I think EA/Bioware are blatantly trolling now.

[AbstractStream]

It's funny because it's true. Just not in the way they're trying to spin it.
Aaaah, PR. I wonder if this will fool anyone.
[sub][sub]maybe if they lived under a rock.[/sub][/sub]

 

[Avalanche91]

Part of me wants to laugh. Part of me wants to compliment EA on this incredible trolling.

Then I remember.......This is EA, and this isn't them just trolling. This is a smack in the face of a large portion of EA's fans. This is them saying they don't give a shit about what we think, and that they only see us as a big walking wallet.
The company that refuses to change the ending out of their integrity now turns around and makes the most blatant misleadingly commercial outing I've probably ever seen.

Im not saying they are lying. I've never seen a bigger fan reaction on a ending, positive or negative. But by god are they misleading and trying to milk the consumer.

 

[jpoon]

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.)

Yeah, that's DEFINITELY not going to coerce or trick me into buying this one.

 

[Vegosiux]

When have the 'fans' done anything to deserve that respect, actually? Would you respect a large group of people calling your company practically the devil, even though all you did is make a game that people didn't like the ending of?

...actually, that't not why people hate EA. People hate EA because it consumes and destroys good developers. We hate EA because they act as if a customer is cattle to be milked. Because they treat customers like potential criminals. Stuff like that.

As for the OT, that's pretty damn funny.

 

[Unsilenced]

Holy shit. That is some serious Dilbert-status bullshit. I mean honestly. The pointy-haired boss HAD to be behind this.

Someone confirm this this is a joke. It has to be.

 

[Mike Richards]

No, but I do find it hard to believe that 75 "legitimate" (meaningless word in this context) publications happened to come to the conclusion that the game is perfect, impossible in fact.

But the important part is why is it so hard to believe? Is it because no game is perfect, and you could say that any game that has ever received a series of perfect scores is just as suspect? Or is do you find it hard to believe that 75 publications would find THIS game specifically perfect? Are you calling the review system into question or simply trying to support your own opinion that Mass Effect 3 was in some way deficient?

I think it's fair to say from the sound of you posts that you had issues with ME3, whether your experience was in general a positive one or not. If you hadn't had those issues, would you still be calling these publications into question? Are your doubts based on external factors, your observations of game journalism on a whole and your appraisal of the problems it faces? Or is it based on your personal feelings towards the game in question, merely an attempt to support your stance by discrediting the 'opponents'.

I've seen enough of both to know which one ends up being more beneficial to everyone. I'm not saying that a publisher would never try to influence scores and that the system is perfect, we need to keep a certain level of vigilance at all times and not be afraid to call people out when they step over the line. But we shouldn't jump at shadows without actual justification. Undermining the credibility of a differing opinion is a cheap way to self validate and it cuts the conversation short.

Having a problem with a game is fine, discussing and disagreeing with other people about it is fine, but that's where it stops. There's no objective right, wrong, or way to say who knows best. There's just you and whether or not you had fun.

 

[Daveman]

That is really, really, really funny.

You guys voted these people to the final round of March Madness? How can you keep ignoring the total lack of respect they have for the fans?

When have the 'fans' done anything to deserve that respect, actually? Would you respect a large group of people calling your company practically the devil, even though all you did is make a game that people didn't like the ending of?

The fans don't have to do anything to earn respect, they're paying.

Yes, and the company makes the game they pay for. That's just plain old supply and demand. Respect doesn't factor into it at all.

Then why did respect factor into both our earlier comments? Besides, the developers are reliant a lot more on customers. It's having a job vs getting a video game. It's not a great idea to deliberately piss off the customers, whereas complaining about the poor quality of something you've paid for is a rather good idea.

 

[Uszi]

In other news, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are now PR consulting for EA.

 

[SpaceBat]

That's because it had the most anti-climactic, disappointing and pathetic ending in the medium's history.

Seems like you haven't played KotoR yet. This isn't the first time Bioware has ended a good game with an awful and pathetic ending. I should have seen it coming, but I was too immersed into the game to remember their bad habit.

OT: That's absolutely hilarious. PR will be PR, I guess.

 

[MPerce]

.....this is brilliant.
EA actually kinda gained some respect from me for this genius trolling.

 

[Lunar Templar]

trolling, maybe, but least its true .....

 

[unstabLized]

Oh it provoked a fan reaction alright.. God i hate EA..

 

[ElPatron]

So if of a hundred game reviewers 75 have given it perfect scores (assuming 10/10, 5/5 whatever other system chosen to be a perfect score) then part one is accurate, and there are plenty of people out there who are not butthurt nerds who have given it perfect scores, thus part one is absolutely correct. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean someone else in a position that actually matters to the gaming industry didn't give it a perfect score.

Here's the part of that post that doesn't make sense.

They have every right to cherry pick what reviewers gave them perfect scores. Now, what if said reviewers don't use numerical/symbolic scores? Or, what if those reviewers depended on EA publicity to keep their site running?

You just used the "you didn't like it" argument which doesn't work at all.

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.

Read the image again. 75 reviewers. Not 75% of all reviewers.

trolling, maybe, but least its true .....

And how is that relevant to trolling? Truth or lie, as long as you are saying something that people will feel outraged you're trolling.

 

[MPerce]

Can we get a source for this pic? I can't find it anywhere else but here, so I'm starting to get a bit suspicious about its authenticity....

 

[Awexsome]

Well played EA. I thought their Battlefield 3 campaign was the best marketing I've seen from trolling. This really is a pretty genius troll. That marketing department has been responsible for some atrocities and some strokes of genius.

And for the record, 29 hours and 50 minutes of that game were 10/10 worthy.

 

[Atmos Duality]

This is it people: Absolute proof of what EA thinks of you. Yes, you. The fans. The people who give them business. The people who keep them in business.

What do they think? They think you are fucking retarded, and they think that they're going to make a mint off of you no matter what they do.

Never before in a piece of advertising have I seen a company's OBVIOUS contempt and scorn for their customers. It's PR so brilliant I cannot help but applaud EA for helping to make my point for me.

And now, I have absolutely no regrets to not purchasing ME3.

 

[thememan]

Apparently the game is amazing. The last 5 minutes ruin it but the rest of the game is amazing. And like I've heard, the reason reviews are like that is because they don't play the entire game all the time. Only a majority of it.

Which is flat-out false.

Opinion =/= true/false.

Really wish people would figure that out.

The game sits nowhere near amazing. This has nothing to do with liking it or not. There are plenty of objectively poor qualities to the game and very poor design choices to really justify it as an amazing game. This is hardly my opinion of the game. When viewing the game as a whole it is hardly "amazing until the last five minutes". Some parts are quite good to quite stellar. Others are almost bogglingly bad. The good tends to outweigh the bad, but that hardly makes it "amazing". Or more precisely worthy of the "75 perfect scores!" that it received. Because anyone viewing the game critically could point to any number of faults in the game itself that removes it from that.

 

[PaganAxe]

This is definitely not the first time a company has advertised a game having gotten perfect scores. If a game that had no connection with EA or Bioware was advertised having several perfect scores, half of you wouldn't call that trolling, yes?

 

[Grygor]

Because if you don't buy Javik, you will never find out about how the Prothean Empire worked, what the Protheans were like, or current races years ago, why asari are so advanced, the truth behind their religions (and probably every religion of the past) and you have 1 out of 6 classes for teammates locked out.

All to cash in a little.

None of which is essential to understanding the story or playing the game, and some of which can be uncovered through other means.

For example,

Spoiler

the fact that a temple devoted to the old Asari religion just happens to be built around a fully functional Prothean beacon, and the murals in the temple depict Athame and her cohort with Prothean-shaped heads,

makes it pretty easy to figure out why the Asari are so advanced, even without Javik being there to spell it all out for you you.

Heck, even in the very first game you can uncover evidence of just how closely the Protheans had been observing the species of the current cycle.

Spoiler

Just take the trinket that Shaira gives you - if you complete her quest after resolving the situation with the Elcor diplomat - to the Prothean orb on Eletania (Attican Beta cluster, Hercules system).

It's not at all necessary to have a biotic/combat-classed character, either - to say nothing of the fact that you can permanently lock yourself out of a biotic/tech character before the game even begins. It's possible to finish the game with an Engineer Shepard who let Kaidan die on Virmire and without From Dust - i.e. with a squad where Liara is the only biotic available. Honestly, the first game is the only one where all six class archetypes are represented (and represented evenly, no less) among Shepard's squadmates.