Note: I will avoid Mass Effect 3 spoilers in this article, but I will link to them, so click at your own risk.

If the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy has underlined one thing with a neon marker, it is the fact that there is a huge divide between the people writing about videogames and the people reading about them. This is something that's been on my mind for a while, but hasn't been so starkly pointed out until now. The problem as I perceive it is the nature of the games industry, and the people covering it: Always looking forward, seldom looking back, or taking the time to thoroughly analyze a game. There is not enough actual critique in mainstream games coverage, especially reviews.

Mass Effect 3 plays into this in an obvious way: The game is sitting on a metacritic average of 93/100, which the site classifies as "universal acclaim." Skim the reviews, and look at how many of them actually call out the ending, which, as has been repeatedly and thoughtfully critiqued, is quantifiably bad? Of course, this opinion isn't shared by everyone, but there is simply no denying that the ending, taken at face value, makes no logical sense, or at the very least, has many, many plotholes that cannot be explained. At best, it is a tonal U-turn for the franchise that disregards established facts in its fiction in favor of asking some pretty vague philosophical questions that don't tie in to the main themes of the franchise particularly well. Even Bioware writers have come out to criticize the ending, apparently.

People have come out to defend the ending as well, so it's not fair to say that the conversation has been entirely one-sided, with only disappointed fans coming out of the woodwork. We've been hearing from both sides. So what's the difference, where is the disconnect? You're always going to leave some people disappointed. Games end badly all the time, or at least in ways that people don't like. Metal Gear Solid 2. Prince of Persia (2008). Halo 2. Deus Ex: Human Revolution. People move on. Certainly no ending has sparked as much fervent discussion as this one. I'm getting to that, but let's look at the defense.

'Gamer entitlement' is a phrase that comes up time and time again. Sometimes it's valid. You can't read comments about any sort of DLC announcement without some people chiming in to say "this should have been free" or things of that nature. What gamers are doing here is voicing their discontent with an ending that, for all intents and purposes, is broken. It's not just a matter of people not getting what they expected, but people have been lied to by Bioware leading up to the release numerous times. There's no other way to put it. Pre-release quotes about the ending have promised fans things that the specifically wouldn't get, only to end up getting exactly that. If gamers feel entitled, it's because Bioware delivered something exactly opposite to what they said they would. At this point, it's not entitlement, it's being a responsible consumer to call out the company in question for failing to deliver. Going to the Federal Trade Commision is going a little far, though.

If you've read some of the criticisms of the endings I linked to, among many others, it should be clear that solid, logical points have been made. Yet I see these same arguments popping up a lot: "You wouldn't ask an author to change the ending of a novel", or "fans just wanted a happy ending", or "Mass Effect 3 is the ending! If you liked the game, you liked the ending."

The first is a patently ludicrous comparison. Games are an interactive medium, and Mass Effect is a series all about player choice, which has been delivered satisfyingly, for the most part, right up until the endgame of Mass Effect 3. The second is just deliberately misleading, as the articles will point out. Thirdly, Mass Effect 3 may be the ending of a trilogy, but it's still a story with a three-act structure. Arguing that simply because Acts 1 and 2 are fine, it's okay if Act 3 is mostly nonsensical, well... No. The ending is the last thing players see, it's obviously very important. The ball was dropped. To add insult to injury, the very last thing players see is a message encouraging them to check back for future downloadable content. We can't speculate what that will be, but Bioware's recent comments seem to suggest they'll definitely do something about the ending. Whether that was the plan all along, as certain theories postulate, seems increasingly irrelevant, and even unlikely, unless Bioware is simply playing dumb.

Thirdly, the reactions from writers. This is the disconnect. Writers being writers, whether writers of fiction or reviews, are inherently opposed to the idea of someone else coming in and changing their work. They look at Bioware's responses to the ending criticisms, and the idea that maybe they'll change it due to feedback, and they freak out. For most writers, authorial intent is everything. Especially in a field like reviewing, where changing the text can change the tone and thus the intended message of the writers. Here's the thing: Video games aren't reviews, they aren't book, and they aren't movies. They are commercial products and they can be changed after the fact. Bioware themselves have gone so far as to say that they and the fans are co-creators of their stories. By extension, shouldn't it be incredibly cool that fan feedback can lead to a change in the narrative that so few fans are happy with? Fortunately, somewritersdo think so.

Lastly, the problem with the gaming industry, as I stated before, is that it's constantly forward-facing. I don't think that enough writers care about deconstructing and analyzing the games we consume, and that's a shame, because there is a lot to be learned from all this. Mass Effect 3 does a whole bunch of things right in wrapping up a trilogy and making it feel like your choices from the past two games matter. It fumbles at the end in a big way, but a trilogy with this kind of scope and scale his simply never been done before. The tragedy is that unlike the writers of Lost, or seemingly, Assassin's Creed's meta-story, Bioware didn't write themselves into a corner, and were in a position to wrap up their story in a satisfying way for most people.

The upshot is that they still are. Games are not static things, and in my opinion that's something to be celebrated.

Thanks for reading, and share your thoughts!

Note: I will avoid Mass Effect 3 spoilers in this article, but I will link to them, so click at your own risk.

If the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy has underlined one thing with a neon marker, it is the fact that there is a huge divide between the people writing about videogames and the people reading about them. This is something that's been on my mind for a while, but hasn't been so starkly pointed out until now. The problem as I perceive it is the nature of the games industry, and the people covering it: Always looking forward, seldom looking back, or taking the time to thoroughly analyze a game. There is not enough actual critique in mainstream games coverage, especially reviews.

Mass Effect 3 plays into this in an obvious way: The game is sitting on a metacritic average of 93/100, which the site classifies as "universal acclaim." Skim the reviews, and look at how many of them actually call out the ending, which, as has been repeatedly and thoughtfully critiqued, is quantifiably bad? Of course, this opinion isn't shared by everyone, but there is simply no denying that the ending, taken at face value, makes no logical sense, or at the very least, has many, many plotholes that cannot be explained. At best, it is a tonal U-turn for the franchise that disregards established facts in its fiction in favor of asking some pretty vague philosophical questions that don't tie in to the main themes of the franchise particularly well. Even Bioware writers have come out to criticize the ending, apparently.

People have come out to defend the ending as well, so it's not fair to say that the conversation has been entirely one-sided, with only disappointed fans coming out of the woodwork. We've been hearing from both sides. So what's the difference, where is the disconnect? You're always going to leave some people disappointed. Games end badly all the time, or at least in ways that people don't like. Metal Gear Solid 2. Prince of Persia (2008). Halo 2. Deus Ex: Human Revolution. People move on. Certainly no ending has sparked as much fervent discussion as this one. I'm getting to that, but let's look at the defense.

'Gamer entitlement' is a phrase that comes up time and time again. Sometimes it's valid. You can't read comments about any sort of DLC announcement without some people chiming in to say "this should have been free" or things of that nature. What gamers are doing here is voicing their discontent with an ending that, for all intents and purposes, is broken. It's not just a matter of people not getting what they expected, but people have been lied to by Bioware leading up to the release numerous times. There's no other way to put it. Pre-release quotes about the ending have promised fans things that the specifically wouldn't get, only to end up getting exactly that. If gamers feel entitled, it's because Bioware delivered something exactly opposite to what they said they would. At this point, it's not entitlement, it's being a responsible consumer to call out the company in question for failing to deliver. Going to the Federal Trade Commision is going a little far, though.

If you've read some of the criticisms of the endings I linked to, among many others, it should be clear that solid, logical points have been made. Yet I see these same arguments popping up a lot: "You wouldn't ask an author to change the ending of a novel", or "fans just wanted a happy ending", or "Mass Effect 3 is the ending! If you liked the game, you liked the ending."

The first is a patently ludicrous comparison. Games are an interactive medium, and Mass Effect is a series all about player choice, which has been delivered satisfyingly, for the most part, right up until the endgame of Mass Effect 3. The second is just deliberately misleading, as the articles will point out. Thirdly, Mass Effect 3 may be the ending of a trilogy, but it's still a story with a three-act structure. Arguing that simply because Acts 1 and 2 are fine, it's okay if Act 3 is mostly nonsensical, well... No. The ending is the last thing players see, it's obviously very important. The ball was dropped. To add insult to injury, the very last thing players see is a message encouraging them to check back for future downloadable content. We can't speculate what that will be, but Bioware's recent comments seem to suggest they'll definitely do something about the ending. Whether that was the plan all along, as certain theories postulate, seems increasingly irrelevant, and even unlikely, unless Bioware is simply playing dumb.

Thirdly, the reactions from writers. This is the disconnect. Writers being writers, whether writers of fiction or reviews, are inherently opposed to the idea of someone else coming in and changing their work. They look at Bioware's responses to the ending criticisms, and the idea that maybe they'll change it due to feedback, and they freak out. For most writers, authorial intent is everything. Especially in a field like reviewing, where changing the text can change the tone and thus the intended message of the writers. Here's the thing: Video games aren't reviews, they aren't book, and they aren't movies. They are commercial products and they can be changed after the fact. Bioware themselves have gone so far as to say that they and the fans are co-creators of their stories. By extension, shouldn't it be incredibly cool that fan feedback can lead to a change in the narrative that so few fans are happy with? Fortunately, somewritersdo think so.

Lastly, the problem with the gaming industry, as I stated before, is that it's constantly forward-facing. I don't think that enough writers care about deconstructing and analyzing the games we consume, and that's a shame, because there is a lot to be learned from all this. Mass Effect 3 does a whole bunch of things right in wrapping up a trilogy and making it feel like your choices from the past two games matter. It fumbles at the end in a big way, but a trilogy with this kind of scope and scale his simply never been done before. The tragedy is that unlike the writers of Lost, or seemingly, Assassin's Creed's meta-story, Bioware didn't write themselves into a corner, and were in a position to wrap up their story in a satisfying way for most people.

The upshot is that they still are. Games are not static things, and in my opinion that's something to be celebrated.

Thanks for reading, and share your thoughts!

This could have been a great blog until it was really obvious which side of the argument you were on. "All right, so the one side of this argument is basically composed of idiots, but this other side that I'm not just going to come out and say that I'm on is clearly more logical and superior."

One of the biggest problems about the backlash is that people are coming out and defending the ending; when there's that nicely linked to 7 page google doc which explains that it is broken. Art makes you feel an emotion; I cannot demand the emotion it makes me feel, thus I shall not tell BioWare to make it happy. If you do not explain key plot points, and heavily contradict previous ones, that is not an artistic 'decision,' that is a problem. The ending is bad, changing it may not be the right option, or it may be, or they'll go with indoctrination DLC and not change a word, but either way, the ending sucks. You may enjoy it, and say you're happy with it, but that doesn't change the fact there are holes big enough to fit a reaper in - and that's what people are angry about.

Omg, you're so entitled; Mass Effect 3 is the ending... You wouldn't ask an author to change their ending, so why do you insist on doing this?

Jeez...

"Everyone who defends the ending is using strawmen and personal attacks."

Negates everything else you said.

Also, "some would say an art form". Can't believe that's still an argument.


Doesn't even matter if I agree with the thesis if the body is filled with nonsense like that.

@Brendan said:

This could have been a great blog until it was really obvious which side of the argument you were on. "All right, so the one side of this argument is basically composed of idiots, but this other side that I'm not just going to come out and say that I'm on is clearly more logical and superior."

I did the best with what I was given. I simply haven't seen any defense of the ending that isn't leaning on the idea of authorial intent, or false analogies, or that adressed why gaping plotholes are excusable. I never said I was going to be as objective as possible, besides, there is pretty much no way to be... you're either cool with the ending or not. This whole situation has left me pretty disenfranchised with gaming press in general.

@Oni said:

The first is a patently ludicrous comparison. Games are an interactive medium...

"Interactive" does not mean "collaborative." You get to participate in Mass Effect's multiple, but finite, experiences. You aren't creating anything. You can't claim authorship if all you've done is consume.

I'm not sure if I agree with everything you're saying, but the whole 'entitlement' thing is the dumbest thing I've seen crop up in all these arguments. People invested upwards of 70 hours into this game and $150 or more, so I'd say it's totally valid for people to voice their feelings about the pay-off of that investment.

@SoldierG654342 said:

@Oni said:

The first is a patently ludicrous comparison. Games are an interactive medium...

"Interactive" does not mean "collaborative." You get to participate in Mass Effect's multiple, but finite, experiences. You aren't creating anything. You can't claim authorship if all you've done is consume.

Bioware themselves have dubbed the process as "collaborative", verbatim. If that notion exists, it's their own fault! So it doesn't seem like an unfair thing to hold them to.

@Tylea002 said:

One of the biggest problems about the backlash is that people are coming out and defending the ending; when there's that nicely linked to 7 page google doc which explains that it is broken.

It's all about good versus evil. I like the ending, I just don't get why it's so bad, I'm part of the problem.

Actually ad hominem attacks are equally prevalent on both sides of the issue. It seems like every 10th post in any ME3 thread uses the term "biodrones" or something similar.

A lot of the people writing in support of the ending, including myself *coff* and Ben Kuchera in the article linked by you, are looking at the most prevalent complaints and speaking to them directly. They are taking the plot holes and sealing them with logically reasoned arguments drawing directly from the fiction. They are showing how thematic consistency has been properly maintained once a moment of actual consideration is spared.

A majority of what has been written for and against the endings has been ludicrous. Many articles that have been critical of ME3 as a whole and the ending in particular have been equally reliant on strawmen and kneejerk reactions. Both sides have presented solid, logical points. Taking one side's best arguments and putting them against the other side's worst arguments is a cheap ploy to fool the uninformed.

You think the ending is rubbish and that's certainly your right. But focusing on countering the arguments of idiots is not going to make me respect your opinion.

It is theoretically wonderful that games aren't static, but it is also theoretically possible for communism to work like Karl Marx intended. And both don't work for the same reason: the people in charge are greedy and once they have an opportunity, they'll exploit the hell out of it.

Yes, I like the idea of a ten or fifteen dollar expansion to my game, but not when I'm feeling like publishers and some developers want to wring me dry. Day one DLC that is already on the fucking disc that I spent sixty fucking dollars on is NOT SOMETHING I SUPPORT. Nor will I ever. This sort of idea is taking advantage of the consumer to the extreme and I just plain won't buy it. And then to be told that "yeah, what we delivered wasn't so great, so here's a fix you are probably going to pay more for!" does not make me a happy consumer. It makes me an angry consumer, one that will be very, very wary of buying Bioware products again.

I don't want ME3's ending to change because of "artistic integrity" or whatever. I don't want ME3's ending changed because 1) it doesn't bother me and 2) I don't want to be charged more money to "fix" what isn't really broken.

And I'll eat a pair of my own underwear if they don't charge anything for the ending-fix DLC.

@believer258 said:

It is theoretically wonderful that games aren't static, but it is also theoretically possible for communism to work like Karl Marx intended. And both don't work for the same reason: the people in charge are greedy and once they have an opportunity, they'll exploit the hell out of it.

Yes, I like the idea of a ten or fifteen dollar expansion to my game, but not when I'm feeling like publishers and some developers want to wring me dry. Day one DLC that is already on the fucking disc that I spent sixty fucking dollars on is NOT SOMETHING I SUPPORT. Nor will I ever. This sort of idea is taking advantage of the consumer to the extreme and I just plain won't buy it. And then to be told that "yeah, what we delivered wasn't so great, so here's a fix you are probably going to pay more for!" does not make me a happy consumer. It makes me an angry consumer, one that will be very, very wary of buying Bioware products again.

Inconsistency detected. You're decrying something that is the result of a capitalistic games market, yet write off Marxism. DLC is capitalism, bro.

Good article. Too bad the people that should read it either won't or don't care.

Interesting blog. Funnily enough people are picking apart your post by attacking individual sentences rather than commenting on the general ideas of the blog.

I've not played Mass Effect 3 yet, so I'm looking at this whole situation from the outside and it's fascinating.

This feels like a really interesting process happening. The idea that a community could actually change a game's ending, after its release, is bizarre. I saw Gary Whitta get upset on Twitter about this and how we're heading down a "dark, one-way road." Obviously he comes from the stance of a writer, but a writer in the film industry, a writer of a static format.

Mass Effect isn't a film. The fiction is interactive. Why shouldn't the writing be interactive? Just because the artist intended everything to be a certain way? I'm not an art history expert at all, but I think artist's had been fighting over this stuff for the past century.

What if Bioware changed the ending of Mass Effect 3 and the game was richer for it? The artist's original intention has been compromised (this is apparently a sin or an insult to the artist). Suddenly if the game was to be critiqued the review would be better. Just as the review score would increase if they patched out that bug where the textures weren't loading correctly. Patching a game to fix technical issues is encouraged, patching a game to fix story issues is sarcrilege?

I'm not really on either side, although I'd like to see it happen purely from an academic perspective.

@StarvingGamer said:

Actually ad hominem attacks are equally prevalent on both sides of the issue. It seems like every 10th post in any ME3 thread uses the term "biodrones" or something similar.

A lot of the people writing in support of the ending, including myself *coff* and Ben Kuchera in the article linked by you, are looking at the most prevalent complaints and speaking to them directly. They are taking the plot holes and sealing them with logically reasoned arguments drawing directly from the fiction. They are showing how thematic consistency has been properly maintained once a moment of actual consideration is spared.

A majority of what has been written for and against the endings has been ludicrous. Many articles that have been critical of ME3 as a whole and the ending in particular have been equally reliant on strawmen and kneejerk reactions. Both sides have presented solid, logical points. Taking one side's best arguments and putting them against the other side's worst arguments is a cheap ploy to fool the uninformed.

You think the ending is rubbish and that's certainly your right. But focusing on countering the arguments of idiots is not going to make me respect your opinion.

Your piece is a hell of a lot better than Kuchera's article, which I thought was emblemetic of strawmen arguments and the writers looking out for eachother mentality. In fact, it's probably the best defense of the ending I've read, so I'll re-link it: http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/starvinggamer/me3-the-ending-a-different-perspective-spoilers/30-91734/

Not to say I agree with all of it (especially Shep's motivations, or lack thereof, at the end), but it's solid. I am secretly still on board with ID theory, but Bioware's recent comments don't give me much hope, unless they're playing dumb, as I said.

@owl_of_minerva said:

@believer258 said:

It is theoretically wonderful that games aren't static, but it is also theoretically possible for communism to work like Karl Marx intended. And both don't work for the same reason: the people in charge are greedy and once they have an opportunity, they'll exploit the hell out of it.

Yes, I like the idea of a ten or fifteen dollar expansion to my game, but not when I'm feeling like publishers and some developers want to wring me dry. Day one DLC that is already on the fucking disc that I spent sixty fucking dollars on is NOT SOMETHING I SUPPORT. Nor will I ever. This sort of idea is taking advantage of the consumer to the extreme and I just plain won't buy it. And then to be told that "yeah, what we delivered wasn't so great, so here's a fix you are probably going to pay more for!" does not make me a happy consumer. It makes me an angry consumer, one that will be very, very wary of buying Bioware products again.

Inconsistency detected. You're decrying something that is the result of a capitalistic games market, yet write off Marxism. DLC is capitalism, bro.

If you want to get pedantic, he didn't say that capitalism was a perfect system.

@owl_of_minerva said:

@believer258 said:

It is theoretically wonderful that games aren't static, but it is also theoretically possible for communism to work like Karl Marx intended. And both don't work for the same reason: the people in charge are greedy and once they have an opportunity, they'll exploit the hell out of it.

Yes, I like the idea of a ten or fifteen dollar expansion to my game, but not when I'm feeling like publishers and some developers want to wring me dry. Day one DLC that is already on the fucking disc that I spent sixty fucking dollars on is NOT SOMETHING I SUPPORT. Nor will I ever. This sort of idea is taking advantage of the consumer to the extreme and I just plain won't buy it. And then to be told that "yeah, what we delivered wasn't so great, so here's a fix you are probably going to pay more for!" does not make me a happy consumer. It makes me an angry consumer, one that will be very, very wary of buying Bioware products again.

Inconsistency detected. You're decrying something that is the result of a capitalistic games market, yet write off Marxism. DLC is capitalism, bro.

Well, to be fair, both are full of assholes. At the end of the day, though, capitalism is pretty up front on what it's really about: the greenbacks. The dough. The moolah. The money. I don't much like either but given the choice I'd have to throw my hat in with capitalism. At least there people have something of a chance.

Forbes just published a great article on this very subject worth reading here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/03/22/gaming-journalisms-problem-isnt-being-beholden-to-companies/

The salient point it makes is that a lot of publications are simply out of touch with their readers, which is what I was getting at.

Nugget from the comments: "You touched upon it early on in the article and I agree that a lot of the issue is that gaming journalists sympathize with developers and publishers because they also consider themselves to be content creators that are unfairly attacked by fans. If you receive negative feedback whenever you post anything, it’s easy to be jaded about fan outcry and view them contemptuously.

As has been mentioned, those working in gaming journalism simply have a closer relationship with developers and publishers than they do with fans."

Jeeez, shut the fuck up with the "changing the ending violates the industry integrity". Endings in movies are changed all the time, with Brazil, Jacobs Ladder and Blade Runner being prime examples. I don't mind if something is a result of a vision of one driven man, but something as bad, and clearly rushed for undisclosed reasons, when previously stated it wouldn't in any case be, well, that's just something I will not take. We were supposed to get an ending, not THE ENDING.