Child's Play Halts Retake Mass Effect Donation Drive

[Kmadden2004]

I think the inferred assumption is ridiculous, and it shouldn't assume partisanship simply because someone decided to use your cause to make a statement. But whatever, I thought "Retake Mass Effect" was stupid anyway.

Yeah, especially since they apparently didn't have a problem when Bioware used the charity for corporate PR/increasing sales or making people play their Facebook games...

http://blog.bioware.com/2009/12/15/dragon-age-origins-ebay-auction-for-childs-play-charity/
http://greywardens.com/2009/12/bioware-child%E2%80%99s-play-and-the-gift-of-the-yeti/

Today on the BioWare Blog they ask Dragon Age fans to help them raise $10,000 for a charitable donation to "Child's Play", by playing their Facebook application called Gift of the Yeti. You play and BioWare will pay.

I don't really care about the movement as such, but the offered explanation seems off... I know what I won't be clicking on next time I buy an Indie Bundle anyway.

Whilst I can't really talk about the 'Gift of the Yeti thing, as this is the first time I've actually heard of such thing existing, I don't think it's fair to lump the example in your first link in there, no matter how valid your point may be.

It's not unusual for companies such as EA and BioWare to donate exclusive items to charity auctions, hell Marvel Studios have just held one for their film props. The difference between BioWare auctioning off some DA:O memorabilia and this 'Retake Mass Effect' nonsense really just boils down to the unambiguous nature of the message.

With BioWare the good PR really does come second to supporting a charity they've had a good relationship with in the past. Retake Mass Effect, however, is actively using Child's Play as an attention-seeking ploy.

There really is a difference between saying "Support Child's Play by bidding on memorabilia for a game that you like and is incredibly popular at the moment" and saying "support our cause by donating to Child's Play". That's what Tycho was getting at when he said "Child?s Play cannot be a tool to draw attention to a cause. Child?s Play must be the Cause."

 

[Lunar Templar]

and anybody who didn't get why this was a bad idea to start with, well here ya go -.-

 

[Hitchmeister]

"What? You mean all I'm doing is helping children and not buying justification for my entitled attitudes? I demand a refund!"

Internet mockery is not enough.

 

[mattttherman3]

I guess some people don't read what they buy, I want my donation back, that makes you so much worse than anyone just bitching about the ending, I mean you wouldn't donate a bag of clothes to the salvation army and then go back the next week and ask for them back...

 

[cikame]

Dumb people are dumb.

 

[Moosejaw]

I'd still like to know exactly what a 'high' amount is, but that's still 80 grand give or take for charity. The reasons don't matter, if they got 80 grand and the only downside was they had to field some calls from a few dozen douchebags who thought it was going to 'buy' them a new ending, you know what? Worth it. All damn day.

 

[Kopikatsu]

So PA is prematurely ending a charity drive... and they're doing so under the pretense that it's causing confusion (for whom, 3 or 4 people?), and because they don't like the cause. Disgusting.

How is being omniscience working out for you?

 

[sifffffff]

Nothing but the best intentions from ME fans.
Truly, they are the champions of consumer rights.

OT: This whole thing has gotten out of hand. Well, $80,000 for charity is good, even if the intentions were dumb. At least some of the participants decided to do something productive.

Wait.... So there are a few dumb shits in a batch of over 30,000 people and so obviously ALL Mass Effect fans donated to this charity to pay for a new ending.

Truly, you are the champion of critical thinking.

 

[sifffffff]

a movement that used a childrens charity because they were pissed at a videogames' ending, using said charity to demand a different ending.


no, those people are assholes and should lose their bank accounts.

So I'm assuming then based on this assumption of what kind of people they are that you regularly give to charity?

 

[Murmillos]

I'm glad I donated $20. BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT EA, THATS $20 YOUR ASSES WILL NOT BE GETTING FOR ANY ME3 DLC. I WILL NOT PAY for a complete ME3 ending unless that DLC is as complete and massive as the FO3 "Broken Steel" DLC. Anything less is a disservice to BioWare and your customers.

 

[thomaskattus]

"What? You mean all I'm doing is helping children and not buying justification for my entitled attitudes? I demand a refund!"

Internet mockery is not enough.

There is not enough mockery in the world for these folks.

 

[Scrythe]

[Child's Play] has been asked what the goal is, and how much they need to raise in order to get the ending produced. We've also been contacted by PayPal due to a high number of people asking for their donations back. This is in addition to readers who simply couldn't understand how this was connected to Child's Play's mission. We were dealing with a lot of very confused people, more every day, and that told us we had a problem.

That alone is fucking disgusting. I cannot believe I'm a part of a community full of whiny, entitled, and egotistical assholes. For years, we've been struggling with the stigma that gamers, as a whole, are hopeless losers who are prone to violence and childish behavior, and here we are proving them right.

Penny Arcade's Child's Play (and by extension, Desert Bus) has been one of the greatest and most wholesome thing to come out of the gaming community, and has really helped quell the image that we're mindless slaves to "murder simulators", and just because a single AAA game had a sub-par ending, the gaming community managed to turn this into a fucking circus. Donate because you want to help Child's Play, not because your unwarranted self-importance demands that you somehow deserve a better ending simply because you may or may not have actually purchased the product.

I'm sick of this attitude. It needs to fucking stop. No other medium of entertainment stoops so low as to make petitions and campaigns over such trivial bullshit.

You don't see people sending death threats to Michael Bay's personal phones in response to Transformers.

You don't see people making massive online petitions to boycott Eoin Colfer's And Another Thing... or Brian Herbert's Sisterhood of Dune.

You don't see people withdrawing their donations from a food drive because they wanted a different ending to The Sopranos.

We're supposed to show the world that we're much more mature than this, and instead we're turning into another self-indulgent internet mob.

[HEADING=1]Go fuck yourselves[/HEADING]

 

[Mr. Omega]

Nothing but the best intentions from ME fans.
Truly, they are the champions of consumer rights.

OT: This whole thing has gotten out of hand. Well, $80,000 for charity is good, even if the intentions were dumb. At least some of the participants decided to do something productive.

Wait.... So there are a few dumb shits in a batch of over 30,000 people and so obviously ALL Mass Effect fans donated to this charity to pay for a new ending.

Truly, you are the champion of critical thinking.

I'm sorry, did I need to explicitly say that I didn't mean all the fans? Pardon me for having a little faith in this forum to not make such assumptions. Well, I won't make that mistake again. I'll be sure to spell things out real slowly from now on. Just for you.

OT:

Despite the belief among some supporters that the end of the donation drive was somehow engineered by game journalists in support of EA

So since when exactly did all of gaming journalism become the bad guys? Is this a new thing or have I just been not paying attention?

 

[Formica Archonis]

How thick are some people? Gawd o mighty.

You'd be amazed. I work in customer service and the stupidity I see... trackless, infinite fields of stupidity. People seem to think their money is more valuable than it really is.

(No, "in store warranty" does NOT mean I'll get on a plane and fly out to fix your computer because you moved to Saudi Arabia and we don't have stores outside North America. Yes, I know you're only one year into your two year warranty.)

 

[Susan Arendt]

People tend not to read things, and it's not at all surprising that there's a portion of folks who got confused about just what they were really donating money for. It's fair, if unfortunate, that they decided to ask for their money back. On the one hand, they're not getting what they believed they were paying for, on the other...it's a charity, people.

The items that BioWare had donated previously isn't a fair comparison at all. Lots of companies donate items to Child's Play's yearly auction, and the connection is always very clear. In return for your money, you will get this specific thing. In the case of Retake Mass Effect, the "thing" wasn't at all clear.

I think it's wonderful that Child's Play is $80k richer. If there's a silver lining to this whole ME3 affair, that's a great one.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

I applaud the donators who helped raise 80,000 for children who deserve to enjoy video games as much as anyone else. If anything, you guys ARE the good ending to Mass Effect 3. Thank you.

 

[Lethos]

I don't get all these people going "garrr, it's so selfish and/or childish for RME to cling onto a charity like that!"

Surely doing the right thing for (what you consider) the wrong reasons, is still the right thing in the end? Furthermore what kind of cynical creature must you be to try and cast people who just collectively raised $80,000 in a bad light?

Can't help but see the irony in that the people who are critical of RME calling RME childish, and then proceeding to let their personal feelings towards RME get in the way of recognizing that a huge pile of money was just raised.

Hold the line

 

[putowtin]

I gave, not because I thought it would "pay" for a new ending
I gave because it was a way of saying "I don't like the ending" here's something positive.. money for kids!