Jimquisition: Changing A Game's Ending And Destroying Art

[Aeonknight]

I don't necessarily thing that consumers are in any true position to make executive decisions about the content of a game. Not in any true, appreciable fashion. Fans should realize that their feedback is not a sacrosanct, binding thing. The failure of this whole fiasco has never truly been on the part of the developers. Even acknowledging that the ending of ME3 is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, I think that fan response and the philosophy behind it has been fundamentally misinformed as to the power they wield as consumers and just exactly what their time and money means.

It certainly gives them the right to criticize. To comment. To analyze. To express satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

I don't think it really entitles them to make claims about what a series "deserves" or even what they "deserve" as purchasers of art/entertainment. Many people want to imply that their previous time and money somehow gives them a creative voice in the game and what should/shouldn't be in it. But that's short sighted, I feel. No consumer or group of consumers literally commissioned BioWare to make the game to their specifications and desires. Failure to meet certain expectations falls much more on the fanbase themselves rather than the developers, I feel.

That said, expressing a certain disappointment is certainly understandable. But very little of this has been done in a general healthy fashion in terms of fostering the proper type of communication channels consumers might have with developers. The tactics employed have been fundamentally dishonest and backhanded, to such an extent that it will likely have a negative effect in the long run in terms of the fan/developer dynamic.

This. Pretty much said what needed to be said. As one who was admittedly on the "it ruins the integrity of the game" team, I'll admit Jim had me swayed a bit. He makes some good points.

But to be honest, I don't really care about the fate of the Mass Effect franchise. It was the bloody entitlement that got under my skin. The whole "I deserve a better ending because I played all 3 games!"

But Jim was indeed fair, with the disclaimer about how fan decision can't be an absolute factor in the creative process. And that's good enough for me.

 

[J.d. Scott]

Who would have guessed, Jim is right again.

So we have Jim and MovieBob with polar opposite opinions, what ever happened to Extra Consideration?

I don't think Jim and Moviebob have opinions that are that much at loggerheads. Bob never said that gamers didn't have a right to complain and that the ending wasn't bad, and that Bioware should never change it. He said that a large portion of the RME community are acting like entitled children, and that Bioware shouldn't be forced into doing anything and that Bioware doesn't have to compromise their artistic integrity if they don't want to.

Jim's position is that if Bioware isn't going to stick up for their artistic integrity, for whatever reason, neither should anybody else. If Bioware had made an effort to defend their ending - then most likely Bob and Jim would have been in a similar position.

I don't think that's right at all.
MovieBob was saying that all the bitching and moaning about Mass Effect 3's ending was all childish and entitled.
Jim said that most of that came from people with legitimate grievances.

In this case, Bioware is choosing to alter their ending - whether it's because they think it's terrible as well or see points where they can improve or whether they just want to make their fanbase happy - it's not really an artist violating his own integrity - since they're doing it themselves and hopefully for the purpose of doing something better that maintains their overall objectives for the plot (as opposed to Broken Steel...)

My only thoughts on this - one, is Jim reading my posts - I made an obscure joke in another thread about Thatgamecompany having a bunch of rabid COD:MW fans convincing them to add more terrorists and gunplay into Journey and either Jim made a similar joke by harmonic convergence or he's stealing my material.

And two, as probably the only person who openly LIKES the ending to ME3, I wish people would give it more of a chance. I think people openly hate the ending because they had different expectation, but while the ending could be painted with slightly broader strokes and needs a bit of fine tuning, there's something incredibly interesting from a philosophical and game writing perspective in that ending. It's really quite remarkable, of all the easy bad endings they could have come with, that they chose this one in particular.

Honestly I didn't have any different expectations for the end.
(From the second I heard the words "Plans for a Prothean device" I knew it was going to end with a big-old-Reaper-off-button) Which would have bothered me, just not as much as what they did.

Introducing the "Star child" at the last minute and making him some omnipotent figure in charge of the Reapers was just too much.
But the final Straw was that scene with the Normandy flying away and crash landing on (What I can only assume was supposed to be the Island from Lost)
And the glaring "Mass Relay explosion" plot hole.

It had nothing to do with my expectations.

Since I don't really feel like discussing plot points, I'll skip that.

However, the thing with Moviebob bothers me, only because that seems to be the general consensus from the RME side about the other side, that we're just some group of assholes trying to repress your legitimate free expression. I don't know how many times I've said "You have every right to complain." since this mess started, but it's a lot. I have a lot of friends who want the revamped ending, so I've been in a LOT of debates, online and otherwise. I know Bob said that at least four times in that video, even taking the time to step on the obnoxious voice effect pedal or thing for emphasis.

It bothers me because apparently nobody can seem to look at some of the things that were said and done in the RME community as members, view them objectively, and admit that there's a significant portion of the one side (which is by far the majority - I've seen less then a dozen other gamers admit they support my position) that have acted like entitled whiny bitches. It is not a tiny subsection of your group that's been out of line - some a lot more then others.

If you can't really see that and understand that, then I wonder if there's any way to preserve the artist/consumer relationship in video games - because if you can't see it other people, how can you objectively judge your own actions. If you feel that it's fair to demand a new ending. If you feel that games are commodities and subject to the same rules as a sandwich you didn't like or a pair of shoes that don't break in well, if you feel that Bioware owes you this new ending, if you feel the fact that Casey Hudson wasn't honest in an interview gives you permission to do these things - then I think the gaming community is in big trouble, because this is going to affect every major game going out.

 

[DJ_Bunce]

I have a funny feeling EflippinA are rubbin their fat little hands together at the DLC money from this. I hope shit endings and proper DLC fixes do not become a fad.

Good to see you onboard with how disappointing the ending was. Still loved the game though, and will not be refunding my collectors edition

 

[Therumancer]

And that is why the whole "You can't change art!" argument doesn't hold water. Artists change their stuff all the time, sometimes by outside reaction, sometimes by their own accord.

I hope this will be the lasts ME3 shit PERIOD. Then we can start taking bets on what the next "OMG [GAME] IS [OPINION]!" Topic will be.

I'll put my money on it being Bioshock: infinite.

But Mass Effect 3 did set a high controversy bar. It might not be until Halo 4

Well, given that the guy apparently working on "Bioshock: Infinite" was one of the defenders of EA on "Mass Effect 3" I suspect he's kind of "on notice" if he was planning something similar. By similar I mean "creating a do-nothing ending to generate contreversy and hype for the sake of contreversy and hype so it will help promote a sequel".

Whether I'm right about this being fueled entirely by business or not, the bottom line here is going to be that this was noticed. I don't think the gaming industry is going to be looking to pick any fights, and is proabbly going to wind up paying a lot more attention to what they do for a while.

That said I'm glad to see Jim seeing reason here, and my opinion of him just went up a few notches, and not just because he is agreeing with me (more or less).

I would also remind people that the negative thing to come out of all of this is going to be that every vocal minority of fans upset about something is going to claim to be the equivilent of Mass Effect's "Line"... which is not true, and it's going to be annoying. What made this a big deal was a genuine majority uprising of a sort you generally do not see, which is why it got so much attention. While this might happen again, it's not going to happen at a drop of a hat, and we really are going to have to deal with a lot of empowered feeling minority fanboys of the sort who were responsible for a lot of the initial backlash "The Line" received.

All is well for the moment at least, by all accounts Bioware is working on "fixing" this and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

 

[Jacked Assassin]

I haven't bought Mass Effect 3 yet. However based on the idea that it was going to expand to only 3 games that would port saved info over I could've probably told anyone that Shepard was going to die in the end before they even bought the first (if possible).

If anything I'm more disappointed by what I figured out by playing Mass Effect 2. That being that a lot of events were going to happen no matter what the outcome. Whether or not you kill say Urdnot Wrex didn't change whether or not that mission with Grunt was going to happen. So the only thing that changed was the placeholder. But nothing to get outraged about.

If anything my outrage comes from the idea that fans are not allowed to be outraged when games turn out to be bad. My example being the supposed fourth installment that had bad driving mechanics, rape jokes, strippers, & if you hated it people might have thought you were a Halo Fanboy.... Grand Theft Auto 4!.... Oops wrong one.... I meant Duke Nukem Forever....

Would (have) Jim or anyone sane honestly defend 3D Realm's so called artistic vision that was the bad game DNF if fans wanted it changed? Yet when fans got outraged by Mass Effect 3 all of the sudden its wrong. It is from this perspective you can see a double standard. That hypocrisy just irks me.

But as far as I'm concerned as much as I may dislike what I find in the games I already own I can only hope my response will make the next games better. And after spoiling some of ME3 for myself I'm looking forward to the next Shepard. Or better yet playing as a different alien race.

My final thought in this long rant is as long as I haven't spoiled it for myself I can only hope Shepard's death was more meaningful than Altair's in AC Revelations. Because I wanted to believe he had a child & died young fighting the good fight. Not some tool waiting for death.

 

[loa]

Just wait until they start selling the "real ending" as DLC before making statements about this being the last time talking about me3.
This'll be an interesting precedent.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Biowares intention from the start was to have a crap ending so they could milk us for more DLC. It's a really sad state of affairs and it seems to be the new trend in dlc

This.

So what is it, Jimmy? What's your actual stance on this mess?

I need to explain that I've played the entire trilogy as a Male Paragon Shepard, start to finish. I came to love the writing and the big selling point of choice, while still finding room to criticize shit that got in the way (like the clusterfucky inventory in 1 and the planet probing in 2).

But then came 3 that not only fell back into bad habits a la Resident Evil 5, the ending (notice singular, because there is only ONE ending) gave absolutely no closure, instead patronising us with 10 minutes of asspull after asspull that completely buttfucked all continuity and established lore, erasing all the choices the players had made thus far and slamming us with a criminal cliffhanger, then an extremely mindless stinger, and then finally an end-game prompt that basically tells the players to buy DLC.

I'm furious because I've never felt so betrayed and cheated, despite the fact that I've had similar feelings with Devil May Cry 4, Ratchet & Clank All 4 One and Sly 3. What I mean is I'm extremely disinclined to buy games and movies anymore because every sequel, if they aren't improving upon their predecessors, just suck harder and harder, and then the money virus shines through it all by taking a green shit all over the respective series. When you're a long-standing fan of a series and then the next instalment comes that fucks everything, it doesn't matter who you are, you're gonna be bitter.

To be more specific - Devil May Cry 1 was a genre-launcher, despite being bland, unrefined and suffering from a bit of forced dialogue. 2 was a fucking mess because you had to slot in your powers instead of buying them from a store. 3 reverted back to 1's gameplay and introduced Styles, but suffered from not being able to switch on the spot. 4 is mechanically the best by refining the previous elements, but pulls a Metal Gear Solid 2 by replacing our beloved protagonist with a whiny, awkward ************ whose sword has a... Motorcycle revving handle that sprays fuel on the blade...

Ratchet & Clank all kicked ass until they fell back into the bad habit of 4 health points and shoehorned 4-player co-op with non-controllable camera and separated character levelling.

Sly 3 ended on a cliffhanger that was well overdue for a resolution once Sly 4 was announced, but then I watched the trailers and instantly thought, "They're completely ignoring the continuity". And the current developers are the ones who were in charge of porting the Sly trilogy to the HD collection for the PS3. Ascended fanboys.

Thus, me raging against Mass Effect 3 is due to that it fell back on that stupid inventory, mods and grenades micromanagement, but even more when everything that I had laborously shot my way through was just thrown out of the window with a monumental "fuck you" of an ending that can only be described as wrenching the controller from your hand, shouting obscenities in your face before forcing your hand down your pocket to get your wallet and get out your credit card and then straight-facedly implying you can "expand" on "the legend of Shepard" with DLC.

 

[Gameonicon]

In the coming weeks more and more members of the so called "gaming press" will come to the same conclusion because they will realise how wrong their reaction about the "Retakers" was. But it doesn't change the fact that they have discredited the people who had serious concerns about the ending and I am not talking about the childplay-refund-trolling-deaththreatening-FTC-complaining idiots. I am talking about the fans that produced petitions, videos, pictures, comics and podcasts to express their feelings. For some cynics that might seem to be pointless or even childish but in my opinion it is a good thing that people won't eat up every crap they get served.

PS: And to all the people saying that there are more important things in life to complain about... you are right but we are on a gaming site so please do not wonder that the main focus is not on environment and/or politics.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

What a terrible intro. Trying a little hard, Jim? Yes. Yes you are.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Why do half the drawings on here have penises? It just seems a little juvenile and detracts from the intelligent point being made.

It's called Deranged Art. It's fun/interesting to look at and prevents the show from being a podcast.

And it shouldn't matter at all to be honest. His points don't become any less valid because some people are uncomfortable seeing a badly drawn penis.

It tells us a lot about Jim's mentality and level of intelligence.

"Herp der, it's a penis. How crude. Har har. You're just too up yourself to get it."

God I hate Jim.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Actually, Bob has seen the video and made a reply on his gaming website.

I stand corrected. Though the reply in question just further cements what a pretentious douche Bob is.

I dunno, I don't think it's really fair to say he's douchey for having his own point of view. If he disagrees with the points raised in his video then that's his prerogative I guess.

What I WILL say is douchey however is the way he opens up his post, mentioning the "trolling" he's been bombarded with for the past two weeks. I mean "trolling"? Really?

Here's a thought Bob, maybe if you hadn't gone on Twitter and started insulting people while having no knowledge regarding the matter of why said people were upset, perhaps then they wouldn't be "trolling" you.

I seriously don't think that bothers Bob. His twitter account has been a nest of vitriol for a while now. I think he was more mocking the fact that the people trying to troll him had no idea what they're talking about.

People with strong opinions often get a fair amount of hatred. I think the man is pretty thick-skinned by now. You should have seen the hatred the Other M thing generated.

I know what you mean but there's having a strong opinion and then there's just being an asshole. Bob doesn't seem to be able to differentiate between the two.

I keep hearing mentions of all this Other M stuff. Was it really that bad?

Yeah, it was. He not only defended the story by blaming the fans for confusing their "preconceived notions" about the character with her "actual" character and personality, but also took shots at the beloved Metroid Prime series (because they are first person shooters? He doesn't really explain).
Just watch it yourself.

 

[Estelindis]

I'm glad you re-examined your position on this, Jim. Fan movements can be whiny and entitled, but broadly speaking this one isn't. We don't necessarily want a happy ending. We want an ending that isn't totally different in quality and tone to the trilogy that preceded it.

I think you're right in saying this can be a good thing for gaming as a whole. Bioware and EA are really feeling the impact and strength of fan disappointment with the ending of Mass Effect 3. There have been lots of games returned on the grounds of false advertising (e.g. Casey Hudson saying that the ending wouldn't be exactly what we ended up getting), to the point where Amazon.co.uk stopped selling the game for a time. If publishers like EA get the message that strong endings are important in games, it could help developers to resist when they're being pushed to compromise on the ending to get the game out the door. Not that I have much of a sense that this actually happened in the case of Mass Effect 3, since Bioware's press releases on the subject make it seem like they still think the ending was brilliant... But I still have hope.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

What's this? A game journalist bothering to do some "research" into a topic before he mouths off about it? Unheard of!

 

[anthony87]

Why do half the drawings on here have penises? It just seems a little juvenile and detracts from the intelligent point being made.

It's called Deranged Art. It's fun/interesting to look at and prevents the show from being a podcast.

And it shouldn't matter at all to be honest. His points don't become any less valid because some people are uncomfortable seeing a badly drawn penis.

It tells us a lot about Jim's mentality and level of intelligence.

"Herp der, it's a penis. How crude. Har har. You're just too up yourself to get it."

God I hate Jim.

Well then why bother double posting in a thread you clearly have no interest in?

There, you've gotten some attention now go away.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Why do half the drawings on here have penises? It just seems a little juvenile and detracts from the intelligent point being made.

It's called Deranged Art. It's fun/interesting to look at and prevents the show from being a podcast.

And it shouldn't matter at all to be honest. His points don't become any less valid because some people are uncomfortable seeing a badly drawn penis.

It tells us a lot about Jim's mentality and level of intelligence.

"Herp der, it's a penis. How crude. Har har. You're just too up yourself to get it."

God I hate Jim.

Well then why bother double posting in a thread you clearly have no interest in?

There, you've gotten some attention now go away.

I clearly am interested--why else would I be here. There's this thing called criticism, see, and we use it to point out the floors in things so they may be improved or scrapped depending on how much needs to be done.

What an odd thing to say.

 

[370999]

Oddly enough, I concur with Moviebob (and actually took it a lot farther) on that particular point. A lot of people have acted like (and don't take this the wrong way - I'm quoting myself on this) "whiny entitled b***hes" on this.

Oh they have. However with Bob that accusation can be made straight back at him. and as I said before, a lot fo the naysayers have acted equally whiney and annoying, with shrill declartions of "entitlement" and "art ruined forever"

People hemmed and hawed and felt that Bioware betrayed them on "From Ashes", even though they know that's an EA hardline policy, that Bioware's never shown a propensity to betray them before, and before they ever actually saw it. From Ashes is literally nothing. A character that was overpowered and unlikable, and an hour's worth of faffing about in some recycled mapping from ME2.

Which there was a lot of information was cut from the game. Look I can't complain if people are very suspicious with Day one DLC particularly when it involves a character who seemed like he was going to be crucial to the story. He wasn't but before it came out I was very much uncomfortable with it.

A lot of gamers have been really incredibly silly about the ending. The "demanding" or "retaking" baloney is just the first step, like you have any position to demand, or you ever had enough of the game to be able to "retake" it. There was a lot of pretention, and a lot of ego in some of the things that were said.

I will agree with you that fans don't own it, so to me they literally can't demand change as they have no effective way of making Bioware change it. We are not talking The Satanic verses territory here but rather that it people disliekd the ending and wanted it changed. And i for one think that is perfectly valid.

Just a note on the retake position, that name was very much based on the ME3 add campaign about "retake Earth". So yeah it is misleading and some people do honestly believe it, but it was always intended to be more of a punny title then anything.

Part of it is Bioware's fault - Casey should have never lied in that interview - I just think he doesn't know how to properly "answer without answering" a question. It was stupid. He should have apologized already, and I think Bioware should have jumped on the issue way before now from a PR perspective.

Agreed. People make mistakes. But not admitting to them is bad form.

I'm sure there's a bunch of you guys that had nice, nuanced opinions over there, but there's an incredible amount of ego and pretention and entitlement there too. I never even tried my hand at the Bioware Social boards, because literally, there were so many posts I disagreed with on so many levels that if I started, I'd never get out. The ratio of good post to bad post was not 1:1 and it leaned heavily the wrong way. Small sample size, maybe. I'm willing to admit I didn't give it more then about ninety minutes of hard reading.

And that applies equally to your camp as well. I think people who don't respect the fact that other people have usually valid reasons for their opinions are idiots whetever they agree or disagree with me. There are some people on this forum's whose zealotry about this issue makes me uncomfortable.

But don't pretend this is one way. I'm going to have a hard time respecting you if you act like Bob was without any fault in how he presented it.

And those gamers who are on the bad side of things really needed to be taken to task. If you really were one of those gamers who were polite and constructive, don't take Bob's words to heart (or mine for that matter) - I personally, though I have a tendency for broad generalization (mostly for effect), certainly am not speaking about every one who commented to Bioware, but to you "whiny entitled b***hes" - you know who you are.

Without wishing to sound overly dramatic here, prehaps you should get your house in order before advising on others.

 

[pandorum]

Funny enough me and Jim have almost the same opinion i have never hated his show the actually this and extra credits.

 

[Formica Archonis]

I never thought there would be a day when I had more respect for Jim Sterling than I did for Bob Chipman, well done.

Same here. When the Jimquisition started I gave it a few tries and then gave up, while I watched MovieBob every week. Then MovieBob started getting on my nerves more and more while I decided to give Jim another chance after seeing some well-thought out text commentary of his. Their opinions on the ME3 fiasco have been the final turning points. Now it's Jim I watch weekly and Bob I ignore. Amazing what difference a year makes, huh?

 

[Mikeyfell]

Since I don't really feel like discussing plot points, I'll skip that.

However, the thing with Moviebob bothers me, only because that seems to be the general consensus from the RME side about the other side, that we're just some group of assholes trying to repress your legitimate free expression. I don't know how many times I've said "You have every right to complain." since this mess started, but it's a lot. I have a lot of friends who want the revamped ending, so I've been in a LOT of debates, online and otherwise. I know Bob said that at least four times in that video, even taking the time to step on the obnoxious voice effect pedal or thing for emphasis.

It bothers me because apparently nobody can seem to look at some of the things that were said and done in the RME community as members, view them objectively, and admit that there's a significant portion of the one side (which is by far the majority - I've seen less then a dozen other gamers admit they support my position) that have acted like entitled whiny bitches. It is not a tiny subsection of your group that's been out of line - some a lot more then others.

If you can't really see that and understand that, then I wonder if there's any way to preserve the artist/consumer relationship in video games - because if you can't see it other people, how can you objectively judge your own actions. If you feel that it's fair to demand a new ending. If you feel that games are commodities and subject to the same rules as a sandwich you didn't like or a pair of shoes that don't break in well, if you feel that Bioware owes you this new ending, if you feel the fact that Casey Hudson wasn't honest in an interview gives you permission to do these things - then I think the gaming community is in big trouble, because this is going to affect every major game going out.

Would you be disappointed with a new ending, regardless of what it was?

This argument does have it's fair share of childishness going around but most of it isn't being directed at Bioware. Most of it is being pointed at your side of the argument. (I mean shit, the first line is my post was "Jim was right." which implies that you and MovieBob were wrong. Which isn't true, because these are opinions)

This is the weirdest case I've ever seen on the internet, mostly because all the "Logical" points are in favor of the "entitled" side side. It's an argument from Bizarre-o-World.
Now I doubt that this will lead to anything world shaking, even if Bioware does change the ending. Because let's be honest "Major game" these days probably means Multyplayer focused Military FPS. Not so much room for emotional attachment to characters and events in a 5 hour campaign.
Mass Effect was a trilogy of games that gave you real emotional connections to all the characters in that galaxy (Because you spent more than half the game talking to them). With the ending being blue balls 5 years in the making, people were pissed, deservedly so. (Depending on who you ask)
I don't think this is going to bleed over into any other games.