BioShock Creator "Sad" Over ME3's Ending Scandal

[Metalix Knightmare]

What is annoying me most in this whole debacle is that everyone seems convinced that the people that didn't like the ending are completely incapable of being satisfied. That's just glossing over all of the complaints people had. No mention of the numerous plot holes or lore errors the ending creates, or even the fact that it crossed from "being open to interpretation" to just not telling anyone fuck-all.

While it's obvious that the creator's ultimately get to choose their ending (something which everyone is so quick to bring up in this discussion like everyone wasn't already aware of it), it's not like you're exempt from criticism for a shitty ending to a great series.

Not to mention that the very last thing you see in the epic conclusion to Mass Effect series are the words "downloadable content". Yeah, nice.

The thing is, a number of people were NEVER going to be satisfied. I've seen like three different reasons to hate the ending on this website ALONE ranging from it didn't make sense, it's meaningless, and 5 different variations of what the ending SHOULD have been like and the Social forums are an even bigger mess.

You've got people wanting Paragons to Talk the Reapers to death, Cerberus Cheerleaders wanted TIM to save the day on a white horse and then bone their Shepard, Renegades would've been uber pissed if the Paragons could get ANYTHING resembling a happy ending, then you have the standard off into the sunset with the love interest types, there was even one nutjob that wouldn't accept anything other than the Reapers winning!

I guess what I'm saying is, they were going to piss of no end of people no matter what they did. Might as well go out with an ending studio Gainax would be proud of.

 

[BoogieManFL]

The ending was shit for reasons beyond how it was so overwhelmingly negative.

It was very brief.

Nothing you did in any of the 3 games made any difference to the overall ending. NOTHING.

There are multiple endings but they are literally almost identical.

It explains nothing and provides no closure or satisfaction


Shit ending is shit.

 

[Kingsnake661]

What is annoying me most in this whole debacle is that everyone seems convinced that the people that didn't like the ending are completely incapable of being satisfied. That's just glossing over all of the complaints people had. No mention of the numerous plot holes or lore errors the ending creates, or even the fact that it crossed from "being open to interpretation" to just not telling anyone fuck-all.

While it's obvious that the creator's ultimately get to choose their ending (something which everyone is so quick to bring up in this discussion like everyone wasn't already aware of it), it's not like you're exempt from criticism for a shitty ending to a great series.

Not to mention that the very last thing you see in the epic conclusion to Mass Effect series are the words "downloadable content". Yeah, nice.

The thing is, a number of people were NEVER going to be satisfied. I've seen like three different reasons to hate the ending on this website ALONE ranging from it didn't make sense, it's meaningless, and 5 different variations of what the ending SHOULD have been like and the Social forums are an even bigger mess.

You've got people wanting Paragons to Talk the Reapers to death, Cerberus Cheerleaders wanted TIM to save the day on a white horse and then bone their Shepard, Renegades would've been uber pissed if the Paragons could get ANYTHING resembling a happy ending, then you have the standard off into the sunset with the love interest types, there was even one nutjob that wouldn't accept anything other than the Reapers winning!

I guess what I'm saying is, they were going to piss of no end of people no matter what they did. Might as well go out with an ending studio Gainax would be proud of.

And when you have, whats his name, Case Hudden, spouting crap about giving us "wildly different" endings because they could, seeing as it's the ending and they don't have to worry about tying things up for a sequal, NONE of them expetations IMO should have been off the table. Hell, that kind of sounds like what he was promessing. My money is on the fact he got blinded by great big dollar signs in his eyes, and ME4 is on the horizan, and he needed a ending similar enough accross the boards for a common launching point for the 4th game.

 

[Gigatoast]

Perhaps it'd be unfair to point out Bioshock had a s**t ending too.

 

[anthony87]

i have to say that there are theories that the ends has something to do with indoctrination.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythY_GkEBck&feature=g-all-lik&context=G24cbf76FAAAAAAAACAA
this is the best video explaining. and if this was intended, then that would pretty genius. only now we won't know because if Bioware says that theory is correct, then i feels like they are saving their hides.

As well done as that video is can't take it seriously. I'd rather hear it from the developers than as speculation from random people on the internet.

Hell, even if the video turned out to be 100% correct then it shows that they still fucked up on the ending considering the number of people who didn't come to the same conclusion. The vast majority of people missing the point of the ending makes for a poor ending all the same.

Personally I think they just tried to make a melancholy, bittersweet ending and failed.

 

[besnick]

The ending has its flaws, but the story of ME was stupid from the very beginning. I played it because of Bioware's great enactment. So I don't have any hard feelings about the strange ending. With the right interpretation it fits and grants closure.
Moreover I find it to be astonishing that Bioware could cope with the insane amount of work to make all possible decisions from TWO previous games matter. Extra test/synch/scripts/... It is insane!

 

[RJ 17]

I do fully agree with the statement that the creators/writers of a game have every right to end a series however the wish. It is their story, they're the ones writing it, if we don't like it then we just don't like it. They shouldn't have to change or expand on anything because the audience demands it.

The problem, however, is that the series didn't end where it should have. The prevailing theory these days is the Indoctrination Theory which implies that the ending sequence never actually happens, it's all in Shepard's head. There's even been hints in the "behind the scenes" app that Bioware put out that reveals a bunch of stuff that was cut from the ending. If this is true, however, the series comes to an end without any true resolution. Yes, Shepard can win the battle against Indoctrination...but what about the war with the Reapers? Regardless of if Shepard breaks free from Indoctrination or if he succumbs to it, the Reapers are still there destroying the galaxy. The war isn't over, and we have no idea how it ends other than seeing Star Gazer saying "Alright, one last story" (which can be taken to imply that future DLC will be the "one last story" in which Shepard does finish the fight with the Reapers).

That's the closure that people were looking for and didn't get. It'd be like if the 3rd Matrix movie just cut to the credits after Trinity dies and Neo walks off to talk to the machines. We don't get to see Neo talking to them. We don't get to see his final epic battle against Agent Smith. Just cut to the credits and tell the audience to fill in the blanks. Again, I do purely support the right of an author to end his or her story wherever he or she wants to...but you have to give your audience an actual ending to the story (in Mass Effect's case, the end to the story is the end of the Reaper War). For better or for worse, people wanted an actual end to the story. Not a major plot point that still leaves way too much unfinished business to call the series/story done.

The ending to ME 3 as-is feels like it'd be something like the 5th to last chapter in a novel. Something big. Something epic. But we're still not at the ultimate and final climax.

Now, if you take the literal interpretation of the events of each possible ending, then indeed the war is over and final closure cn be achieved. The problem is there are WAY too many plotholes for a literal interpretation to be taken.

So either they were going for a literal interpretation and just failed at cleaning up all the holes, or they were going with the Indoctrination Theory and finished the series before the war was over, leaving us all to wonder "what the hell happens?!" Either way it is crappy writing. There's nothing wrong with leaving questions for your audience at the end of a series, but you can't end Return of the Jedi after they escape from Jabba's clutches and expect the audience to be perfectly fine with that. Honesty I would have been perfectly content if Shepard instructed Joker to just fly kamikazi into Harbinger, blow him up and set off a chain reaction that blows up every other Reaper, but ensuring that the crew of the Normandy all died as well. At least we'd know the war was over. As-is we have no frickin' clue how the war ends.

 

[freaper]

The analogy with Harry Potter completely slipped my mind and I'm happy this gentleman reminded me of that.

Harry Potter's ending sucked, but it did not take 1 minute of enjoyment away I had from the hundreds of hours spent reading the books. Idem for Mass Effect. Period.

 

[Typhon1388]

I have to admit hypocrisy here, I was always in the games are art camp until this controversy.

Consumers have to be allowed to voice their issues with any product they have bought. People who have finished ME3 are effectively past the "vote with your wallet" threshold and the only way possible now for them to voice their issues is to complain.

Games may be art but as long as companies keep selling them they will always be a product for consumption first and art second in my eyes from now on.


When was the last time you could only look at a painting in a gallery after accepting an end user license agreement?

 

[Saulkar]

Spoiler: 10 reasons why Mass Effect 3's endings are shit!!!

I will leave this here and hope more people see it!

 

[mattttherman3]

This coming from the guy behind Bioshock 2.

\edit: sorry did not know that they didn't make it.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

What is annoying me most in this whole debacle is that everyone seems convinced that the people that didn't like the ending are completely incapable of being satisfied. That's just glossing over all of the complaints people had. No mention of the numerous plot holes or lore errors the ending creates, or even the fact that it crossed from "being open to interpretation" to just not telling anyone fuck-all.

While it's obvious that the creator's ultimately get to choose their ending (something which everyone is so quick to bring up in this discussion like everyone wasn't already aware of it), it's not like you're exempt from criticism for a shitty ending to a great series.

Not to mention that the very last thing you see in the epic conclusion to Mass Effect series are the words "downloadable content". Yeah, nice.

The thing is, a number of people were NEVER going to be satisfied. I've seen like three different reasons to hate the ending on this website ALONE ranging from it didn't make sense, it's meaningless, and 5 different variations of what the ending SHOULD have been like and the Social forums are an even bigger mess.

You've got people wanting Paragons to Talk the Reapers to death, Cerberus Cheerleaders wanted TIM to save the day on a white horse and then bone their Shepard, Renegades would've been uber pissed if the Paragons could get ANYTHING resembling a happy ending, then you have the standard off into the sunset with the love interest types, there was even one nutjob that wouldn't accept anything other than the Reapers winning!

I guess what I'm saying is, they were going to piss of no end of people no matter what they did. Might as well go out with an ending studio Gainax would be proud of.

And when you have, whats his name, Case Hudden, spouting crap about giving us "wildly different" endings because they could, seeing as it's the ending and they don't have to worry about tying things up for a sequal, NONE of them expetations IMO should have been off the table. Hell, that kind of sounds like what he was promessing. My money is on the fact he got blinded by great big dollar signs in his eyes, and ME4 is on the horizan, and he needed a ending similar enough accross the boards for a common launching point for the 4th game.

I take it you're not much of a Lionhead fan are ya? I learned damn quick from the good sir Peter that you do NOT take devs on their word in interviews. EVER. Remind me to tell you what we were promised in Saints Row the Third sometime. You'll laugh.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

They don't really need to change the ending, they just need to clarify whether the indoctrination theory is correct or it is a simple as it looks, and maybe explain why despite Casey Hudson saying they would not 'pull a Lost' that is exactly what they did do.

 

[Thoric485]

Even though they've taken to throwing around the word art a lot, EAWare sure don't act like artists.

Just look at the way they handle their games - they cut them up, monetizing them in the worst ways possible, they insert embarassingly bad and pointless cameos, they spent more money on marketing this shit than developing it.

As soon as Mass Effect launched they completely gave up on making any significant improvements and just focused on crunching out a new one every two years to maximize profit. There's about as much craftsmanship and genuine love invested into these products, as into a McDonalds Happy Meal.

 

[Kingsnake661]

What is annoying me most in this whole debacle is that everyone seems convinced that the people that didn't like the ending are completely incapable of being satisfied. That's just glossing over all of the complaints people had. No mention of the numerous plot holes or lore errors the ending creates, or even the fact that it crossed from "being open to interpretation" to just not telling anyone fuck-all.

While it's obvious that the creator's ultimately get to choose their ending (something which everyone is so quick to bring up in this discussion like everyone wasn't already aware of it), it's not like you're exempt from criticism for a shitty ending to a great series.

Not to mention that the very last thing you see in the epic conclusion to Mass Effect series are the words "downloadable content". Yeah, nice.

The thing is, a number of people were NEVER going to be satisfied. I've seen like three different reasons to hate the ending on this website ALONE ranging from it didn't make sense, it's meaningless, and 5 different variations of what the ending SHOULD have been like and the Social forums are an even bigger mess.

You've got people wanting Paragons to Talk the Reapers to death, Cerberus Cheerleaders wanted TIM to save the day on a white horse and then bone their Shepard, Renegades would've been uber pissed if the Paragons could get ANYTHING resembling a happy ending, then you have the standard off into the sunset with the love interest types, there was even one nutjob that wouldn't accept anything other than the Reapers winning!

I guess what I'm saying is, they were going to piss of no end of people no matter what they did. Might as well go out with an ending studio Gainax would be proud of.

And when you have, whats his name, Case Hudden, spouting crap about giving us "wildly different" endings because they could, seeing as it's the ending and they don't have to worry about tying things up for a sequal, NONE of them expetations IMO should have been off the table. Hell, that kind of sounds like what he was promessing. My money is on the fact he got blinded by great big dollar signs in his eyes, and ME4 is on the horizan, and he needed a ending similar enough accross the boards for a common launching point for the 4th game.

I take it you're not much of a Lionhead fan are ya? I learned damn quick from the good sir Peter that you do NOT take devs on their word in interviews. EVER. Remind me to tell you what we were promised in Saints Row the Third sometime. You'll laugh.

And i'm a firm beliver that when you talk out your @ss you get your feet held to the fire. Or at least should. *shrug*

 

[Imbechile]

Jesus! Another person misses the point.
Are game devs really this stupid, or are they stupid on purpose?

 

[Frostbyte666]

"If computer games are art than I fully endorse the author of the artwork to have a statement about what they believe should happen," said Barnett. "Just as J.K. Rowling can end her books and say that is the end of Harry Potter. I don't think she should be forced to make another one."

Not to rain on his parade, but didn't Arthur Conan Doyle have to do more Sherlock Holmes books after killing him off due to public outcry.

 

[Imbechile]

This coming from the guy behind Bioshock 2.

Ken Levine and Irrational didn't work on Bioshock 2.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

It's that it's sad that pisses us off. If Rowling had killed Harry and Voldemort at the end, we'd have been sad, but that would have been fine, because she'd done extremely well in characterizing everyone up until that point. We'd seen both heroes and villains rise, then fall, help come from unexpected places, and opportunities missed. She explained everything along the way, and her tightly constructed narrative of "the Boy who lived" and his personal struggle against "he who must not be named".

By contrast, Mass Effect 3 is unsatisfying because it's the end to a wholly different narrative. Or, as we've recently found out, it's the only ending Casey Hudson decided to leave in, after also scrapping all the explanation at the end of the game, the final encounter with TIM, and every choice available. And the sad thing is, they rushed to meet a deadline, so they cut it out. Had we known that this would be the result, we'd have told them to wait, to actually finish the game properly.

If they wanted Shep to die in all of them, so be it. They want to blow up the relays, and strand everyone? Make that the bad ending. Take some of that lore and construction of the stories that we've come to know over three games, and find a way to obliterate the Reapers alone. Find ways that don't absolutely cripple the galaxy. In a series with so much choice, where so much difference has been made at the cost of a few, for the betterment of all, don't give me that the only choice is that everything is fucked. That undermines the point that the series has worked for all this time.

 

[Kingsnake661]

Jesus! Another person misses the point.
Are game devs really this stupid, or are they stupid on purpose?

It's simply the easist way to deflect an argument. When your staring down a LONG list of angery rants, it's easiest to pick a few that are poorly argued, like, "we want a happy ending" and harp on them and dismess the masses off with them. Happens all the time in different ways. When ME3 was taking a beating on meticritic, they pinpointed a few "homophobic" posts and dismised the hoard off as just that. Find the weakest and easiest defendable argument you can, stick your blinders on, TA DA, you win.