I think EA/Bioware are blatantly trolling now.

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

snip.

Eh, that they got perect scores actually says to me that the reviewers didn't get to the ending(Wouldn't be surprising, at least, given the length of games and the pressure to get reviews out ASAP, especially among the early reviews from which many of those scores derive. It seems most likely that they made an educated guess after a certain point, which fits the generally observed reaction of the fanbase (the vast majority of both those for and those against the "Retake" movement has been that the game was great up until the last few minutes), as points are often docked for far less. I'm not saying I'd expect the review to bomb because of it, but I would expect reivewers to account for it.

snip.

Correction: Literally true, the spirit of the statement is false though, as it has been transplanted into a context that tells a very different story than the original context. It's quote-mining at its finest. Amusingly, it also might have provided the strongest case for false-advertising in the process due to the implicit statement of the ad. To-wit:

To establish that an advertisement is false, a plaintiff must prove five things: (1) a false statement of fact has been made about the advertiser's own or another person's goods, services, or commercial activity; (2) the statement either deceives or has the potential to deceive a substantial portion of its targeted audience; (3) the deception is also likely to affect the purchasing decisions of its audience; (4) the advertising involves goods or services in interstate commerce; and (5) the deception has either resulted in or is likely to result in injury to the plaintiff. The most heavily weighed factor is the advertisement's potential to injure a customer. The injury is usually attributed to money the consumer lost through a purchase that would not have been made had the advertisement not been misleading. False statements can be defined in two ways: those that are false on their face and those that are implicitly false.

Source

Nice in theory but in practice not so much. I'm working as a Marketing Communications Coordinator's Assistant at the moment and basically the rule is 'if we can get away with it being the literal truth, print it because no one is going to win a case on the 'implicit falsehood' rule.' Yeah, I actually had to go over the rules for deception in advertising before I was allowed to start my job, and my boss was full of helpful suggestions.

For example. If you go into the staff cafeteria and there are ten people in it, and you ask them 'do you like hob nobs?' and 8 of them answer 'yes' run an ad saying '80% of people surveyed said they preferred hob nobs.' On the offchance someone does try to take you up on it, you are defending a case of literal verifiable truth, whereas they are trying to make a case from conjecture and circumstance.

What the little legal dictionary quote up there fails to mention is that when you accuse, the burden of proof is on you, which means that you have to provide enough evidence that a client was 'injured' directly as a result of your advertisement.

The argument is simple. The game reviews have been massively positive. The game truly has provoked the biggest fan reaction to a conclusion of a series. Pairing these two facts together, it is not outside the realm of possibility to suggest that if the game receives perfect scores, maybe it is a good game. EA wins the argument, angry fans get to whine some more.

The legalese might sound nice, but you aren't going to win a case on 'implicit' when the other side has 'actual.'

 

[AstylahAthrys]

*slow clap*

Well played, Bioware, well played. That is certainly one way to say it. Wow. That ad. I don't even know.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

snip.

Yes, but you are not a videogame reviewer. EA will never read your review, and to be perfectly honest no one else will either. Even those who do read it won't care because, as mentioned, you have no standing or status to make those statements.

Just because you don't think it was a perfect game doesn't mean that actual reviewers won't have given it perfect scores. As long as 75% of them have done so, EA is perfectly within their rights to say that it's received 75% perfect scores, because it has.

 

[WanderingFool]

http://i.imgur.com/Ikg4Q.jpg

Thing is, its true. So far as they didnt show the whole picture. And really, did you expect them to say the fan reaction was negative while trying to sell the game?

 

[Harb]

And the second part is also completely true. Can you name another game that has provoked a bigger fan reaction? Not positive or negative...

World of Warcraft. Modern Warfare 2. Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Ain't sure there are more, but this sample should be sufficient.

None of those had as big a reaction than the ending to ME3 did.

In that case I would like to remind you what happened when Blizzard announced they would show people's real names on their forums.

Modern Warfare 2 and the Airport mission is a story on its own.

Hah! Those lasted about two weeks, each.

This has been going for WELL OVER A MONTH, AND ISN'T SLOWING.

We have been talking about the magnitude of the reaction, not the length itself. Granted, the Airport mission issue didn't last long.

With Blizzard, as I stated in my post above, they reacted very quickly - within two days - and backed away. After that there was no reason to keep the situation on edge.

http://i.imgur.com/Ikg4Q.jpg

Thing is, its true. So far as they didnt show the whole picture...

They intentionally cut those quotes out of context to attract more customers. It's borderline fraud scenario. And what weight does it have when pulled out of context?

 

[FFHAuthor]

I don't know if this only happened to me (I have the PS3 version, maybe that has something to do with it?). But this game is not perfect by any meaning of the word, again IMHO.

(Just FYI, I own 360 and PS3 and have games on both consoles, and I tend to find glitches in PS3 copies that aren't in 360 copies. Fallout New Vegas is a dream on 360, but has more bugs than a Bronx whorehouse on PS3, and the PS3 version is GOTY, supposedly the patched version while the 1.0 version on my 360 never had any bugs, even before the patches started dropping.)

On topic...
I saw that add and laughed, laughed evilly, laughed maniacally, and finally find myself completely fed up with the mainstream gaming media's coverage of this...one week, fine you don't get it, two weeks, you're entrenched, three weeks+...enough. Bioware can do whatever marketing it wants, but they're turning their evangelical base into the most fervent haters out there. Running this kind of add campaign blatantly shows just how little they care for the fan reaction, because notice one thing...

They only describe it as 'fan reaction' not 'fan accolades' or 'fan enjoyment' that runs completely counter to the blanket statement that people who hate the retake movement or people who are happy with the ending keep making. If the fanbase is overwhelmingly happy...then why be so ambiguous?

 

[wintercoat]

They know how to "properly" word the largest cockup in gaming history, I will give them that.

Also - shouldn't EA start dropping thermonuclear bombs during harsh winters? Since those things can certainly provoke bigger heat production than any other weapon's detonation in warfare's history.


I genuinely wonder if there still anyone out there who honestly thinks Electronic Arts care about satisfying their customers rather than simply selling as many products as possible (=at all costs).

I believe Daikatana actually still holds the record for "Biggest Cockup in Gaming History".

Now there was a cockup. Can you imagine if something that ridiculous happened nowadays? This whole ME3 thing wouldn't even register on the same scale that would be needed to measure such a shitstorm.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Maybe I'm not seeing what you people are seeing, but how is this trolling?

It's PR, what you want them to put on there? It's great until the last five minutes?

This is just silly. Just let them do PR on this since technically there isn't anything wrong with that ad.

 

[soren7550]

http://i.imgur.com/Ikg4Q.jpg

That's one way of putting it, I guess. It's like how the Titanic provoked a bigger cruise line passenger reaction than any other ship in maritime history.

(captcha: "Gotham City." Awesome. That's a step up from the car ads, at least.)

I lol'ed. So hard.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

And the second part is also completely true. Can you name another game that has provoked a bigger fan reaction? Not positive or negative...

World of Warcraft. Modern Warfare 2. Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Ain't sure there are more, but this sample should be sufficient.

'has provoked a bigger fan reaction than any other conclusion in the medium's history.'

Key points:

1. Fan reaction. The reaction must be from the fans. MW controversy over killing civilians or whatever it was you did in that mission (never played the game) don't count because those people were not the fans, they were the public.

2. 'any other conclusion.' Were your other games conclusions to long running series? if not, then must be removed.

So that takes out WoW (which will never have a conclusion) and MW2 (which wasn't a fan reaction but a media one) leaving only FFXIII-2.

What exactly was the fan reaction to FFXIII-2. How long did it go on, how many people did it involve, did it result in a change of any sort to the game as presented, what was involved in the reaction?

If it had more people, doing more things, went on for over a month (and counting with ME3) and has resulted in a change to whatever it was the fans were reacting to, then you can call bullshit on the quote.

 

[Asita]

Nice in theory but in practice not so much. I'm working as a Marketing Communications Coordinator's Assistant at the moment and basically the rule is 'if we can get away with it being the literal truth, print it because no one is going to win a case on the 'implicit falsehood' rule.' Yeah, I actually had to go over the rules for deception in advertising before I was allowed to start my job, and my boss was full of helpful suggestions.


For example. If you go into the staff cafeteria and there are ten people in it, and you ask them 'do you like hob nobs?' and 8 of them answer 'yes' run an ad saying '80% of people surveyed said they preferred hob nobs.' On the offchance someone does try to take you up on it, you are defending a case of literal verifiable truth, whereas they are trying to make a case from conjecture and circumstance.

What the little legal dictionary quote up there fails to mention is that when you accuse, the burden of proof is on you, which means that you have to provide enough evidence that a client was 'injured' directly as a result of your advertisement.

The argument is simple. The game reviews have been massively positive. The game truly has provoked the biggest fan reaction to a conclusion of a series. Pairing these two facts together, it is not outside the realm of possibility to suggest that if the game receives perfect scores, maybe it is a good game. EA wins the argument, angry fans get to whine some more.

The legalese might sound nice, but you aren't going to win a case on 'implicit' when the other side has 'actual.'

Oh don't mistake me, I wasn't suggesting that legal action be pursued. I was pointing out that this probably provides the best ammo for the claim of false-advertising to date, and the irony that they'd craft an ad like that almost immediately after the BBB weighed in on a claim of false-advertising against them. Under the circumstances, I'd actually be surprised if they hadn't run it by legal before releasing it to make sure they had a leg to stand on. It provides a rather interesting insight into their self-image, I think.

 

[Harb]

And the second part is also completely true. Can you name another game that has provoked a bigger fan reaction? Not positive or negative...

World of Warcraft. Modern Warfare 2. Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Ain't sure there are more, but this sample should be sufficient.

'has provoked a bigger fan reaction than any other conclusion in the medium's history.'

Key points:

1. Fan reaction. The reaction must be from the fans. MW controversy over killing civilians or whatever it was you did in that mission (never played the game) don't count because those people were not the fans, they were the public.

2. 'any other conclusion.' Were your other games conclusions to long running series? if not, then must be removed.

So that takes out WoW (which will never have a conclusion) and MW2 (which wasn't a fan reaction but a media one) leaving only FFXIII-2.

What exactly was the fan reaction to FFXIII-2. How long did it go on, how many people did it involve, did it result in a change of any sort to the game as presented, what was involved in the reaction?

If it had more people, doing more things, went on for over a month (and counting with ME3) and has resulted in a change to whatever it was the fans were reacting to, then you can call bullshit on the quote.

Granted, all those points linked together make a bulletproof (although rather twisted) PR statement from EA. My apologies.

On a side note - I wonder how far they are actually willing to go. I'm sure they employ intelligent people and must had anticipated the anger this statement would eventually cause (among ME3 owners).
The statement, while taken out of context and cleverly worded (as you pointed out), is plain unacceptable and morally wrong.

 

[burningdragoon]

Guys. Listen to me for second. It's time to let this thing go. It's dumb, yes. All PR and marketing is dumb though. If it was 100% honest, it would fail at doing what it's meant to do.

Now, I'd really like to see where this picture originally came from. (Here's the article [http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/03/22/mass-effect-3-ending-bioware/] the quote is from)

 

[him over there]

So a very common act of using vague but technically literal proof to sell a product equals trolling? Go to your room internet, adjusting your standards based on your emotions isn't allowed.

 

[5t3v0]

Well, you know what they say. There is no such thing as bad publicity.

dumbshits. I don't know how many people thought that EA would just wither and die after the campaigns...

 

[Dreadman75]

snip.

Yes, but you are not a videogame reviewer. EA will never read your review, and to be perfectly honest no one else will either. Even those who do read it won't care because, as mentioned, you have no standing or status to make those statements.

Just because you don't think it was a perfect game doesn't mean that actual reviewers won't have given it perfect scores. As long as 75% of them have done so, EA is perfectly within their rights to say that it's received 75% perfect scores, because it has.

I never said I was a game reviewer. And I don't expect anyone from EA to read my 'review' as you put it. That wasn't a review by any means anyway. As I said, twice, it was just my opinion and you can take from that what you will.

The only point I was trying to make was that the game wasn't perfect, citing my own experience with game itself. I don't know if the reviewers that gave the game a perfect score experienced the glitches and bugs I did. I was just giving my own input.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

Oh EA, you cheeky little buggers!
Not like I buy any of your games anyway... other than Bulletstorm, but that was an accident!

 

[Something Amyss]

Well, everything in that add is technically correct. "Perfect" is a matter of opinion, and while I wouldn't call the game perfect (and not just because of the ending, but other things too), I would say it's pretty darn good.

Irrelevant. "over 75 perfect scores" is completely true. It doesn't matter what you define as a perfect title. 75 reviewers gave it a 5/5, 10/10, 100/100, or A+/zerboogihawdy.

 

[LiberalSquirrel]

Guys. Listen to me for second. It's time to let this thing go. It's dumb, yes. All PR and marketing is dumb though. If it was 100% honest, it would fail at doing what it's meant to do.

Now, I'd really like to see where this picture originally came from. (Here's the article [http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/03/22/mass-effect-3-ending-bioware/] the quote is from)

Ah ha. Thank you! I've been minorly stalking this thread in hopes that someone would post the article that the quote came from.

And... I also agree with your point. EA is trying to sell their game, just as anyone else would try to sell their product. So they're not about to put, "A section of our fanbase has been overwhelmed with uncontrollable rage at the ending of this game!" on an ad. Of course they aren't. Somehow, I don't think that'd really accomplish what they wanted. People can believe EA is horrible (and whatever all else people have been angry about) all they want to, but putting forth a PR spin as proof rings a bit hollow, in my opinion.

 

[PinkiePyro]

clearly we need to find the 75 critics that gave those scores and beat some sense into them