The Big Picture: Mutants and Masses

[Bluecho]

I find it amusing that after ragging on Transformers and god knows how many other geek things that were done wrong, Bob defends Bioware when they step wrong. Seems a little ironic/hypocritical. When things are done horribly, are not the fans entitled to complain, or should they just take the blow quietly and be happy for some perverse reason?

Once again, we have knee-jerk reactions that failed to listen hard enough to get the point. Bob never said you couldn't ***** about TMNT or ME3 being a betrayal. He just said that when you storm into their offices demanding that the product be changed to conform to your arbitrary expectations, you're going to do damage to the medium, in addition to just looking silly.

And Bob's critique of the Bay-Transformers films while then defending Bioware is in no way hypocracy. The Bay films warrant criticism because they're crap from a storytelling and filmmaking standpoint, not just because they aren't what the fans wanted. But while ME3's endings deserve their own criticism, that doesn't give the fans the power to force Bioware into changing it because it doesn't conform to their expectations.

Hypocracy means saying one thing and then proceeding to do the exact opposite thing. It doesn't mean taking an opposing stance when the conditions and circumstances change and the issue shifts from one thing to another. In fact, being able to turn around and take the other side when the first position starts supporting a more extreme view is part of being a rational person.

 

[Saxnot]

by this logic, i should be allowed to create a saw remake which consists entirely of a steady shot of a field of grass where nothing happens for 2 hours.

what? you buy the ticket, you take the risk, right? don't try to limit my artistic freedom!

artistic integrity is important, true, but when you're working on a series consistency is just as important. a good sequel manages to keep what's good and improve what's bad about the previous iteration. in that regard, the ending of ME3 throws all consistency overboard to create something mediocre at best. that isn't artistic freedom, that's artistic failure

 

[Phuctifyno]

You know what would make a great new ending for Mass Effect?

Invasion and conquer by a supreme race of Teenage Alien Intergalactic Ninja Turtles.

I suppose, instead of complaining about someone else's fiction, I could make my own (fan)fiction and then just change the names and minor details... just like every other author that ever existed (except the first one, I guess), thereby creating my own unique intellectual property and having something to show for my gripes and frustrations from prior disappointments.

Naaaaah. ***** on the internet. More worthwhile.

 

[Limos]

Bob, Bob, Bob.

I'm guessing you haven't actually played Mass Effect 3, or maybe you would understand the outrage. The ending, is a crime against fiction. It throws out every single one of the running themes of the series, breaks all characterization of both Shepard and the Reapers up to that point, introduces plot holes at the last moment, has shoddy voice acting and writing, and worst of all.

A major selling point of the game
Was that there would be a lot of endings dependent on all your choices

Instead we got three endings that are differently tinted versions of THE SAME CUTSCENE dependent only on one variable (and only one of the colors uses it at all) and a last minute choice between the three of them.

None of your choices matter
Nothing is resolved
Nothing is explained

Then a window pops up telling you to buy DLC.

That is why fans are pissed. This is a piece of fiction that requires 90 hours minimum to experience, and then it throws a shoddy rushed ending with no closure at you and cuts off. That's it. That's all we get.

I'm not going to demand that they change the ending. I'm just never going to buy another Bioware or EA product, ever again, for the rest of my life, and I'm going to tell every single person that I know to do the same. The only thing Bioware writers deserve is to GO BANKRUPT AND STARVE IN THE STREETS.

 

[irishda]

What people need to get is that he isn't saying you don't have the right to complain. You can complain all you want. But DEMANDING that you get a better ending because it was OWED to you is just plain silly, and the unbelievable extremes the "Retake" movement have gone to to get what they are "owed" are just downright pathetic.

Now becuase this is the internet, and because the "Retake" movement tends to make strawmen of people who disagree with them, I'll spell this out in big letters for them.

[HEADING=2]Nobody is saying you need to like the ending.

Nobody is saying you can't complain.

But there's a line that can be crossed[/HEADING]

And the "Retake" movement crossed it veeeeery quickly.

Except that Bob doesn't know fucking ANYTHING about why people are mad and what they are saying. He's completely misrepresenting the people who are complaining, why they are complaining and how they are complaining.

He didn't bother doing 5 fucking minutes of research to find out what the whole thing was about.

Bob is the one making the Strawmen here.

I'm assuming he's misrepresenting the people who are complaining because he called them whiny crybabies. To be fair, that probably doesn't represent the majority of the people dissatisfied, but it's a rather apt comparison for the minority who's making the most noise about it.

I'm assuming he's misrepresenting the why because you guys think he thinks that everyone hates the endings because they're not happy endings. But he makes it pretty clear in the video that he's mad because people are asking for the ending to be changed, and he doesn't feel any entertainment/creative medium should be asked to changes aspects of the story because people didn't like them.

I'm assuming he's misrepresenting the HOW because he cites the FTC complaint. True enough that it was only one man who filed the complaint. But there's plenty of people that defended the move, which means it's now pretty much tied to the "change the ending" crowd as an example of "look at the ridiculous lengths they'll go to".

Feel free to correct my assumptions.

 

[Gigatoast]

Can we just establish a new rule here? If you have no idea why fans are upset then you have no right to critisize them for being upset.

If anyone here understood that then this wouldn't even be an issue.

 

[mxfox408]

Wow Bob and yatzee both failed at understanding the point. only one who hit it on the spot was shamus.

 

[putowtin]

hey....
wait a minute....

were you taking the mickey out of Bob Ross?

This I will not stand for!

 

[Aprilgold]

Wow, that was a cheap swing (and a miss) at the whole ME3 "controversy."


You'd think this was something new. Thing is, it isn't even the first (or last) time this has happened. Public pressure is far from a new concept.

2 gaming related ones come straight to mind. First being Fallout 3s DLC that extended the ending and gave what the fans want. I heard no one from the games media jump at that one.


2nd one not everyone remembers. A particular game called InFamous 2. When it first showed up with trailers, the main character, Cole, had suddenly changed from a grizzle voiced, bald guy with a scar going down his face to a Nathon Drake 2.0s. And the fans went nuts. So what did they do? Changed him into his original look and all where happy.

So did the games media go on about artistic integrity or any of that? Course not. Actually, one of the IGN guys has been very loud about all this is. Colin Moriarty, who has gone on about how it goes against the artistic integrity and how people shouldn't demand this or that and entitlement this and that and rabble, rabble, rabble.

But skip back to when this happened with InFamous and suddenly:

"But with the new Cole design, Sucker Punch heard loud and clear what fans of Infamous wanted, and they delivered. Infinite amounts of kudos to them for doing right by their community. Fans of Infamous won?t soon forget it. Sucker Punch is one of Sony?s most valuable developers. They are tuned-in with the PS3 faithful, and it?s things like this that prove it."

Hell, the this aint uncommon outside of games either. Sherlock Holmes was killed off by Doyle and for 8 years people protested for a change and eventually gave in. This gave us some of the best Sherlock books.

Blade Runner, a great sci-fi by Ridley Scott had its whole ending changed after early preview showings.

Go back far enough and you see that Beethoven revised his opera Fidelio multiple times at the behest of his fans, cast members, and creative peers. I dare someone to say Beethoven lost his artistic integrity.

How many forms of completely interactive art is there anyway? We've even gotten to a point where we a consumers are funding game projects. Which is wonderful.

Gaming can't be just lumped into one category of "art" and then leave it as that as some form of blockade.
Art can change depending on the audience, depending on the demand and so much more. Again, this is hardly the first time this has been done or ever will be done. Just the biggest highlighted one by gaming media.

This whole "entitlement" accusation just need to stop. If you can't back away from that kind of attitude, we eventually pass the point of having meaningful dialog on this topic anymore. Then neither side is listening anymore. Everyone has made up their mind about not only the ending, but about everyone who disagrees with them as well.

If you liked the ending, then everyone who didn't is a crybaby whiner who has nothing better to do than throw fits about video games. If you disliked the ending, then everyone who didn't is a judgmental douche that's either too stupid to understand why the ending sucked, or too far up EA/Bioware's a**es to acknowledge it.

There can be no middle ground anymore at that point and are no longer allowed to have different opinions. Then comes the name calling and things you generally see from 10 year olds.

Woow.... THANK YOU FOR THAT! You hit it so hard on the head that everything around it automatically nailed itself in perfectly.

by this logic, i should be allowed to create a saw remake which consists entirely of a steady shot of a field of grass where nothing happens for 2 hours.

what? you buy the ticket, you take the risk, right? don't try to limit my artistic freedom!

artistic integrity is important, true, but when you're working on a series consistency is just as important. a good sequel manages to keep what's good and improve what's bad about the previous iteration. in that regard, the ending of ME3 throws all consistency overboard to create something mediocre at best. that isn't artistic freedom, that's artistic failure

Damn you for also hitting it on the head. In case your wondering, I'm so happy that I had to add the word damn into this post twice, so thank you for writing that.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

Mass Effect 3 is not, nor does it contain, any creative risk.

It is a very well received, popular, triple A videogame franchise. Fans arguing about the appauling and lacklustre ending are not stifling creativity nor do we risk any other forms of art from evolving.

We are pointing out massive plot holes (Mass relays anyone?), calling out lazy writing (deus ex machinas do NOT make good endings) and ultimately chastising Bioware for not delivering on the product they promised us (Our choices don't matter). The well rounded arguments will give you a blow by blow account of the real reasons for this outrage and every one is justified.

Sure, filing a complaint with the trading standards agency is perhaps taking it a little too far but the rage itself can only be good for the industry. People care, people care a HELL of a lot. When you can't deliver to what seems like arguably the majority of the fan base, that's a big probelm that you need to know about.

 

[MovieBob]

And The TMNT movie was teid to the 2003 cartoon (the better one), not the other movies.

Look again. Splinter's memorabilia shelf at the end of the movie includes the time travel device from the 3rd movie; which was intended to tie the film to that series' continuity while borrowing some design and story notes from the 2003 show. The filmmakers said as much.

 

[Furrama]

You didn't like the newer turtle cartoon Bob?

My respect for you just keeps going down, especially after the Hunger Games rif that came off as just a bit hypocritical, (and I haven't even seen that movie/read that book,) and that well meaning but still sexist Bayonetta review a while back. Not that the newer turtle's cartoon was high art or anything, but compare the two side by side and take off your nostalgia glasses and it's fairly clear which one you'd (probably should) pick over the other if you were going in cold.

 

[LostintheWick]

ME3... If these fans put as much energy into REAL issues, the worlds problems could be solved I call failure on every Retake ME contributor out there.

Bob, you rock. You're right on with this episode.

 

[Gigatoast]

I should start my own internet vlog show, the I can spew random ignorent nonsense and have random ingnorent people agree with me.

Bob, I'd call you a dissapointment but that would imply I once had faith in your opinions.

 

[Terminal Blue]

snip

But none of those people ever received something because they were "owed" it for having bought a previous product. Artists need money, if there is money in something it will generally be done, but there's a difference between that and claiming ownership of a product by virtue of enjoying it and then demanding it be changed as a matter of course because it's somehow a consumer right.

This isn't about "oh, you can't possibly change something because then it's not art!" If you're going to rage against absolute polemic opinions, don't caricature those arguments in order to do it.

This is about how people deal with the process of risk in buying entertainment products, and that's a far more clear cut question. If you buy an entertainment product and it doesn't entertain you, you haven't bought the right to receive a free replacement which lives up to your expectations. Whether the creator of the product changes it and whether that change is monetarized or simply to buy your goodwill is up to them, but it's fundamentally not a right.

And when people are bringing in trade standards organizations because they feel they are owed something, then I think it's fair to say that it's gone too far.

 

[shadowmagus]

/slow clap.

So Brave Bob, so brave...and as much as the Ninja Turtles thing pisses me off, I completely agree.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

THANK YOU BOB! I could not have put it any better myself.

And to the Retake ME people: STFU and get over yourselves!!

 

[hermes]

2) The Mass Effect 3 ending was NOT what was promised to the fans. BioWare promised a fulfilling, questions answering, plot thread ending EPIC which turned out to be a badly written mess. Again, the consumers are in their rights. This time, because they were bloody LIED to.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Stop the hyperbole, the use of uppercase just makes you sound like a crying baby. You don't like the ending? Put the game in the case, the case the shelf and go on with your life.
Is it badly written? That sounds pretty factual, doesn't it. If you have said "In my opinion", I would have taken it more understandably but... What are your bases? What are your credentials? For such an impressive and deep analysis over the work of other people, I would expect something better than "Mr Hudson lied to ME. He told me it would be AWESOME, but its not. I feel cheated..."
In fact, I wonder who should I believe in: the creative team behind some of the best franchises stories in videogame history, or some random guy in a random forum that thinks marketing lines are an oral contract and use "epic" and "fulfilling" as vague words like "nice". Decisions, decisions...

 

[Realitycrash]

So once again Bob doesn't understand the difference between games and movies. And misrepresents the retake ME movement. Standard stuff from him them.

I don't either. What are the relevant differences?