BioShock Creator "Sad" Over ME3's Ending Scandal

[mightybozz]

Actually, it's a good thing. The embarassing bit are people like you, stomping their feet like five year olds about other people using their rights as customers.
Guess what happens during many bad movies in cinemas. People leave in the middle, demand a refund...and get it.
Guess what happens when you go to a restaurant, and you get a half cooked meal. You...get a refund.

It's proper customer behavior. In fact, it is behavior customers should utilize, because this is how capitalism WORKS.

A company that disrespects the wishes of its customers needs to be punished monetarily. It's simply the basis of the entire way our economic system is supposed to play out.


This entire brouhaha really brings out people not getting basic things about art and/or capitalism. It's really sad and makes me fear for the education system of the western world in general.

Actually this is more like going to a restaurant ordering a meal eating it all and then demanding your money back because the last bite was a little cold. Or going to a movie watching the whole thing and then demanding your money because you didnt like it. To fucking bad boo hoo. You bought a product and then used said product. We dont give a fuck if you liked it or not because you bought it and used it.

You cant return a movie because you didnt like the ending or demand that it should be changed.

The people who are demanding refunds or that the ending should be changed need to be lined up and get their skulls bashed in. The world could do with a few less idiots like them.

So your point is that if someone receives a bad product/service, or one which was not as advertised, then they are not entitled to complain?

Most people aren't demanding refunds. I would mostly agree that caveat emptor applies, and that a refund can be refused. A cautious person who listened to reviews and opinions instead of getting swept up in the hype might avoid the game if they knew it would disappoint. That's one of many reasons why I don't preorder games. You don't know whether they'll be any good.

But that doesn't change the fact that in the opinion of a large number of people the ending is a deeply unsatisfying conclusion to a story that they got heavily invested in.

Are they entitled to complain about a bad ending? If not, I would suggest that you are placing serious limits on free expression.

If so, are they not entitled to suggest that a way to fix what is considered to be a poor ending would be through patches or DLC? What is so abhorrent about the notion of improving a game post-sale?

 

[Acton Hank]

And as usual, he completely misses the point.
Bioware can do whatever ending they want, but if the ending is a complete mess of logic, continuity errors, theme shifts, nonsensical explanations and just a general complete narrative nosedive, the consumers, as in the people who spend money to buy this game, have every fucking right to shout the ending's poor quality from the rooftops if they see fit. It has nothing to do with "artistic integrity" or "telling the story they want to tell".

Besides I think Bioware lost their claim to art the moment they included Jessica Chobot for no real reason other than to get IGN fans intrested.

 

[Abedeus]

SO according to Ken, Bethesda shouldn't have released DLC that fixed the ending of Fallout 3 so the player didn't die?

The Fallout 3 fans were happy and Bethesda sold a load of DLC and made money, everyone was happy.

Except they didn't really change the ending. It all happens just like you saw on the screen, BUT, if you go in the chamber you end up waking up two weeks later. They weren't going out to change an ending, they were basically patching game play, allowing game play past the original end.

Don't you think they have been planning DLC to do similar things with ME3?

Wrong. The original ending was "Character dies of poisoning to save the world, the end". Now the ending to the game with DLC is "Character wakes up after 2 weeks from a coma, ready for new adventures and actual ending."

 

[Manji187]

Quit sidestepping the real issue, Ken.

ME3's ending is, ultimately, BETRAYAL. A broken promise (choice) and the undoing of established concepts from the previous two games.

It is a huge middlefinger in the face followed by a casual message telling players to purchase DLC.

Injury followed by insult.

Heh, I wonder how all of this will affect Bioware's next game commercially.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

I don't have ME3 yet, so thus I can't gauge the ending with my own eyes, and I do not want it spoiled in any way, shape, and form, so all I keep hearing from ME3 is that the ending was sooo horribad.

But at the same time, this is what the BioWare writers were preparing for, and they've had so much time dedicated to it that I'm believing they didn't rush it out. If this is the ending, then this is the ending; get over it. One hour is fail is not an excuse to discount 100+ hours of awesome.

 

[NovraSplice]

Art that's free, you can look at, if you disagree with it or don't like it, you can just walk away.But we've invested 5 years into this, and paid a lot of money. I agree that games can have many forms of artistic merit, especially as i'm currently doing a video games design course. But they're also a form of entertainment and myself, aswell as others have followed this series almost religiously.

I'm not against it because it wasn't a GOOD ending, I'm against it because it was the only ending. (Laser colours don't count)

So we deserve to at least get closure in the way we were promised

 

[Darkmantle]

where was this guy when Sherlock Holmes got ret-conned back into existence?

 

[wintercoat]

"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."

Let's run with this for a second. Imagine, if you will, that we are back in the Forbidden Forest, and Voldemort has just killed Harry. We arrive at the ghostly King's Cross. Dumbledore shows up, all ethereal and shit, points out the aborted fetus that is Voldemort's soul, and tells Harry that he can either destroy it, take control of it, which would give Harry complete control of Voldemort, or he can use the piece of soul to give all Muggles the ability to use magic. Either way, Harry dies. Then we go to a scene where Ron and Hermione wake up in an unknown country on a cliff overlooking a forest. Finish with the Stargazer scene written almost exactly the same.

J.K. Rowling would have been torn to pieces. People would have been calling for her head on a platter. Hell, it wouldn't have made it past her editor, who would have called her a fucking idiot for trying to end her series in such a bullshit way. But she didn't. She ended her series in a way that was thematically in line with the rest of the series.

 

[Acton Hank]

"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."

Let's run with this for a second. Imagine, if you will, that we are back in the Forbidden Forest, and Voldemort has just killed Harry. We arrive at the ghostly King's Cross. Dumbledore shows up, all ethereal and shit, points out the aborted fetus that is Voldemort's soul, and tells Harry that he can either destroy it, take control of it, which would give Harry complete control of Voldemort, or he can use the piece of soul to give all Muggles the ability to use magic. Either way, Harry dies. Then we go to a scene where Ron and Hermione wake up in an unknown country on a cliff overlooking a forest. Finish with the Stargazer scene written almost exactly the same.

J.K. Rowling would have been torn to pieces. People would have been calling for her head on a platter. Hell, it wouldn't have made it past her editor, who would have called her a fucking idiot for trying to end her series in such a bullshit way. But she didn't. She ended her series in a way that was thematically in line with the rest of the series.

Very accurately put, I may quote this example in the future.

 

[zinho73]

I think people are assuming Mr. Levine's statement is an apology for the ending.

Really, all he said was he's lamenting that nobody is getting what they wanted; neither the fans or the studio, and it's unlikely that some rewritten ending is going to make either party feel better about it. That is a sad thing.

The article seems misleading, since it was Barnnet talking about art and Rowling and etc that people seem to be ascribing to Levine.

Christ, it's dangerous to be a 'voice' and have any opinion on this particular topic. It's like hanging your junk over a shark pool in a hurricane.

This is important. The guy the wrote the article made a poor job.

 

[Britisheagle]

The majority of people aren't mad about the "sad" or "downer" nature of the endings, god damnit. People are mad that they spent 100+ hours on a series, only for every single choice they made to be thrown out the window and not make a single damn difference in the end.

This, of course, is after we were told that our choices actually would matter.

This!! 100 times over!

This is why the Mass Effect ending upset so many people, not that the ending sucked. Its because of the false promises and like everything up to that point meant absolutely nothing. Who was loyal to you, who you picked in the final fight to acompany you.. nothing was tied up. It was rushed and horrible and was enough to make me not want to play the single player campaign again.

The multiplayer is fun though, ironic really when the game is considered to be the best singleplayer one... Ok I'll be quiet now.

 

[tmande2nd]

More and more I just dont give a damn about Bioware.
Twice in a row they spit in my face with both DA2 and ME3.

Now DA2 does not get an ending, and ME3 had a terrible ending.
Personally screw them I wont waste my money on them anymore.

Skyrim was a much better game and OH YES HAD AN ENDING THAT MADE SENSE!

 

[Kian2]

I want games to be art. But art has been studied for as long as it has been created, and there are rules to art. Stories in particular follow certain conventions. For example, everyone recognizes that a writer who brings up something that was never hinted at before to resolve a situation, such as an ability by a character that has no explanation or reason other than to resolve the situation, is a hack. It's bad storytelling.

So is when you contradict yourself. If you spend three games finding evidence to support an idea, having a character point out the idea is wrong a the last minute without any reasoning, just saying it is so is bad storytelling. It's not a subversion or any other clever trick. Just outright contradiction for the sake of forcing you to make a needless choice. Everything that supported the idea is still true and still out there, you just get a character that believes otherwise and you are forced to agree.

Spoiler

For those who don't mind spoilers: We find many AIs during the game. They are generally hostile, but their motivation is never shown to be that they want to eradicate organics. All every AI in all three games ever want is to be left alone. In every case it's the organics that seek to destroy them out of fear. But you can prove these fears unfounded by helping to humanize both EDI and the Geth. It's clearly shown that organics and AIs can coexist so long as the organics stop being paranoid.

In the ending, the intelligence leading the Reapers claims that their motive is to protect organic life from synthetic annihilation. This flies in the face of your previous experiences, but you are never allowed to disagree despite all the evidence. Your choices then are reduced to how you wish to deal with the problem of synthetics wiping out all life. A problem that doesn't exist, and was never referenced before.

This again is hack writing. If you are going to build your finale towards an idea, you have to bring up that idea before in the tale. You have to reference it, give evidence for it. Otherwise, your ending is completely disconnected from the tale and offers no closure. It's even worse when the idea contradicts the tale. You're not just providing no closure, you're tearing down the work your finale should have to stand on.


Beyond everything, though, I agree with Ken Levine. This whole situation is just sad. Bioware might provide an ending, or they might not, but they can't unmake the mess they created with the ending they chose to give the series. The series is already ruined. Saying 'it was all a dream' would have been better. At least that way you'd know that nothing ever mattered and have a bit of closure.

Playing a hastily written DLC, providing what they think the audience wants (and it's even sadder when you read their responses and realize they don't even understand what went wrong) won't please anyone.

 

[Darkmantle]

where was this guy when Sherlock Holmes got ret-conned back into existence?

Sherlock Holmes was brought back, not because fans protested for Doyle to bring him back, but because the book was a major hit and Doyle wanted to do a sequel.

:O

But how could he go back and change his mind! surely he gave up his artistic integrity when he decided to change the story! he should have left it as it was! let it stand on how it was written as it were. he betrayed his own work by changing it like that!

the arguments sound silly when framed like that.

 

[Dana22]

All these will be just empty words the moment DLCs are released.

 

[evilneko]

"I think if those people got what they wanted and (BioWare) wrote their ending they would be very disappointed in the emotional feeling they got because ... they didn't really create it," Levine said.

Gee, ya think?!

That's exactly why people hate the current ending. It throws away everything the player has done over the series.