Jimquisition: Changing A Game's Ending And Destroying Art

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samaugsch

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DugMachine said:
Yes, I get what the problem is. My point is who cares what they promised? It's a video game, meant for entertainment and to invoke some feelings or whatever. If you enjoyed 99% of this game and the last sucks, who cares? Why should any choices we make really matter when everything is wiped out? Just realistic to me.

But this is just my opinion. I thought the ending was meh but i'm not up in arms over this. So they went against what they said they were going give us. At least we still got a solid ass game.
I'd think that breaking promises wouldn't be good for the company. If a gaming company continues to break promises, why shouldn't anyone stop buying their games and play games from a different company? To answer the question "Why should any choices we make really matter when everything is wiped out?", they don't. That's one of the reasons people are upset. Gamers tend to expect different things out of their games. Some gamers want to control fate, some want to just blow shit up mindlessly, and some want to do puzzles. The last two Mass Effect games have been about making choices to determine how the game plays out. This is another reason people are upset. From their experience, Mass Effect is all about changing things by your actions. Seeing that everything they've done has ultimately led to fuck all, it's like they don't even matter. The whole time, they were playing as a side character. I'm not trying to act hostile. I'm just trying to explain what the problem might be.
 

Raika

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RT-Medic-with-shotgun said:
Raika said:
That's a really good question. Without that insufferable James Portnoy involved, Extra Consideration can only get better.
*hands Raika a helmet*
Hope i am not too late in delivering this, but at 7 pages i somehow doubt i got you this in time.
I'm good, dude, but thanks.
 
Aug 4, 2010
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A very reasonable, well thought out change of tune from Mr. Sterling. I enjoyed it, and agreed with what he had to say. Amazing what happens when folks in the game industry actually take the time to play the end and listen to ME3 players instead of writing them all off as entitled, children in adult form. Well played sir, well played.
 

Doug

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Jimothy Sterling said:
Changing A Game's Ending And Destroying Art

Does changing the ending to a videogame destroy it as a creative endeavor? Does altering a videogame to cater to fan demand set interactive art back a decade? How much influence should an audience have over a creator, and are gamers entitled to their opinions? In this spoiler-free video, Jim Sterling tackles Mass Effect 3 for the final time. Yes, it's the FINAL time. No more. Finito. Done. Thank Christ.

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Jim, there are many times I dislike you and don't agree with you. However, I have to take my hat off to you this time. You've listened to the fans, examined the grievances, and accepted some of them and shown how it's not wholly invalid. I didn't expect you to agree completely, but I'm glad to say you where very reasonable. Thank you.
 

mfeff

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By Javik I think he "gets" it.

Shogun Total War 2 - Art
Mass Effect 1 & 2 - Art
Ultima 7 and Part 2? - Art

Mass Effect 3 - Almost art, buried under a sea of pretentious junk added in willy-nilly. Which in turn acted like narrative bricks, ultimately sinking the ship. There is so much that is "conflicted" in this work, that it is hard "not" too see some serious management issues, especially concerning focus.

Convinced that Bioware just cannot, no... WILL not work within a reasonable matrix of sequel cannon-ology. Perhaps a parable of the Hyena? Dragon Age 2 had similar problems when it goes "on the rail" in narration.

Problems with "artistic vision"

Brad Mcquaid - hero to zero a man who had "A Vision"

Sword of the Stars 2 - Publisher rewrites it's contracts for 3rd party developer's the debacle was so bad.

Arena Net - Showed the Sylvari race for Guild Wars 2 at pax... some people boo'd 1~2 months later, total redesign, everyone is happy.

Yes, it is art. Also an "art form", which implies a utility in talent to work within a medium. Ultimately the end user, for better or worse, makes the call with their wallet.

Mass Effect 3, so poor in the second act, and ending on... well... if the idea was to sell DLC or to continue with the multi-player there has to be something to encourage further engagement with the material. That is not happening, thus financially, it could perhaps be considered another brick around the companies neck.

Visions, and "being artsie", is not the same as art or conducting the act of creating art, as ME3 fails to convey a message other than "too lazy to care".

Casey Hudson, background in Architecture... no wonder he wrote himself in as the "Architect" at the end of the game. Are not artist and designers repeatedly warned "NOT" to write themselves into a narrative?

Are artist creating a product for themselves? Or for an audience? It's a trend at Bioware. Shrug... money to slosh around I guess.
 

Simonoly

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Jimquisition is probably my favourite video series on here now.

I'm personally not too bothered if a new ending is made or not as it's highly unlikely it will be changed to something I rate any better. But I honestly don't understand how anyone can be massively upset about it being possibly changed. A developer releases a game and a large portion of the fans dislike the ending and deem it unacceptable, so the developer decides to change it to address fan concerns. Setting aside the whole 'artist integrity' argument for second how on earth is that a bad thing?!
 

J.d. Scott

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370999 said:
J.d. Scott said:
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.
For the record, I've spewed some incredible vitriol towards people on the opposite side of this (although, not for presenting reasonable arguments), so I'm no saint. It's partially because I tried some reasonable discussion strategies and people just went "NAH-UH! Casey Hudson lied!" or the equivalent. The other reason, and this is the big one is that I feel that this is an incredibly bad precedent for the gaming industry especially. To steal a quote from earlier -

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"
The idea that this could already make developers on other triple-A titles such as AC3 (arguably, none of the AC's have had great endings) or Bioshock scares me a great deal. The fact that your fanbase already acknowledges that you could do this again terrifies me. The fact that this would affect Ken Levine's work on Bioshock at all offends me.

This could be a great turning point that turns games from a medium where incredibly dynamic and challenging stories could be told while simultaneously allowing interactivity. Especially something like Bioshock, which is about an underwater, objectivist, art-deco world. It comments on labor movements and abuse thereof - the nature of an individual in a collective, and other high concept thoughts that have suddenly become more complicated to want to present to an audience post-Retake.

We already know that Infinite provides commentary on jingoism and American exceptionalism in the early 1920s-1930s. What if a subsection of gamers misinteprets that as anti-Americanism or anti-patriotism. All it takes is one conservative commentator to comment on it (and Fox News loves attacking video games...) and this same type of thing could pop back up.

I wish I could be optimistic about this - that this will tell developers not to half-ass endings, but I think the opposite is true - it'll make developers want to say as little as possible - to provide you with as little narrative, as little choice, and as little thought-provoking or high-concept thought as possible. The less someone says, the less room there is for critique.

When you feel that this is the end outcome of all this nonsense, as a lover of games that break the mold and challenge the medium, you want to say you fought back as best you could. Everyone wants to be Winston Churchill - nobody wants to be remembered as Neville Chamberlain.

(And no, I'm not drawing a direct parallel between this and Britain fighting Nazis in WW2 - just the value of conflict vs appeasement)
 

templar1138a

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Wow. This is the first episode of this series I actually got something out of. Granted, I've only seen two others; the one on piracy (eh) and the very first one, which I already commented on.

I have yet to play Mass Effect 3, and all the whining made me upset because I was fearful for spoilers. However, given the (relatively) reasonable statements you've made in this video, I'm now willing to wait for a version with a new ending to be released. Because unlike in your first episode, you didn't simply rant about it. You put it in terms I could understand without spoiling anything.

I respect and appreciate that. I think I may just start watching this series on a weekly basis.
 

370999

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J.d. Scott said:
For the record, I've spewed some incredible vitriol towards people on the opposite side of this (although, not for presenting reasonable arguments), so I'm no saint. It's partially because I tried some reasonable discussion strategies and people just went "NAH-UH! Casey Hudson lied!" or the equivalent. The other reason, and this is the big one is that I feel that this is an incredibly bad precedent for the gaming industry especially. To steal a quote from earlier -
I would say any spewing of vitriol is wrong. It makes me find your argument of "move on" to eb very hard to accept if you are equally guilty of the same over emotional response.

That word precedent mean exactly that. It is a precedent. We are not talking about law. We are talking games.

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"
The idea that this could already make developers on other triple-A titles such as AC3 (arguably, none of the AC's have had great endings) or Bioshock scares me a great deal. The fact that your fanbase already acknowledges that you could do this again terrifies me. The fact that this would affect Ken Levine's work on Bioshock at all offends me.
The fact that you think Levine is so weak willed offends me. How exactly will he be forced to change his games. Levine (and Bioware) are the ultimate determinate in their art. They decide what happens. Anyone who suggests otherwise is insane. So you seem to be guilty of the same behavior you criticize the retake ME crowd, conflating the role of the audience, with the role of the artist.

People can make as much noise as they want, it doesn't mean the artist will (or should) change the end product.

This could be a great turning point that turns games from a medium where incredibly dynamic and challenging stories could be told while simultaneously allowing interactivity. Especially something like Bioshock, which is about an underwater, objectivist, art-deco world. It comments on labor movements and abuse thereof - the nature of an individual in a collective, and other high concept thoughts that have suddenly become more complicated to want to present to an audience post-Retake.
Again you seem to be acting like any admission that sometime the fans are right and elements don't work, means the complete surrender of creative control to fandom.

We already know that Infinite provides commentary on jingoism and American exceptionalism in the early 1920s-1930s. What if a subsection of gamers misinteprets that as anti-Americanism or anti-patriotism. All it takes is one conservative commentator to comment on it (and Fox News loves attacking video games...) and this same type of thing could pop back up.
And Levine can say "I refuse to change it", and that finishes the matter.

I wish I could be optimistic about this - that this will tell developers not to half-ass endings, but I think the opposite is true - it'll make developers want to say as little as possible - to provide you with as little narrative, as little choice, and as little thought-provoking or high-concept thought as possible. The less someone says, the less room there is for critique.
Conjecture. Developers will be artists and come up with different ideas, Publishers will support the one they think will generate the most cash return for the least investment.

When you feel that this is the end outcome of all this nonsense, as a lover of games that break the mold and challenge the medium, you want to say you fought back as best you could. Everyone wants to be Winston Churchill - nobody wants to be remembered as Neville Chamberlain.

(And no, I'm not drawing a direct parallel between this and Britain fighting Nazis in WW2 - just the value of conflict vs appeasement)
I would hope so as you accusations that the retake ME crowd are whiny and over the top is well incredibly hypocritical.

I am a tad amused at how, the very concept of an artist saying "maybe the fans are right on this issue, maybe I should change it?" is completely wrong and sets a horrifying precedent, yet you profess to love the idea of challenging the medium. In my eyes anything that can make a product better is a good thing, and in this case, IMHO I know you disagree, this infinetly would.
 

TastyCarcass

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people tend to misunderstand the phrase "bad ending".

It doesn't mean unhappy, it means bad. It was shit.
 

DTWolfwood

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i was not expecting what i heard from this vid. Honestly thought it was going to go the other way. I am delightfully surprised, way to go Jim. (^.^)b
 

josephmatthew10

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Raika said:
Mikeyfell said:
Who would have guessed, Jim is right again.

So we have Jim and MovieBob with polar opposite opinions, what ever happened to Extra Consideration?
That's a really good question. Without that insufferable James Portnoy involved, Extra Consideration can only get better.
I'll certainly miss James' contributions if/when the column comes back. What annoyed you about him?
 

willbailes

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Jim, please stop with all the penises, I don't want to be distracted by them, all I can think about when I see that is, "Whats going though his mind when he draws these? Does he take his precious time making sure it looks like he wants it?" Then I laugh thinking of you saying

"That's too big...not enough foliage"
 

German Borbon

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no Jim you are wrong, mass effect 3 is what it is, if you change that, is no longer mass effect 3, is no longer bioware idea, your show had bad feedback but you never changed previous episodes. what mass effect fans want is the ending to be changed. is like if someone didnt like the epilogue from harry pottr and because of that JK Rowling took the alredy released book, shred the last ten pages and stapled some fanfiction she took from the internet. that book is still Harry Potter and the deadly hallows?, no it isnt, but if she writes an 8th book telling the story of some other kid in hogwarts that is ok. i am not against Bioware wanting to deal with this, but i dont aprove a new ending, an epilogue is the right solution
 

Atmos Duality

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Dastardly said:
However, I'll see your "Maybe Developers Will Learn" and counter with "...that they can monetize their endings." If BioWare releases this ending fix as paid content, we'll travel farther and faster down that slippery slope where developers sell us an unfinished product at full price, and then charge individually for the missing pieces.
I fear the day when it ceases to be a Slippery Slope, and becomes a legitimate "trend" in the business.
 

gbemery

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Jimothy Sterling said:
Thank God for finally giving Jim some sense. Funny how a lot of critics after actually seeing the ending stop and think that maybe the Retake ME3 movement isn't just a bunch of chimps throwing feces at Starry Night. Good show Jim you have not run me off yet. Now maybe you can smack some sense into Bob with his whole "thanks again for setting games as an art back"
 

uncanny474

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Azex said:
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
Thank you, Captain Obvious. You gonna tell us that Bioshock 2 was a rushed cash-in now?
 

SamuelT

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Nice.

When this show started, everyone was damning it to hell, but now that he agrees with the general public, it's suddenly "Oh Jim, truely you're a god among men. Thank christ for you."