The Big Picture: Mutants and Masses

[xPixelatedx]

I hope I am the only one who isn't going to point out the obvious.

Your little speech about not complaining about the new TMNT movie - regardless of what bay does - is kind of a deceptive show to put on for us, especially since you have spent your 'Movie Bob' career complaining about the artistic directions people take in the terrible movies they make. I recall you being especially upset with Transformers, another Bay movie. So if I understand your logic right, it is ok for one person to stand on a soapbox and essentially '***** & wine'(as you put it) about the things they don't like. However, when everyone else does it at once, that's totally not cool and we should be ashamed for impeding the creativity of the media. I am not really getting were you are coming from at this point.

Unfortunately for videogames, being recognized as art doesn't exclude them from criticism. If anything, being recognized as art opens an even bigger door to critique then ever before. When people pay for art (like say... a bad movie) they have every right to ***** about it not living up to expectations, particularly if it was outright insulting as well. If anything, the ME3 debacle has proven Videogames are a form of art, because the complaints here are comparable to the complaints against George Lucas' "art".

Does this mean if we complain we are entitled? No.
Does this mean we should be given/deserve a new ending? Practically speaking, No.
Does this mean we can be upset and voice our opinion at the utter, irrefutable, undeniable and irreversible laziness apparent at the end of the game? Sure, and people will... till the end of days. The ending to ME3 deserves it's spot alongside the Starwars prequels and Transformers. All of this is art, and by god it is bad art.

 

[Roserari]

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.

If broken promises entitled anyone to anything, Molyneux would've been out of business with the release of Black & White 2/any of the Fable games.

Please, don't assume you deserve special treatment just because Bioware managed to string you along for a full series before shitting in your bed.

Molyneux has been breaking promises since Fable 1. He didn't make Fable and Fable II 2 of the most beloved games of this generation before pissing on his fans.

 

[zefiris]

Then why the heck are people trying to force someone to rewrite something?

Ask Sherlock Holmes fans that caused us to get several literary classics that, without fans "forcing" the writer to, we never would have gotten.

This is no different than censorship

Please get over yourself and your fanboyism for a company that made bad decisions, and go live in a country that actually practices censorship for, say, a year.

When you come back (probably after some prison time), make sure to apologize properly for what you said here.

Please, don't assume you deserve special treatment just because Bioware managed to string you along for a full series before shitting in your bed.

Actually, you're the only one asking for someone to get special treatment. In your case, you want videogame companies to get special treatment by your weird demand for them to be excempt from what EVERY OTHER COMPANY faces.

Fans here are actually waking up and noticing that, as customers, they have some pretty basic rights, including returning products that did not meet the advertized standards, and/or demanding a fix to the problem.

It's that simple. Videogame companies are no special snowflakes. Deal with it.

 

[Stalydan]

REALLY BOB, REALLY? *Cough* Going Green Part 2 *cough*

Oh yeah, I had a Twitter debate/argument with Grey Carter (one of the critical miss guys) and pretty much ending with HEAT because, if nothing else, that's the closest thing that Bob has covered to Retake Mass Effect. And I don't remember him saying it was a bad thing. HEAT is to comics as Retake Mass Effect is to games. It's hard to support one without supporting the other as they practically stand for the same things.

I called HEAT "the biggest, longest, most preposterously powerful act of fanboy pissing and moaning in the history of fanboy pissing and moaning." If you read that as "not a bad thing," I dunno what to tell you

Hey, I said:

And I don't remember him saying it was a bad thing.

Didn't say I remembered either

Don't try saying that fans of Mass Effect don't have a right to be disappointed by the ending and want a new one. How many movies have changed their endings after test screenings where people didn't like it. Hell, I know a few movies you've reviewed that had their endings changed.

Should fans be able to demand one? Yeah. Should they demand one? Probably not because demanding for things is rude.

The only reason you won't get why a lot of people want a new ending is because you're not a fan of the series, you're not emotionally attached to a lot of the characters like a lot of fans of the series. It's not so much the ending (though there are huge problems with it like the lack of sense it makes with the rest of the game even) but the lack of closure the game has is why a lot of fans don't like it and want a new ending/closure. It'd be like if a TV show got cancelled right before the last episode was aired but they tried cutting together a few scenes from it in the penultimate to make it seem like that was the end of the series. People want to see that ending so they get answers for the questions that are now lingering on their minds.

But what do I know? I'm only a writer who has learnt how to structure things and plan things out like not suddenly shifting tone for the last couple of minutes of something and always have closure on your story if you've been making out into a long series and not do a Gainax Ending.

 

[Revolutionary]

OK Bob fair enough, it's true no-one other than Bioware has the creative rights to ME3. However I'd like to clarify that I didn't dislike the mass Effect 3 ending because of what happened in the ending. But because it was poorly explained, badly written, and some of the material was somewhat invalidating to certain characters. IT was a sudden and admittedly disappointing slip in quality in a game that I was very invested in up to that point.
In that spirit I'm not going to say that I have any right to tell Bioware what they should have done. However I do reserve the right to call them out for doing a shitty job.
Peace.

 

[keinechance]

Maybe if more Movie-fans "whined and bitched" about the substandard products that they are sold, the Movie-industrie would start making better movies?

 

[mfeff]

Hey bob, I'mma just gonna leave this here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlatxLP-xs

FALL UPON THE PLINKETT SWORD

This is quality, thanks for this post. It pretty much hits the nail on the head.

 

[I.Muir]

EA is developer cancer. Bio ware died a little before they released dragon age 2.

 

[Nergy]

I get the feeling Bob is joining the group of people who only seem to focus on the more passionate people in the movement rather than looking into the people who have made calm and reasoned points. I thought he was above all that, but i guess not.

 

[The Ubermensch]

This best explains the whole Mass Effect 3 controversy.

Ye. Gods. The sheer level of smugness in that video is STUNNING - and please keep in mind who's saying that.

Auteur theory can't apply to video games because they're team-efforts? So is film, which is where the medium the phrase "Auteur Theory" was originally coined for. "Staff of fan-fiction writers?" The same tired "these people have no qualifications!" trashing of game journalists? "You're just praising 'art games' to sound smarter?" Give me a break.

Just because the guy is a Wanker doesn't mean he's wrong Bob... ok he's wrong up until time index ~5 minutes but everything after that about right on... no actually its all right, I just agree with you that he's got a bad tone... like some of the videos someone else puts forth from time to time.

This is longer (and I have already posted it with a I'mma just gonna leave this here) but is a much better explanations of why the endings void the claim, not the controversy around it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlatxLP-xs

Its done in the style of a Plinkett review! Ya know, those awesome reviews you told us to go watch?... I watched bob, I WATCHED AND AM NOW THE MONSTER YOU HELPED CREATE!

 

[pirateninj4]

Yea you fucking cry-babies need to stfu about Mass Effects ending already. If I had any interest in playing that piece of shit game now it wouldn't be worth it because I already know the ending from hearing it from the mouths of the whiniest bunch of entitled babies ever.

It's a game. Get over it, move on and play something else.

On a different note, thanks Bob, you reminded me that there are better things to look forward to. GAME OF THRONES ON SUNDAY!!!

 

[I.Muir]

If video games and movies are in any way comparable then mass effect is like john carter in terms of quality alone. Unlike John carter Mass Effect found it's material elsewhere but overall was good but in some places slow and could have been so much better.
Mass effect 2 is like pirates of the Caribbean, faster paced, caters towards a bigger audience and primarily made to grab money.
Mass effect 3 is like the transformers movie. For people who feel more strongly about the game it's transformers 3, if you really feel strongly about it then it's green lantern, enough said.

Well the ending anyway

 

[Duffeknol]

Hey bob, I'mma just gonna leave this here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlatxLP-xs

FALL UPON THE PLINKETT SWORD

hey this was pretty good, decent homage to Plinkett too

 

[PonceyMcTosserFaic]

Remember: BioWare has stated that their fans are equal creators in the story along with their actual writing staff.

Fans are equal creators in the same way that readers of 'choose your own adventure' books are equal authors.
Read: They aren't.

"But they SAID we are!"
Yeah! And the cover of my 'Choose your own Adventure' book says I pick where the character goes!

But even IF every choice I make in the book ends up at the same, unsatisfying conclusion on the final page, the bottom line is: That's how it was written. I might not like it, and I might even feel cheated, but that's the creator's choice. I can not buy from them again, I can critique it like crazy, I can even ***** about it on the internet, but to DEMAND that a creator, that an artist CHANGE THEIR WORK because I am unsatisfied is the height of self-entitled bullshit.

No, it's not false advertising.
No, they don't owe you a thing.

Geez, I'd be happy with another bullshit 'boycott' rather than this garbage.
People need to grow up. Seriously.

im with you on this one. srsly, like they're the chairman of the ESRB or something like that. stuff like this makes me wish we had other planets like earth to go to so i could be like "i'm leaving, PEACE!" and then actually leave.

 

[kingmob]

Probably too many comments to get Bob to read this, but I'll try anyway.

Bob, you need to stop giving internet outcry any importance. It is very easy to show that the loudest, stupidest, angriest people are the ones that will be the easiest to hear and the most likely to make themselves heard. It quickly follows that any outrage on the internet is of little value. You making many episodes about such outrage, just fuels these kind of people in their feelings of importance and entitlement. Of course not strongly, but you are definitely part of the bigger machine that keeps building up such hypes.
It also doesn't help that you have a tendency to link your viewers implicitly as the same people or at least the same kind of people. If you want to talk about it, I'd prefer you do it from a bigger distance, right now you keep "calling us out" for behaviour most of us won't be responsible for.
I don't like being linked to angry childmen, just like a muslim doesn't like being linked to terrorists. Just because we share a hobby, doesn't make me responsible for their behaviour. Someone in the community implying this responsibility, only gives credibility to outsiders claiming this responsibility. It makes matters worse, not better.

We see the exact same thing in politics and it is completely ruining it, please let greater minds prevail.

 

[Encentrik]

Here's the difference between movie endings and video game endings, Bob: Games are an interactive media! I can't stress that enough; the reason people are demanding a new ending are due to the consumer's right to be told the truth when it comes to their endings and not blatantly lie to them & berating them for not agreeing with their opinions. Not to mention blocking anything that doesn't agree with the ending as well as a Bioware writer allegedly speaking out about how the ending itself was not well received within the group because the lead writer and Casey Hudson did it by themselves with no one to proof read.

What really disturbs me is the fact that Bob views us as a group that didn't like the ending, so we're petitioning it. No, that'd be idiotic. We're hating the ending because it throws every decision, every conversation, every shared moment, every hard earned level, every major aspect of the games out the window in a matter of ten minutes. As I said, games are interactive and are allowed have changed endings because of DLC. That's the big difference: D.L.C. You can't have a movie or a book completely rewritten because once those two are released, a new version won't come out unless it's a director's cut in the movie's case.

DLC can allow for a new possible ending or clarification, which is ultimately what we want. We'd go as far as to settle for a fucking text scroll. When your game series, one that you've invested over 100+ hours in, decides to hamfist a new ending out of nowhere & completely ruin both the lore & not tell you anything of what happened after the events, you have every right to complain.

Filing a complaint? No, that's going too far. Petition? Sure, why not.

 

[Francis Budden-Hinds]

Yes. Extensively re-cutting highlander 2 the quickening to remove the alien subplot and please fans did indeed destroy film making as an art form. I for one am glad that radio plays and flower arranging still exist as pure creative art.

That aside, I have to laugh when people talk about how if this happens then game companies will no longer be willing to take creative risks, or that people like mass effect because it takes creative risks because...

(Alert, I'm not going to annoy a lot of mass effect fans who I'm on the same side as. I like the game too, and I think it's well told, has a good aesthetic and is over all pretty neat)

Mass Effect took almost no creative risks what so ever. There is almost nothing original in the whole series in terms of the actual lore/background/characterization. Just as an example: in Mass Effect 1 the plot is that you, an Earth Force Officer, chase a rogue romulan agent and his army of cylons controlled by an Inhibitor and try to stop them from using Babylon 5 to bring back all the other inhibitors to destroy sapient life. My companions include Dirty Harry, a barbarian guy who's not so barbarous, and someone from the Battle Star Galatica fleet. Along the way I fight the bugs from Starship Troopers.

In Mass Effect 2, I join section 31/Majestic 12 (from Deus Ex) in their quest to stop the aliens from X-com (this is a bit more disguised, but energy weapons, abductions and they have their digestive systems replaced by cybernetics? That's X-com) from abducting humans in order to build a giant terminator.

The most creative races in it are the Elchor, who don't do anything, and the Asari, who are a pretty standard oldest younger race (like the Minbari) but subverted a bit (Illium is basically meant to undermine the usual ideas about such species, similarly Liara is a centuries old schoolgirl at least in ME1.) and given sexiness as a superpower.

The Mass Effect series is so derivative that it often feels like it was created using TV Tropes.

People don't like it because it took creative risks, they like it for the opposite reason. It took a bunch of things they already liked and knew and polished them up with some fantastic art direction and some rather cool detailing, and wove them together into a narrative. It's the same appeal as say, megacrossover fanfiction, just professionally done.

 

[Jman1236]

This whole thing has gone completely insane. People think Sonic fans are insane, this whole Mass Effect 3 outrage doesn't even compare.

 

[Something Amyss]

This whole thing has gone completely insane. People think Sonic fans are insane, this whole Mass Effect 3 outrage doesn't even compare.

Mass Effect 3 fans: We were promised a dynamic, non-standard ending and it turns out we were lied to!

Sonic Fans: His EYES are the wrong colour!

...Yeah, it doesn't compare. But not for the reasons you're purporting.

 

[PuckFuppet]

While I'm not in a position to comment on the broader meaning of what has, or has not, been done to TMNJ reboot I do want to address something that was mentioned in the video about that franchise as a whole and relate that to ME3. Quoting what I'm respond to for clarity.

"Thus lacking the tired ass, pre-destination bull****"

Too true. To a point that, and that more than anything else, is why the ME3 ending is a complete departure from their (BioWares) established ethos and has solicited such a strong reaction from the fanbase.

From a plot development perspective the entire thing began a massive downward spiral the moment when, on Thessia in the build-up towards the ending, the various back-ground plot points regarding the Prothean interaction with the evolution of various species who were around during their time were suddenly dragged into the foreground and essentially formed the basis of the entire plot preceding that moment and largely changed the direction, in storytelling terms, of the entire series.

It threw prophecy into the mix and almost verbatim repeated the phrase "All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again" from Peter Pan however, having established a cyclical pattern as the primary impetus for the entire plot, that isn't necessarily a bad thing nor is it totally outside the realm of possibility. But that kind of pre-determination, while accepted as an inevitability within the construct of the plot, runs contrary to the way that the entire series has been played thus far.

To put it another way, if the ending was predetermined from the beginning and nothing the player did with one character across three games over five years was ever going to change it (I actually would have been fine with that, if the Reaper's winning had been the inevitable result, rather than the sudden edition of a whole new set of repeating patterns to explain away everything) then why did they ever bother allowing us the illusion of control?

Do I agree with the fans that the ending should be "changed"? No, as much as it was a slap in the face, it was an ending.
Do I agree with the demonisation of those fans as the harbingers of doom for artistic license? No, because I'm reasonably certain that no one is in a position to have any kind of moral high ground on this topic.

I didn't care too much for the ending, similarly I don't care too much for the way that some people have reacted. That said the fact that those fans have raised more than 50,000 dollars for charity, largely reacted in a semi-unified and reasonable manner, notable exceptions aside, and taken this will evident good humour by quickly donating to a drive to have cupcakes delivered to BioWare... can't be a bad thing.

You argue that the fanboys are being immature, I say that while some of them are, the majority of those involved seem to be comporting themselves with a kind of respect and civility that should be encouraged, not just on the internet, but everywhere in life.