BioWare Knows It Can't Please Everyone

[tensorproduct]

Obviously I can't speak for everyone who hated the endings here, but I have never seen it claimed we have a right to an altered ending, except by people thinking the ending shouldn't be changed using it in "entited crybaby" arguments. It has always been the case that we were extremely unhappy with the ending and would be unwilling to pay more for DLC/future games. Bioware had the choice, stick to thier guns or try to fix the ending to regain the faith of the fans they alienated.

Quote from the facebook group "Bioware is a business if we can make them understand that by using the current endings they alienate (no pun) their customers, and destroy the replay ability of the trilogy they are hurting their profits we CAN bring about a change for the better."

This has never been about the "right" to get an altered ending, simply trying to get Bioware to choose to implement a change that will result in people like myself continuing to give Bioware business. Again, this is my viewpoint, shared by the people I have talked about this issue with.

I can only say that you have given a very selective reading to a lot of the controversy if you do not think that at least some people have claimed that they have a right to a new ending, or that they deserve a better ending, or that they are "entitled" to what they want.

This may not be what you have been arguing, but it is very definitely exactly what a large number of gamers have argued. From the same mission statement that you quoted:

"Fans of the Mass Effect trilogy have put far too much time, effort, and money into the game to be abandoned with such a fate.
Bioware desperately needs to resolve this issue. New DLC (something long) to add a new, more satisfactory ending to the game, or even a full expansion based as an epilogue to the trilogy."

Not "We want Bioware to resolve this issue", but Bioware needs to resolve this issue. What is that, if not expressing an expectation that a non-existent right be met?

It's right there in the name: Retake Mass Effect. We own this, but the writers took it from us, so we are in the right to take it back.
(which, by the way, is an awful name: why not "Take Back Mass Effect", like the game's tag-line "Take Back Earth").

 

[itsthesheppy]

Based on the feedback this DLC gets, I might even buy the game. I'm so happy I waited to hear the feedback from ME3 and didn't waste the money. And didn't throw in with Origin. No thanks.

 

[Metalrocks]

well, one thing he got right, and thats not pleasing every one.
but in the forum alone people said whats wrong with the ending and most of all, this retarded space kid.
amazing how they can stick with this excuse. its a poorly written ending. the end. this DLC better deliver. i guess i have to wait before i can play it. or i just watch it on youtube and see if its worth it to download it or just delete the game...forever.

 

[Megalodon]

I can only say that you have given a very selective reading to a lot of the controversy if you do not think that at least some people have claimed that they have a right to a new ending, or that they deserve a better ending, or that they are "entitled" to what they want.

There has been undeniable overeaction to the shitness of the ending (FTC complaints and the like). The word entitled was thrown around too much, chiefly by opponents of the movement claiming we thought we were entitled to a new ending, whereas we saw it as simply complaining about what was to us a substandard product.

This may not be what you have been arguing, but it is very definitely exactly what a large number of gamers have argued. From the same mission statement that you quoted:

"Fans of the Mass Effect trilogy have put far too much time, effort, and money into the game to be abandoned with such a fate.
Bioware desperately needs to resolve this issue. New DLC (something long) to add a new, more satisfactory ending to the game, or even a full expansion based as an epilogue to the trilogy."

Not "We want Bioware to resolve this issue", but Bioware needs to resolve this issue. What is that, if not expressing an expectation that a non-existent right be met?

It's right there in the name: Retake Mass Effect. We own this, but the writers took it from us, so we are in the right to take it back.
(which, by the way, is an awful name: why not "Take Back Mass Effect", like the game's tag-line "Take Back Earth").

A lot of this boils down to semantics, I'd say the the use of "needs" serves to demonstrate the action Bioware needs to take to address the complaints of the retake movement and maintain thier custom, not that they need to address the complaints because we have a right to a new ending.

You're right about the name, it could have been better. But it was chosen right at the start, tempers were running high and the sense of betrayal was at its height, and it was not expected to balloon into the movement it did, not having the best name does not detract from the message of "we hate this and think you should change it, otherwise we won't want to keep giving you our business". Overall the use of a few confrontational words does not mean that we believed Bioware had to alter the ending.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

"There are some people who just outright rejected the whole concept of the endings, and wanted us to start from scratch and redo everything. And we can't do that because that's not our story;

'Your' story sucks ass. Get it? Stop pretending it doesn't suck or that it's bold and expressive and open to interpretation. The entire internet can see the emperor has no clothes. The entire internet.

Except that this is obviously not true. Plenty of people have no problem with the endings. I've seen no evidence that those who dislike them are anything more than a vocal minority... far from the entire internet.

Your guess is as good as mine. What we do know is the scale of the fan reaction was out of this world. Putting a silly exaggeration in italics was my attempt at humor, obviously I did it wrong.

Why can't they stop being condescending jerks? If I bought any other product and was dissatisfied, anybody I talked to about it would apologize and do everything they could to make me happy. Why do game devs get away with this? You think I insult customers at my job and make bullshit excuses? I wish.

This is a perfect example of what I dislike about the "retake Mass Effect" movement/meme. If they change the ending to satisfy you, Rooster, then they are changing a story that I and plenty of others liked.

Granted. But that has nothing to do with the part you quoted.

If we were mount a campaign to have it changed back, we could use identical "the customer is always right" reasoning to justify the position.

I wasn't saying they should change it because the customer is always right, I was saying they shouldn't be dicks to their customers. They should change it because it sucks.

What makes your desire to be a satisfied customer more important than mine?

For one thing, you are not me, so I hardly feel compelled to defend your interests on your behalf. Beside that, nothing. We have conflicting goals, but it doesn't mean you're some kind of victim here.

 

[irishda]

Cue the shitstorm of people basically saying "But they could at least please ME!"

It's better than writing an ending just to please themselves.

As a writer though, it's a terrible idea to give an ending that other people want. For one, people hate ambiguity in their endings, or even cliff-hangers. They feel resolution means resolution for everything and are rather upset when it's not delivered. And, if you're a good storyteller, people become emotionally invested in characters, so THEIR endings would involve things going good for said favorite characters. It might make a satisfying ending, but there's risk to it and is kind of a cop out.

On the other hand, good storytellers will have fleshed out characters that can interact and play off each other, which means the ending is more of a logical conclusion with varying circumstances the writer injects influencing it to varying degrees. Now, whether or not Bioware did that with Mass Effect, that's fair game. But pandering to others for whatever reason is just lazy.

 

[irishda]

Why can't they stop being condescending jerks? If I bought any other product and was dissatisfied, anybody I talked to about it would apologize and do everything they could to make me happy. Why do game devs get away with this? You think I insult customers at my job and make bullshit excuses? I wish.

This is a perfect example of what I dislike about the "retake Mass Effect" movement/meme. If they change the ending to satisfy you, Rooster, then they are changing a story that I and plenty of others liked.

Granted. But that has nothing to do with the part you quoted.

I believe it's relevant because if it was changed, then they'd be the dissatisfied customers who would need the apology and "everything [Bioware] can do to make them happy". Game devs get away with this because, as the article says, you can't please everyone.

If we were mount a campaign to have it changed back, we could use identical "the customer is always right" reasoning to justify the position.

I wasn't saying they should change it because the customer is always right, I was saying they shouldn't be dicks to their customers. They should change it because it sucks.

This is just too perfect: Let me re-edit somethings in there so you can see how ridiculous this is.

I wasn't saying they should change it because the customer is always right, I was saying they shouldn't be dicks to their customers. They should change it because it sucks (READ: They should change it because I (the customer) AM RIGHT when I say it sucks)

What makes your desire to be a satisfied customer more important than mine?

For one thing, you are not me, so I hardly feel compelled to defend your interests on your behalf. Beside that, nothing. We have conflicting goals, but it doesn't mean you're some kind of victim here.

Unless you succeeded and Bioware had changed the endings, then he'd be the victim of your wants because he lost something he liked. It's like if he really loved Snickers, but you hated peanuts. So you got the candy company to remove all peanuts in all Snickers. He loses the product he liked because you couldn't be bothered to enjoy another product.

 

[tensorproduct]

There has been undeniable overeaction to the shitness of the ending (FTC complaints and the like). The word entitled was thrown around too much, chiefly by opponents of the movement claiming we thought we were entitled to a new ending, whereas we saw it as simply complaining about what was to us a substandard product.

A lot of this boils down to semantics, I'd say the the use of "needs" serves to demonstrate the action Bioware needs to take to address the complaints of the retake movement and maintain thier custom, not that they need to address the complaints because we have a right to a new ending.

You're right about the name, it could have been better. But it was chosen right at the start, tempers were running high and the sense of betrayal was at its height, and it was not expected to balloon into the movement it did, not having the best name does not detract from the message of "we hate this and think you should change it, otherwise we won't want to keep giving you our business". Overall the use of a few confrontational words does not mean that we believed Bioware had to alter the ending.

You're right that this might boil down to an argument about semantics, and I'm sure we both want to avoid that. As the old joke goes, anybody who says "let's not argue semantics" really means "you need to accept my semantics".

If I go along with your assertion that people were never claiming an absolute right to a new ending (hypothetically speaking; I still think that is far too generous an appraisal of a lot of the comments here and elsewhere), then maybe the rest of the culture was too quick to brand RTM as "whiny, entitlement-complex-having, spoiled, idiot children". But if that's what is on the front page of the Tumblr and on the Facebook group, should we not take you at face value? The internet never having been the best place for subtlety or ambiguity.

Particularly when we hear about insane things like complaints to FTC/BBB/etc the movement as a whole doesn't seem to have much credibility, and I saw precious little to lend it any. For every one person doing an awesome stunt like the thing with the cupcakes (that really was great), or donating money to Child's Play, there seemed to be dozens throwing about abuse on forums/Twitter or accusing gaming journalists of taking bribes from EA for not publicly hating the ending enough.

I'm all for voting with your wallet, and for letting the company know why you would never do business with them again. That's the other side of us not really having any right to be satisfied: publishers don't have any right to our money (though they don't seem to understand that). And if Bioware/EA decide that the loss of business is significant enough that they'll address the issue, then that's their call. If you're confident that you can speak for the majority of the movement when you say that that's all they ever wanted to say, then I have to tell you that you all did a poor job of getting that across. I think it's much more likely that you're simply wrong about what most people who wanted it changed really thought.

 

[tensorproduct]

Why can't they stop being condescending jerks? If I bought any other product and was dissatisfied, anybody I talked to about it would apologize and do everything they could to make me happy. Why do game devs get away with this? You think I insult customers at my job and make bullshit excuses? I wish.

This is a perfect example of what I dislike about the "retake Mass Effect" movement/meme. If they change the ending to satisfy you, Rooster, then they are changing a story that I and plenty of others liked.

Granted. But that has nothing to do with the part you quoted.

I believe it's relevant because if it was changed, then they'd be the dissatisfied customers who would need the apology and "everything [Bioware] can do to make them happy". Game devs get away with this because, as the article says, you can't please everyone.

If we were mount a campaign to have it changed back, we could use identical "the customer is always right" reasoning to justify the position.

I wasn't saying they should change it because the customer is always right, I was saying they shouldn't be dicks to their customers. They should change it because it sucks.

This is just too perfect: Let me re-edit somethings in there so you can see how ridiculous this is.

I wasn't saying they should change it because the customer is always right, I was saying they shouldn't be dicks to their customers. They should change it because it sucks (READ: They should change it because I (the customer) AM RIGHT when I say it sucks)

What makes your desire to be a satisfied customer more important than mine?

For one thing, you are not me, so I hardly feel compelled to defend your interests on your behalf. Beside that, nothing. We have conflicting goals, but it doesn't mean you're some kind of victim here.

Unless you succeeded and Bioware had changed the endings, then he'd be the victim of your wants because he lost something he liked. It's like if he really loved Snickers, but you hated peanuts. So you got the candy company to remove all peanuts in all Snickers. He loses the product he liked because you couldn't be bothered to enjoy another product.

Thanks Irish Da, you saved me some typing.

 

[Frankster]

I'll be honest, all this talk about how "this is their story" got me thinking of Casey Hudson as Tidus from ffx going "this is my story and it will end the way I want it to!".

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I have seen them on youtube and if they had come out with those originally there would have been no shit storm. Sure some may have been discontented but they seem solid enough for a video game ending.

 

[midij19]

why the hell do people even care about mass effect any more? it has bad writing, repetitive gameplay and is just disappointing in general. the fact that the only reason bioware even thought of fixing a single flaw in the whole mess was because the public reaction was beyond bad, gives out just how little they care for the quality of their product.
it's better left forgotten like all the other CoD/MW ripoffs and wannabes.

 

[chiefohara]

This is a perfect example of what I dislike about the "retake Mass Effect" movement/meme. If they change the ending to satisfy you, Rooster, then they are changing a story that I and plenty of others liked. If we were mount a campaign to have it changed back, we could use identical "the customer is always right" reasoning to justify the position.

What makes your desire to be a satisfied customer more important than mine?

What was it about the ending that you liked?

Didn't like it at all myself, but im genuinely curious as to why you found it a satisfying ending to the franchise. What did you like about it?

 

[SpectacularWebHead]

And the few that did somehow manage to escape magic-splosion have hope? A cripple and his sexbot, your love interest, and maybe a few others... alone on an alien planet? There is no hope in that either, unless you think the idea of hope is inbreeding.

...How is any member of the normandy doin' the nasty and having kids inbreeding? That makes no sense, even as a joke or satirical point.

Seriously, None of the main characters on Normandy a related, whatchu talkin' bout Willis?

 

[JambalayaBob]

There are some people who just outright rejected the whole concept of the endings, and wanted us to start from scratch and redo everything. And we can't do that because that's not our story; we wouldn't know how to write that story.How could they? Deus Ex didn't write that story for them.

OR maybe you could just ask Drew Karpyshyn to do it. You know the guy who actually DID create Mass Effect.

Cue the shitstorm of people basically saying "But they could at least please ME!"

It's better than writing an ending just to please themselves.

How's that? Writing an ending themselves would actually be productive! Sure, it would probably be crap and only serve to boost their ego, but it's still better than whining about it.

 

[AlexanderPeregrine]

And the few that did somehow manage to escape magic-splosion have hope? A cripple and his sexbot, your love interest, and maybe a few others... alone on an alien planet? There is no hope in that either, unless you think the idea of hope is inbreeding.

...How is any member of the normandy doin' the nasty and having kids inbreeding? That makes no sense, even as a joke or satirical point.

Seriously, None of the main characters on Normandy a related, whatchu talkin' bout Willis?

Their population is way below the minimum effective population size [http://darwin.eeb.uconn.edu/eeb348/lecture-notes/drift/node7.html], so while they might not inbreed and perhaps not their children, they will run into inbreeding really fast.

 

[SpectacularWebHead]

And the few that did somehow manage to escape magic-splosion have hope? A cripple and his sexbot, your love interest, and maybe a few others... alone on an alien planet? There is no hope in that either, unless you think the idea of hope is inbreeding.

...How is any member of the normandy doin' the nasty and having kids inbreeding? That makes no sense, even as a joke or satirical point.

Seriously, None of the main characters on Normandy a related, whatchu talkin' bout Willis?

Their population is way below the minimum effective population size [http://darwin.eeb.uconn.edu/eeb348/lecture-notes/drift/node7.html], so while they might not inbreed and perhaps not their children, they will run into inbreeding really fast.

Well, the main characters certainly, but the normandy has a compliment of about 20 people in games, and (Aledgedly) 100 plus due to soldiers in the final battle. Also, can't Liara just shag everyone once, get pregnant and solve the whole inbreeding problem?
(Also, this point is moot now that the thingy cleared it up, but lets pretend that it didn't, because it's getting interesting now)

 

[tensorproduct]

What was it about the ending that you liked?

Didn't like it at all myself, but im genuinely curious as to why you found it a satisfying ending to the franchise. What did you like about it?

Overall, my take on the ending was that it was a good idea with some dodgy execution. That's pretty much how I saw most of the series. There has always been a lot to like, but frequently you have to squint a bit and be somewhat selectively blind to see the good stuff.

I'll start off with the only thing that I think was actively awful: the Normandy fleeing the battle at the very end and crash landing on some random planet. I can't say much about how stupid that was, and how completely out-of-character it was for Joker and the crew, that has not already been said.

Other than that... yeah I liked most of it. I liked that it required sacrifice. I thought that the motivation of the Reapers made perfect sense (by the standards of amoral immortal machines). I liked that I couldn't just take the easy way out (destruction), because that would mean killing the Geth (who I had worked so hard to save on Rannoch): that was a serious choice which was difficult to make, a factor that has always been the best thing about the series. Most of all, I liked that it actually ended. No LotR style fakeouts, or sequel hooks, or New Vegas type epilogues... it was just over because Shepard's story was finished. It was left to our imaginations how the rest of the galaxy fared after the relays were gone, or how the Turian fleet would be fed (if you saved the Quarians then the live-ships are there with plenty of dextro-DNA food). I even like that indoctrination seems to be a perfectly valid interpretation of the ending: though I disagree with it, that sort of wild theorizing is part of the fun of stories.

Now, I do have nits to pick (space-child... really Bioware, really?) but they don't affect my enjoyment of what was a solid ending to a solid game.

 

[archvile93]

Honestly... I don't think I'd mind the Dark Energy ending. At least compared to what we have got now. It's one of those annoying plot threads that we peaked in 2, and had it just drop off immediately after.


I haven't heard of it before, but I'm guessing that the Reapers would just require all highly evolved beings, and not everything, similar to how they have acted previously.
And while it would be "conceding defeat" in some regards, it's a major risk.

On one hand, you could continue to defy the Reapers and try to stem the Dark Energy on your own, hoping that the Quarians and the rest of the races have some chance of saving themselves from it. Very high risk, yet it means all the higher beings (or all life) get's to live. Yet if you fail, and they just weren't able to stop it, then the devastation would probably be horrific in scale.

And on the other hand, you stop fighting against the reapers. I don't know how the revelation in terms of their motives comes about (again, haven't heard of this particular ending), but I'm sure it would be a surprising one. In this regards, the way the Reapers are acting could easily be compared to how the Salarians acted with the Genophage. They offered no chance and immediately snipped the problem in the bud, largely ignoring how it affected the Krogans. It's a greater good situation, wherein the hopefully positive end justifies the horrific means.
And as Shepard, you end up having to stand and make the choice. Guarantee freedom, or guarantee survival. Do you condemn the higher species to ensure the survival of all, including the future species that will develop afterwards? Or do you destroy your only guaranteed chance to stop the crisis in the hopes that you'll be able to stop it instead?

It has more weight behind each choice, and it has infinitely more impact than a RGB explosion.

While I agree that the original idea makes more sense, I have to disagree on the choice having more weight (none of them really do), choosing to let the reapers win is dumb because it virtually guarentees all life in the galaxy will be exterminated as they will eventually complete the cycle so many times that all life will be killed. It will just take longer than the dark energy one, but the result will be the same. With the "keep fighting anyway" choice you at least have a chance to survive as you might stop the dark energy yourself, as slim as it is, but it's not like you haven't beaten impossible odds before.