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ME3 and the BBB, why people are pissedThis just in, the Better Business Bureau says Bioware falsely advertised Mass Effect 3 stating that the marketing tag-lines promised an experience the game did not deliver. The two taglines cited are: "Experience the beginning, middle, and end of an emotional story unlike any other, where the decisions you make completely shape your experience and outcome." And "Along the way, your choices drive powerful outcomes, including relationships with key characters, the fate of entire civilizations, and even radically different ending scenarios." The BBB director of marketing services Marjorie Stephens had the following to say about these tag-lines. To the first she said "There is no indecision in that statement. It is an absolute." and the second "A consumer would have to very carefully analyze this statement to come to a conclusion that the game’s outcome is not “wholly” determined by one’s choices." Meaning it's subjective that maybe they meant "your choices drive your relationships and the fate of entire civilizations. Oh and by the way you have a choice of radically different ending scenarios" but how it is worded leads someone without the context of the game, those who haven't finished the game, to believe that your choices drive the ending as well as your relationships and fate of the other galactic races. With the context of the game one could argue they meant you make friends, save planets, then choose an ending. However those people already bought the game, marketing is moot.
Stephens finished up by saying "The lesson to be learned here is companies should give careful consideration to how they word their advertisements. Otherwise, there could be detrimental effects, especially in the era of social media and online forums."
MY TWO CENTS
(Potential Spoilers Ahead)
Now I've made my distaste for the ending of Mass Effect 3 well known, It's not the narrative that bothers me so much (though I thought it was weak and as a rule I abhor the use of Deus Ex Machina in story-telling) what bothers me most was that the ending wasn't "Mass Effect." ME has always been about the choices and consequences and forging a dynamic story with them. The ending of ME3 was a choice between 3 canned endings that didn't have a single previous choice built into it. They were static in a game that was, up to that point, dynamic.
The previous 2 games had a single ending, I know you're going to say there were dozens of endings, but not really. There was one ending, the ending you created with what you said and did. When you got to the end there was only going to be one ending to choose from cause you had been choosing that ending since you selected new game on the main menu. That was what Mass Effect was. Even tho the endings were overall going to come out the same no matter what, your choices were peppered into them.
When you reached the end of ME3 you reached endings that had been created by the developers (it's all created by the developers but shut up you know what I mean) and you were no longer in control. Even the control on the story you had previous to the end was stripped away. Only one aspect of the ending that was dynamic (I think) was who gets out of the Normandy after events unfold, and that seems to be based on who you romanced and who you brought with you in your party most, not sure tho.
Did you save the Geth or the Quarians? Did you save both? Well unfortunately because there's an option it wasn't included in the ending. That's right, the ending had to leave any narrative derived from a choice out. Since the entirety of the game was choice pretty much, the entirety of the game had to be left out of the ending, the previous 2 games too for that matter. "Why is this?" you might ask. I have no idea, maybe they just didn't want to include your choices either because they couldn't get it to work in the game technically, they ran out of production time, or it was just too much work. They elected to give you a choice of endings to create an illusion of control, and you do have control, but it's not the control that made Mass Effect great. It reverted to a primitive fork in the narrative.
Doesn't matter their reasons, it wasn't Mass Effect when you got to the Citadel. It became a corridor that led to a dialogue, a dialogue that felt like a variation of your dialogue with Saren previous to your last battle with him at the end of ME1, dialogue that lacked meaningful choice. That dialogue led to an elevator that led to Deus Ex Machina exposition and the presentation of the 3 static choices that erase the previous 2.99 games choices.
Bioware has announce an "Extended Cut" that promises to clear up some confusion about the ending but leave the 3 endings in place. Might as well have called the DLC "Mass Effect: Retcon." But this means that they don't grasp what the fans of the franchise are mad about. It's never been about the context or the narrative, it's about the failure to deliver what they promised. We feel betrayed, we were fighting to save the galaxy, forging relationships/making enemies, defeating the reapers and we got invested, and it was all taken away by a hologram of a little boy saying "you can't really win, here's three other options to put an end to it but you don't win"
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