Poll: The Effectiveness of Boycotting: EA/ME3 Edition

[KennardKId5]

I didn't buy it because I've heard that ME3 is best enjoyed by playing the first two games first, and I didn't feel like playing two games of cover-based combat just to get a story. Mind you, this was before the ending details were out. The other reason was that I had used Origin briefly during the BF3 beta, and found it a buggy client full of glitches and frustration. The Day-One DLC just confirmed the solid belief that I would not buy the game.

 

[Phlakes]

Bought the Digital Whatever-the-hell Edition, played through it in a couple days, completely worth the money. And the strangest thing is, Origin has not exploded my computer, and EA has not kidnapped my wife and children demanding a ransom of undying loyalty to their products.

And I got a fucking brilliant game out of it too. Funny how that works.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I bought it without the DLC. And you know what? It turns out that most of the DLC was already on the disc. As a PC gamer who knows his way around some of the UT3 engine commands it was piss easy for me to unlock everything, and it seems that EA/Bioware can't detect if you acquire DLC files that aren't on the disc via other means. So I bought the core game on PC, and I have all the content now. Most of it I unlocked by editing game files.

Did you know that you can unlock the Collector's rifle for single player? That was advertized as an exclusive item that you can only get if you buy one of N7 Razer products. But all you have to do is tell your save game file that you have the gun. It is in the game. Fully functional. You can also unlock DLC weapons in SP using the same method. I think you can do that on consoles to with save file editor.

 

[DarthSka]

Bought the game standard (wanted Collector's Edition though) and haven't bought any DLC as of late. Might do so in the future when some extra cash falls in my lap, but for now, no.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

Mixture of 1 and 3, I bought it, and the DLC, played it, then traded it in to blockbuster, and a few months later, wrote this post, with too many commas.

 

[Tayh]

Bought standard edition and then purchased the DLC seperately from Bioware's website.
No regrets here, as usual is just a bunch of scare and doommongers trying to blow it out of proportions.

 

[Mausthemighty]

Pre-ordered the CE... I should have bought the regular edition instead. What I got was a robot dog which only walked around in the shuttle bay and didn't have a purpose beyond that. I loved the game before I heard about the ending... I haven't played it for a few months now because of that. I hope the extra content this summer will fix the ending. But I doubt I'll ever pre-order something from Bioware again, after Dragon Age 2 and this one.

 

[Ironside]

I purchased the game with the dlc and wish i hadn't. Bioware will have to do something rather special if they want me to consider buying one of their games again. Boycotts are useless as well - virtually nobody follows through with their threats - at least not enough to make a difference.

Wait you can return it on amazon.... even if it's PC? If so I just need to do something real quick...

I believe EA were offering refunds through Origin at one point as well were they not? BUt that may only have been for games purchased directly from thm.

id be curious to see how many people will bother to purchase future bioware releases

If BW makes another great game I'm sure a lot of people will buy it. However i expect a lot of people -myself included- will not be pre-ordering anymore and so will wait for reviews and price drops before they do buy it.

 

[Something Amyss]

Yes and 20% of Escapist users have Asperger Syndrome so yes a tiny sample size is highly biased.

But since they werent' trying to generate a statistical model, I have to ask, who the hell cares?

 

[viranimus]

Not boycotting ME3. I have every intention of buying it. I am just waiting for the 360 incarnation to drop to an personally acceptable price because I am really excited about utilizing the Kinect functionality with it, But Mass effect is not a major top shelf franchise for me personally.

However, I fully intend to play the game as it came on disc. For one, because I WANT the true ending, regardless of how it is. And two, because I have come to find out that Microsoft has mirrored Sonys "you waive your right to sue us" provision in firmware updates, so I wont be able to play the DLC without extensive work, or on a different platform.


I do not have to have played it to know that the game, despite its shorter development cycle IS a good game, enjoyable game, and a worthy entry to the series, and my play thru will tell if its a worthy finale to Shepard's tale (note not MY tale, Shepard's tale, In part because I want to get the more canonical ending by NOT importing files and decisions)

Then, In about a year, when all three are available to link on PC, I will get cheap copies and do a linked run thru. (provided my backlog is clear at that point)

So, to me, I understand people. I also understand a LOT of people love nothing but to whine ***** and complain about things not going their way, and the remaining anonymity of the internet allows them to do that with unending impunity. So I understand that Bioware put a lot of time, work, and effort into the game as a whole. It might not be perfect but there is simply no way humanly possible it could be as bad as some have portrayed it, and certainly it was never worth the knee jerk unsatisfied rage that it generated, and likely would have generated under any circumstances because you simply cannot ever please everybody.

And also the point of playing the "unpatched" ending, is so I can see what Bioware actually pushed out the gate, because I REALLY have a sneaking suspicion that when I see it for myself I will think "My god, people totally missed how ingenious this actually is." But again, time will tell.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Yes and 20% of Escapist users have Asperger Syndrome so yes a tiny sample size is highly biased.

But since they werent' trying to generate a statistical model, I have to ask, who the hell cares?

The point is a limited pool of 32 users on a page of an 833 is not what the rest of the boycott was like.

 

[Something Amyss]

The point is a limited pool of 32 users on a page of an 833 is not what the rest of the boycott was like.

You mean not necessarily, which is a fairly important distinction.

Though I suppose the lion share of MW2 players were new buys because ponies.

I don't know. They were all over my friend's lists, too. I'm not a fan of the personal anecdote as a model, but it's sufficient to demonstrate the built-in hypocrisy of gamers.

Hell, a lot of people on here were so outraged with ME3 that they were planning on Boycotting EA/Bioware...But only AFTER they bought ME3.

 

[Limecake]

boycott's don't work and frankly it's starting to get kind of ridiculous. Feel free to not buy the game if you honestly don't want to buy them but don't run to the internet to call everyone who actually wanted to play the game 'consumer sheep' or 'fanboys'

The boycott for MW2 was because gamers discovered it wouldn't include dedicated servers, "Greedy!" the people cried "They are ruining the industry!"

Now several years later CoD games still don't support dedicated servers and has the game industry been seriously affected by it? No not really. All that happens is that on occasion the host of a game will leave and you'll have to migrate hosts.

It's a tiny inconvenience at most, and if you're focusing on the one tiny detail you hate you're going to miss the other details you actually like.

It just goes to show that gamers tend to overreact to most things.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

The point is a limited pool of 32 users on a page of an 833 is not what the rest of the boycott was like.

You mean not necessarily, which is a fairly important distinction.

Though I suppose the lion share of MW2 players were new buys because ponies.

I don't know. They were all over my friend's lists, too. I'm not a fan of the personal anecdote as a model, but it's sufficient to demonstrate the built-in hypocrisy of gamers.

Hell, a lot of people on here were so outraged with ME3 that they were planning on Boycotting EA/Bioware...But only AFTER they bought ME3.

I already posted sales for Europe that showed an exact drop in sales(compared to CoD 4) of how many people were saying they were going to boycott. Granted those were retail only but once again limited pools and friends are not what sets the trend for the whole group. If we want to go by my friends it was ~90% effective.

The numbers were from VGchartz.

Now granted I am not saying games aren't hypocritical what I am saying is that the image provided is an awful example. Since they did bring dedicated servers back it obviously did something.

The boycott for MW2 was because gamers discovered it wouldn't include dedicated servers, "Greedy!" the people cried "They are ruining the industry!"

Black Ops brought back in dedicated server as well as Modern Warfare 3. The only one not to include them was MW 2.

 

[thespyisdead]

i bought ME3 mainly because it's ME3, which is part of the ME universe... the "support" i showed to EA is only a side effect of this purchase

 

[Freechoice]

how do i re-act to ME3's release?

with a resounding 'meh'

The whole thing is a mehss.

 

[Vegosiux]

Though I suppose the lion share of MW2 players were new buys because ponies.

Isn't that pretty much the reason for most of the pre-orders or first day buys of any given AAA release? Well, not necessarily ponies, of course, but often something equally irrational. I mean, we could also look at the numbers of how many people bought, to remain on topic, ME3 simply "Because ME3, Oh-em-gee!"; and call those silly as well.