Mass Effect 3 Writer Allegedly Slams Controversial Ending

[Scars Unseen]

You know this is funny, because I've read that Child's Play (the charity founded by Penny Arcade writers) will not take any more money from the "Retake Mass Effect Movement" because they didn't want to be attributed to be in "support" of the movement: http://www.vg247.com/2012/03/23/retake-mass-effect-to-close-childs-play-drive/

A charity refusing more money for that reason seems rather baffling...

?I have been in contact with a manager at Child?s Play. First, he wanted to stress how grateful they were for our efforts here, and the huge impact it will have in helping the charity. However, he pointed out that several sources are incorrectly assuming a link between the charity and the petition, or outright support of the petition by the charity.

?This has been a source of difficulty for them, and it has been requested that we wind this effort down. Again, I want to stress that the charity is not unhappy with our work, they are exceptionally pleased with what we have accomplished.?

Robb went to some length to distance Child?s Play?s message from that of its founders at Penny Arcade, and to voice his support for ending the fundraising drive, but the response was predictably negative.

W-what!?

Why would you stop accepting the donations?
I might understand if this was some kind of serious political movement donating and everyone was claiming that Penny Arcade supported them...

But it's obviously not.
And I don't think anyone was saying that Penny Arcade was in support of the movement.

That just....it stinks if you ask me...

The creators and proponents of that petition may feel that they were turning a negative into a positive by channeling that rage and discontent into charity donations, but the link can go both ways, and few charities would want to be viewed as being associated with rage and discontent. It was a well intended idea that was executed without fully considering the possible consequences.

 

[Gennadios]

You know this is funny, because I've read that Child's Play (the charity founded by Penny Arcade writers) will not take any more money from the "Retake Mass Effect Movement" because they didn't want to be attributed to be in "support" of the movement: http://www.vg247.com/2012/03/23/retake-mass-effect-to-close-childs-play-drive/

A charity refusing more money for that reason seems rather baffling...

?I have been in contact with a manager at Child?s Play. First, he wanted to stress how grateful they were for our efforts here, and the huge impact it will have in helping the charity. However, he pointed out that several sources are incorrectly assuming a link between the charity and the petition, or outright support of the petition by the charity.

?This has been a source of difficulty for them, and it has been requested that we wind this effort down. Again, I want to stress that the charity is not unhappy with our work, they are exceptionally pleased with what we have accomplished.?

Robb went to some length to distance Child?s Play?s message from that of its founders at Penny Arcade, and to voice his support for ending the fundraising drive, but the response was predictably negative.

You know, I've been slowly inching towards the conclusion that PA is every bit the massive corporate shill that other journalists are accused of being. First the completely stonewalled stance on used games, then the post on the ending controversy itself seemed far more antagonistic than those of any other sources, now a PA funded charity is refusing donations over something this petty? Sh*t, it's money, and it's not like these people are asking for dead kittens in ME.

I think it's high time I chucked PA into the same bin as Gamespot, it's a shame 'cause I love their comics.

As for OP: It would definitely explain the disconnect, and there was a joke going around the BSN boards that somewhere post launch there was a writer walking around the Bioware offices screaming "I told you so!" at the top of their lungs. Great news that there are at least a few people with some good sense in a once great studio.

 

[mad825]

Casey is really smart and really analytical. And the problem is that when he's not checked, he will assume that other people are like him, and will really appreciate an almost completely unemotional intellectual ending.

Everyone, Casey is now the new Peter Molyneux.

 

[Deadyawn]

Hmm. This does seem legit.
To be fair though, it's very easy to throw blame around like this. Frankly, we don't have the whole story and its only one person's point of view.

I don't want to descredit him or defend Hudson or anything like that. It just seems a little bit convinient that the project leader has now been set up to take this fall almost entirely alone.
Then again maybe I'm just paranoid.

Um, the "project lead" is leading the project. If there's anyone to blame about the game being such and such, apart from the higher-up executives, it's the project lead. Practically every decision has to go through with them, and at the very least he had to approve the ending.

While you say you don't want to defend Hudson, that is pretty much what you're doing, even if it's unintentional. It's not convenient at all. In fact it's so inconvenient, Patrick Weekes is risking his job by doing this.

And kudos to the guy, as little as that'll do. Nice to see someone honest in the industry from time to time. The constant circle-jerking by everyone involved has been getting pretty tiring.

I'm not an authority or anything. I don't pretend to understand how these sorts of things work. Take my words as the baseless opinions that they are. However, the few creative endeavors I have been apart of didn't work like that. If people were invested in it then they would want to know what was going on and what everyone else was doing. And they would complain (a LOT) if they didn't like it.
I'm not saying this is impossible but it seems really wierd to me. Why would no one have known about the ending? And if they did, why would they have not made any objections? I don't know but it just seems a bit off is all I'm saying.
If Hudson and Walters really did write the whole thing by themselves then they deserve all the hate and vitriol the internet can supply (which is a lot). That is just really dumb. However I find that hard to believe.
I'd rather refrain from blaming them before we know what happened or at least have a bit more evidence to back it up. Benefit of the doubt and all that.

 

[Cranky]

Drew Karpyshyn was probably the one writer that held it all together. When he was suddenly put off the last ME novel and the writing team I felt something was truly amiss.
Still, the conspiracy theorist in me believes that this is all a massive ploy by Bioware to throw blame at each other to appease fans. If not, then I think Weekes is telling the truth.

 

[MarxonSR1]

If this is real, it's great that he went out of his way to inform us at possible cost to himself.

Personally I'd like to see more of this, Bioware would garner a lot more respect from me, by all the writers and everyone involved just telling us what on earth happened, without nonsense PR responses. Just give us exactly what you thought you were trying to do, and who felt it was bad. For me that would be much better than an ending changing DLC (though I'd like that also).


Incidentally I like how he mentioned those terrible goodbye scenes, in the 'nothing is going to happen here' section. Mordin, one of the games most interesting characters, got 30 seconds of meaningless dialogue, and even Wrex only got to say stuff while you just stood there.
This compared to what I thought were really good endings for Thane, Legion and Mordin (if he dies on Tuchanka).

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Drew Karpyshyn was probably the one writer that held it all together. When he was suddenly put off the last ME novel and the writing team I felt something was truly amiss.

Yes, they hired the writer of Halo: The Flood for the last book appropriately titled "Deception"
And we all know how well that turned out.

I wouldn't have minded some of the endings stated in the post.

 

[idarkphoenixi]

Not to be pessimistic but to me this just sounds like an attempt to throw someone under the bus in order to try and shut people up. Theres no way that something as important as the ending to Mass Effect 3 would just be rushed out without the approval of the writing staff. I really don't see that happening.

EA and Bioware have their PR leashes attatched firmly around the necks of all employees at this point. There is no way that something like this could go out without either their approval or without serious reprocussions.

 

[Beryl77]

You could really say that it shows, especially compared to other great parts in the game but I'm not convinced that it's real. It doesn't really matter to me who's to blame anyway, although I wouldn't say no if they changed the ending and would use some of the things he mentions.

 

[Acton Hank]

If they'd just let drew karpyshyn be the only lead writer in all three games It would have had the same impact for games as starwars had for movies.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

 

[Bvenged]

Very interesting read I think.

...this is a poor writer finally snapping and cutting through the corporate PR smokescreen...

This is exactly what I think. EA are too stubborn to play mind-games. If so, they'd try and disguise all those business practices that REALLY grind our gears as consumers. But they don't.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

That post wasn't fake. They're trying to protect their asses. The post was too well thought out and well written to be fake. And it came from Bioware writer. Everyone on Penny Arcade knows who that guy is. It wasn't an imitation. Don't believe these fuckers.

They don't have a single proof that it was an imitation, and a lot of people saw who posted that.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Spoiler

Casey Hudson is going from incompetent lead to super villain. This is a great show.

 

[Karathos]

Why would Casey Hudson think for a second he could write the ending to a fucking trilogy? I've seen some dumb moves in my days.. but god. Hudson, pal, friend, dudette. Leave the writing to the writers.

Infact hire better writers cause the writing quality in ME3 was abysmal.

I think the universe is about to implode because I 100% absolutely agree with you on this one, Zeel.

If this is a real post - if it turns out that everything else was reviewed by the other writers on the staff, but the ending wasn't... Then Casey Hudson just fucked Bioware so hard they're going to need to spend their next game budget on soothing cream and therapy.

I will monitor this situation closely. Heck, if someone gets more info on this one way or another, PM the link/thread to me please!

 

[Paladin2905]

That post wasn't fake. They're trying to protect their asses. The post was too well thought out and well written to be fake.

My thoughts exactly. I find it hard to believe that anybody would write up a faux post with that much eloquence and detail.

Of course even if it was fake; it speaks volumes that so many people would immediately jump on and believe it! Even if it were a complete fabrication I think most people would agree that the writing style at the end of ME3 made a huge shift sideways, like the warm water suddenly stopping in the shower. In most media, even twist endings usually preserve the same style. This post has all the hallmarks of a good urban legend (specifically it sounds completely plausible and fits with our observations).

In the end... it probably won't matter if the post were fake or not- it is what people are expecting to hear.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Sounds like someone just committed professional suicide... Shouldn't he know the unwritten rule of working in an industry like this? You never criticize the project, no matter how controversial. Did Harrison Ford talk bad about Crystal Skull? No. He went into every interview, put on that big "shit eating grin" and answered the questions he was asked. When Shia LeBouf was quoted as saying the movie was terrible, Ford basically called him an asshole and said you should never second guess the director if you personally don't have the power or pull to do anything about it.

No matter my personal feelings about the endings are, my only response to this is, "Good luck getting another job in the industry asshole".

 

[Deadyawn]

I'm not an authority or anything. I don't pretend to understand how these sorts of things work. Take my words as the baseless opinions that they are. However, the few creative endeavors I have been apart of didn't work like that. If people were invested in it then they would want to know what was going on and what everyone else was doing. And they would complain (a LOT) if they didn't like it.
I'm not saying this is impossible but it seems really wierd to me. Why would no one have known about the ending? And if they did, why would they have not made any objections? I don't know but it just seems a bit off is all I'm saying.
If Hudson and Walters really did write the whole thing by themselves then they deserve all the hate and vitriol the internet can supply (which is a lot). That is just really dumb. However I find that hard to believe.
I'd rather refrain from blaming them before we know what happened or at least have a bit more evidence to back it up. Benefit of the doubt and all that.

All I'm saying is, game development generally functions like almost any other business. In some places more-so than others, but that's the general idea. The business interest will trump the creative interest vast majority of the time. Which means that if you're told by someone higher up in the chain of command to do/not do something, you're going to comply. Generally, of course. There's always nuance.

Now, I'm not exactly jumping on Casey's back and blaming the whole ending thing on him. I have more of a feeling that the problem is way simpler and less conspiratory. The budget wasn't big enough. The ways he went about trying to sidestep the problem ("Oh, we're so artsy, aren't we! Sparking debate as we did!") and such I still have a problem with, but it would take a seriously disturbed game director to go that way about the ending of the trilogy without either being ordered to or being really desperate. No sane game developer would show so much contempt for their audience and their own creation after so much work has been put into it.

Not buying the objection thing. Unless you're working in some indie team that has a super-friendly work environment to it, there's no reason to believe Casey had any obligation to listen to the other writers. Especially after Draw Karpyshyn leaving, and some other BioWare writer before him, who basically came out and said that BioWare is nothing like it used to be.

I'd much more readily give the benefit of the doubt to someone speaking out against the industry than someone frothing at the mouth in defense of it, simply because such a thing is so rare to come by these days. You almost never hear anything negative from developers' mouths, it's all PR-speak and circle jerking each other. And it isn't even restricted to developers and publishers covering their own behinds, either. Practically every other developer who says anything on the subject jumps straight to their defense, as, also, does almost every gaming news outlet.

Don't take this as me railing on you. I'm generally in agreement, just speaking my mind.

Same here really. While I would probably side with Weekes if pressed, I feel obliged to play devils advocate. The forums here have not been kind to bioware recently and whether they deserve it or not I feel like there should be a little more balance. It's just that people tend to latch on to these things and jump to conclusions. It doesn't seem quite fair.

Basically, I'd personally take any accusations of bioware at this time with a grain of salt.

 

[XandNobody]

Sounds like someone just committed professional suicide... Shouldn't he know the unwritten rule of working in an industry like this? You never criticize the project, no matter how controversial. Did Harrison Ford talk bad about Crystal Skull? No. He went into every interview, put on that big "shit eating grin" and answered the questions he was asked. When Shia LeBouf was quoted as saying the movie was terrible, Ford basically called him an asshole and said you should never second guess the director if you personally don't have the power or pull to do anything about it.

No matter my personal feelings about the endings are, my only response to this is, "Good luck getting another job in the industry asshole".

So, loyal > truth.

You know what, I'd meant this post to mock that notion, but even if I hate it, that's right. We are at a point where loyalty to a company (that has no loyalty to you, mind) is prized more than the truth, if not in rhetoric, certainly on paper, and in the ability to make money for your family.

This is why I find myself hoping this was fake, even when my heart says it wasn't. This is simply because I don't want someone fired for actually having scruples, even when I'm glad he had them, or maybe because I'm glad he had them.

 

[Frozen Fox]

Wow, i honestly hoped that this was true i mean it feels like the story just changes to another totally different story you meet the star child. I was like i was watching Lord of the Rings then Sam yells out "Frodo" But is son nothing like Sam and it shouldent beacuse he has been replace by Darth Vader and the next words are "I am you father" and Frodo is all NOOOOOOOOOOOO! and they kill the Emperor and you are all The fuck just happened?

 

[The Ubermensch]

I don't see, at this point, why they just don't go, "Oh, It was indoctrination theory ALL THE TIME", even if it wasn't and then 800 BW points for the "Real" endings in two months time. Even if it wasn't their plan, lie and say it was, ME will be know forever for the PR stunt with critical acclaim, more so if it was free.

What gives credence to the writers backlash is that, and i know some would disagree, the endings ATM are so-far-below the abilities of the Mass Effect writing staff, and even if you think that its about on par, then the style is all wrong. Bad guys monologue is interrupted by Shepard's over wrought dialogue, not Shepard going "Eyup".

I cant accept the people who made Liara give me nonstop bedroom eyes gave me that ending, the only answer was that two people were in a room, taking acid, tripping balls and going "Nah man, the endings to awesome, we're gonna blow some minds, change it!"