Mass Effect 3 is a triumph. There’s really no other way to describe it. The game represents the culmination of a ten-year effort on the part of BioWare to craft the industry’s first true epic—a multi-game story in which every decision by the player has weight and meaning. Frankly, reviewing Mass Effect 3 within the same critical framework as one reviews SSX or Modern Warfare is an insult to BioWare’s incredible achievement, regardless of the final score assigned.
Despite its immense successes, there’s one big problem with Mass Effect 3: The ending sucks. At least, that’s the answer you’ll get from thousands of fans upset that the story of Commander Shepard didn’t wrap up in the way they had hoped. Angry players have stormed forums, formed Reddit groups and set up petitions demanding that BioWare modify the game ending, citing plot holes, false advertising and a general sense that the experience they got wasn’t the one they were sold.
Just a couple of weeks ago, BioWare finally answered all of this complaining by announcing DLC content that will help clarify some of the events show in Mass Effect 3’s ending sequences. The exact quote from the company states, “…the DLC will offer extended scenes that provide additional context and deeper insight to the conclusion of Commander Shepard’s journey.” In short, BioWare listened to player concerns and came up with a plan for expanding on the existing ending.
This may be a big win for fans, but it’s an enormous loss for the industry in general. Here’s why: fans are, for the most part, morons. Have you ever read fan fiction? There’s a reason it’s an Internet punch line. If left to their own devices, fans would tear down many of our favorite stories for “better” endings. Darth Vader lives. Harry and Hermione get married. Spock and Kirk make out. These are all things that happen in fan-written stories, every day of the week.
Fans don’t know how to end a story. And while Mass Effect 3’s “Extended Cut” DLC may shed some much-needed light on the game’s absurdly vague and nonsensical ending, it’s not going to be enough to satisfy every last upset player. However, it is enough to set a nasty precedent for every game released from here on out. Gamers now know that if they complain enough about one specific thing, the developer will eventually cave and change the title to suit fan preferences.
Listening to your customers is good, but folding over when they’re upset over something you did very purposefully sends the message that you don’t believe in your creation. It also sounds the alarm for complainers around the world, who will be inspired to throw hissy fits about every little thing with which they take issue. BioWare didn’t end Mass Effect 3 this way accidentally, so why do they feel the need to modify it?
The biggest problem with the ending isn’t its imperfections, but the overwrought passion of the game’s fans. If people weren’t so fanatically attached to Commander Shepard, they may have been happier with the ending.
Perhaps that’s the true sign of success for the folks over at BioWare. They created something so visceral and real that people simply can’t bear for it to be over.
Sir,
I am not a moron and such a characterization of fans who have issue with the ending speaks a lack of understanding of the issue at hand and the people involved. I am a graduate of the United States Military Academy were I earned a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in International Strategic History and a minor track in Environmental Engineering, and I have a Master’s Degree from the University of Texas El Paso. I dont know what your qualifications are but just by your fan attacking almost pandering to Bioware statements, I am left to believe that your opinion of this matter should not be taken seriously.
There are many very smart, very educated people who are Mass Effect fans and found the ending to be poorly written, lacking narrative cohesion, and of a poor quality when compared to the rest of the work as a whole. A customer, which is what we are, has a right to address complaints about the quality of a product sold to them with the company that produced it. I, and many others, have chosen to do that and it is our right. Just it is Bioware’s right to not listen to us, change the ending, extend the ending or whatever. That is a business decision they get to make.
To conclude: when you can only make attacks on the people that ultimately pay and support the production of games your are not helping the games industry. I personally believe that this controversy will help the industry as a whole. Maybe we wont get rushed endings, sloppy story telling and more more content cut out of games to be sold as DLC. We can hope, and I can hope you act more mature in your writing in the future.
If you wish to continue this discussion, my email address was given in the required field for this comment. Feel free to contact me.
Respectfully,
Daniel Keating
you can be brilliant in one thing and a complete moron in another, you’re qualifications only means that you’re smart in that field, it doesn’t make you educated in writing or storytelling.
For the most part i think he is right about Fans. Sure calling them morons may be harsh, but I think his statement holds true, considering the whole debate of whether or not video games are a medium to be taken seriously, Mass effect is often brought up as an example that video games are capable of having good story and characters, like movies, and aren’t just mindless shoot em ups. Because of this, it is important to consider the level of fan interference in video games. When it comes to other mediums, such as movies, and books, meddling with the creators work and/or demands from fans that he/she changes the story to suit their wants is generally considered disrespectful and that Studio meddling in movies that interfere with the directors vision is looked down upon. This even includes movies and books that are bad, like transformers 2. As a matter of fact I had a similar experience with this going into the movie looking forward to an entertaining, albeit dumb action flick, but instead i walked out of the movie theater pissed and disapointed. I will criticize the hell out of Michael Bay and his “directing”, but I would never demand that he change his film, because it’s his film and his vision. he did what he wanted to do.
And so, it is the same with my feelings with the ME3 ending, I myself have my problems with the ending,but I respect that the creator chose these decisions. My stance of video games becoming a serious medium influences the actions I would take for something I enjoy, and I think that this whole ME3 controversy definitely raises some interesting questions about video games, art and it’s place as a commodity in our consumer culture. It is very much a complicated subject, even taking into regards that video games are an interactive medium, this bring up a whole other subject of how to define video games as an art form, but don’t worry, I won’t get into that on this page.
wow never did i thin that someone would be stupid enough to actually Declare Fans being the problem with a Franchise….you have reached an all time low….the correct the you should have wrote….was nothing at all. Next time take your child like logic and shove it up your ass
Wow, it seems that pouncing on the fans is the hip and cool thing to do these days. There is absolutely no way the fans are the problem here. Bioware made one giant promise to the people playing Mass Effect: Your choices mattered. Even right before ME3 was released makers of the game were QUOTED by various publications that the endings were vastly different from each other and the choices you made up to that point really made an impact. Well, it turns out they didn’t. Bioware lied. It’s as simple as that. And pardon my crassness, but we’re supposed to just bend over and let them screw us for the sake of… what? Artistic integrity? Don’t make me laugh. I would be fine with an ending I didn’t particularly care for, one that even lacked cohesion and was filled with plot holes and offered up no explanations to what really happened if everything Bioware had said about the series didn’t all boil down to one big lie in the end.
I’m perfectly happy with the ending, but the problem is certainly not the fans of the franchise. That’s like blaming the beer for getting you drunk. The issue at hand is that the ending requires clarification. Bioware isn’t “changing” the ending. They’re appending some content in the form of cutscenes to clarify what the hey happened at the end because they failed to explain it with the content supplied on disc.
Also, you’re about a month late to this party.
Why do people take things so personally? Mike said that fans, FOR THE MOST PART, are morons, and that if they were left to decide how a truly epic piece of entertainment should end… they would likely butcher, which I completely agree with. Mike also admitted, however, that the ending is flawed, he was simply making the point that BioWare purposefully put that ending into the game, and so nothing the fans say should give them cause to do anything more or less than they had intended. I was fine with the ending, other than the fact that there is a serious lack of closure in regards to what happens to the galaxy, your squadmates, and Shepard. I’m personally very pleased with the steps that BioWare is taking, but I really wouldn’t have cared if they had done nothing either, since I believe they have every right to simply leave the game the way it is. Regardless of what they had done, I still regard Mass Effect 3 as one of the greatest games of this generation, and of all time.
so…trying to get some hits by provoking people huh?…well done sir, well done.
Sir, I congratulate you on speaking the truth about Mass Effect 3 and it’s over zealous fan base. Obviously, you are being a bit controversial on purpose with what you wrote, but at the core on your writing is the absolute truth. The reality is that no matter what Bioware does, people are still going to hate on them just because thats the popular thing to do now. Every since Dragon Age 2, which was a decent game, people have been coming out of the wood works to say how terrible of a company and storytellers Bioware is at the moment.
I have one question for all of those people that would say how terrible Bioware is right now. Who else is pushing the storytelling aspect of the gaming genre forward by having meaningful characters, that have a mature and deep relation with one another. Key emphasize is on mature. The only other developer I can think of is CD Projekt, the developers of The Witcher, and hopefully The Witcher 2 will be popular enough to reach critical mass for them. Short of that one company, who used Bioware’s old gaming engine for The Witcher 1, there really isn’t anyone else pushing deep and meaningful stories in games with mature and complex adult characters.
Mass Effect is the biggest science fiction gaming series there is and what sets it apart from other series is it’s mature development of relationships with adult characters. What other company allows you to play a gay or lesbian main character in a multimillion dollar Triple A title? What other company allows you to be a minority saving the galaxy in a Triple A title? What other company has a serious female protagonist that is not just tits and ass in a Triple A title? No one is pushing forward the gaming genre the way Bioware does and what do fans do to them? They shit all over the accomplishments that Bioware has done and cry like a bitch about an ending to a game. Guess what people, plenty of great movies, books, and television series have shit endings. Stop crying over nothing and stop shitting all over Bioware. No one else is truly doing what Bioware is doing and especially not on the same scale. So just maybe we give them a little slack on a bad ending and not go crazy with filing lawsuits against them or harassing their employees. We the fans should not be the ones attempting to drag Bioware’s reputation into the mud. Let’s leave that to the homophobes out there that hate Bioware acknowledging that adults play their games, so they attempt to give us adults a mature storyline that respects our intelligence.
As far as I am concerned, anyone who begins an internet comment with “Sir,” is a moron. I don’t care which college they went to.
I think the fanbase went a bit overboard, but you can’t use that as an excuse for that sorry excuse of an ending. It made next to no sense why any of that happened, unless the Indoctrination Theory is true. If so, that ending is still incomplete!
“If people weren’t so fanatically attached to Commander Shepard, they may have been happier with the ending.”
Tone is slightly off, look at it this way.
No matter what, no one is happy when a hurricane destroys a heavily populated city.
It’s just much worse to personally deal with if it happens to be your city and loved ones destroyed.
Mass Effect was a home.
Three’s ending? Was a natural disaster.
The power always was, is and will be in the hands of the consumers in general. I think it’s wonderful people finally understand this. Creators don’t want to change their product ? Good. Don’t change it. The problem is, it never WAS about what the creators wanted. It’s what money wanted. In a world where money talks, companies can’t afford to piss of their consumers, because they lose them. They lose them -> they lose money -> they lose money -> creators get fired.
I beg to differ, allow me to link you to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlatxLP-xs
“The biggest problem with the ending isn’t its imperfections, but the overwrought passion of the game’s fans.”
Since you did say that I’ll guess you agree that the ending wasn’t that good. If not then we may disagree on that point. Every other point though, I’ll agree with you on. I was not happy about the ME3 petition and fan outcry, definitely not happy about the extended cut either but its better than completely changing the ending (yes a clarity is always a good thing but it’s good nature loses value when its forced). My reasoning is that “this” was the game Bioware/EA decided to feed us, if they feel that type of ending is worth our time and money then so be it, I’ll vote with my pocket on future games.
The one thing I absolutely do not want to see is the internet rising up to petition games to change their endings. Why? Because its usually always the unsatisfied ones that are the most vocal about their dissatisfaction, which makes sense. However, what if I liked the ME3 ending or any “bad ending game”? I don’t ever go out of my way to post on forums or anything like that saying how I liked a game, its always word of mouth. If some dev caved to a random petition and changed an ending I loved then where does that put me? Does that mean that the writers are telling me I liked a terrible story? Do I not know what I like anymore?
Anyways, I’ll stop before I start writing an essay in this small box. If its a poor ending its a poor ending, if the writers feel its their work of art then I’m not going to force them to change their values. Its just like art paintings, there are lots out there I feel are utter crap but I wouldn’t dare ask the artist to change it. The only thing I will encourage people to do is tell others of their PERSONAL experience (so many people like to parrot others ugh), be vocal sure no problem, but don’t go around asking people to change an ending just because you “spent over 300 hours playing the game and the ending sucks”. Use your head and vote with your wallet, I mean, its not like this is going to be the end to the mass effect franchise anyways.
Mike Foster.
You are not worth the energy to talk to/at/with in depth.
Good luck at one day being a Journalist.
(Currently you’re as bad as Khalisah al-Jilani and equally as worthy of a Commander Shepard Punch.)
Interesting, if there were a few hundred fans demanding a change theen i would agree wwith you, however at last count there are 64,000 fans signed up to the campaign. PR rules are that for every single complaint recieved there are 26 others who are disgruntled but silent. Simply put, in any other industry if 89% of consumers complained they would think there was something wrong with the product: not the consumers
Shut up. Just shut up.
As a writer for this site, and a fan of Mass Effect, I’m offended by this article.
I agree with most of the above criticism.
Well your entitled to your opinion as a writer, but you seem very single minded. You obviously needed a hyped story to write about and decided to go with the Mass Effect 3 Ending rebellion that is going on with fans. In the end your statements and points came out weak, and you had to even use the word “moron” to get people to read what you have to say. (try looking up some big words, moron) I mean what did you expect from your article, a bunch of praise? All your doing is making a fool of yourself. And wasting your skills as a writer.