JasonGeorge

Neogaf was like my Internet start page for almost 10 years :(

Good riddance.

Wow that sounded harsh but sadly that was my immediate response on hearing the news. I never would have dreamed I'd see the developers of the Baldurs Gate series decline so rapidly.

@Diachron said:

Well I pushed to the end faster than I would have normally because I didn't think I'd be able to remain spoiler free much longer.

And now that it's over.. I have to say-- I was fine with the end. In fact, the more I mull it over, the more I like it.

I'll never know to what extent I've been swayed by the sheer force of the hype (expecting the worst). It's also true that I tend to be pretty forgiving of endings in general (the less explicitly they're written, then more room I have to make up my own resolutions).

I guess I shouldn't say this out loud-- I may be lynched! ;^)

Nope I'm glad you liked the ending, I didn't, though I suspect I hated it less than most people. But kudos to you for not calling people entitled, crybabies, or whiners for expressing their opinion.

@Najaf said:

@Napalm said:

Yeah, I hate quotes within quotes within quotes as much as the next guy. But these all bring up a valid point or two. I as well have had my faith in the games journalism industry shaken to the core due to the handling of this controversy. For as many brilliant minds the gaming press has, one would think that there would be one notable proponent to the outcry.

And, no, I am not speaking of someone who should come alongside the critical masses and shovel shit in Bioware's face regarding the nitpicky logic holes in the ending. No. What I want is for someone to actually take a few hours, reach out to the communities most well spoken minds on the topic and put an ear to ground on this issue. (there are some here on GB and on neogaf's spoiler thread and I'm sure elsewhere) Then, in response to the massive collective attacks from the gaming press, post an article on a reputable site that not only brings attention to the more sane arguments, but also empathizes with said audience. After all, it would seem that the journalists in the most keen position to understand and give a well worded voice to an audience would be some of the guys here at GB and a few other select sites.

Instead, we are only getting articles from outside of the gaming spectrum in our defense. The California Literary Review, some no name contributor to Forbes who uses his contributory platform to have a small voice and maybe a few bits here and there come to mind. Whereas in the game's press, it is a complete circle jerk of defenders and mockers of the 'entitled'. Even PC Gamer Podcast's spoiler portion where they specifically claimed to stay away from what the remainder of the press had done to the fans, they too were too lazy to actually listen to why fans had issues with the handling of the ending. Not only did they not bother to actually read the quotes from Bioware and instead attempted to paraphrase them, but they got those and many other points of contention flat out wrong. Then their call out to the community to voice their opinions resulted in three voicemails at the end of the show. One was about the Javik DLC debate which to be honest, is the least of people's concern nowadays. And the other two were either mirroring points made throughout the podcast by the contributors or being 'that' guy calling out everyone who did not like the ending as being entitled. They merely used his voicemail to get around their promise to stay civil, and more or less agreed with him in the end. And of course, there was not one voicemail to represent the other side of the coin of course.

I could go on, but this is already entering TLDR territory.

I too have given the benefit of the doubt to the gaming press, hoping they had the integrity to minimise the apparent conflict of interest.

For me it's not about Mass Effect anymore though I applaud the articulate and civil critiques the communities have provided.

This entire debacle has just opened my eyes to how hostile the gaming press is to their audience and the contempt they have for the communities.

@strangematter said:

@joku2002 said:

Wow alot of sucking up to developers recently. When did giantbomb become the Fox News of gaming journalism.

That's a bit harsh. At least Patrick is conceding that one of the major grievances is loss of player agency, even if he seems to be going out of his way to downplay that angle. Judging from the tone of the podcasts they're generally noncommittal as to whether an ending DLC is good or bad. Compare that to, say, IGN, who've basically said that a new ending would be the death of gaming as an artistic medium.

There seems to be a great deal of downplaying, evasion and deflection.

Isn't that what Bioware pays their PR people for?

@Distrato said:

This entire debacle has just caused me to stop taking gaming journalism seriously.

Here are two reasons why I'm upset.

1. Reviewers are blind to the fact that the game is riddled with horrid dialog, forced drama, and ridiculous plot. If you honestly wanted the medium to be considered "art" you would raise your standards. To even compare Mass Effect to truly masterful works is just insulting. I hate to say but I don't view that as an opinion. Mass Effect is on par with the Mona Lisa? No, its not and to say something like shows the people who you want to convince so much that we are all still immature and uncultured.

2. This whole thing has made me see that developers and reviewers are far too close to each other. As David Jaffe said, "you get paid by the advertisers, you get paid by actual salary, you don't get to be a fan. You are a journalist first." No one is critical in this industry. Gaming sites appear to be nothing more than a catalog for gamers to browse through. Its just unfortunate that no one but Erik Kain seems to understand the fundamental problems with the practices Bioware and EA are doing. I applaud actual journalist like Patrick Klepek who uncovered things like the Infinity Ward/Activision incident. Now it seems as though integrity is dead and nobody wants to question or call out any developers for their bullshit. No one speaks for the gamers.

http://www.forbes.com/games/

Do you see that? That is far more journalistic than anything I've seen since I've started going to video game websites. If you are a real journalist then find stories and be critical of the industry.

So true. This entire incident has outed the gaming press as a PR echo chamber.

@Jaysinya90: @Jaysinya90 said:

The funniest thing about this has been the gaming press jumping from attacking the people who disliked the terrible ending, and defending Bioware's right to creative autonomy, to attacking Bioware for exercising their creative autonomy when they decide it is in their best interests to make this DLC. Maybe it wasn't the ending or the creator's authority over their universe that you cared about, maybe you just don't like it when a large group of people on the internet dislike something. Hence the gross characterisation of an entire group of people as whiny, self-entitled children because they didn't like a rushed, poorly explained and poorly executed last 15 minutes of what they thought was previously a FANTASTIC game and series.

Constantly and snidely making the analogy that you are the older sibling of a younger sibling that is crying and getting what it wanted from Daddy is such typical lazy journalism from one of the most consistently amateurish sections of the medium. (See: Owen Good) This reaction covers you in no glory, it makes you look as childish as the people you were trying to reprimand for being upset about something they paid for.

This bothers me a little as well, especially since it seems to be thes starndard response from some of the Giantbomb guys whenever there a large outcry over something.