not even caring anymore. One side screams that it was a complete ruination of the series and they wanted their happy ending with their LI, others say that Bioware needs to keep its artistic integrity. I don’t really adhere to either of those “ideals”.
Yes, games are art, but art can and has been changed before, just look at Sherlock Holmes. Originally he was killed off, but that was changed, and nobody claims the author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was a talentless hack that gave into fan pushing.
On the other end of the spectrum, I did not come into this game thinking we could win the game without casualties and having a cold one on the beach with Garrus and making out with our LI. I knew Shepard’s life would be on the line, I knew everyone’s would. Hell, I knew there would a be a huge Deus Ex Machina.
Bioware delivered on a majority of their promises, now that I have looked further into it. 6 different (not necessarily distinct) endings, and a lot of stuff was wrapped up in the game. There were questions at the end for sure, and tons of odd plot holes, but you’ll never please everyone. This is a losing fight for Bioware, and one way or another, someone is going to leave this pissed.
If they left the entire ending the same and clarified some things, I would be happy. Not even necessarily what happened to every species, just how certain things played out to make the ending what it is.
Look at Angry Joe’s video on “Why We Hate the Ending of Mass Effect 3″ for most of my thoughts.
In the end, I just wish people would stop biting the heads off of everyone else. Respect the people who like the ending, respect the people who hate it. I can hate “artwork”, it’s my right, not that I think anyone on this site is really trying to take that away from me, but I do see it on some forums. I will ask all the people who haven’t beaten the game but defend it’s ending to at least beat the game before doing so. Beat the game and like it? Fine. Just don’t arbitrarily dismiss my thoughts and others on it being a bad ending just because it’s Bioware. They’re human, they can mess up, and there is such things as ‘bad’ art.
Also, I don’t think Bethesda did anything wrong with giving people their Broken Steel DLC, and I loved the original ending. It will always be in my heart, but I liked Broken Steel as well. You can do stuff to appease people and still please the people who liked the original.
In the end, I don’t think anyone will really hate a change that brings us more Mass Effect. I mean, if it was such a great game, more can only be better, right?
I played it once, and I don’t care anymore.It’s depressing, all that time playing to see it shatter in 10 minutes. The damage is done people, I don’t want it changed, I want it to be remembered on how to screw up a great trilogy. Bioware, enjoy your art, by yourself.
I was all set to type out my experience with the endings but then it felt like it was going on alittle too long so suffice it to say I never felt like that before and I don’t aim to again. simply put I don’t like the endings even less when the indoctrination theory is brought up sure its clever but it mean we don’t even have an ending, Mass Effect 3 just stops and that we have to pay for a real ending. I don’t think I’ll but the DLC I’m fine with just making up my own ending I mean I made up my own story with Dead Rising 2 and Dragon Age 2 another bright side for me is that I feel like I can move on even before the game came out I said to myself “even if the ending fails I’ll have the ending to Shepard’s story and thats it I’ll move on to other games” that doesn’t mean I won’t give my two cents on it.
People have a right to complain when they feel they didn’t get what they were told they were going to get. If they were not clear in their advertising, it is their fault, not the consumer. And NO ONE anywhere should deny their right to complain on the product. That is their given consumer right.
That being said, Bioware shouldn’t have to go back and fix the ending because so many thought it sucked. Hell I thought it sucked. Not because of the choices that were given, but because they put no effort into giving an epilogue of the impact of all the choices you make. So in the end I had no regret on anything I do. Ok it sucked, but going back and changing it will not fix a damn thing. Why make a token to represent failure? Thats all it will mean. The fixed ending: sorry. Does nothing. They should acknowledge that they did what they thought was best, it didn’t work out for many but its time to move on. They made their statement and said their stance and that is all they need to do. Making some paid DLC to please the few only make it so everyone else has to pay.
Hell the whole ending was set up so they could make DLC from the start. Why are people not angry about that more than anything? I still think the day one DLC that was obviously ready with the most important character next to Shepard to the game’s story and lore was entirely BS and Bioware knows it. But hey I expect nothing less from a company having to be ran by the lame business practices of EA. Making sense of the ending with DLC is an insult not only to fans but to the team who made the game as well. Screw that
As for reviewers and critics. Sorry to say I only give heart to people like hear on blistered thumbs. And still I take my own word for it it and try it out if it looks interesting to me. Saying the critics liked it did not help their case at all. Many critics from places like GameInformer, IGN, or Xplay are very biased and never really rate a game rather than in their tastes. Thats why I like the for fans only rating here. Some franchises are incredible and great to many. Others hate it. Some are for fans of the series.
Hell I never think any Call of Duty or Sports games deserve their high rating because they rarely every bring anything new to the table and are hyped way out of proportion as always being the best and most innovated games every regardless of all their attempts to win any Game of the Years in any book. But that is the basic western gamer taste and a lot of western reviewers that are with bigger review groups don’t like anything but western style games. Hell that is their right to like those games only. But that is why I can’t trust many reviews because of the majority of them being so biased on say Japanese or similar games that don’t meet a majority consensus. I played tons of games they gave terrible scores and I loved them. They gave a game great scores and I thought they were total crap. But what gets me is when people take them as fact and turn around and spat at me because f my love for RPGs and I don’t play CoD like some douchebag bro. I used to be an active member on theGameHeroes until I really couldn’t stand listening to their constant biased hate of anything Sony or Playstation week after week. Its one thing to favor a system but damn it got old.
My point here was that Bioware clinging to the critics’ opinions of the game is great does not make their case. Not mentioning its scores but rather how well it sold only and their personal feelings and effort would have been better. Its never about what the critics think, ever. Forget them. They should only be taken as consumer reference only before they try the game out themselves unless they are like 100% in the same tastes of the reviewer. Companies should not cling to reviewers to make their point.
That being said I think ME3 a a whole was indeed a fun game. shorter than I expected, but still fun none the less. The ending I did not agree with but hey YOU CAN NOT PLEASE EVERYONE. Final Fantasy has its massive share of haters, but I love the series none the less. Do I care for other’s hate on games I like, bot really until they attack me for it.
Please do not take my post for an attack on anyone. I just do not think reviews should determine a game’s quality as a whole. Each review is a single opinion, not a consensus. In the end the only opnion that truly matters is an individuals. They ultimately decide on what to do. Whether they take a review’s opinion or tyr it themselves and decide is up to them. But in no way does an opinion mean a fact. And I think both sides have taken opinion for fact in a sense. Bioware tried to cling onto critic ratings rather than stand their own ground on what they think until they caved in because they didn’t want their wallets hurt too much, oh yeah and their fan respect. While everyone who is upset believe that the ending sucking is an absolute fact for everyone and that Bioware wronged every single person that purchased the game. Which obviously from the pretty much evenly divided internet is untrue. I think reviewers do their job to the best of ability regardless of if they are biased or not. They are trusted with given hones opinions and referring the game in the best way they deem possible. I believe most could be more like BT here and give scores or etc based on if its for the fans or not. I mean do you think spin offs of games are meant to sell to everyone? Of course no they are there to meet fan demand and nothing more. And I thank places like BT for seeing that.
I think Bioware would do best to leave this where it lies. fixing it for fan pleasure only admits they were “wrong.” And that only makes more problems for the future. Next fans will want entire stoylines fixed or entire characters changed. It solves nothing. They should worry more about their DLC practices and making NEW and unique content rather than this.
People can complain all they want and that is their right, but this solves nothing in any sense.
I don’t really care about arguments such as “but it’s no longer art if you can change it!” mostly because that has been proven wrong since ancient times when artists first started realising the faults of their works or people pointed them out. Dissatisfaction is not a modern invention. If you can affect them, you can affect them. If you can’t, you can’t.
And after 90 hours I wanted a goddamn proper ending.
I think they should make some end changing DLC…specifically I want that harem path I was cheated out of way back in ME1 with Liara and Ashley;I had more than enough Paragon points that a charm option would have worked damn it!!!!!
I don’t think they should change the ending or give in to any demands of fans or otherwise. (This is why I don’t like the American comic book industry, too influenced by fans)
Creators make their piece, people like or don’t and creators take this into account and learn from this implementing them in future projects if they so desire.
They shouldn’t back track on themselves and destroy their integrity to please fans. To be totally fair I didn’t enjoy mass effects story from game one and I didn’t see it getting any better, but I didn’t throw a fit and demand my specifications for a story or game be met I just sat back and decided NOT to buy Mass Effect 3 when it came out full price. Because Bioware haven’t been that great lately, especially in their story department (you played one bioware game you’ve seen the story for all of them).
Writing is difficult, writing an ending is even harder, writing for games is even harder than that, and writing an ending for a game series? Well that just sounds like the hardest thing you can do. It does feel rushed, it does appropriate ending ideas from Deus Ex (go originality!) but it’s what they decided to go with for (I say it was rushed) that they should stand by.
Sure it sucks. But it’s their suck and they should move on like their fans.
Nice heartstring pulling there Muzyka. You must have done some damage control before since it’s working so well.
Brings back memories of when Pipeworks pulled a “We’re just a poor indie studio” when their Deadliest Warrior game got bashed on for being crappy…
Somehow they thought an ending like that would be enough, but they were wrong and now they are willing to go all the way and make a new ending while listening to feedback from the fans.
I think it’s a great idea that could help improve their public image and give the trilogy a nice way to end, but what I don’t like is that they’ll use as an excuse to charge a minimum of 10 bucks, even if they have to include some new weapons or multipalyer maps to make it look more “legit”
I’d really love to see the expression on Shigeru Miyamoto’s face if somebody told him to change something about one of his games…
But maybe that’s just the thing,game makers can no longer be these monolithic entities that don’t listen to the fanbase.
I sure am looking forward to the community designed Dragon Age 3. I mean, if fans are going to dictate how the game should end or be in general, they might as well just let them in early on and ask for permission on design decisions.
If BioWare new the community’s views on their ending during development is there a doubt in your mind that they would have gone a different way?
If any developer could know what their playerbase considers to be the perfect game, don’t you think they would try to make exactly that?
i’m amazed how nobody in the dev team stopped and thought how this ending was a terrible idea
Starting to demand that artists should change their work because people didn’t like it is not a good road to go down. Whether some people like it or not, games are art. Movies are art, books are art, music is art, painting is art… does interactivity somehow not make it art anymore?
If artists change their work because they realized they were wrong somehow or got a better idea, fine. But if they change it because they were bullied into it or to stop the constant, childish whining… then it’s not a victory for anyone. Then you end up with shallow, soulless work that no-one will be proud of.
The problem is…Bioware isn’t an artist. I could make an exception for Hideo Kojima, and I’d probably add Majora’s Mask to a “video game art” list despite Nintendo being who they are…but by and large video games suck, at least in the story department.
Anyone who says categorically video games can’t be art is probably a philistine, but by the same token anyone who says video games are art uniformly and to a one…probably has never sat down and read a book like The Road.
I disagree in the sense that games are a form of art just like movies or books or paintings.
Just as little as I would ask a writer, director or comic book artists to change the ending, I would not ask people who make games to change the ending because I didn’t like it. I would file it under “Shitty ending” and move on. This is NOT the first time a good game has had a shitty ending and it’s not going to be the last.
When agreeing to be subjected to art, we also agree to the terms that it might not be to our liking. People who ask for refunds after sitting through an entire movie are equally wrong in my eyes. How weird would we not think of it if people watched a movie and upon seeing it began demanding they changed the ending because a majority didn’t like it? It’s happened, sure, but it’s hardly the norm and it shouldn’t be.
A. What does story alone have to do with art? What specific objective story does the Mona Lisa tell? Or Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14? B. A medium can be an art form without every example of said medium having artistic aspirations. How many big budget films today tell awful stories? Yet does that make film as a whole any less of legitimate art form? How many trashy, awful, terrible novels are their out there waiting to serve as a counterpoint to The Road?
Additionally, I can name dozens upon dozens of video games, indie or otherwise, which do a great job of telling the story they are trying to tell. Here are two great recent free to play examples alone: http://www.indiedb.com/games/the-kite/downloads http://katawa-shoujo.com/ And here is one that very much art even though it does not tell a forthright story: http://www.superfriendshipclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=486 Context does matter. And while for some games story is not important, then again, why does Tetris need to tell a great story to be a great game?
@ Shaun K.
Because according to that thought, Final Fantasy XIII and Mirror’s Edge would have defaulted into the art category purely because they’re pretty. Yeah. More to it than that. We judge art by the sum of the tools the artist has available, and for most video games, that includes the visual and the audio, and most also have a story, and the story’s the one that typically determines if the rest belong.
Though, to use your trashy novels as an example…Robert Jordan STARTED writing the Wheel of Time books knowing the ending. It was always only ever a cheap fantasy epic, but every detail was premeditated so that after he died, Brandon Sanderson took over the writing. The transition has actually been quite smooth.
A mass-market fantasy epic, and the author had it planned out over 30 years in advance. Bioware rather obviously tacked that ending onto ME3 at the last second; I can do those colorizing effects IN JYTHON with a getColor command.
Really, we tend to make art into an ‘on/off’ opposition, when it’s not; it’s a continuum. And on that continuum, ME and the Wheel of Time are rather far down on the commercial end of the spectrum, as almost all video games are. Enjoyable, but people have told similar stories or made video games with smoother choices (*cough* *Deus Ex*) or had better atmospheres, or said profound things about the human condition. Mass Effect was only ever a pretty penny for EA; judge it accordingly.
“Movies are art, books are art, music is art, painting is art… does interactivity somehow not make it art anymore?”
Irreverent. When something decides to be a business, it submits to business fundamentals.
Bioware failed the basics with ME. The BIG advertising point, FROM THE VERY FIRST GAME, was that Mass Effect is a trilogy revolving around the choices you make and the results those choices have in the future. Whether the end result is good, bad, good or bad on a technical level, in the end they have to stick with it because that is what they built their franchise on.
Well, at the very important last scene of the very last (*airquotes*) game they deviated, and they deviated so hard that a good portion of their customerbase turned on them. Did it happen because they genuinely thought it was the best way to end it, or because they’re mouthbreathers who thought the same, or because they wanted to pander to new customers as they said they wanted to, or because they wanted to set up future games? IRRELIVENT. They had a business model and they threw it aside, with the result of making their customers feel like they wasted their money. Now future ventures might be harmed because people might think that they’ll flake out of or lie about the ground said ventures are built upon. That’s not good business.
It is not entitlement when customers are angry about not getting what was promised.
And when companies fail to meet their promised product in this manner, it‘s because they lack integrity.
You want to be a free artist? Post on deviantart, make a webcomic, make a flash cartoon, self publish stories, make a zero-budget thing for youtube, etc. But do not enter businessland, flake out, and then cry that your hard work is not appreciated by your ungrateful fans when your decisions hurt your promised product. Please.
I disagree.
Mainly because by law games are considered an art form, if you count things like the supreme court issue into account, giving them legal protection that movies books and music share.
And while I may have not been crazy about the ending, one thing I can say about it is that it did factor choices into it.
SPOILER
For example,why the heck would you destroy all synthetic life if you supported the Geth and EDI during the campaign? Or even better, why would you decide to control them when you saw it failed twice? OR why would you choose synthesis when you think its a trap. BioWare failed at adding one choice only, the choice to say no to all three. Other than that, the choices leading up to the finale are reflective of how you played as Shepard.
So it is very relevant in many regards. They didn’t wantonly throw away the business model I feel. That said, they didn’t make it clear either in the end. That was their biggest mistake, if anything.
But honestly, I think they should not change a thing. Ken Levine said the following today.
“I think if those people got what they wanted and [BioWare] wrote their ending they would be very disappointed in the emotional feeling they got because…they didn’t really create it,” he said. “I think this whole thing is making me a little bit sad because I don’t think anyone would get what they wanted if that happened.”
I am pretty much agreeing here. No matter what BioWare does they lose. If they decide to go with the popular option, good for them. But it is not good for the industry. If they decide to stick to their guns, they lose popularity.
So they need to make the Paragon or Renegade choice now. The difference here is neither of them are really viable in the end because BioWare still loses.
I’m not arguing opinions, or whether people would be satisfied with the ending if it was proper (endings are never truly satisfying to everyone? SHOCKER).What I’m saying is that the ending deviated from the core foundation the game were built upon and therefore the criticism is not only justified but righteous.
Consider:
Have the explosion endings be the “newbie” endings for those who never played another ME and started with ME3. To those who played them all however have the following:
Paragon path: Have Shepard makes a argument following the idea that peace is possible. He gives examples including, but not limited to, the curing and subsequent alliance of the krogan, the redemption of the rachni, the Quarian/Geth alliance, EDI’s romance with Joker. Follow with a paragon check stating that the reaper solution is not the right option, and that peace is possible if it’s given a chance.
Renegade path: Opposites, following the logic that life with do what it must to survive. Renegade check stating that the reaper solution only continues the conflict, and sooner or later organic life will beat the reapers and everything will reset with nothing gained.
The Catalyst dwells on what Shepard has said, and had done, and orders the reapers to cease their hostilities, saying that it will consider an alternate solution given the revelations it just received. Turns out the alliance didn’t need the giant deus ex machina.. they only needed Shepard.
Doesn’t matter what happens next. Flashcards, star wars award ceremony, white wedding with Tali on the homeworld, Shep bleeds to death a minute later. Because THE GOAL WAS ACHIEVED. New players got the ending they could appreciate, and old players got the ending that followed the objective they were promised. That’s all they had to do. Good or bad quality, they achieved all they had to achieve in buisnessland.
I thought that up in ten minutes. It’s not great or detailed or throughly thought out, but it’s better then what we got.
So all they had do was give us exactly what you wanted? How doe that follow? Your ‘choice’ basically just leads to the same outcome regardless which is one of the (false in my opinions) major complaints leveled against ME3′s present ending. So how is this an improvement? And why would the game makers punish those who have not played the previous games? Yes starting with ME3 has consequences, locks away certain characters and encounters, but the entirety of the game, including all three ending, still remains open to first time players.
Sometimes choices in life and in game are not as simple as paragon and renegade. That was one of the bigger running themes of ME3: the way the choices can have unexpected consequences. Because of a specific paragon choice I made in the second game, a character dies who might have otherwise lived and I really wish had. Because of a seemingly minor choice during a conversation with a major supporting character from ME2 in ME3, that character can live or die. Again and again, in countless little and major ways, BioWare plays out choices and the consequences that go with them are not always simple or black and white. That is the point of the series when you get right down to it. One of the biggest choices in the first game is between which of two characters dies. You can’t save both. That’s not an option. Because sometimes the only options are bad ones. And that is what the ending offers. Three difficult choices, none of them with perfect resolutions or outcomes, each with their own cost.
The Catalyst is older than we can even imagine. Don’t you think if a simple argument could win it over, someone else would have made it before this point? And we don’t know that peace will work. That’s taking a short term view. Who knows if the alliance with the Geth will hold? Who knows if some other race or group of races won’t turn on them once the reaper war is over, as happened with the Krogan? The Catalyst has seen history again and again and is right to be dubious. The Geth didn’t start the war after all. The Quarians did.
You know people said the exact same damn thing about Dragon Age 2. And yet that has not seemed to hurt one wit the sales of ME3 or The Old Republic. That would probably be because the majority of people do not post online or join movements to change endings. They simply speak with their wallets. Retake Mass Effect 3 may have something like 70,000 followers but over 890,000 units of the game were sold in the first day alone. So that number is still the minority.
Now if the next BioWare game has awful sales that will mean that you are correct about a good portion of the customer base turning on them. But I will bet you a hundred dollars that is not going to happen. And no, before anyone else jumps down my throat, I do not consider sales the major determinate regarding the quality of a product but in the context of Hydra’s comments they are what counts.
And if you have actually played ME3 and cannot see how that game is all about responding to the choices of the player, both in the context of the game itself and in relation to past games, then you are being willfully ignorant. Whatever the ending does or does not do, ME3 unquestionablly rewards and reflects the choices of the player.
I also fail to see how a well written and reasonable post on a blog in anyway resembles flaking out or whining about people not liking your work. His point is that people DO like the work done for ME3. He has the proof to back it up. And they never said ME3 would be the last game in the series only that it would wrap up the current trilogy and/or storyline.
While there’s a minority bitching about the writing quality or quality of the resolutions (like me. F*CK ME2) the big number of people that are currently complaining AREN’T complaining about the overall quality of the game. The general consensus is that the game was really great… up until the godawful deviating ending.
Dragon Age 2, for all it’s rushedness and writing issues, is still Dragon Age. Same setting, same rough feel, some overlapping themes and plots. DA2′s last minutes may have been stupid as hell, but it didn’t, say, have a archdemon show up and make last minute random revelations before offering the choice of three endings that are the same no matter which side you took.
It had it’s controversy, but it largely was about the majority saying how rushed and disappointingly irrelevant it was, rather then the minority complaints revolving around the ramblings of the smear campaign waged against the game by a bunch of half-mad Black Isle fanboys.
The response was NOT as large nor were the complainers as betrayed. THAT is why I believe, more then the DA2 fiasco, that this will hurt Bioware’s name in the long run. And why someone at bioware/EA thinks the same, apparently.
And if I’m wrong… then the crazed BI fanboys were right; Bioware fanboys WILL eat sh!t and ask for seconds. But that’s my personal opinion and is irrelevant.
Also, first day sales numbers don’t really count since most people don’t read spoilers or buy into anti-hype. Note that DA2′s sales did spiral pretty quick AFTER release. It doesn’t have the ebbing sales that Origins had with it’s little to no controversy.
Minor pet peeve first before we get to big stuff. The revelation of the catalyst was hinted at multiple times throughout ME3, most explicitly in the temple on Thessia. It was not a last minute revelation in the slightest and built off what had already been established about the Reapers in previous games.
Also I only mentioned first day sales in the context of how small the numbers of those complaining about ME3 really are compared to the overall purchase base. I also love that instead of just being that the people at BioWare legitimately respect what the fans say, anything that comes next is driven by a desire to stem future sales losses. Are sales important to EA and by extension BioWare? Yes but they clearly are not the only factor.
You also to leave out an important component when talking about sales figures: the critic’s reception. Dragon Age 2 was far less well received critically than Mass Effect 1 & 2 and Dragon Age: Origins, getting a far lower average score (78 currently on Metacritic versus ME1’s 91, ME2’s 96, and DA:O’s 87) among critics than any of those three games did. It also has some undeniable objective problems that went beyond just storytelling and into gameplay, the biggest of which being the repetitious use of environments and dungeons. I personally can overlook this problem because of everything else the game does right but I am also not going to defend. It was a bad choice to make and I can understand why other people might be seriously turned off by it.
Thus there were a number of factors that contributed to Dragon Age II’s lesser sales owing to problems (or at least the many changes that many considered problems) that went far deeper than the one major complaint haunting ME3 at the moment. Almost everyone agrees that Mass Effect 3 is an amazing game, critics and players alike, with the only truly major point of contention being an ending that a number of fans are responding negatively to.
But even the strength of that response points to how much they still care about Mass Effect 3. DAII by comparison had some loud complaints but mostly people spoke with their wallets. That was the game that could have permanently damaged BioWare’s reputation but then they bounced back with TOR and all was (mostly) forgiven. We will see how sales continue on ME3 but I bet they remain strong for some time to come regardless of what tweaking, if any, BioWare makes to the game’s ending. The game’s negative buzz is loud but it is still not louder than its positive and I think that will payoff in the end. That is also why I do not believe that what is motivating BioWare is a fear of lost sales.
well, videogames are art, yeah, but it’s a damn shitty form of art if you ask me, when you buy a painting, you can see it, touch it, and even smell it before you buy it, when you buy an sculpture it’s the same, and it’s like that for most forms of art, with videogames (and movies) tho, you can’t see the whole product before paying for it, it’s only normal for people to complaing after they paid hard earned cash and didn’t get what they wanted, i mean, we pay for it, we should be pleased, and if we’re not, we complain and criticize the artists, it’s called constructive criticism and it makes the artist better, you probably can’t tell a painter how to be better, but heck you can tell a game developer or a movie director how to improve the product
That’s a cop-out. Authors are often directed by their publishers to change their books’ endings in order to fit particular audiences and the like. Movie directors are often ordered by their studios to do the same to their films. Heck, even Leonardo Da Vinci was once asked to make changes to his famous The Last Supper painting because he used an abbot’s face for Judas Iscariot.
In fact, prior to the elitism of the Romantic period, during which the artistic drive itself was exalted above the finished product, the whole point of art was to give the customer what they wanted.
Simply calling something art does not make it above criticism.
i think there is a large ignorance from him, when he said critics love it sens alot of the bigger boys when they got the ME3 also got a reviews guide witch gives alot of insight. and then you also have all of the interviews the reivewers get to do witch dose infulance there score from the market sens they will understand more. just saying here but the diffrance from a reviewer and the players is just getting wider (just as ex angry joe seems very happy to give every game now adays a 7 or a 8 with out issue)
and after all he is not trying to sell copies to the reivewer but to the players.
also i would say this is count 2 for biowear in a very short time span (alot of ppl hated DA2)
DA2 isn’t worth hate, I liked it, but people who feel need to declare it spawn of satan, seriously, it’s a game. Main game I want this year is Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition and Bioshock Infinite.
So i’m curious, did you feel our review here was not up to snuff then?
robert don’t get me wrong i like your reivews, (you don’t have my taste but that is a diffrant matter)
and i can not say ME3 is a bad game sens it is not it is clearly a strong triple A game
but this sort of thing shows that you are a gamer who plays games sens they are games not sens of the story ,sens you say you didn’t like the ending yet you gave it a 8/10 a person who plays games for the story and just druges threw the gameplay would nver give it that high of a score. but i think most reviewers are like you robert while the market is wildly split in this part.
i do hope this made some kinda of sens from my mind
lastly i have allways thougt games can be boiled down to 2 parts your weight gameplay and story. and both needs to weighted sepraitly sens i know alot of game i hate to play sens of gameplay but the story makes you play it but i know even more games that have such good gameplay the story is just extra. but ppl are diffrant weights these parts diffrantly
It did, but the thing is, I am a gamer who plays for story. A lot. Especially when doing RPGs like Mass Effect 3.
So I guess for me, the story was not ruined in such a horrific fashion as some had said.
“and i can not say ME3 is a bad game sens it is not it is clearly a strong triple A game”
I can! ME3 is a bad game. A clearly bad triple A game.
And I don’t even care about the endings! ;D
I don’t understand this argument. A review guide generally just regurgitates the same press materiel that has regularly been repeated ad nauseum in any number of available articles on various sites. Also, most reviewers often do not actually perform interviews for the games they are reviewing (especially on bigger sites where there are separate news and review teams) but even if they do, what is stopping any regular player from reading and/or viewing these interviews? How does this represent some kind of special knowledge given out only to reviewers and other people in the media?
When it comes to gaming media, most people involved in it started out as gamers themselves. So if anything they have a closer understanding of the regular player then say your average newspaper film reviewer who often is just filling the position as part of their job and has no real special love or understanding of film. And for the record, Joe gave 2 of the last 5 games he reviewed a 5 and a 6 respectively.
i am not talking special knowledge here but when you interview you are asking a dev your questions getting your stuff anwserd in a more presis way than the avg guy would get out of the same interview
also when you get a game early for review you kinda get in a bubble of what you think of the game (or very few ppl atleast)and your not in the herd mentality of the internet and won’t get the influance of many ppl saying what they think
and him saying the metacritic score is sky high is kinda ignorant and it sounds like he has forgotten he is not trying to make the reviewers happy but rahter the ppl buying it
So herd mentality is now a good thing regarding reviews? News to me. And here I thought that developing one’s own opinion separate of what others think, thus making it more honest, was the way to go. And actually, yes you are saying that interviewers get special knowledge or access via interviews. You literally say that in you most recent reply. And your initial post was arguing that this is part of what makes reviews from the media not valid since that has created some kind of gap between the reviewer and the average gamer. And no disrespect, but you are damn right I take umbrage at that idea.
Most reviewers are just ordinary people doing their job who also probably like video games more than a little bit. Does the job entail some perks, like early access to a game or the ability to interview a developer (an interview that then almost always gets published for everyone to read), especially for those who work for the big sites? Yes, but what of it? How does that make a critic less qualified to write a review? Professional media do not live in some magic bubble that keeps them separate from the rest of the world. You may personally discount the opinions of professional media but in this case you are not moving with the herd you apparently find so important. Reviews are one of the big traffic drivers for just about any entertainment website around, gaming or otherwise. It sounds like you personally choose to not give much weight to the opinions of professional critics. Fair enough, such is your right. But he clearly does and he is not alone in this.
Oh and he never mentioned Metacrtic (though since you bring it up, of the 58 reviews currently listed on that site, only one gives the game below an 80 and only 7 give it below a 90). You did. What he said was “Our first instinct is to defend our work and point to the high ratings offered by critics” and “On one hand, some of our loyal fans are passionately expressing their displeasure about how their game concluded; we care about this feedback, and we’re planning to directly address it. However, most folks appear to agree that the game as a whole is exceptional, with more than 75 critics giving it a perfect review score and a review average in the mid-90s. Net, I’m proud of the team, but we can and must always strive to do better.” How is that discounting the opinions of the people trying to buy it? If Dr. Muzyka and BioWare were trying to do that, they would not have bothered with this statement at all, a statement I might add addressing the complaints of what is, in the end, only a vocal minority.
HEY GUYS YOUR FEEDBACK IS IMPORTANT
“Comments are closed.”
Yes i can see it.
I love the part where he brings the good reviews from like 30 guys, like that means something at all, specially with the actual state of gaming journalism. All this reeks to damage control, is kinda sad how low has bioware fallen.
To be honest, the game’s decrease in quality relative to ME2 is because of the multiplayer content.
A lot of fans asked for it, and so instead of focusing the entire development budget on the single-player, Bioware split their funds between a tacked-on multiplayer and the actual conclusion to the trilogy.
Opportunity costs: simply by spending money on something else means that you’re decreasing the quality of your other projects that you could be focusing on more.
Actually that only holds true if you assume both games had the same level of resources and/or budget available to them. ME3′s multiplayer started life as a separate game altogether and was worked on by a different team from the single player game (as is increasingly the case with big budget games these days see: Ubisoft using an entirely different studio to work on Assassin’s Creed 3′s multiplayer). Also, since the majority of complaints regarding ME3 are against the ending, and the ending alone, the ability of multiplayer to effect the level of resources devoted to this aspect of the game seems slim at best. Now if you have problems with the overall game as a whole, fair enough, but it still strikes me as a fairly weak argument either way unless you have some definitive proof that shows otherwise.
Honestly I wouldn’t have minded their “vision” if it wasn’t so GD lazy! Between the stock photos and the color swap endings it just seems like they really didn’t care that much or were under some pressure to release the game faster. Effort is all I ask, and if they say the current endings are the best they can do then it’s just not good enough and they deserve to hear about it.
Pretty sure this means only explaining what happens after the ending and not change the ending because fans are QQing about it.
I’m just curious when they’re going to get around to fixing the face import bug
That wasn’t fixed yet?
Last I heard it was a work in progress. They fixed a major bug on the MP already, guess thats ont he plate too.
They’ve offered an unofficial fix until they can make their own, but that’s only for the PC version. For those of us who have the console version, we’re not so lucky.
I love that first paragraph, “Our initial idea was to say ‘lawl fuck you, critics suck our cawks.’ but we thought that may upset your wallets, I mean, upset you.”
No there first thought was more, “Have some integrity for company, as it’s impossible to please everyone.” but instead they chose to cave, because FTC bloody complaint, which in itself was petty, and would have been flung out.
The average measure of intelligence in a mob, is normally the lowest intelligence.
Saying “We’re think its good and the critics agree, what the fans think isn’t AS important,” is not the same as admitting that they can’t please everyone.
The FTC complaint is not petty. They’re accused of false advertising. Is it a supportable claim? I don’t know,I never followed the advertising. But like most ME apologists, you choose to slander and diminish those who feel wronged.
There’s a difference between “I like it.” and “I like it and everyone who doesn’t is a petty, entitled, stupid, hater.”
The FTC complaint is not petty, but also not necessary and is honestly, really pointless. Mainly the problem is due to new legislature in place that gives games protection as an artform, the supreme court case last year is part of that.
Also got to remember the EULA, because there is probably a stipulation that the creators have the right to change aspects of their game at will.
And yet it could be said that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote some of his best material in the novels and short stories after he retconned the death of Sherlock Holmes, thanks to the public outrage of the time.
Just something to think about.
Also, it concerns me how people throw around the word “entitlement” now like its a bad thing. You are a consumer. You paid for a product. If that product fails to meet expectations due to any variety of reasons, you are entitled to voice your complaints and demand appropriate compensation. In most cases, the retailer will do what they can to make you happy, but here? Nah, they tell you to die in a fire while thousands more people jump on their side.
It scares me how the video game industry has almost zero means for a consumer to voice complaints or receive damages for anything. Anything short of physical defect and every retailer will tell you to go screw yourself. Is the game itself buggy, broken or just plain bad? Doesn’t matter, unless the disc itself was damaged before you opened it.
This is how I see the gaming consumer these days. Imagine if you went to Target and bought a toaster. The toaster kinda worked but it didn’t toast evenly and occasionally it would pop early or shoot sparks. It is effectively functional, but of poor quality. You decided to return it but when you go to return it, you’re explaining the issues with the toaster and the cashier just sneers at you and tells you it works enough and you aren’t getting a refund or exchange. On top of that, you’ll have 5 people in line behind you calling you an entitled bitch for having the audacity to want a product that performs up to your expectations.
No, what he said was that their first INSTINCT (note the emphasis on that word) was to defend their work and point to the overwhelmingly positive critical reception the game has received. Which is not an unfair stance to take FYI. Yet instead, BioWare decided they needed to at least hear out fan complaints fully before deciding how to proceed. The only way to draw negative connotations from that statement is by imagining them.
And I hardly think that consumers of video game’s have zero means to voice complaints. Or have I misconstrued what has been going on for the last few weeks? Have we not had an outpouring from a subset of fans doing just that? Voicing both complaints and demands in as vocal means possible? Your comparison is to the toaster is also not apt. For one thing even most of the harshest critics of Mass Effect 3 concede that the overall game, save the last ten minutes, is of an extremely high quality. So this would be more like you buy a toaster that produces high quality toast that none the less you personally do not enjoy the taste of. Or something. Cause that is the other problem: the toaster analogy does not work particularly well. A toaster is an appliance meant to serve a useful function. A video game is a piece of entertainment. One has objective levels of quality that can be judged. The other far less so.
And yeah you are right, there is probably no way to get a refund on a game that works but you personally didn’t enjoy playing. If you go to a movie theatre and sit through the entire movie and only after the credits roll go to the box office and demand a refund because you did not like the ending, chances are good you are not getting a refund. There is no guarantee inherent to any kind of media product that you will personally enjoy it. Be it a book, TV show, movie, or video game. You pays your money, you takes your chances. Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware. Not exactly a new concept.
Actually, they are giving out refunds on both Amazon and Orgin…
Well there you go then. Even less reason to complain. But still, there is nothing that requires them to do so. Just one more example of them behaving in a generous and respectful manner to customers who clearly matter to them. I mean yes we matter because of our money but what business can you not say that about?
Hope you buy a lemon car someday Shaun and the dealer says “Hey you should checked up on it more. Buyer beware bub.” Oh wait, there’s lemon laws aren’t there? Stupid entitled car owners.
Admittedly, ME3 is not the most apt game to apply this example to though. Something like that Sonic game that Joe miraculously was able to return to the store last year would be more appropriate since right out of the box he said that was garbage. He didn’t play it to completion then say “Well that sucked, I want a refund.” And, as said above/below, there are a small number of retail outlets offering a refund. But, that is an unprecedented event so it’s hardly time to say we’ve seized power as consumers. Ya know what other game is getting shit on by people cause of the drastic changes and poor quality? Ninja Gaiden 3, but I guarantee you that we wont be seeing Amazon offering refunds on that for people who are displeased with the quality.
Are consumers taking action? Yeah. But excluding the FTC complaint, its not anything different than what we see with every AAA title that comes out these days. Review bombing, angry forum posts, insulting youtube videos. The only difference between this and, say, the anger about the ending of FF13-2 is the sheer magnitude of it. Is it working? Yeah, for the first time ever. I honestly hope to see this kind of campaign more often because till now all the internet complaining in the world has amounted to nearly bupkiss.
This is closer to you returning the toaster and demanding a refund because you don’t like the sound it makes when it pops your toast.
The toaster works, it toasts your breads, it does it exactly as you set the timer, no sparks, it doesn’t break. It’s just that the sound it makes is something you find grating. Not exactly what I would call grounds for refund.
I do like that they’re working to satisfy the fans while keeping in line with their original vision. A quick fix that compromises the intentions of the original goal is something anyone could do. Let’s just hope that their planned revisions are satisfying and don’t lead to more upset.
Of course it’ll lead to more unrest. There’s gonna be four groups. One group will say the new ending is shit cause the old ending was better and this is a cop out to please the fanboys. One group will say the old ending is shit and the new ending is perfect and the people who liked the original were fanboys with no taste. One group will say both endings were shit. Lastly, one group that says both endings were amazing and anyone who disagrees is a hater and should be strung up.
And you forget the group that thinks nothing should change because this is a bad idea to begin with.
@Robert – Which is basically just BioWare themselves and Shaun and people who already gave up on BioWare.