The Big Picture: Mutants and Masses

[Taunta]

Spoiler: space-saving snip

I find it amusing that after ragging on Transformers and god knows how many other geek things that were done wrong, Bob defends Bioware when they step wrong. Seems a little ironic/hypocritical. When things are done horribly, are not the fans entitled to complain, or should they just take the blow quietly and be happy for some perverse reason?

Once again, we have knee-jerk reactions that failed to listen hard enough to get the point. Bob never said you couldn't ***** about TMNT or ME3 being a betrayal. He just said that when you storm into their offices demanding that the product be changed to conform to your arbitrary expectations, you're going to do damage to the medium, in addition to just looking silly.

And Bob's critique of the Bay-Transformers films while then defending Bioware is in no way hypocracy. The Bay films warrant criticism because they're crap from a storytelling and filmmaking standpoint, not just because they aren't what the fans wanted. But while ME3's endings deserve their own criticism, that doesn't give the fans the power to force Bioware into changing it because it doesn't conform to their expectations.

Hypocracy means saying one thing and then proceeding to do the exact opposite thing. It doesn't mean taking an opposing stance when the conditions and circumstances change and the issue shifts from one thing to another. In fact, being able to turn around and take the other side when the first position starts supporting a more extreme view is part of being a rational person.

Whilst the extents some fans have gone to to protest against Bioware's ending may well be too far, from his video I took away that Bob was happy for Bioware to do absolutely anything they wanted, and people should shut up about seeing a story that they had sculpted for years brought to a shallow, unfulfilling close. As Bob complained about Bay and his treatment of the Transformers IP, Mass Effect fans complain about the ending for the game.

If his comments were limited to purely to the types filing lawsuits then fine, but the campaign to have the ending changed or extended is still valid; gaming is an interactive medium, people want to have their say. It's not like people have just spent one and a half hours watching thin exposition over explosions, they've spend in the region of 100+ hours being the main character, being told that they are changing the game world with their actions. Should anyone be surprised that they seek to change the ending by their actions too?

I think fans are entirely within their rights to petition and campaign to have the ending changed, or at least expanded and explained. I've seen the footage and it's quite disappointing for the media setup that preceded the game's release. Of course, that's an opinion, and Bioware's well within their rights to stick to their guns but that's not what we've been hearing from their announcements - they don't seem to know whether they intended to make a fuss for publicity or whether they're disappointed by the outcry, whether they're going to change the ending or sell a new one, or just sell more DLC to expand on it. They've not come out conclusively defending the ending as the one that they really wanted to do, as the one that wraps the series up.

Also, you have to remember that games are a medium where the product is never necessarily final; patches and DLC, mods and expansions - game worlds these days are mutable, currently so publishers can squeeze games out on time before they're quite finished, or so they can continue making money off a released product. Isn't it about time that fans were able to harness these publisher and developer-centric mechanics and turned them to their own use?

I disagree that players are within their rights to petition, etc, to have the ending changed. Well, maybe not "within their rights", because they always have the choice of doing so, but do I think it's okay to do? No.

Bob wasn't saying that you had to be okay with the ending, which was what that entire segment about TMNT was about. He's saying that you're perfectly okay to complain and ***** and moan all you want, but as soon as you start writing angry letters to the developer and signing petitions to the artist to change their work, that's when you cross the line. There's a line between "not being happy" and "entitled".

Anyways, while yes, gaming is an interactive medium, I'd argue that the player's actual freedom in the game is limited. The creators are still telling you a story, interactive or not, and you don't have complete freedom in how that story goes. Now it may be a choose your own adventure story, but the artist is still in control. You only have freedom insofar as choosing the options that the artist gives to you. The only games I can think of that the player has complete control over the story are games like The Sims, and even then you're limited by the tools the artist gives you and what you are and are not allowed to do within the rules of the universe.

Spoiler: See this post for a little educational mind expansion and see that fans asking to have things changed have often got their way and been the happier for it.

Wow, that was a cheap swing (and a miss) at the whole ME3 "controversy."


You'd think this was something new. Thing is, it isn't even the first (or last) time this has happened. Public pressure is far from a new concept.

2 gaming related ones come straight to mind. First being Fallout 3s DLC that extended the ending and gave what the fans want. I heard no one from the games media jump at that one.


2nd one not everyone remembers. A particular game called InFamous 2. When it first showed up with trailers, the main character, Cole, had suddenly changed from a grizzle voiced, bald guy with a scar going down his face to a Nathon Drake 2.0s. And the fans went nuts. So what did they do? Changed him into his original look and all where happy.

So did the games media go on about artistic integrity or any of that? Course not. Actually, one of the IGN guys has been very loud about all this is. Colin Moriarty, who has gone on about how it goes against the artistic integrity and how people shouldn't demand this or that and entitlement this and that and rabble, rabble, rabble.

But skip back to when this happened with InFamous and suddenly:

"But with the new Cole design, Sucker Punch heard loud and clear what fans of Infamous wanted, and they delivered. Infinite amounts of kudos to them for doing right by their community. Fans of Infamous won?t soon forget it. Sucker Punch is one of Sony?s most valuable developers. They are tuned-in with the PS3 faithful, and it?s things like this that prove it."

Hell, the this aint uncommon outside of games either. Sherlock Holmes was killed off by Doyle and for 8 years people protested for a change and eventually gave in. This gave us some of the best Sherlock books.

Blade Runner, a great sci-fi by Ridley Scott had its whole ending changed after early preview showings.

Go back far enough and you see that Beethoven revised his opera Fidelio multiple times at the behest of his fans, cast members, and creative peers. I dare someone to say Beethoven lost his artistic integrity.

How many forms of completely interactive art is there anyway? We've even gotten to a point where we a consumers are funding game projects. Which is wonderful.

Gaming can't be just lumped into one category of "art" and then leave it as that as some form of blockade.
Art can change depending on the audience, depending on the demand and so much more. Again, this is hardly the first time this has been done or ever will be done. Just the biggest highlighted one by gaming media.

This whole "entitlement" accusation just need to stop. If you can't back away from that kind of attitude, we eventually pass the point of having meaningful dialog on this topic anymore. Then neither side is listening anymore. Everyone has made up their mind about not only the ending, but about everyone who disagrees with them as well.

If you liked the ending, then everyone who didn't is a crybaby whiner who has nothing better to do than throw fits about video games. If you disliked the ending, then everyone who didn't is a judgmental douche that's either too stupid to understand why the ending sucked, or too far up EA/Bioware's a**es to acknowledge it.

There can be no middle ground anymore at that point and are no longer allowed to have different opinions. Then comes the name calling and things you generally see from 10 year olds.

Here's the thing: I have no issue with fan complaints, or even creative works changing in response to fans. That stuff happens, because creators want to give people what they want, and fan response can carry things in a good direction. As a writer, I know that sometimes there are things I do that make more sense to me in a creative context than anyone else who reads what I wrote because I'm privy to a bunch of internal logic based on what's going on in my head that nobody else knows. Reader/fan response can be a valuable tool to making a better story.

If the "Retake Mass Effect" movement was a group of people coming together to tell Bioware what they disliked about the ending, fine. But that's not what it's about. Again, *neither Bob, nor I, nor a number of people who disagree with the movement disagree with complaining about the ending.* We disagree with the really nasty assertions being made about what fans deserve from creators. And what that position boils down to is this: YOU DON'T DESERVE ANYTHING. When Conan Doyle brought Holmes back from the dead, that was his choice. The changes to Cole? Sucker Punch's choice. Ridley Scott had a choice to change Blade Runner (and even then, there's now a longer Director's Cut that Scott theoretically feels is more faithful to his artistic vision).

When it comes right down to it: you were not sold a broken product. It is not incumbent upon Bioware to cater to your whims. If they want to clarify or change the ending to ME3, so be it. But that should be their choice. Bioware could have made Shepard a talking, stuffed elephant for ME3, and I would have supported them in keeping him elephantine. Because at the end of the day, they are the folks who own Mass Effect, and they can do whatever they want with it. If you have a problem with that, tough.

Ah, so they are using the wrong word? Is that really all you complainer-haters are being so angry about - that the fans used "demand" rather than "desire" or "want"? That they feel the relationship between them and Bioware to be the reciprocal sort where they give them money, pour time into their product, buy the DLC, talk about the stories with friends, publish articles etc etc and expect the next instalment to be a rewarding, satisfying experience that builds on the previous games, wrapping up the epic trilogy in a fitting manner? Rather than as a series of throw-away experiences churned out of an uncaring machine that expects the consumer to mindlessly choke down whatever they put out?

I dunno, I would have hoped that the industry was a bit more special than that and whilst I can see your anti-entitlement sentiments (as I have seen brought out against political protesters with a cause), I can't help but feel that, as with the political protests, you're missing the point, the root of the issue in favour of something you can comfortably attack and dismiss.

In short: Yes.

Because "desire" and "want" have different connotations than "demand". Demand implies a sense of urgency and anger, that you feel injustice because you DESERVE a new ending. Desire implies "Meh, I wish the ending would have been better, but oh well. That's how it goes."

 

[SpaceBat]

What they did wrong was finish an epic series that touted its varied choices and options with a trinary choice without meaning or perceivable consequence and which undermined all your actions up until that point.

It actually didn't undermine anything, really (your actions may not determine the outcome of the battle, but what comes after), but all right. As I said before, there are multiple good reasons as to why the ending is absolutely awful, but whether it's good or not and whether it met our expectations or not, isn't the point. I'm simply trying to find a legit reason as to why so many people believe that Bioware is obligated to change the ending (other than false advertising, which is a pointless action as we won't win). and that the difference between mediums such as movies and games in terms of artistic integrity and whatnot, are still open for discussion.

Bioware's marketing about every one of your decisions in the previous games mattering in the end and compare it to the actuality in which everything is thrown away to trim you options down to 'pick your favourite primary colour!'

That's not the reason they charged them with false marketing as far as I can remember. They stated that the actual ending wouldn't be a multiple choice question, which is the reason behind the legal action, right? Because everything you did, does matter for the ending. A game's story (or any story for that matter) doesn't end when the credits start rolling. Your decisions will decide how the future will work out, which is left open to interpretation.

My point is, I'm afraid that this might result in more games changing their ending in order to meet their user's expectation, which is an absolutely terrifying thought to me. Imagine a future where game story's lose their value as the creators get less freedom to work with and need to change endings in order to satisfy a self-entitled userbase.

Even in his own Game-Overthinker show he stated he has not played the games, nor does he know what the endings are. THAT'S THE FUCKING PROBLEM BOB! You lack context and investment and can easily stand on your damn soapbox and act as a superior while spewing pretentious dribble.

Huge Mass Effect fan here who hates the endings. You're missing the point entirely. How much invested you are into a world has nothing to do with how entitled you are to a different ending.

 

[Ukomba]

Even in his own Game-Overthinker show he stated he has not played the games, nor does he know what the endings are. THAT'S THE FUCKING PROBLEM BOB! You lack context and investment and can easily stand on your damn soapbox and act as a superior while spewing pretentious dribble.

So Bob, shut up, play the games, see the endings and then voice your opinion, otherwise your input is worthless on the matter.

Actually, that gives him a better perspective on the backlash than you do. He's not emotionally invested in the game nor the company. As a neutral party he can look at the movement it's self which is going wildly too far.

By nature of being a video game commentator he's going to have more knowledge of the industry and sympathy for gamers than the average non-gamer, and even with these sympathies he sees this as going way beyond the rational. The fans here are going into Annie Wilkes of Misery territory.

 

[The Deadpool]

Even in his own Game-Overthinker show he stated he has not played the games, nor does he know what the endings are. THAT'S THE FUCKING PROBLEM BOB! You lack context and investment and can easily stand on your damn soapbox and act as a superior while spewing pretentious dribble.

So Bob, shut up, play the games, see the endings and then voice your opinion, otherwise your input is worthless on the matter.

The man is right though. Fans have no right to a new ending.

This is what people miss, and honestly, I wonder if Bob made it unclear on purpose (like he said, it's good publicity). It doesn't matter if the ending is good or bad. He never argued it either way. The point is, the ending is Bioware's decision, and they do with it as they will.

Turns out they decided to change it. Not me, not you, not the complainers. BIOWARE chose to change. Still their call.

It's an awful ending. One of the worst ever. But I still say it's a bad idea to PAY them more money to fix their mess. Which is what this fanbase IS doing...

 

[Fwee]

are you in any way familliar with the indoctrination theory? i won't bore you with the details, but it's got quite a bit of evidence behind it and pretty much posits that BioWare and EA's plan was to
SELL US THE F^&*ING ENDING AS DLC.

and if this is true, what kind of precedent does that set? and where does that put folks like Bob who are valiantly flocking to defend the developers and publishers in theire experiment to see how incomplete a game they can sell for $60 before the fans burn down the headquarters?

I saw the entire lineup of releases this winter as one giant DLC content ransom. I saw titles that pretty much doubled it's original price with the amount of withheld features. And I responded the only way I knew would be effective:
I didn't buy any games. I didn't buy any DLC. If companies want to try to sell me half a game at full price then good luck to them. But they never forced me to give them money. And they never had a legal contract with a satisfaction guarantee. At least Amazon tried to offer money back on ME3 so upset fans could get most of their money back.
Sometimes something you love gets turned into shit, and it's usually done so by upper management trying to get more money. Don't buy any DLC. Don't buy new games. Rent, trade, borrow, steal, or pirate. Until the companies sell you what you want for a reasonable price they'll only laugh while they screw you.

 

[Saulkar]

I am finding it rather hard to take you seriously bob when you do not even do the research.

CAPTCHA: Vice Versa. I wonder what this is implying.

 

[Wicky_42]

...
To bow to public pressure is something no one that creates something should aspire to.

Under those terms, why can't we have Romeo and Juliet 2? or Kill Bill Vol 3? I believe the end of Fight Club was not epic enough, so we should all force Palahniuk to make a sequel. I also believe Indiana Jones wasn't clear enough, so George Lucas should work on a 5th one. Why not? It worked great with us fans clamoring for a better ending for Watchmen. Someone already mention how this public lynching was getting close to the villain of Misery, which sounds like a fair comparison too...

1) Romeo and Juliet had a strong, if tragic, ending.
2) Kill Bill Vol 2 wrapped up the story conclusively, with almost all the characters dead.
3) Fight Club had said its piece; the character's arc had reached an end.
4) George Lucas has already taken liberties with his Star Wars films - I think he was the wrong person to invoke with your strawman-ship
5) Watchman's ending was changed from the comic, and as far as I can see was the better for it for the purposes of the big screen.

If you notice, none of those (well, maybe bar the Watchmen thing - some comic fans did want to see a giant psychic squid, but then that's comic fans for you) do actually have any sort of public support; they are mostly examples of things that ended well.

Mass Effect 3 is not one of those.

You may also notice that all the example you chose are non-interactive films.

Mass Effect 3 is not one of those.

Your strawmen are weak, your protestations weaker. As has been posted and re-posted before, history is full of creative decisions being aided and directed by feedback; why should Bioware be any different?

1 to 5- "It wasn't fulfilling enough. I want it changed !!!" That is by far the logic most posted here.
4- George Lucas is the perfect example to invoke. He is one of the best (if not the best) creators that measures his visions in terms of merchandise, money and profitability. He is the one that hates his previous work (THX and American Graffiti) because "they didn't make any money". He is the one that added Jar Jar Binks because it ranked high in kids test audiences. He is the epitome of what you want Bioware to imitate: a creative person directed by audience feedback.

I must point out that your opinion on "Mass Effect not ending well" is just that, an opinion. I am not claiming mine is more than that, but based on the people that supported the author of the games, I believe its far from unique.

You are free to express your dislike about an ending. I have posted in this forum before how I deeply dislike the endings of Metal Gear Solid 4 and Borderlands... but that is only my opinion and I treated like it... That is all.

I fear you may have missed my point - if one person isn't happy with the ending of a film, so what? That's one person. However, if you leak the ending to your most anticipated game of the year and receive outrage and shock at how bad it seems to be from thousands of fans you don't stick your fingers in your ears and make weak noises that it all makes sense in context, you respond to the valuable feedback you're getting from the people who care about your product. You can also not be surprised when there are even wider-spread complaints when you press on with the leaked ending in your final product.

You make an interesting point about Lucas - but notice that he didn't test-screen to fans; he wasn't interested in what his fans thought, and he ended up burning them with a film aimed a kids. And notice how despite fan feedback he continues to mess around with the original trilogy? As I've just said, Bioware had fan feedback, they ignored it and the fans are now angry. The opinions of one matter little, but the outcry of the many is something wise people take notice of. Unless they are Lucas and have already made all the money they want and can do whatever they want and fuck the people who care.

 

[Frank_Sinatra_]

Bad move Bob, very, very, very, very bad move.

It's apparent that you really haven't researched into the whole Mass Effect 3 debacle, so be prepared to hear that the Mass Effect series is a special case, BioWare didn't deliver on ANY of their promises, and they pretty much slapped their own IP in the face in the last 5 minutes of their game.

Remember: BioWare has stated that their fans are equal creators in the story along with their actual writing staff.

EDIT: Before you go crying about how you're sick of people complaining, I think I should point you to THIS. [http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-role-of-the-player]

That's funny.

You know who disagrees with you? http://extra-credits.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2008

It's worth pointing out that Dan does the talking, not the writing.

 

[Klitch]

Even in his own Game-Overthinker show he stated he has not played the games, nor does he know what the endings are. THAT'S THE FUCKING PROBLEM BOB! You lack context and investment and can easily stand on your damn soapbox and act as a superior spewing pretentious dribble.

So Bob, shut up, play the games, see the endings and then voice your opinion, otherwise your input is worthless on the matter.

You're missing the point. Whether or not he would like the ending doesn't matter. It's not about liking the ending, it's about crossing that boundary between creator and audience and feeling like you DESERVE a new ending.

That's what the entire segment about TMNT is about. He knows he's probably not gonna like the new treatment of it, but is he going to fly into a rage because this is not the movie that he is entitled to? No. The artist isn't here to please you.

There is a line between being displeased with the ending and feeling like you deserve something else.

I can think of one major difference between the TMNT situation and ME3 situation. You got to discover what you'd hate about TMNT before you paid for it. It's a lot easier to be equanimous about a failed IP when you haven't already paid a great deal of money on it based on false promises. If you haven't paid any money for a product, then you are not a consumer and thus can obviously not claim consumer rights. Once you've paid for something, the artist does have an obligation to you. You can argue whether they should or not (I'd be interested in seeing that debate) but according to the current legal code, they do.

Would I have liked the Green Lantern movie (I never saw it)? Nope. The difference was they showed us the crappy CGI and stupid costume before I had to pay for a movie ticket. And yet Bob complained about that movie ad nauseam (I don't mean to pick on Bob, but I'm using this as an example). Why when the creators show you their product is crap and you pay for it, are you allowed to complain about it being crap, but when the creators lie to you and hide the crap in a box and you buy it, to complain is to be a petulant child?

 

[Agayek]

Sorry, but I'm totally with Bob here. This is not a "controversy", you got sold a perfectly functional product which you didn't like. You can express that you didn't like it until you keel over and die, but you have absolutely no right to demand that it be changed.

I'm not one of the people up in arms about it. I got over it within an hour or two. I simply resolved to never buy another Bioware game again and moved on with my life.

That said, there may well be a valid case for false advertising. The game's director and lead writer are both on record, during the pre-release publicity push, saying that the end of the game would not be exactly what it was. For example (and this is one of several), in an interview in January, Hudson said:

This story arc is coming to an end with this game. That means the endings can be a lot more different. At this point we're taking into account so many decisions that you've made as a player and reflecting a lot of that stuff. It's not even in any way like the traditional game endings, where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got ending A, B, or C

Source: http://www.oxm.co.uk/37677/mass-effect-3-citadel-is-bigger-than-ever-endings-will-be-more-sophisticated/

Yet the game as released has endings "A, B or C" with very little difference between them.

As mentioned before, I have no idea if that's enough for a successful lawsuit, but it is certainly solid enough ground that it wouldn't surprise me if it wins. Advertisements promised one thing and delivered the exact opposite. The only question is if it's egregious enough for the court to think it warrants action, and that's what I'm unsure of. We'll find out whenever the FTC gets around to dealing with it.

 

[PersonalRiot]

Finished Deus Ex:HR the other day, the ending was so-so. So I started a petition to get it redone, and added a few other games on their that I didn't like the ending as well. Also started picketing outside of their local game head quarters.

The above notion is rediculious.

So is the Mass Effect 3 cries of outrage. Yes, you were promised a different kind of ending. I was also promised Fable 1 would redefine video gaming in Jr. High.

Sup?

 

[laserwulf]

Well said, Bob. This reply is a drop in the ocean, but I can't remain silently complicit while a vocal minority brings so much negative attention to the gaming community as a whole. In so many of these arguments about ME3, defenders of Retake Mass Effect try to discredit opponents and/or elevate off-the-cuff comments about a game that is IN AN UNFINISHED STATE to the level of official advertising or some sort of legally binding agreement (FTC & BBB complaints, Amazon.com refunds? Really?), rather than address the issues that folks like you bring up.

The thing that really baffles me is that outside of professional reviews, I haven't heard what the community at large feels about the actual -game- portion of the game. Is the ending honestly so terrible that it makes 10/20/30/etc. hours of gameplay not fun?

 

[MetalMagpie]

Well said. And I'm sure most people will agree once six months has passed and they've had time to cool down.

 

[ThreeKneeNick]

What made the Mass Effect ending into a controversy is this need for everyone on both sides to have their word be the final one, and thus Bob having an irresistible urge to ruin a perfectly good episode of The big Picture by saying nothing we haven't heard already dozens of times.

 

[JediMB]

Were this video just about TMNT, I would actually watch it, as I've been a fan of Bob's for a long time now.

However, I don't need anymore of him basking in his elitist ignorance on the subject of Mass Effect and art. He's like the goddamn Old White Men in the US Senate forming uninformed arguments against women's birth control rights.

 

[Wicky_42]

Spoiler: space-saving snip

I find it amusing that after ragging on Transformers and god knows how many other geek things that were done wrong, Bob defends Bioware when they step wrong. Seems a little ironic/hypocritical. When things are done horribly, are not the fans entitled to complain, or should they just take the blow quietly and be happy for some perverse reason?

Once again, we have knee-jerk reactions that failed to listen hard enough to get the point. Bob never said you couldn't ***** about TMNT or ME3 being a betrayal. He just said that when you storm into their offices demanding that the product be changed to conform to your arbitrary expectations, you're going to do damage to the medium, in addition to just looking silly.

And Bob's critique of the Bay-Transformers films while then defending Bioware is in no way hypocracy. The Bay films warrant criticism because they're crap from a storytelling and filmmaking standpoint, not just because they aren't what the fans wanted. But while ME3's endings deserve their own criticism, that doesn't give the fans the power to force Bioware into changing it because it doesn't conform to their expectations.

Hypocracy means saying one thing and then proceeding to do the exact opposite thing. It doesn't mean taking an opposing stance when the conditions and circumstances change and the issue shifts from one thing to another. In fact, being able to turn around and take the other side when the first position starts supporting a more extreme view is part of being a rational person.

Whilst the extents some fans have gone to to protest against Bioware's ending may well be too far, from his video I took away that Bob was happy for Bioware to do absolutely anything they wanted, and people should shut up about seeing a story that they had sculpted for years brought to a shallow, unfulfilling close. As Bob complained about Bay and his treatment of the Transformers IP, Mass Effect fans complain about the ending for the game.

If his comments were limited to purely to the types filing lawsuits then fine, but the campaign to have the ending changed or extended is still valid; gaming is an interactive medium, people want to have their say. It's not like people have just spent one and a half hours watching thin exposition over explosions, they've spend in the region of 100+ hours being the main character, being told that they are changing the game world with their actions. Should anyone be surprised that they seek to change the ending by their actions too?

I think fans are entirely within their rights to petition and campaign to have the ending changed, or at least expanded and explained. I've seen the footage and it's quite disappointing for the media setup that preceded the game's release. Of course, that's an opinion, and Bioware's well within their rights to stick to their guns but that's not what we've been hearing from their announcements - they don't seem to know whether they intended to make a fuss for publicity or whether they're disappointed by the outcry, whether they're going to change the ending or sell a new one, or just sell more DLC to expand on it. They've not come out conclusively defending the ending as the one that they really wanted to do, as the one that wraps the series up.

Also, you have to remember that games are a medium where the product is never necessarily final; patches and DLC, mods and expansions - game worlds these days are mutable, currently so publishers can squeeze games out on time before they're quite finished, or so they can continue making money off a released product. Isn't it about time that fans were able to harness these publisher and developer-centric mechanics and turned them to their own use?

I disagree that players are within their rights to petition, etc, to have the ending changed. Well, maybe not "within their rights", because they always have the choice of doing so, but do I think it's okay to do? No.

Bob wasn't saying that you had to be okay with the ending, which was what that entire segment about TMNT was about. He's saying that you're perfectly okay to complain and ***** and moan all you want, but as soon as you start writing angry letters to the developer and signing petitions to the artist to change their work, that's when you cross the line. There's a line between "not being happy" and "entitled".

Anyways, while yes, gaming is an interactive medium, I'd argue that the player's actual freedom in the game is limited. The creators are still telling you a story, interactive or not, and you don't have complete freedom in how that story goes. Now it may be a choose your own adventure story, but the artist is still in control. You only have freedom insofar as choosing the options that the artist gives to you. The only games I can think of that the player has complete control over the story are games like The Sims, and even then you're limited by the tools the artist gives you and what you are and are not allowed to do within the rules of the universe.

Spoiler: See this post for a little educational mind expansion and see that fans asking to have things changed have often got their way and been the happier for it.

Wow, that was a cheap swing (and a miss) at the whole ME3 "controversy."


You'd think this was something new. Thing is, it isn't even the first (or last) time this has happened. Public pressure is far from a new concept.

2 gaming related ones come straight to mind. First being Fallout 3s DLC that extended the ending and gave what the fans want. I heard no one from the games media jump at that one.


2nd one not everyone remembers. A particular game called InFamous 2. When it first showed up with trailers, the main character, Cole, had suddenly changed from a grizzle voiced, bald guy with a scar going down his face to a Nathon Drake 2.0s. And the fans went nuts. So what did they do? Changed him into his original look and all where happy.

So did the games media go on about artistic integrity or any of that? Course not. Actually, one of the IGN guys has been very loud about all this is. Colin Moriarty, who has gone on about how it goes against the artistic integrity and how people shouldn't demand this or that and entitlement this and that and rabble, rabble, rabble.

But skip back to when this happened with InFamous and suddenly:

"But with the new Cole design, Sucker Punch heard loud and clear what fans of Infamous wanted, and they delivered. Infinite amounts of kudos to them for doing right by their community. Fans of Infamous won?t soon forget it. Sucker Punch is one of Sony?s most valuable developers. They are tuned-in with the PS3 faithful, and it?s things like this that prove it."

Hell, the this aint uncommon outside of games either. Sherlock Holmes was killed off by Doyle and for 8 years people protested for a change and eventually gave in. This gave us some of the best Sherlock books.

Blade Runner, a great sci-fi by Ridley Scott had its whole ending changed after early preview showings.

Go back far enough and you see that Beethoven revised his opera Fidelio multiple times at the behest of his fans, cast members, and creative peers. I dare someone to say Beethoven lost his artistic integrity.

How many forms of completely interactive art is there anyway? We've even gotten to a point where we a consumers are funding game projects. Which is wonderful.

Gaming can't be just lumped into one category of "art" and then leave it as that as some form of blockade.
Art can change depending on the audience, depending on the demand and so much more. Again, this is hardly the first time this has been done or ever will be done. Just the biggest highlighted one by gaming media.

This whole "entitlement" accusation just need to stop. If you can't back away from that kind of attitude, we eventually pass the point of having meaningful dialog on this topic anymore. Then neither side is listening anymore. Everyone has made up their mind about not only the ending, but about everyone who disagrees with them as well.

If you liked the ending, then everyone who didn't is a crybaby whiner who has nothing better to do than throw fits about video games. If you disliked the ending, then everyone who didn't is a judgmental douche that's either too stupid to understand why the ending sucked, or too far up EA/Bioware's a**es to acknowledge it.

There can be no middle ground anymore at that point and are no longer allowed to have different opinions. Then comes the name calling and things you generally see from 10 year olds.

First of all, something like the Infamous 2 model is a relatively minor change and has nothing to do with the actual story.

But as long as you're giving me good examples of changes, let me show you a few more bad ones.

The movie I Am Legend originally had an ending that was more faithful to the book. But after showing it to test audiences, they didn't like it, so the movie's ending was drastically changed. Now the movie ending has nothing to do with the book, and the entire message that the author was trying to get across in the book is gone.

Inuyasha was reportedly supposed to end a long time before it actually did. But fans demanded that they have more Inuyasha and Rumiko Takahashi bowed to pressure. So the overall quality of the anime went down the drain continuing and continuing and continuing until it finally ended with a giant middle finger to all of the fans.

Blade Runner is a poor example. First of all, it's an adaptation of the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The original ending has the main character willingly do something knowing that she will die for it. It was sad, it was poignant, it had a message. The movie adaptation changed that, feeling that it made the movie "too bleak". They added a narrator to explain everything for the audience in case they wouldn't get it, and then who continued to explain that the main character actually lived happily ever after and there goes the poignancy point of the story.

So you're saying that Bioware was right to stick to its guns in the face of fan protests and mass complaining on their forums when the endings were leaked prior to release? That there wasn't a more poignant ending that actually took into account your actions through the series rather than wrapping everything up in one of three nihilistic explosions?

People are well within their rights to call for a better ending, and if Bioware had listened the first time maybe they'd all be talking about how awesome the ending was and what sort of future they'd managed to carve for their galaxy rather than the seas of rage that we have now.

There's artistic merit in nihilistic endings in the right places - sometimes that's the perfect way to end - but I don't think that the Mass Effect ending honoured the series. Apparently that's a sentiment that many share.

 

[MegaSuperUberMe]

You missed the point of ME3 outrage. It's not because the ending was shit (which it was). It's because of all the lies. Bioware promised 16 DIFFERENT ending, no "choose your end" button (hello DeusEx) and many more things. They essentially did everything that they promised not to do. Beside, you can feel that the game was cut significantly, same enemies, almost no side quests, no impact what so ever was made by your army.
P.S. I really think that Bioware is the victim here, i think that they were rushed by EA to meet the release date.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

There is one thing we can add (or more likely reiterate). Everyone needs to calm the fuck down because it is just a game.

Anyhow, how could Dick Cheney even get a heart transplant when he doesn't have a heart. Because ya know...he is one of Satan's minions..ha...ha.

On a serious note, it just seems like another Steve Jobs thing. More then likely he applied to multiple organ transplant lists and one of those lists had a short waiting time. He could only do that because he has money and power. I think that's kinda sad.

Well put Brian. What would MST3K say? "Just repeat to yourself it's just a show (or game), you should really just relax."

lol Oh he had a heart... and it was desperately trying to kill him. Cheney must be threatening the new one's family or something.

It is sad, and its kind of repulsive too. The rich are harvesting organs, that's the high and low end of it. Some twenty-year old with a faulty valve hoping to get into college will have to keep waiting now, because Darth Cheney fixed the books. Why? Because he used to be vice prez? So friggin' what? He's not a priority patient anymore, hasn't been for four years.

Yeah but not everyone can have a wing added on to a hospital for getting that heart.
It's all about money power and connections my friend. Is it fair? Of course not, but we can't really do anything about it.....kinda like mass effect three lol.

Oh I think we can. Just spreading the word about how despicable this is should be enough. No, it won't get the heart back, the damage has been done. Now we just make him regret every single hour that heart gives him.

 

[NinjaDC]

Hmm, Creators should be free to work on their creations and the consumer should mostly be left out as giving them "exactly" what they want gives them nothing they want...


Sorry Bob,
MLP:Friendship is Magic beat you to the punch on that message with Suited for Success