"Bio Beware: The Latest On Mass Effect 3′s Ending Drama"

[kane_magus]

"Bioware and EA, meanwhile, have been a little flip-floppy about whether they’re taking the complaints seriously. Initial comments from ME3 lead Casey Hudson held that he deliberately wanted to polarise sentiments and leave mysteries hanging, while other Bioware brains later stepped into the fray to claim that they were listening to fan feedback and hint that it might lead to something."

I almost stopped reading right there. So, the first guy was straight up trolling, essentially. And then the second group came in and basically admitted to what they probably had planned all along, given that the "something" that this might "lead to" is almost assuredly going to be a "proper" ending to the game being patched in later via DLC, for which they are going to charge extra for, of course.

And then, later on, there's this part:

"In a new statement, Hudson is more conciliatory towards fans who felt closure was lacking, claiming that these concerns are 'valid' after all. You should read the lot, evasive and vague as it may be, but the key part is this:

'Throughout the next year, we will support Mass Effect 3 by working on new content. And we’ll keep listening, because your insights and constructive feedback will help determine what that content should be. This is not the last you’ll hear of Commander Shepard.'"

So, yeah, that's exactly what they are and probably always were planning. Release a crap ending, get everyone all angry about it, and then DLC in a BS "true" ending. Mr. Meer is absolutely correct when he says that they're "playing with fire" by doing this.

As for me, I still haven't even bought ME3 yet. As time passes, my desire to do so lessens ever more. Again, I'll probably cave in and pick it up someday down the line, when I can find it dirt cheap. But I'm not going to be paying full price for this crap, not at all. And, again, after this I will probably never buy another BioWare game, unless and until they (and more importantly, their EA overlords) finally come to their senses and realize that what they are doing is not good business in the long run (though it's excellent business for them in the short term, unfortunately).

Seriously, though, it's not even just BioWare/EA that's doing this crap. There's also Final Fantasy XIII-2. Before that, there was Fallout 3 (which "fixed" the vanilla game's crappy ending with the Broken Steel DLC), and yet, I don't much recall there being any sort of issue (I almost said "fallout"... >_>) with that. I mean, sure, there was a minor brouhaha over the ending sucking, but when the DLC came out, most people were just glad to get a better ending. (Personally, I never even finished the vanilla game of Fallout 3, so have little use for any of the DLC. I'm currently waiting for the Steam version of the GotY edition to hit a 66-75% off sale before giving it another try.) Are people finally, finally starting to wake up to this blatant, abject BS crap that these game companies are doing to them now, and have been doing to them for some time? Or am I just being overly optimistic here? I'll be pessimistic and say that I'm probably just being overly optimistic.

Comments

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

You know, I remember a time when DLC defenders mentioned it would never EVER cut up the game so badly as to even cut out the ending.

If you went back to these same apologyists now, I'm sure they'd attack you, declaring you have a bad case of "entitlement" for expecting the game you paid for had the ending included.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Gamers are very, very good at rationalizing how the ever increasingly rancid fecal matter being forced into their mouths at the end of the sewer drain down which the video game industry is currently spiraling somehow actually tastes like chocolate. I used to be in the "oh, it isn't so bad and it surely can't get any worse than this" crowd myself. I remember when people were freaking out over things like SecuROM and such (ah, remember those halcyon days when all we had to worry about was SecuROM?) with the whole Spore thing, and I was all like "Yeah, whatever, chill out, it doesn't bother me" and such. The fact that I'm still even considering getting ME3 at all despite everything just shows that I'm not entirely out of that mindset yet, either. :/ But at the very least, I recognize it as a weakness on my part and am not trying to pull some kind of fanboy BS about how BioWare is entirely justified in screwing over their customers like this.