Mass Effect 3: Gamer Entitlement or Artistic Vision?

By Michael H. on April 24, 2012

photo from flickr.com, uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/photos/pahudson/6993990303/

WARNING: This post will contain several vague (and one not-so-vague) spoilers related to the ending of Mass Effect 3. If you have not finished the game and wish to be entirely surprised, then don’t continue reading.

For those not aware of the issue, Mass Effect 3 generated a lot of controversy due to its ending. Essentially, in a game where all of your decisions matter, the last decision is unimportant. The ending will be the exact same, the only difference is the color palette.

I participated in a large debate with my friends over an article we found online. Yesterday, after coming across another article on Kotaku, I had to add to the commentary.

Many gamers were upset by the ending. It felt as though it was quickly tied off and had no relation to anything previously shown within the game. Perhaps there was an implication of “artistic vision”, but many felt as though that vision wasn’t really explained.

I have been irritated by the amount that “gamer entitlement” has been thrown around as though it were a negative thing.

In nearly every other economic venture, there is a certain level of entitlement allowed. If you don’t enjoy part of a book, you can simply put it back on the shelves of the bookstore. If you’re at a restaurant and your food doesn’t come out correctly, then (most times) you would be allowed to send it back.

Instead, with video games, you’re required to purchase the game without having any experience with it. Most of the demos these days don’t even provide actual gameplay. Instead, a special “demo level” is usually released so that you can understand the controls. Even when the first level is given, the rest of the game could fall dramatically in quality and you would have no idea.

As the article mentioned above brings up, you wouldn’t demand that a novelist/author change the finished story simply because you didn’t like the ending.

However, there is huge disconnect between video games and books (in the case of the articles, manga). In a book, the entire story is given to you by the author. There is no interactivity. You aren’t part of the driving force that changes the story. You are simply an observer. Now, yes, there is the case of the Goosebumps ”Choose-Your-Path” books. However, all of the paths in those books end dramatically differently. It’s not as though your decisions have no effect in how your story turns out.

As one of the comments said in the second article, “Any GM worth his salt knows that he’s only contributing half of the story to any given RPG. The rest is taken up by the player, who then contributes the rest of the story by choosing to react to the world the GM has set out in the manner their character would.”

In Mass Effect 3, it’s this interactivity – meticulous decision-making in nearly every conversation – that makes the ending so important. Some of the decisions that players were forced into at the end (such as the renegade-only option to shoot the Illusive Man, or die) were decisions that they didn’t feel like their Shepard would have made.

Now, I understand the artistic vision argument. I’m a writer. I would be upset to be told by a large part of my fan-base that they didn’t like my ending, and it would entirely destroy the idea that I was writing the story if I wasn’t able to write the ending the way that I saw it.

The problem is, the franchise had alluded to endings that were unique to these meticulous decisions you made in-game, and then provided players with the same ending wrapped in a new color. After putting a large personal investment into the game, it’s understandable that players want a personal ending.

To sum up my argument, gamers are entitled to play the game that they want. They’re allowed that. Also, they are allowed their opinions that the ending was terrible and that they should be given a new ending. The only important part about what happens with the ending is whether or not the developer decides to change it.

In order to address the audience’s concerns, Bioware is releasing a free, downloadable “extended cut” version of the ending. They hope that this will keep their artistic vision of the ending intact, while also providing the players with the answers that they feel they deserve. I’m skeptical, but I’m willing to give them a second chance.

We may even be seeing the advent of a new, interactive, iterative design within video games. We might not have problems like these any more if video game companies start asking their consumer base about what they’d like to see. It would also create a significant defining difference between video games and other kinds of artistic expression (besides medium).

 

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