@Pinworm45 said:

@babblinmule said:

@Pinworm45 said:

@Tearhead said:

Meh. It's just marketing spin, not that big of a deal. I'd probably write something similar if I was in that position. I mean, it's not like they're lying.

It kind of is a big deal. They could have picked a million different positive quotes, but they pick the one designed to piss off their already agitated fans. They just don't give a fuck. They didn't do it by accident, it's a blatant fuck you.

You've... never worked in the marketing industry have you....

I wasn't aware I needed to work in marketing to be allowed to be annoyed by a company insulting me.

Agreed. Please point me to the Star Wars: Episode 1 add that said, "Over 50 Four Star Reviews. People just can't stop talking about Jar Jar Binks!"

So many people liked the game itself, but this piece of shit ad just HAD to mention the ending. There's a large number of fans who loved the game itself, and have suggested that others buy it despite the issues that they personally had with the last fifteen minutes. I'm one of those people. But this ad is just a slap in the face towards myself and everyone else who hated that shitty, poorly written, pretentious, underdeveloped, illogical, and completely stupid ending.

@Pinworm45 said:

@Tearhead said:

@Pinworm45 said:

@Tearhead said:

Meh. It's just marketing spin, not that big of a deal. I'd probably write something similar if I was in that position. I mean, it's not like they're lying.

It kind of is a big deal. They could have picked a million different positive quotes, but they pick the one designed to piss off their already agitated fans. They just don't give a fuck. They didn't do it by accident, it's a blatant fuck you.

What? Why would they make an ad simply to say "Fuck you!" to people who have already bought the game? Like it or not, the ending has become a big deal in the medium, and it is probably the most discussed ending (be it good or bad) in the history of games. That is a selling point, plain and simple. You don't have to try to find subtext that isn't there, Bioware is just a fucking company, they made that to make money, not piss you off.

Bioware probably had nothing to do with the ad, first of all. And they absolutely do have a reason to say "fuck you", they've been saying it the entire time to people calling out the ending as shit. It's not the first time. It was just never a deliberate marketing tactic before. It's deceitful, it's an insult, and it's taken completely out of context. The fact that it's in the name of making money (and I don't agree that there's nothing personal in there) doesn't somehow make it noble or free of criticism.

Well, I see you're firm on your position in this matter, so I'll try to see it from your point of view. This ad was made to insult me in some fashion, and instead I see it as nothing more than an ad and shrug it off and you get super pissed and insulted. I guess the only difference is, in your case those fuckers won.

Hahahaha. EA/Bioware certainly has some cajones to pull that shit. I applaud them.

EA did something shitty!!
 
QUICK! TO THE INTERNET!

fuckin hilarious

@Tearhead said:

Well, I see you're firm on your position in this matter, so I'll try to see it from your point of view. This ad was made to insult me in some fashion, and instead I see it as nothing more than an ad and shrug it off and you get super pissed and insulted. I guess the only difference is, in your case those fuckers won.

Well, personally, I'm going to remember this ad the next time some paid ME3 DLC rolls around, or BioWare / EA are trying to get pre-orders for their next game. So In my case, those fuckers lost.

That's not disgusting at all.

@JasonR86 said:

@Bwast said:

That's an interesting way to twist it. 1,800 years is pretty crazy for what looked like a basic horde mode. I've never played it so maybe it's awesome.

They didn't really twist it though. The quote doesn't qualify the 'fan reaction'. Because it isn't qualified nothing about the use of the quote is misleading. The reader puts their own qualification on what the 'fan reaction' pertains to. I see nothing wrong with what they did at all. In fact I think it is clever marketing.

Yes they did, and yes it is qualified. It's talked about because people hated it, that's the reason the quote exists. They're just saying "talked about.". Why? I dunno, buy it yourself and see! They're not misleading people exactly but they are telling half truths.

That's really gross. Its genius, but its gross.

At least that admit it now instead of months afterwards looking at you DA2.

I have no problem with this. It's rather clever on their part.

This is some kind of crowning achievement in PR spin.

"Over 75 perfect scores... and the fans hate it! See what everyone is raging about!"

Well, they aren't wrong.

I don't see why this is a problem.

Haha, that's actually fucking hilarious. Good on you Bioware!

Can we stop talking about Mass Effect 3 now? Thank you.

@MooseyMcMan said:

@CL60 said:

I don't understand? They're marketing their new DLC.(Which is free.)

He means the quote from Entertainment Weekly. It's about reaction to the ending, which has been largely negative, but they're spinning it to sound positive.

To me, this seems like standard stuff. I don't approve, but it doesn't surprise me. It's what I would do if I was them.

Well, people do care about the game and the ending. It's a case of good publicity, bad publicity, is still publicity. :p

EA marketing team: "We're going to spin this so hard, your brain is going to unravel out of your ears."

I'm dreading finishing this game. I know controversial endings have some cache like with the Sopranos or Lost, but I keep getting the impression of something not far removed from cheap, though perhaps not that term itself.

BTW I never watched the Sopranos, but had a little history related (a conversation about what it was like to die) and to me the ending is actually a good one. Lost is lost to me.....

I actually do hate when people measure gameplay in years. It is in fact quite douchey. If that's how you rate how good a game is.....I wonder how many years of time all the Diablo 2 players have logged in combined.

I'm gonna start selling a soda with epicac as the secret ingredient and market it as "No other soda has ever had a bigger reaction from the public in the history of sodas!" and kick back and watch the streets flood in vomit

@Jrinswand: Perhaps not reading the Mass Effect 3 forums would help you get away from people talking about Mass Effect 3.

Nothing wrong with it, it's correct.

whats seems to be the problem here?

Pretty funny, but pretty gross too.

Hey, at least their not lying! Damn you, smart marketing people.

I can't even be disgusted by that... tit's too damn funny.

I can't even be disgusted by that... tit's too damn funny.

I feel like people are sitting around on the internet edging their hate boners just waiting for Bioware to do anything now.

@OllyOxenFree said:

@ShaggE said:

I can't even be disgusted by that... tit's too damn funny.

WHERE?!?

The ONE time I don't vigorously proofread my post... :P

@Bwast said:

@JasonR86 said:

@Bwast said:

That's an interesting way to twist it. 1,800 years is pretty crazy for what looked like a basic horde mode. I've never played it so maybe it's awesome.

They didn't really twist it though. The quote doesn't qualify the 'fan reaction'. Because it isn't qualified nothing about the use of the quote is misleading. The reader puts their own qualification on what the 'fan reaction' pertains to. I see nothing wrong with what they did at all. In fact I think it is clever marketing.

Yes they did, and yes it is qualified. It's talked about because people hated it, that's the reason the quote exists. They're just saying "talked about.". Why? I dunno, buy it yourself and see! They're not misleading people exactly but they are telling half truths.

You and I both know about the ME3 ending fiasco. We both know what Bioware is doing. BUT, what you've gleaned from the quote is entirely outside of the scope of the quote. That's all information that you've brought with you that the quote never actually says. That's what's beautiful about the quote. You could say they are misleading their readers but they are not actually saying anything that isn't factual. They are just leaving out what the 'fan reaction' actually means. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's what marketing is all about.

That's some delicious marketing spin.

I lol'd.

Well, that quote isn't exactly a lie. But then again, anyone knowledgeable about what happened knows exactly what sort of ridiculous bullshit it is for them to use that quote in this context.

Reaaaal cute, Bioware.

I bet the graphic designer assigned to this email had to physically restrain themselves from adding a trollface picture somewhere in there.

Its like saying John Cena is the most controversial superstar in the history of the WWE. It would be better to just say, CENA SUCKS!

They had the balls to do it. It's genius.

@Bwast said:

They're not misleading people exactly but they are telling half truths.

Half-truth's aren't misleading, then? Care to argue that point a bit more. I think that might be fun.

And I count about 15 perfect scores on Metacritic, so where are they pulling the number 75 out of their ass? Are they counting user scores? Are they counting You Tube fan reviews made before the game was even released? Did they ask BioWare employees to write up a short paragraph about the game, and then give the game a score between 9 and 11?

this just in, marketing exists

@siaynoq said:

I actually do hate when people measure gameplay in years. It is in fact quite douchey. If that's how you rate how good a game is.....I wonder how many years of time all the Diablo 2 players have logged in combined.

I kind of love it. Keep in mind that with 7 billion people on earth spent one second doing something, that adds up to almost 222 years of doing that thing. That means that everyone on earth stopped what they were doing and played ME3 Multiplayer for 8.1 seconds each.

Total sales right now according to vgchartz says ME3 has sold 2 million copies. That means if everyone has played an equal amount of multiplayer, then the average player has played for about 7 hours and 53 minutes. At about 20 minutes per round at least, that works out to, at most, 23 matches each, on average.

Good numbers (many tacked-on multiplayer modes would be thrilled with those figures), but not even close to COD or Battlefield.

That all said, I think this ad is pretty terrible from a marketing perspective. Not because of what everyone else is complaining about, mostly it's because it's a vague ad, so someone who gets their interest piqued by it will ask me or anyone that knows anything about games what the ad means, they'll say, "hey, this ad I saw said that mass effect 3's ending provoked the biggest fan reaction in the history of gaming, what's that about?" and we'll be all, "Oh, it's a piece of shit that doesn't make any sense," and they'll be like, "...Oh. Well, thanks."

However, if they asked me if they should buy the game, I'll say sure they should, it's really good and has some really emotionally gripping moments, and the multiplayer is pretty fun.

So yeah, a good analogy would be a store getting blasted in the news and on the internet because of some horrible change in their return policy, something like, even if it's unopened, and even if it's been two minutes, they charge you a 95% restocking fee. Otherwise they're amazing, and go to them for their service and variety and great prices and speed of delivery and support. Then they put up ads everywhere saying "Ask us about our return policy! Everyone's talking about it!"

It's just ridiculously stupid. I can't believe they're bringing attention to that shitstorm.

Goddamn....

This is ridiculous. I used to love you bioware :(

@Three0neFive said:

this just in, marketing exists

Agreed. Not that surprising.

But I was personally chewed out on the BioWare forums for going from like-to-dislike while playing Dragon Age 2. After being told flat out that I was wrong and 'trolling' for finding DA2 to be less than stellar, I've been unable to be surprised by any actions taken by the company or parent corporation.

Is there any proof that this email was concocted by Bioware and not EA? There seems to have been this weird trend in recent times where some people are attributing problems arising out of EA/Bioware products solely to Bioware specifically, and it doesn't really make sense to me. If this is a Bioware email then fine, but I've not seen any evidence laid out here for that.

Honestly, while I don't particularly like what they're doing, I think some of the posts in here are a bit melodramatic, and this is a fair way from marketing spin at its worst. All that's really happened here is that a true, while somewhat misleading quote, was posted as part of one email they sent out post-release. What's more, while the quote is obviously misleading to some degree, it can't be denied that the fact that people cared so much about the ending does reflect the quality of the Mass Effect games, the problem just lays in them not telling you why exactly people are talking so much about the ending.

@SarjuTheRapper said:

yeah, it sucks when they quote a journalist/critic who knows shit-all about video games other than profit margins and internet buzz.

cute. you think you have to be a seasoned, degree-level vid game expert to talk about video games.

Sure, it puts a positive spin on a negative issue, but the core intent is completely true.

It really just says that the Mass Effect universe is so beloved, the ending caused one of the major eruptions that have occurred among "gamers."

Causing that dramatic of an emotional response is proper difficult, regardless of that response's tone.

They know how to tease their fans with a wink and a nod. They did it in both other games as well as within ME3. The calibration jokes cracked me up in ME3.

@SpaceInsomniac said:

@Bwast said:

They're not misleading people exactly but they are telling half truths.

Half-truth's aren't misleading, then? Care to argue that point a bit more. I think that might be fun.

Yeah, you're right, it's misleading. I just didn't want to be dismissed immediately or get Bioware defense responses by throwing around that kind of language. I've gotten into too many arguments on this site over that company and the only thing it accomplishes is make me look like a guy who likes to argue over trivial shit for basically no reason.