Bioware’s much anticipated “Mass Effect 3” video game promised players a unique culmination to their 100 hour investment in its far future universe. Supplemented with books, comics and tie-ins over the years, Mass Effect evolved into an unusually detailed play space. Some argue that Mass Effect is the most important fictional universe for the current generation fan base. So how did Bioware botch it so badly?
Huge audiences across genders and age groups embrace Mass Effect on the simple premise that their choices in the game matter. Players select which gender to assign the hero, Commander Shepard (Jennifer Hale’s voice acting so good as to almost mandate playing femshep at least once). During the game, the player’s decisions make or break friends, lovers and the commander’s own moral code. Each play through feels and looks personal. Plus, Bioware pushed the notion that decisions in games 1, 2 or 3 carry over. The game universe remembers individual fates which in turn affect the galaxy’s survival.
Or maybe not so much.
You’ve probably noticed enraged fans reaching the ‘end’ to be told that nothing really mattered. That anger is sweeping corners of the Internet. All those morally difficult choices? Who to save and who to sacrifice? Who to woo or beat down? Nothing. The last 6 minutes of the game feature a deus ex machina new character who, like “The Architect” from the Matrix movies, reveals you never had free choice at all. To cushion the blow, the player’s three phony choices blow up the galaxy in a different color.
Bioware’s creative failure transcends a typical Hollywood tentpole let down. Mass Effect until the last 6 minutes offers players the illusion of customized choice; it feels like their universe for 100 hours. As role playing game (with a shooter element), Mass Effect emphasized the tale of humanity emerging on the galactic stage and that very stage in peril. Players’ sense of betrayal is therefore all the deeper. Outraged customers demand that Bioware (and publisher Electronic Arts) re-write the ending, provide new downloadable content (DLC) or acknowledge that the lamentable fail was part of a clever ruse and it never happened, ala Bobby Ewing’s shower scene in Dallas. (Here, the fans fighting cognitive dissonance desperately want their hero, Commander Sheppard, to be only ‘indoctrinated’ or brainwashed by the fearsome enemy Reapers at the end).
Bioware’s defenders note any created environment will feature some kind of tug of war between the creators and those playing in it. Those complaining are ‘entitled gamers.’ In other words, it’s just a game and buy the next one.
Creating universes and inviting people in is hard work. We speak from some experience back in neolithic times. We programmed and ran what may have been the first ever war game using the then-state-of-the-art Ashton Tate DBIII. Some of the people in that game worked for Rummy. (Hey, don’t blame the game, blame the playah). Maintaining the illusion of free will while being led along a narrative path is a tricky thing. Here, Bioware punted. Behind the scenes information in a $2.99 app reveals they had no idea how to end the series and ran out of time and money. Rarely a recipe for creative excellence.
Mass Effect, Bioware claimed, always was intended to be a trilogy from the outset. This only magnifies its failure. Bioware did not create a universe to reach a pre-conceived conclusion in harmony with its story line. Successful enrolling narrative fiction always does. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings the most obvious example, maybe Simmon’s Hyperion Cantos or Babylon 5, etc. In contrast, Battlestar Galactica, another fan favorite, promised the Cylons “have a plan” from the first title sequences. If only they and the writers did. Lost, anyone? You probably have your own examples.
Perhaps Bioware’s failure is a cautionary lesson. Not just in the entertainment niche. Unless some unforeseeable DLC (and it better be free) rectifies matters, Mass Effect 3 is set for punchline status. It’s not ET games buried in a landfill bad. In a way, it’s something worse – it betrayed its promise and its fans.
As we watch the twilight of the third Bush Administration (kinder and gentler, at least in tone) it’d be nice to think people are no longer willing to be told their decisions matter only to end up with spoon fed, nearly identical outcomes. Or that the passions of a game fan base could apply to our wider society. But we suspect Axelrod et al. in Chicago and counterparts elsewhere would play through Mass Effect 3, nodding sagely. And commission focus groups on which color galaxy to offer.
DrLeoStrauss says
OWS comparisons with #TakeBackMassEffect. Not too far a stretch – remarkable how spontaneous protest self-organized and put so much pressure on both Bioware and its publisher, Electronic Arts.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/03/bioware-responds-to-mass-effect-ending-complaints-as-protest-continues-to-grow.ars
No drum circles, though.
Given developments over the past year, one can’t think that #TakeBackMassEffect has better prospects than OWS.
anxiousmodernman says
Lol. #takebackmasseffect
Do not underestimate the wrath of fanboys/girls.
RedPhillip says
Otaku power! #takebackmasseffect may manage to recruit more participants than #ows, because it really doesn’t remotely require getting out of one’s room/basement/cubicle. On the larger question, it seems like cluelessness is the dominant tendency in areas of decision-making of all kinds.
DrLeoStrauss says
Looks like #TakeBackME3 (had the wrong hashtag before) and general fan uproar are moving the needle. Bioware’s founder just issued an apology for the weak ending albeit in PR prose. There’s hint of a revised ending, too, in April. Here’s the CBS report:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57401660-501465/mass-effect-3-apology-bioware-co-founder-releases-statement/
Agree with you Phillip that protesting a video game is orders of magnitude easier than taking on Wall Street. #TakeBackME3 and fans in general had specific, articulated concerns and goals, did not get distracted by side issues and generally self-policed well to keep focus.
Against TakeBackME3 stood many major stakeholders of the $75 billion gaming industry, including the co-opted gaming media and websites that depend on industry good will for survival. Their fear is that if Bioware accommodates customers now it will expose the entire industry.
Meanwhile, Amazon is offering full refunds even to those who played the game already. (Smart, lots of goodwill generated there).
Publishers have changed a game ending in face of player revolt before (Bethesda Software and Fallout 3). ME because of its global scale, mind share and trilogy nature is seen as a critical test case – if Bioware changes the ME ending will industry in the future be forced to recognize the precedent?
DrLeoStrauss says
Didn’t really cotton to the BSG re-imagining after the mini-series. Too much like ’24’ and other media of the period reflecting existential threats and the importance of The Decider.
Checked it out largely because Ron Moore as mentioned kept claiming that the Cylons ‘had a plan’, etc. Last couple seasons made clear the only plan was to make stuff up week to week.
anxiousmodernman says
Haven’t seen any episodes of Battlestar, btw.
anxiousmodernman says
I’ve heard nothing but praise for Battlestar Galactica, although perhaps I did hear some murmurs from fans I know that ‘the ending was lame’.
That’s a technical phrase for games and sci-fi movies/TV shows, ‘the ending was lame.’