Mass Effect 3: Retake Mass Effect Ending Child's Play Movement

[irishda]

The ends justifies the means eh.

Yes, because calling attention to a 100% harmless petition by donating money to a worthy charity is totally the kind of situation that calls for invoking "the ends justify the means".

Are any more clowns going to come out of that car you're driving, or is that about it now?

Yeah, I got it wrong. The means is noble (giving money to charity), it's the end that's kind of despicable (only because they wanted attention). What if Mass Effect had a popular ending instead? How many kids get helped then. Speaks loads about humanity that they'll only help if they get what they want.

 

[Fappy]

Most fans have admitted that they would pay for it if they have to. Personally I'd prefer it be free. The less damage they can cause their brand at this point the better.

Then what damage is done to the brand if everyone's going to continue to support it, albeit begrudgingly?

The implication that if they actually need to pay for it they will no longer do business with Bioware after completing the true ME trilogy experience. I know its likely a hollow threat by most, but it is very likely I will avoid Bioware future titles if they pull that shit. I'm already not buying the "From Ashes" DLC so we'll see how much they can destroy my perception of them.

If you give them an implication, then there's no guarantee it won't be repeated. Maybe they won't try it again out of fear of losing business, maybe they will just to see if everyone will still pay for it. The key here is people will no longer do business AFTER they do more business (completing the franchise). But what if the ME experience was sacrificed for the sake of showing Bioware that its customers weren't gonna tolerate those sort of business practices? What if people could let go of the story and just let it die without finding out what happens? What would speak louder, forum posts or sales numbers?

I know exactly what you mean and I am not going to attempt to argue that the logic behind "I will boycott you AFTER I buy X game" is in anyway sound, but ME3 does present a rather unique case. This isn't just the ending to one game people are upset about, its an entire franchise. A franchise that began when Bioware was still calling all of the shots. I think a lot of people are saying two things:

- If you give us the revised ending for free you are admitting your mistakes and reassuring me that my opinion and by extension my business truly does matter to you

And,

- If you make me pay for it you are cashing in on a short term investment, but I will lose respect for you, possibly not buy from you in the future and you will lose out in the long term

So in the end I fall on the logic that this is an extremely unique case. I read a quote somewhere stating, "I would pay 10 dollars just to make this ending go away." If this as widespread a notion as I think it is I don't think it is so easy to write these annoyed customers off as being melodramatic hypocrites who will pre-order the next Bioware title as soon as its available. But then again we are an immature community and both sides of this very argument make that notion frighteningly clear. Only time will tell.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

There's a good chance that, even if the numbers swell as more people finish the game, 70-90% of people are enjoying the ending.

There's a poll on the Bioware forums with roughly 50,000 responses.

90% are "the ending ruined it".
2% are "the ending is fine as it is".

Forums are always a poor/biased sample population, but that's still a horrifying ratio if you're arguing that 70-90% of people are enjoying the ending.

 

[Sam17]

Childs Play is such a clichéd charity, dunno why gamers never want to do another more important charity other than CP since it's the 'gamers' charity

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Yeah, I got it wrong. The means is noble (giving money to charity), it's the end that's kind of despicable (only because they wanted attention). What if Mass Effect had a popular ending instead? How many kids get helped then. Speaks loads about humanity that they'll only help if they get what they want.

Well, I'm sorry to point this out, but you're wrong again. That money has already been donated to the charity. They're helping regardless of whether they get what they want or not. There's no threat to recall the donations if Bioware doesn't produce a new ending, and most of the people who are a part of that "movement" are pretty blunt about the fact they don't really expect much to come of this.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Childs Play is such a clichéd charity, dunno why gamers never want to do another more important charity other than CP since it's the 'gamers' charity

I hope this is a joke.

Because 'charity' and 'hipster' shouldn't be in the same sentence.

 

[Merrick_HLC]

My confusion is the notion that "most fans" have reached some sort of consensus on this.

The game has been in our hands for just over a week. That's hardly enough time for the 1 million plus owners to have beaten it. Furthermore, only about 1,400 people have donated money to the charity.

Great, good for charity, but 1,400 donations hardly equals consensus.

Beyond that, the FREE TO JOIN facebook group has about 26,500 members right now.

If there are 1,000,000 copies of the game already in the hands of gamers, and there are 26,500 people who are unhappy, then you're dealing with somewhere between 2 and 3% of all people who own the game. Let me reiterate: That's 2-3% of people who are even willing to click a "like" button--one of the easiest forms of activism on the planet.

There's a good chance that, even if the numbers swell as more people finish the game, 70-90% of people are enjoying the ending.

If only 2.5% of people are mobilizing against something, there's a good chance they're in the vast minority. If that's the case, and I'm almost certain it is, then I can't imagine the gall it takes to demand something is changed that would cripple authorial credibility.

In terms of people complaining about choices made, I think (as I've said elsewhere) it has a lot to do with people assuming that the ending is only what takes place after the player makes his/her final input and before you reappear on the ship.

That's not true.

The ending of Mass Effect 3 starts just prior to the "point of no return" assault, it includes the chance to interact with various members of the story, it includes several moments along the way that are colored by choices made in the first two games.

I'm not sympathetic to this movement at all. It's not just because I'm a fan of the current ending. It's also that I'm not a fan of this notion of crowd sourced creativity. It's up there with voting "1 out of 10" at Metacritic to make a point.

You didn't like it. It was too bleak. So is life. So is the Christ story that Shepard is based on. So is nearly every catalytic change. If reapers dropping onto earth and killing everyone didn't set the tone for you, what were you doing for hours and hours of gameplay that didn't make you think: "this won't all end up perfectly?"

I wonder how many people would have petitioned Spielberg because Saving Private Ryan had an ending that was too bleak. I wonder how silly they'd have seemed.

2 problems here.

1-# of People not complaining =/= people who like & are satisfied.
I haven't gone and liked that facebook page, but I don't like and am unsatisfied with the endings.
And I'm someone who is even pedantic enough to argue this crap online.
There's always more people who agree with activists than there are activists.
I'm not saying dislikers of the endings are or will be the majority, but you can't presume "Everyone who bought the game who didn't click like on this page loves the ending"

2-Allow me to rebut your "The reapers land on earth" thing with ME2.
ME2 starts with SHEPARD DYING.
The entire theme of the game is that it's a SUICIDE MISSION.
You start the end of the game by going to where it says LAUNCH SUICIDE MISSION.

And you know what happens at the end of that game if you worked hard and made the right choices? EVERYONE LIVES.


ME1 & ME2 told the player "Yeah, everyone says it can't be done, everyone says you'll lose and you'll die. But if you do it just right, you can get a really happy awesome ending."

How dare people buying the third game in a series expect it follow the logic the first 2 games in the series taught them to expect.

 

[Fappy]

There's a good chance that, even if the numbers swell as more people finish the game, 70-90% of people are enjoying the ending.

There's a poll on the Bioware forums with roughly 50,000 responses.

90% are "the ending ruined it".
2% are "the ending is fine as it is".

Forums are always a poor/biased sample population, but that's still a horrifying ratio if you're arguing that 70-90% of people are enjoying the ending.

People have this flawed notion that if you don't speak up it means you're on the majority side of any given issue. This is not how statistics works.

 

[irishda]

---
To ask the author to write another chapter isn't 'entitlement' or 'immaturity'

Then you're not a writer. When an author publishes a work, we don't ask them to add another chapter. We either accept it as a good story or hate it as a bad story. To ask someone to write more for their own story is a disservice because they wouldn't have stopped if they didn't have more to add. This is the result of a person's creative inspiration. To ask people to be inspired to make more is a bad thing because you're forcing a process that can't be forced.

Maybe Bioware does have more to this story's end that will be released in coming days as DLC, and they're just holding out cause they know everyone (especially the people that complained so bitterly about how much they hate Bioware and the ending) will rush out to snap it up. And then people will complain about the business model despite simultaneously supporting it. But as it stands for now, this is the ending you get. If you don't like the book, bring the book back and find an author that knows how to end a story.

Actually I have written.
I'll admit I'm no published author, I've never been paid for it, and it's a hobby more than anything.

My stories were published entirely freely on various websites, and ya know what....I got people requesting I write more of X or Y, I got people making suggestions for what should happen in future chapters if I chose to write them.

I didn't view any of those reactions, even the people who bashed my writing, as "entitled immature" people.

Sometimes I took their suggestions to heart and tried to give them what they wanted.
Sometimes I ignored the suggestions and did other things.

I never once begrudged anyone for suggesting or wanting certain things in the story.

Which turned out better though, writing for others or writing for yourself? Occasionally you'll get people who know what they're talking about and give you genuinely good advice beyond just "I liked this character, why can't you have more of them?" And occasionally you'll come up with some real turds on your own. But overall, the work that comes from your own critical eye will be far beyond what other people think should happen, because they're your characters, and you understand them better than anyone else. People get emotionally attached and invested in your characters but that doesn't give them the right to dictate to you what happens with your characters. Because, again, they're your characters.

That's the tricky thing about video games. There's still this wall because we get to feel like we're crafting our own story, especially with companies like Bioware, but ultimately we're still just playing a story that someone else already wrote. And we're asking them to do something different with their characters and their universe then what they already did, which is ultimately gonna feel like a cop-out or something forced.

Honestly the middle ground was generally best IMO.
Sometimes adapting to add more of a character or idea the fans added twisted things around in positive ways.
When I didn't think it would work, I just didn't do it.

Also, the problem most people have with the ending in ME3 is that it does feel like a forced cop-out to them.

This is not some situation where the orig writer had a definitve vision that the fans are just disappointed with the outcome of.

This is the result of a lot of different writers having input, changing things, rearranging them.
Let me use a previous ME example.

Tali was obviously not intended by the original writers of ME to be a romance-able character.
Fans wanted it.

She was made romanceable in the 2nd game.

I admit I wasn't checking the forums at the time but I'm doubting there was a huge negative reaction to Bioware changing the story to fit what the fans wanted.

There wasn't, because the fans got what they wanted. No one complains when they get what they want.

Although I wouldn't credit a new romance with a fundamental shift in story. The romances in Bioware never really come off as important to the story (except for Morrigan in DA, but that's for another time), only because absolutely EVERYONE on your team has something of a crush on you anyways even if you're in a relationship with another. I've only ever played the first one, and I did the nasty with Ashley, but Liara still kept bugging me for sex and Tali still giggled around like a schoolgirl every time I said "good job".

Adding the romance wasn't really shifting the story in a fundamental direction. It just amounted to "we want to have sex with the alien in the bio-suit and have slightly different dialogue with her."

 

[Fappy]

Childs Play is such a clichéd charity, dunno why gamers never want to do another more important charity other than CP since it's the 'gamers' charity

I hope this is a joke.

Because 'charity' and 'hipster' shouldn't be in the same sentence.

Unless its a charity that donates the newest apple products to poor hipsters.

 

[irishda]

Yeah, I got it wrong. The means is noble (giving money to charity), it's the end that's kind of despicable (only because they wanted attention). What if Mass Effect had a popular ending instead? How many kids get helped then. Speaks loads about humanity that they'll only help if they get what they want.

Well, I'm sorry to point this out, but you're wrong again. That money has already been donated to the charity. They're helping regardless of whether they get what they want or not. There's no threat to recall the donations if Bioware doesn't produce a new ending, and most of the people who are a part of that "movement" are pretty blunt about the fact they don't really expect much to come of this.

Yeah with the expectation that it'll help them get what they want. I never said they were taking the money away. They're not holding the charity hostage, but again, it's not something that would've happened without this ulterior motive.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Childs Play is such a clichéd charity, dunno why gamers never want to do another more important charity other than CP since it's the 'gamers' charity

I hope this is a joke.

Because 'charity' and 'hipster' shouldn't be in the same sentence.

Unless its a charity that donates the newest apple products to poor hipsters.

I want that charity to not exist, but I bet it does.

That saddens me...

 

[Fappy]

Childs Play is such a clichéd charity, dunno why gamers never want to do another more important charity other than CP since it's the 'gamers' charity

I hope this is a joke.

Because 'charity' and 'hipster' shouldn't be in the same sentence.

Unless its a charity that donates the newest apple products to poor hipsters.

I want that charity to not exist, but I bet it does.

That saddens me...

I like the part where Hipsters buy (nicer) cloths in bulk from Thrift stores so that the people who can't actually afford nice cloths get stuck with the shit. So thoughtful they are.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Childs Play is such a clichéd charity, dunno why gamers never want to do another more important charity other than CP since it's the 'gamers' charity

I hope this is a joke.

Because 'charity' and 'hipster' shouldn't be in the same sentence.

Unless its a charity that donates the newest apple products to poor hipsters.

I want that charity to not exist, but I bet it does.

That saddens me...

I like the part where Hipsters buy (nicer) cloths in bulk from Thrift stores so that the people who can't actually afford nice cloths get stuck with the shit. So thoughtful they are.

Hey, they wouldn't be hipsters if they weren't dickheads.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Yeah with the expectation that it'll help them get what they want. I never said they were taking the money away. They're not holding the charity hostage, but again, it's not something that would've happened without this ulterior motive.

No, you specifically said they would ONLY help if they get what they want. That was incorrect. They've already helped, regardless of whether or not they got what they wanted. You are now shifting the poles to complain that the donation has an ulterior motive. Which is completely irrelevant to the charity.

Again, this is a pointless and counter productive thing to complain about. A charity is making a lot of money, sick kids are going to benefit, why on earth people are taking the time out to complain is beyond me.

http://twitter.com/#!/JessicaMerizan/status/179800731065393153

Those monsters!

 

[Merrick_HLC]

Yeah, I got it wrong. The means is noble (giving money to charity), it's the end that's kind of despicable (only because they wanted attention). What if Mass Effect had a popular ending instead? How many kids get helped then. Speaks loads about humanity that they'll only help if they get what they want.

Well, I'm sorry to point this out, but you're wrong again. That money has already been donated to the charity. They're helping regardless of whether they get what they want or not. There's no threat to recall the donations if Bioware doesn't produce a new ending, and most of the people who are a part of that "movement" are pretty blunt about the fact they don't really expect much to come of this.

Yeah with the expectation that it'll help them get what they want. I never said they were taking the money away. They're not holding the charity hostage, but again, it's not something that would've happened without this ulterior motive.

And if you believe in Ayn Rand there's no such thing as pure altruism, people normally give to charity cause it makes them happy/feel better about themselves.

In other words.
One can make a case that the very concept of charity wouldn't exist without ulterior motives.

(Note: I'm not really a fan of Rand, but just saying 'selfish motives for giving to charity' can extend very far)

 

[Fappy]

Yeah with the expectation that it'll help them get what they want. I never said they were taking the money away. They're not holding the charity hostage, but again, it's not something that would've happened without this ulterior motive.

No, you specifically said they would ONLY help if they get what they want. That was incorrect. They've already helped, regardless of whether or not they got what they wanted. You are now shifting the poles to complain that the donation has an ulterior motive. Which is completely irrelevant to the charity.

Again, this is a pointless and counter productive thing to complain about. A charity is making a lot of money, sick kids are going to benefit, why on earth people are taking the time out to complain is beyond me.

http://twitter.com/#!/JessicaMerizan/status/179800731065393153

Those monsters!

That is probably the most positive response anyone has gotten from Bioware since this hole debacle started. I'm glad to see that cooler heads prevail. That twitter post invalidates half the arguments made in this thread in one sentence and an emote.

 

[Steven Kilpatrick]

It's a relatively impossible situation after only a week.

50,000 respondents is still only 5% of the total owners (give or take, these numbers are extremely fluid right now).

You also have the normal problem that when people hate something, especially if the internet is involved, they pad the numbers. How many people voted simply because they don't like day one DLC? How many people created an account to vote twice? These are the types of things the internet has brought us.

Stats are difficult. I know, I have a degree that forced me to use them all the time. The trick is, the people who are actively talking about this is still a fraction of the overall Mass Effect 3 population sample. Beyond that, it's an untrustworthy sample because in only a week it's come off as knee jerk and disrespectful of any ideas that didn't reinforce their own wants.

It's easy to talk about how we can't count everyone as "for" something simply because they didn't speak up. But the same is true on the other side.

What you can do is move under the auspice of the following: Over a million people have owned it and the movement to change things includes less than 5% of those people. That may not mean that only 5% of the people feel that way, but so far the suggestion seems to be, "Assume the fractional minority simply hasn't gotten around to yelling loudly yet, and will eventually outpace the people who enjoyed it, thus leading you to change your game in the long run."

That makes no sense, and I've spoken to a number of people that I trust and read plenty of reliable opinions from writers I trust (not folks at Gamestop or Kotaku, but guys like Ben Kuchera and the folks at Penny Arcade) to convince me that I'm not the only person who was touched and satisfied by the current ending...which I don't happen to see as all that bleak in the first place.

We've seen plenty of metacritic scores get driven down by scores of 1 out of 10. There's no way I'll trust the early numbers of an angry and vocal and mobilized minority. They are far too prone to skew the numbers in their favor using internet carpet bombing tactics.

At least the Child's Play thing is a sign that Bioware has a different caliber of angry fan than, say, Infinity Ward (no offense guys), but it still feels off to me. Can't put a statistical value on something just seeming off base. Even if I could, I'm not sure I'd trust it either.

 

[JCBFGD]

-snip-

Hate to interrupt your little rant there, but I've had a conversation with some other guy about this whole thing. So go read that. It's summed up there.

The guy also said I phrased it rudely. I did. And I'm sorry for that. I just got sick of the whole entitlement thing going on with the ME3 ending and the day-one DLC.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

My confusion is the notion that "most fans" have reached some sort of consensus on this.

The game has been in our hands for just over a week. That's hardly enough time for the 1 million plus owners to have beaten it. Furthermore, only about 1,400 people have donated money to the charity.

Great, good for charity, but 1,400 donations hardly equals consensus.

Beyond that, the FREE TO JOIN facebook group has about 26,500 members right now.

If there are 1,000,000 copies of the game already in the hands of gamers, and there are 26,500 people who are unhappy, then you're dealing with somewhere between 2 and 3% of all people who own the game. Let me reiterate: That's 2-3% of people who are even willing to click a "like" button--one of the easiest forms of activism on the planet.

There's a good chance that, even if the numbers swell as more people finish the game, 70-90% of people are enjoying the ending.

You got any stats to back up your claim? The other side's numbers may be from a small pool, but at least it is better than not having any numbers at all.