Mass Effect 3 controversey

[Steve1]

I am surprised no one has posted anything about this as it seems to be fairly big news in the gaming community. I'm also not sure if there are spoilers in here so I apologize in advance if there are.

 

 

 

 

I should start out by saying that I have never played any Mass Effect or for that matter anything from Bioware (that I know of). Anyway, I am curious as to why the ending of Mass Effect 3 is so controversial that is warrants contacting the FTC to file a formal complaint? From what I understand, the complaint is about "broken promises" regarding the ending of the game. I understand this game to be driven by decisions made throughout the trilogy and while there appears to be a limited number of endings (3?), none of them are satisfactory. How can a game this well received drive people to this kind of behavior. Do people really think they are owed something by a video game? If a movie promises to be scary and I wind up laughing at it, can I get my money back? If I am promised a 6 hour single player campaign and finish it in 4, can I file a formal complaint?  I can understand Facebook petitions, postings and a charity drive? (although I think all are silly), I can't understand a complaint to the government - even though it will be ignored.

 

Like I said, I have not played the game and don't know anything about it but I am extremely curious as to what people think about this.

[ShadowAngel1]

There are spoilers:

Because Bioware basically promised that there would be actually different endings that would be based upon the decisions you made in the previous games, if you import that savegame. In the end, there are 3 endings that are incredibly similar (so really, there's only one ending and it doesn't matter how you answer the question what to do with the Reapers), they throw all the decisions you made in that game and the prequels out of the window, there's no real paragorn, no real renegade ending, all three are in the middle, so all the decisions you as the player made, carefully thinking about every step and how to behave in dialogues are void. Everything you made, all the decisions didn't matter in the end and that goes against what Mass Effect stands for, that every decision you do has an impact (Like if you kill Wrex in the first game, your visit to the Kroghan planet in part 2 is different, than if he does survive)

The ending is completely Deus Ex Machina. The explanation why the Reapers do all this doesn't make any sense. Also there aren't any explanations, what happen to the armada that is stranded to earth, do they all die? starve to death because earth is basically destroyed, there's nothing, their ships are damaged, the mass relays are gone, what's with the guy and the kid telling the story? Are they on a earth? Another planet? What happened? What is with Sheppard? Alive? Dead? Half-Dead? Zombie? There's no explanation.
The whole thing is badly written, full of plotholes and so stupid, it's an ending you expect in a crappy Bethesda game, because they don't know how to write something good. But in a Bioware game? The same writers and creators who created awesome stories and characters (Baldurs Gate series, the first two Mass Effect, Jade Empire, SW: Knights of the old Republic) and always knew how to deliver a great ending. Everybody wonders what happened here.

I can understand the players being fed up with it.
People were already quite angry over all the changes to the series. ME1 being at least halfway a RPG, ME2 being basically a Gears of War Rip-off created for the stupid console gamer generation that is too dumb for RPG-Features and ME3 being even more simplified and not challenging at all.
People are angry about EA intervening too much, they are angry about the DLC crap, they (The PC Gamers) are angry about it using that horrible Origin software. There are a lot of reasons to be angry and unsatisfied with this game. The ending is basically just the tip of the iceberg.

[michaeld1]

The whole controversy is ridiculous and the people pushing it are acting completely ungrateful and overly entitled.  I haven't played Mass Effect 3 yet, either, but it's as you said; they claim they were promised that certain details would be answered and apparently, they either weren't answered or they weren't answered to the fans' liking. 

Interestingly enough, this controversy really began with the reveal of the first set of downloadable content (or parts of it; I don't remember) being on the game disc and then, people dropped that and then started complaining more about this.  And it seems really strange to me, because the ending complaints all seemed to pop up at once as soon as the DLC thing died out (or more accurately, was aimed right between the eyes of Capcom, who released Street Fighter X Tekken with the same "DLC files on the disc" situation on the same day) and I don't remember seeing the critics getting upset with the ending (unlike, say, Halo 2).

I really have to say; this FTC thing seems to be yet another example of game fans going too far with their fandom, to the point where they let out so much anger and hatred that obscures it.  I feel bad for the companies, especially Bioware, and I really feel bad for the more sensible gamers who are probably being viewed in a negative light by those outside the industry due to stuff like this.  I've seen this a lot over the past year and it's both really dismaying and something that's goes far beyond past examples of fan disenchantment.

[darkrage61]

I agree that some diehard fans can get very ridiculous, and while I do think filing a complaint is a bit bunch, I have to side with the majority on this one.  The developers made promises they couldn't keep, if they'd been vague about the ending, maybe people wouldn't be so upset.  But this wasn't exaggeration, the developers flat-out LIED when they said that your decisions throughout the entire series would affect the ending, and they don't make any difference at all, which caused a lot of loyal fans to feel deceived and ripped off.  There was a similar controversy with Saints Row: The Third, like ME3, SR3 was also promised to have a different ending based on your actions in the game, but you only got two ending choices completely unaffected by any decisions you make in the game, that I didn't mind so much because those endings were at least well thought-out and seemed in character for the franchise.  The ending for ME3 however felt completely out of place and seemed like it belonged in an entirely different game, maybe EA forced Bioware to change the ending or anything like that, I don't know.  Maybe there will be a DLC pack that will rectify this misstep and give the fans a "real" ending.

[darkrage61]

Oh, and being upset about empty promises and a half-assed ending does NOT make gamers ungrateful.

[Irenicus1]

Nice explanation ShadowAngel. Thanx.

[VideoGameCritic]

This is interesting.  It reminds me of the movie The Matrix.  Especially with the second movie, the writers threw all this stuff out there to toy around with the fans and keep them guessing.  Of course it's a lot easier to introduce random stuff and a lot harder to tie things together in the end.  Maybe that's why the third movie was such a letdown.

I didn't watch much of Lost, but I hear it was similar.  There was so many outlandish plot twists being introduced that there was no way to make any sense of it in the end.

I think a lot of times the viewer (or game player) assumes that the director of the film/game has a grand plan, but more often they are probably just making things up as they go.

[michaeld1]

[QUOTE=darkrage6]

I agree that some diehard fans can get very ridiculous, and while I do think filing a complaint is a bit bunch, I have to side with the majority on this one.  The developers made promises they couldn't keep, if they'd been vague about the ending, maybe people wouldn't be so upset.  But this wasn't exaggeration, the developers flat-out LIED when they said that your decisions throughout the entire series would affect the ending, and they don't make any difference at all, which caused a lot of loyal fans to feel deceived and ripped off.  There was a similar controversy with Saints Row: The Third, like ME3, SR3 was also promised to have a different ending based on your actions in the game, but you only got two ending choices completely unaffected by any decisions you make in the game, that I didn't mind so much because those endings were at least well thought-out and seemed in character for the franchise.  The ending for ME3 however felt completely out of place and seemed like it belonged in an entirely different game, maybe EA forced Bioware to change the ending or anything like that, I don't know.  Maybe there will be a DLC pack that will rectify this misstep and give the fans a "real" ending.

[/QUOTE]

So they're throwing out a game that they love in every other facet except its ending? And they're going to the FTC over it?  That sounds ungrateful and entitled to me. And whose to say Bioware lied about our actions not having consequences at all? Because outside of the ending letting people down, I haven't heard people complaining about that.

And hey; Bioware does have a right to end the series the way they want.  I remember a similar outcry when The Sopranos ended on an open-ended note, with people thinking the creators were lazy that way, perhaps signifying that we, as a culture, can't accept endings if they aren't completely explained and/or wrapped up.

Actually, Bioware did announce today that they're going to be coming up with a new ending of sort, probably via DLC.  Hopefully that'll make the fans happy, but I bet that'll extend into a "Bioware wants more of our money to fix their mistake" argument, like so much post release DLC nowadays. 

[darkrage61]

MichaelD-You're totally missing the point, fans aren't throwing out the whole game out over the ending, I never said anything like that, so NO, the fans are NOT I repeat NOT ungrateful.  Most fans agree that ME3 was a great game, they just hated the ending, and they have very good reason to hate it, it renders all of your previous decision throughout the entire franchise null and void, so even though ME3 was a fun experience overall, the ending still left a bitter taste in many fans mouths for that very reason.  As for The Sopranos comparison,  It's one thing for a TV show to have an open-ending, but what works on TV does not necessarily work on video games, especially not with an RPG franchise where all of your previous actions had consequences, people have every right to be pissed off at an incredibly half-assed ending that feels like it was thrown in to the game at the very last minute, people don't hate the ending because they "can't handle open endings" they hate because it just plain sucks!  

Anyways i'm glad Bioware is fixing this mess, and I certainly won't complain about paying for DLC in this case.