CyricZ said:
I'm gonna forego what most everyone has been on about and just ask the simple question:
Is BioWare satisfied with what they've created?
If the answer is yes, then by all means, don't change the ending no matter how hard we complain. Leave us to our devices of creating our own little realities, and move on to your next project. Heck, you'll probably be better for it with a lack of rabid fanboys gnawing at your heels all the way.
All that said, there's a very real possibility that they're not satisfied with the ending they created. If statements are to be believed, then the content of the ending was still in contention around November of this past year, and they had built up one particular type of ending before scrapping it in favor of this new one.
Honestly, it does seem to me that BW's eyes were bigger than their stomachs for this project, and that, despite their lofty goals for a myriad branching story, they were forced to face the very real problems of time, money, and manpower, and had to consolidate things. I mean, it's obvious in ME3. For just one example, the destruction or preservation of the Collector Base, while played up to be a big decision in ME2, pretty much boils down to little more than which War Asset you get near the end of ME3. That obviously speaks of a thread that had to be cut short for one reason or another.
So, to my original point. If BW isn't happy with the ending they've given us and just kinda hoped we'd be happy and would just leave them alone, then obviously that has backfired. They should consider this an opportunity, not an obligation, to reassess what they wanted to say with this series. If it leads to a new ending, it should still be on their terms. Don't let any of the fans do any writing for you.
Sadly, given how they're still in a business (and at the mercy of a rather notorious parent company), I don't see this happening despite the desires of the dev team or the fanbase. I'll be interested to see how they plan to handle all this at PAX next week.
You had absolutely better believe that EA is taking this PR disaster seriously. They paid a whole lot of money for the Bioware name, reputation, and talent. They paid a lot of money to develop the games released under that studio name since the purchase. One unsatisfying game which failed to meet expectations of quality is survivable. Two of them in a row is a major problem because now that reputation EA paid for is badly damaged. Worse, there's a very real possibility that this dissatisfaction with the last two titles will be reflected in pre-orders and sales of the next. Someone will take the fall for this blunder. I have to believe that Casey Hudson's head is on the chopping block.
There's been a lot of pointing to "artistic integrity" as a defense for ME3's deus ex machina, but that argument really rings hollow to me. Video games are an art, yes. However, it is not the same sort of art as a painting or sculpture.
The closest similarity I can draw is with the music and television studios. In all three cases, yes, this is artistry. That being said, they both share other important components:
1)The goal is to create something people will like because...
2)You're trying to sell a product (album, video game, commercial time) for mass consumption.
3)All three share the same pitfall of marginalizing the people who buy their product by thinking of them as 'fans' instead of customers.
4)Business trumps art. Every. Time. Fantastic musicians get dropped from their record label for lack of mass-appeal, and great television shows get cancelled because not enough people are watching. Video games are no different in that they are a product first before they are art.
While it's great that the artists can make a statement about something via their chosen medium, ultimately vision and voice are tertiary to the product and making the sale. Making the sale starts with making your customers happy with your product. In either of these industries, when the artist starts to believe that his vision is more important than satisfying his customers (e.g. Casey Hudson), he's delivered a self-inflicted wound to appease his own ego. This can then be compounded because the ego may not accept criticism, constructive or otherwise, and leads to lashing out against the dissatisfied customers. Being dismissive of your customers' complaints creates resentment. Resentful customers are former customers.
Unlike the record and television industries, video games have a unique advantage in that they can be updated or altered via patching. Mistakes and errors in judgement can be corrected. A responsible studio head would leverage this in order to appease customers who might otherwise not return and "artistic integrity" be damned because the health of the studio is more important. A headline in Forbes said it best: "Fan service is good business."
