I think it's amazing that this one issue has managed to encompass just about every tenet and aspect of Gaming culture that a reasonable player is aware of and has issues with. It's more than just the Mass Effect 3 ending, it's gotten to the point that it is the embodiment of everything that we feel is 'wrong' with the industry.
-EA's corporate policies
-Creative input and control
-Games as Art
-DLC content
-Relationships between the Journalistic Community and the Games industry
We can quibble on and on about what the endings were and weather we liked them or not, but if you peel it all back, the ME3 debacle brings us back to those issues more than anything else, and it shows us all just how rotten things are getting in the industry.
-EA's Corporate policies
We see over hype and over sell of a title, creating a burden that can't be lived up to, but we see a bastardization of what the core mechanics of a game are about. We see forced deadlines, we see creative control hampered, we see decisions forced rather than approached reasonably, we see the desire to broaden the 'market' and 'target demographic' as much as possible to sell as much as possible, and we see a game boiled down to a mere money making endeavor...all these things growing from a company that doesn't care about gaming as entertainment. A company whose 'growth' continues despite the failings of it's business model. I don't think EA is going to stop buying successful companies anytime soon, but we've seen with Bioware what's happened to Maxis, Pandemic, and countless others...whose body is next on that pile?
-Creative input and control
How many people think that the team at Bioware had the final say in everything about Mass Effect 3? I don't. I don't think any reasonable person can say that they did. I think the ME3 issue shows us just how out of control and still how disjointed even excellent teams can be. We look at ME3 and see golden examples of excellent storytelling and gameplay, set alongside repetitive and nonsensical mechanics and aspects. Perhaps it's an innane thought, but video games still aren't made in the best way thy should be.
-Games as Art.
How many people think 'Artistic Integrity' is profanity? I know I do. I know that's wrong, but it's still true. I think ME3 did more to damage the place of art and the value of games as art in the eyes of GAMERS than anything else has. This is on the heels a the US Supreme Court ruled that Games are art, that major art exhibits are beginning based around video games, and yet among our own ranks, the ME3 issue has made many of us dismiss the concept of games as art. Now many of us see it as a crutch for bad writing or a shield for nonsensical and wasted effort, or we see it as a shallow and pointless phrase tossed out that will automatically brand anything associated it with sinister overtones, not giving it a reasonable showing.
-DLC content
Perhaps it's not as big an issue, but I vaguely remember a Final Fantasy game with DLC content that took place after the ambiguous ingame ending. Content that had you fighting the end boss and receiving a different (or at least more complete) resolution to the situation. They charged for this. It sounds like charging players for the ending to a game to me. But I hear nary a word over that...but then Mass Effect 3 does Day 1 DLC for integral characters who provide large swathes of information throughout the story, expanding scenes and interactions in many ways. They add DLC to provide closure, a download that was rushed because of fan outcry, a download that had been planned before release, and perhaps a download that they had planned on charging for. Perhaps most galling was the fact that the last bit of relevant text to be read in the entire game is a pitch to purchase DLC. Bioware, master of storytelling, EA grim reaper of the Videogames industry, sits there and tells us that Javik was not necessary and that the extended cut was not necessary.
I don't know. I had Javik, but I never brought myself to play to the end of the extended cut.
-Relationship between Journalists and the industry
Now, I spend most of my time studying politics, reading the news, CNN, MSNBC, FOX and the like. So seeing collusion, conflicts of interest and general favoritism in journalism isn't something that shocks me. Of course, I'm used to Fox favoring Republicans, CNN and MSNBC favoring Democrats, so on and so forth. I'm used to seeing blatant lies covered up and party lines parroted in a way to twist the minds of what the readers think. I don't think I've ever seen the mainstream media side with the politicians against their readers though.
Seeing games reviewers and online publications turn against their readership is amazing. I'd expect to see that from online cartoonists, who let's face it, make money by making outrage. But IGN and others...they're supposed to be that important 'fourth estate' the watchdogs, the impartial arbiters and reporters of the information...now of course, they're all in it for money...and we see just who those journalists hurled themselves forward to defend, the people that get them their money apparently, the major producers. I'm not saying that they should have been joining the angry mobs, far from it in fact. They've killed their credibility worse than any Dorritos add or bag of swag and day at E3 could manage, they showed absolutely no regard or desire to as a whole report on what was the biggest story in gaming...and when they did, they did it in such a blatantly biased way that it was beyond reprehensible.
FORBES did, and let's face it, how many gamers look to Forbes for their release and review news?
Perhaps I'm taking this issue a bit deeper than intended, but this issue isn't about Mass Effect 3 anymore, it's about the core of our passion, our hobbies, and our interest in gaming, and it touches each and every one of us. How games are made, how the corporations involved in gaming operate, the quality we expect from games and the quality we expect from games Journalists. It's all been laid bare to us in this messy debacle and the point of this isn't that we as gamers should be 'holding the line' for a better ME 3 ending or arguing the Indoctrination theory. The point of it is we need to demand batter of our games producers, and reviewers, or the media that reports to us, and of the companies that get our money, because we've let it all slide. We haven't' cared, we haven't made the painful stand to demand better products, and the end result is the Mass Effect 3 debacle.