But... isn't the 'betrayal' sentiment slightly--- well,
pathetic and qaintly hyperbolic, even for teh internetz? How were you "betrayed", exactly? I'd argue most people's severely OTT/over-emotive reactions to that end were in fact nothing to do with BioWare, and almost everything to do with with self-projected hopes'n'dreams for some kind of perfect resolution where the game did nothing but obsessively pander to a given players every single tiny choice in the entire series...
While I have a litany of grievances about the ending, I'll summarize it with this: if you say your ending won't be a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure A,B,C type, and you say you're way too creative for that, and you constantly tell people the ending depends on your choices, and you reaffirm this statement, over, and over, and over for 5 long years (or 1568 days to be exact), but your ending is either Blue, Green, or Red, and your in-game decisions don't matter, well, thanks Casey Hudson, you were able to get more than $300 dollars out of me, but I'm fairly certain, you'll never get another damn penny from me.
Ah, so you were maybe naive and just believed in PR speak? Well that rather supports my above assertion.
But, beyond that; why were you so letdown with 3, in particular? What choices made in 1 really shaped 2? What choices made in 2 really shaped 3? What choices in the series
really had meaningful consequence? Choice in games - especially A/RPG's with linear narratives - are typically an illusion, and that's understandable, given the potential complexities (and time/cost) of creating truly branching choices. I'd argue people obsessively letdown by 3's end maybe hadn't paid attention to just how little tracked in the series well before those last 15mins.
Oh, and I'm not suggesting ME3's end was great, btw. Whilst I actually enjoyed the original end (a series supposedly - spoiler: it kinda wasn't at all - about tough moral choices, it seemed perfectly fitting and right for 3 to end on such a decision. I also found the choices and ideas raised interesting existential/philosophical questions. very little in the series made me think, but 3's resolution threw up some interesting and unexpected concepts), it was still a poorly thought out mess, and BioWare's reaction to the [absurd] 'fan' reaction
was very poor. To me, neither BioWare nor the 'fans' came out well from that whole debacle.
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And on a personal note re me'n'BioWare: for me, Dragon Age Inquisition's vapid SP MMO - by way of Ubisoft - design, pitifully puddle shallow combat, and lack of a real story are far more egregious strikes against their reputation. Failing to stick a trilogies 15minute landing pails into comparison with what DA:I represented. See also: letting last gen players buy DA:I, and blithely not inform them they'd eventually be abandoned with no DLC support or content patches beyond a certain point. I'd say
that is more worthy of the 'betrayal' accusation.
