Mass Effect 3 Player Files FTC Complaint

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Damn man, how pissed do you have to be to file an FTC complaint over the ending of a game?

One fan is reportedly so peeved that he filed a false advertising complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. "After reading through the list of promises about the ending of the game they made in their advertising campaign and PR interviews, it was clear that the product we got did not live up to any of those claims."
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I don't get it. I am a little peeved about the ending - only because there really isn't one.

Oh well - creative freedong.....
 
Well, the "new, true, or real" endings will just be sold as DLC. Why put in a good ending when you have a fan base willing to pay for the ending they want?
 
Lets gets lawyers in the mix and a get good class action suit going. Then the lawyers could reap millions and the average person get a $1.60 discount coupon good for the next game.
 
Dude's obviously a troll. I mean, his alias is "El_Spiko"... really? :rolleyes:
 
I watched 6 years of Lost and didn't get a good ending either. I learned to live with it.
 
I think the endings are terrible, but this is just a waste of time. FTC complaint? Like this will go anywhere.
 
kirbyrj said:
I watched 6 years of Lost and didn't get a good ending either. I learned to live with it.
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Lost went batshit stupid after the first season. For the most part, the story of ME was solid all the way through.
 
lilbabycat said:
Lost went batshit stupid after the first season. For the most part, the story of ME was solid all the way through.
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Barring the final boss fight of ME2, and the aforesaid ME3 ending...yup, fairly good.
 
SXO said:
I think the endings are terrible, but this is just a waste of time. FTC complaint? Like this will go anywhere.
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It made news. The guy voiced his opinion in a way that people took notice of. It forces BioWare and EA to respond or at least acknowledge the complaint. This is about the only way he could get anyone to listen to his grievences. Random complaints on a forum will amount to nothing. Bitching on the BioWare forums will either get his post deleted or get him banned. His opinion will be dismissed by most, especially EA and BioWare. I read the list the other day and most if not all of his complaints have validity to them.

The guy was pissed, made a lot of noice and got heard. BioWare wouldn't have listened to him alone, but tons of news sites picked up on this and his voice was amplified by that. Again all he's done is force BioWare to take notice in a way that a forum post which most likely would have been deleted anyway never could.
 
ME2's ending wasn't that great. After the first ME I couldn't wait for the second one, but after ME2 I really wasn't interested in playing the third game. I will probably wait until it is on sale for like 5 bucks years from now before I buy it.
 
Overkill and assumes Bioware will not hear the outcry of their fans. I think the guy is being ridiculous.

That said, to be fair, the ending was an epic rip-off. If you enjoyed the series, cared for the characters and "hoped" with them for all the things you helped them achieve over the three games, then you got crushed right along with them when the ending said: "PSYCH!!! Sucks to be you!"
 
This is the most pathetic thing I've seen all week. People need to get their priorities straight.
 
Dan_D said:
It made news. The guy voiced his opinion in a way that people took notice of. It forces BioWare and EA to respond or at least acknowledge the complaint. This is about the only way he could get anyone to listen to his grievences. Random complaints on a forum will amount to nothing. Bitching on the BioWare forums will either get his post deleted or get him banned. His opinion will be dismissed by most, especially EA and BioWare. I read the list the other day and most if not all of his complaints have validity to them.

The guy was pissed, made a lot of noice and got heard. BioWare wouldn't have listened to him alone, but tons of news sites picked up on this and his voice was amplified by that. Again all he's done is force BioWare to take notice in a way that a forum post which most likely would have been deleted anyway never could.
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All valid points, but I believe by the time this story aired, there was already plenty of limelight on the problem many fans have with the ending. I still think it was overkill, and frankly I don't think there's anything Bioware can change that will make the ending make sense.
 
The game was a lot of fun - although I felt like I got more bang for the buck from ME2. ME3 seemed to go by faster (with fewer missions).
 
My understanding might be flawed, but based on what little I have read at the bioware forums, the complaint is not based on the game having a bad ending but on the grossly misleading representations made by bioware and its employees in the lead up to its release.

Quite frankly, there is no reason why a business which advertises its products in this way should not be held to account. If we were talking about any other product or service people would be championing this guy's cause but because its a video game there is a tendency to dismiss this as being trivial and puerile. I am not sure why that is, video games are a multibillion dollar business.

The simple solution is for publishers and their employees not engage in hyperbolic marketing and spruiking which seems to be a striking feature of the video game industry. And ME 3 is not an isolated incident, I can think of several games where the spruiking by developers turned out to be outright lies.
 
I don't believe the taking it to the FTC is warranted as Bioware did say they were listening and would respond as soon as more people finished the game. Now that has happened, they've come out and said that they are going to work something out for fans.

Now, that said, to those who haven't played all the games, I realize it's just a game, but the universe is so good, so rich, and it sucks you in and you are captivated. I agree with Dan that these characters and stories deserved more.

As for the comparisons to Lost, I agree that the ending was stupid. The reason we can live with that though is that the medium was static, where as Mass Effect is a game about choices and the game evolves and changes with those choices. That's where the difference lies. I am sure there are those of you who think we are a bunch of babies, but I'm usually someone who keeps his complaints to himself. This was SO out of character...so far out of left field...that no one should be suprised at the fan outcry.
 
defiant007 said:
My understanding might be flawed, but based on what little I have read at the bioware forums, the complaint is not based on the game having a bad ending but on the grossly misleading representations made by bioware and its employees in the lead up to its release.

Quite frankly, there is no reason why a business which advertises its products in this way should not be held to account. If we were talking about any other product or service people would be championing this guy's cause but because its a video game there is a tendency to dismiss this as being trivial and puerile. I am not sure why that is, video games are a multibillion dollar business.

The simple solution is for publishers and their employees not engage in hyperbolic marketing and spruiking which seems to be a striking feature of the video game industry. And ME 3 is not an isolated incident, I can think of several games where the spruiking by developers turned out to be outright lies.
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That is part of it.
 
As much as I want to say how completely ridiculous this is, part of me also wants to give a big hell yeah to the guy. I mean, as PC gamers, aren't some of you a little tired of being dumped on? Yeah its usually with watered down console ports and not bad endings (although there are a lot of those) but haven't some of you wished you could do something a little stronger than bitch on a forum when Crysis 2 has "press start to begin" in the opening menu?
 
MacLeod said:
As much as I want to say how completely ridiculous this is, part of me also wants to give a big hell yeah to the guy. I mean, as PC gamers, aren't some of you a little tired of being dumped on? Yeah its usually with watered down console ports and not bad endings (although there are a lot of those) but haven't some of you wished you could do something a little stronger than bitch on a forum when Crysis 2 has "press start to begin" in the opening menu?
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I settled on not wasting anymore money on their games. As the old saying goes "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." Most gamers keep allowing themselves to be fooled. They're gluttons for punishment, screaming and moaning about this and that, but continuing to purchase products from the perpetrators. It's like me continuing to complain about Uwe Boll movies, then continually going to the theater to watch them. It's illogical. Last game I purchased from Crytek was Crysis: Warhead. Likewise, the last game I purchased from Bioware was ME2 (pre-ordered), and that will continue to be the last game I buy from them.
 
Curious - What promises were made before the game launched? I beat the game (then reloaded and ran through the final mission again with the other choice) and was kind of disappointed. But - I just thought "oh well -- guess I won't play it through again".
 
Wow, I didn't like the ending of Final Fantasy 13 either but you don't see people filing a complaint with the FTC.
 
I do think this is a bit over kill. The ME series as a whole was pretty solid. Great characters, good story, and each time they wrapped up each ark. Granted, like most things, the original was the best with the best ending. The sequels were good but missed that something or couldn't live up to that first experience. I'll admit that I was let down by the ending I've seen so far but over all I enjoyed it. It's not like a 90 movie that rocks all the way through and then leaves you wondering WTF happened at the end. With this you are more invested throughout, so I can let it slide to a point. Am I sad that I payed for the collectors edition, a little. Overall though, Bioware does a much better job with games than most other companies. I'll just blame it all on EA since we all know they are evil :p Like most things, if you are a fan you will enjoy it for what it is.
 
Nomad said:
Curious - What promises were made before the game launched? I beat the game (then reloaded and ran through the final mission again with the other choice) and was kind of disappointed. But - I just thought "oh well -- guess I won't play it through again".
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Enjoy.

(from: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10056886)

Whether or not you enjoyed the conclusion to Mass Effect 3 (personally I feel
it tarnished an otherwise masterful series) please take a look at the
pre-release quotes below from websites and interviews with the game's
developers, writers and producers.

Does all that talk of meaningful player choice, multiple significantly
different endings and closure for the characters and series not seem,
at the very least, strange?

I believe Bioware can be legitimately accused of, at best, fudging the
truth if not outright deceit given the inconsistency between notions
of choice, closure etc. expressed before the game was released and
the ending as it currently stands.

In my opinion Bioware produced a badly written, ill-conceived shambles
of an ending riddled with plot holes and logical inconsistencies but
even if you loved the final moments of this great game do you really
think what was stated in the interviews below has been proved true?

Maybe Walters, Gamble, Hudson et al will be proved right when a decent
ending is released via (presumably free) DLC that explains the
original ending was just some sort of hallucination/indoctrination.
I'm not holding my breath waiting for that though.


Official Mass Effect Website
http://masseffect.com/about/story/

“Experience the beginning, middle, and end of an emotional story unlike any
other, where the decisions you make completely shape your experience
and outcome.”

Interview with Mac Walters (Lead Writer)
http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/02/28/mass-effect-3-mac-walters/

“[The presence of the Rachni] has huge consequences in Mass
Effect 3. Even just in the final battle with the Reapers.”

Interview with Mac Walters (Lead Writer)
http://business.financialpost.com/2...on-how-the-game-tries-to-reach-all-audiences/

“I’m always leery of saying there are 'optimal' endings, because I think
one of the things we do try to do is make different endings that are
optimal for different people “

Interview with Mike Gamble (Associate Producer)
http://www.computerandvideogames.co...rought-back-a-lot-of-what-was-missing-in-me2/

“And, to be honest, you [the fans] are crafting your Mass Effect story as
much as we are anyway.”

Interview with Mike Gamble (Associate Producer)
http://www.360magazine.co.uk/interview/mass-effect-3-has-many-different-endings/

“There are many different endings. We wouldn’t do it any other way. How
could you go through all three campaigns playing as your Shepard and
then be forced into a bespoke ending that everyone gets? But I can’t
say any more than that…”

Interview with Mike Gamble (Associate Producer)
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...s-effect-3-ending-will-make-some-people-angry

“Every decision you've made will impact how things go. The player's also the
architect of what happens."

“You'll get answers to everything. That was one of the key things. Regardless
of how we did everything, we had to say, yes, we're going to provide
some answers to these people.”

“Because a lot of these plot threads are concluding and because it's being
brought to a finale, since you were a part of architecting how they
got to how they were, you will definitely sense how they close was
because of the decisions you made and because of the decisions you
didn't make”

Interview with Casey Hudson (Director)
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2011/04/28/casey-hudson-interview-mass-effect-3.aspx

“For people who are invested in these characters and the back-story of the
universe and everything, all of these things come to a resolution in
Mass Effect 3. And they are resolved in a way that's very different
based on what you would do in those situations.”

Interview with Casey Hudson (Director)
http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/02/c...t-3-with-the-sometimes-cranky-fans-interview/

“Fans want to make sure that they see things resolved, they want to get
some closure, a great ending. I think they’re going to get that.”

“Mass Effect 3 is all about answering all the biggest questions in the
lore, learning about the mysteries and the Protheans and the Reapers,
being able to decide for yourself how all of these things come to an
end.”

Interviewer: “So are you guys the creators or the stewards of the franchise?”
Hudson: “Um… You know, at this point, I think we’re co-creators with
the fans. We use a lot of feedback.”

Interview with Casey Hudson (Director)
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...fdsafdhudson-interviewae.aspx?PostPageIndex=2

Interviewer: [Regarding the numerous possible endings of Mass Effect 2] “Is that
same type of complexity built into the ending of Mass Effect 3?”
Hudson: “Yeah, and I’d say much more so, because we have the ability to
build the endings out in a way that we don’t have to worry about
eventually tying them back together somewhere. This story arc is
coming to an end with this game. That means the endings can be a lot
more different. At this point we’re taking into account so many
decisions that you’ve made as a player and reflecting a lot of that
stuff. It’s not even in any way like the traditional game endings,
where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got
ending A, B, or C.....The endings have a lot more sophistication and
variety in them.”

“We have a rule in our franchise that there is no canon. You as a player
decide what your story is.”


EDIT: Couple more interesting quotes I found, enjoy......or not.


Mike Gamble (Associate Producer)
http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1027650/mass_effect_3_reapers_can_win_bioware.html

Mass Effect 3 will shake up the player's moral choices more than ever
before, even going so far as allowing the Reapers to win the battle
for Earth, according to BioWare's community representative Mike
Gamble.


In an inteview with NowGamer at Gamescom, we asked if BioWare was taking risks with Mass Effect 3's
plot, including a negative ending in which the Reapers win. Gamble simply said, "Yes". We asked him again to confirm what he had just said and he said, "Yes".


Mike Gamble (Associate Producer)
http://www.nowgamer.com/features/12...per_interview_shepard_coop_story_details.html


"Of course you don’t have to play multiplayer, you can choose to play
all the side-quests in single-player and do all that stuff you’ll
still get all the same endings and same information, it’s just a
totally different way of playing"


Casey Hudson (Director)
http://gamescatalyst.com/2012/03/casey-hudson-kinect-the-future-of-interactive-stories/

“The whole idea of Mass Effect3 is resolving all of the biggest questions, about the Protheons and
the Reapers, and being in the driver's seat to end the galaxy and all
of these big plot lines, to decide what civilizations are going to
live or die: All of these things are answered in Mass Effect 3.”

Casey Hudson (Director)
http://www.computerandvideogames.co...-go-on-holiday-our-dlc-is-really-good/?page=2

“There is a huge set of consequences that start stacking up as you approach the end-game. And
even in terms of the ending itself, it continues to break down to
some very large decisions. So it's not like a classic game ending
where everything is linear and you make a choice between a few things
- it really does layer in many, many different choices, up to the
final moments, where it's going to be different for everyone who
plays it.”


EDIT: Thanks to Skidrow-Garrett for pointing out another mystifying quote or two. It seems Bioware worked for years on the ending and are really pleased with it. I think it makes new DLC to address all the concerns less likely, unfortunately.

Ray Muzyka (Co-Founder of Bioware)
http://penny-arcade.com/report/edit...ss-the-old-republic-launch-ending-a-trilogy-a

“I just finished an end to end playthrough, for me the ending was the
most satisfying of any game I’ve ever played….the decisions you make in
this game are epic,”

“The team has been planning
for this for years, since the beginning of the Mass Effect franchise.
Largely the same team, most of the same leads have worked on this for
years and years. They’ve thought about [the ending] for years and years.
It’s not something they’ve had to solve in a week or a month even, but
over the course of five or ten years.”
 
foxtrotniner said:
Wow, I didn't like the ending of Final Fantasy 13 either but you don't see people filing a complaint with the FTC.
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Did square-enix make representations regarding the game which turned out to be false? Because that is the crux of the issue, not whether the game was good or had an acceptable ending.
 
So absurd. If you know anything about the FTC, you know this will go nowhere and will be dismissed out of hand.

In general, I'm so tired of hearing about this. In fact I have to stop writing this post now because I'm about to fist-through-monitor.
 
Nomad said:
The game was a lot of fun - although I felt like I got more bang for the buck from ME2. ME3 seemed to go by faster (with fewer missions).
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ME2 with all DLC is slightly longer than ME3. ME3 doesn't have the same amount of planet scanning or driving sequences the earlier games have. Despite the side quests being less interactive, there is far more dialog in the 3rd game. I wouldn't say that there are necessarily fewer missions, but the way they are allocated is certainly very different. Essentially you get about 5 missions in ME2. Do those and then you have 15+ available to do all at once. This game allocates 3-5 at a time and you can't go onto the next set until the main priority mission is done. Which you can do whenever you like, then then you can't do the other missions associated with that part of the story. If you fast track through the game, you can still get the "best" endings (a term I use very loosely) just by hitting mostly priority missions and a few others in a little over 20 hours. But to do everything will take about 40.

My best time for all missions completed in ME2 with no dialog skipping is 43 hours and 22 minutes. My first run through it complete was 49 hours and I average about 44-45 hours normally. This game I can do in about 41 hours on the first try. I suspect that I can complete it in as little as 38 or 37 hours in subsequent runs with some dialog skipping which puts it closer to the length of ME2 without DLC. With no DLC content, I could finish ME2 in 35 or 36 hours most likely. Lair of the Shadow Broker is at least 2 hours, Project overlord is another 2 hours, the Arrival is about an hour and a half to two hours, and Project Firewalker is about 30-45 minutes. For comparison, I can get 100% completion of ME1 in 32 hours and some change without DLC.
 
I would say it's obviously that Francis dude who filed the complaint, but I have no proof.
 
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