UK Ad Agency: Mass Effect 3 Advertising "Not Misleading"

[Hevva]

UK Ad Agency: Mass Effect 3 Advertising "Not Misleading"

The British advertising watchdog says that the endings and the adverts match up just fine.

Although the claim [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5548-Changing-A-Games-Ending-And-Destroying-Art] several irritated fans made to the British Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) during the fracas which alleged that EA and BioWare had "misled" fans by touting how player choice would "shape the outcome" of the trilogy. Now, having deliberated on the matter, the ASA has ruled that EA and BioWare did not mislead anyone in their advertising.

According to the ASA, a total of three "complainants" brought forward official complaints about the advertising. Their case, says the agency, came down to deciding whether or not the statements in the game's pre-launch advertising (things like "the decisions you make completely shape the experience" and "your choices drive powerful outcomes") were "misleadingly exaggerated" by EA and BioWare.

In deciding its verdict of "claim not upheld," the agency took into account the various potential endings of Mass Effect 3, which it describes as being "thematically quite different," in addition to all of the smaller choices the player makes on their way to that final point. In the game, all of these things are underpinned by the player's Effective Military Strength (EMS) score, which changes depending on what the player does in-game. These factors, coupled with the variables involved in the genophage affair and the Geth/Quarian conflict, led the ASA to rule on the side of the developers.

That's that, it would seem. The ASA says that players were given enough choice based on what they were told they would get; EA's advertising department can sleep easy, and we can all get back to either forgetting and/or reminiscing about the endings as we so choose until the Extended Cut [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116661-BioWare-Announces-Post-Ending-DLC-for-Mass-Effect-3-Updated] DLC appears this summer (at which point we'll either start the whole process over, or cry tears of space-joy and agree to just all be friends again. Here's hoping for the latter, right?).


Source: Advertising Standards Agency UK [http://www.asa.org.uk/ASA-action/Adjudications/2012/6/Electronic-Arts-Ltd/SHP_ADJ_191120.aspx]





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[Dryk]

So the endings are made different enough by the power of the player's imagination?

 

[Mahoshonen]

Well, the whole "false advertising" complaint was always going to be a long shot. I just hope that Bioware doesn't interpret this ruling (and others that may come later) as being total vindication that they didn't lay a turd at the end.

 

[Sis]

Guess who got bought off.

 

[draythefingerless]

I would have to agree with this. I hate the endings, but i wasnt mislead by anyone. My experience thru the game was personalized(i saved the Geth Quarians, i helped the Genophage, i helped my squadmates in their lives, idid this and that choice here and there). It is sad that the most important part in decisions, the ending, got butchered to an oversimplification and logical mess, but i wouldnt say i was misled in such a way that i didnt have choices. The game i played was different from other people. The ending doesnt change that.


Captcha: respect me. :/

 

[Frostbyte666]

Not that surprising really with that ruling, though it seems more a breaking of the spirit of the law. Frankly I'm more horrifed over the extended cut dlc which is a morally bankrupt concept. It doesn't matter whether the dlc is free or not it doesn't change the fact that the actual epilogue of the game has been withheld from the rest of the game, it's like cutting the last 15 minutes of a movie to show it a few months later. Best stop that rant there.

On another note for false advertising didn't Bioware also say that the endings wouldn't come down to an a, b or c choice...

 

[sethisjimmy]

It's true. I mean I look at the series and see a bunch of small choices that don't really matter leading up to a big choice that doesn't really matter.
You weren't mislead, you just overestimated the quality of the series.

 

[BlindWorg]

I'll just leave two things right here, too bad the people who filed the complain didnt apparently show these.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPelM2hwhJA

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/01/10/mass1525-effect-3-cas5ey-fdsafdhudson-interviewae.aspx?PostPageIndex=2 (first question of the interview)

Edit-tastic: I love when Casey claims that ME3 ending will be more complex than ME2's intricate flowchart of who is loyal, tech/biotic expert, leadership, defensive value points and ship upgrades.

As you all know, in reality ME3 only looks how much the EMS score is and unlocks and gives alterations to the final cutscene as the number goes up. Only thing from previous games that affect that if the Collector Base is blown or radiated and that only changes the order on how the endings unlock as the score goes up.

That, if nothing else, is outright lying.

 

[Emiscary]

Anyone remember when the BBB reached the exact opposite conclusion? I do.

Oh, and this statement?

"[the endings are] thematically quite different"

Really? How?

THEY'RE IDENTICAL. The Reapers (who as it turned out were a ham fisted plot device) have been defeated... by a ham fisted plot device, you die, infrastructure collapses & your crew magically teleports to Gilligan's Planet.

"Oh, but the 3 colors signify 3 different things, that makes it different!"

It would if the actual game represented those differences. But it doesn't. It shows you the same the cutscene in 3 different colors, and then the game ends. That's like saying the conclusion of your novel varies based on how you imagine the scenario "happily ever after".

=/

 

[Tradjus]

The problem here is that they took stuff to do with Video Games to a government agency. Of course none of the old men in suits in charge had any idea what the hell they were looking at when they were presented with the endings, and had no context that actually having played the games would have brought.
That they dismissed the complaint out of hand is indicative of just how unprepared the government is to deal with any complaints relating to the video game industry that aren't purely business based issues between different developers and publishers.

 

[RaikuFA]

It might have helped if you told people what you were upset about or what you wanted. I thought it was cause they're vague, nope not the case. Not happy enough? Nope. Bioware lied? Apparently I'm wrong there too.

Oh, and to not make homophobic death threats against a woman who works at the company that made ME3 just because her views conflict yours.

 

[gigastar]

I think what the ASA has done here is consider the entire "war against the Reapers" section of the game as the ending, instead of going with the fans definition of the ending being the final 5 minuites where mashing the controller meant something in real-time, and the following cutscenes.

Really if more people took that into account perhaps the "ending" wasnt so bad afterall.

Spoiler: My precognition demanded i put this here.

 

[zidine100]

This is the uk, you know the same country which allows advertisements saying that there internet is 'unlimited' when it clearly isnt.

Im not saying if this right or wrong here, but come on can you really tell me you didn't expect this outcome.

 

[Therumancer]

Anyone remember when the BBB reached the exact opposite conclusion? I do.

Anyone remember that it was some random employee of the BBB that said only that "It had some merit", and not an official statement of the Bureau itself? Because some people obviously don't.

It's an ongoing battle and has to do with differances in standards. The ASA is a goverment group, the BBB is a private group. One is concerned with the letter of the law, the other with the spirit of the law. A lot also depends on how well the lawyers did, and from looking at the case in the UK they did a horrible job of representing the case against EA as I've seen no real mention of them bringing up the cellphone app with the information from those interviews, or statements made by the game developers themselves that the ending would not be an "A B or C" choice.

Like most similar cases my immediate feelings are that the best lawyers for this area were probably in EA's employ, or at least given enough money to cause a conflict of interests.

We'll see what happens if this goes to a US court, largely because this is kind of the BBB's ballpark and if they actually come forward to represent the case with their own muscle, we might see a less ambigious resolution.

Speaking for myself, I think EA is in the wrong here, and have from the beginning. I however "simmered down" like a lot of people to see what they do with this DLC. To be honest if it's like they said, I kind of expect things to get nasty again. EA simply deservred (and received) a chance to make things right.

To be honest given the way the BBB operates they typically give the business a chance to make things right, so that might very well be why they have been so quiet. The BBB not throwing down with it's resources until EA has gotten it's chance. I honestly think their statements had a little more weight than you do, but they very rarely act quickly.