Anthony, whether or not games are or where art isn't really the issue here. If we assume games are art, we accept that the art form has a very different medium than say, a movie, or a book, or a painting. It's the concept of static media versus interactive media.

It's easy to accept that static media is meant to be consumed as is. The consumer has say over the story expressed in said art form, and they have to take it at face value. However, also keep in mind that the time spend consuming that art is usually a few hours (perhaps more if it is a long series of books).

Interactive media, on the other hand, does not exist without the consumer. It relies on the consumer to allow the story to unfold. The goes doubly so for something like Mass Effect, where the story is in many way dependent on the consumer.

Most of the arguments against the ME3 ending are not about asking BioWare to change their art. They are more-so asking BioWare to show their audience the same respect they showed for the other 150+ hours that the audience spent consuming the media. I don't wan't to spoil too much about the ending(s) here, but suffice to say it's odd that BioWare would provide the player with conclusions that where essentially phoned in. The conclusion was convoluted, contrived, and full of plot holes. We have come to respect the Mass Effect writers and we *know* that they are capable of something amazing; Whether tragic or triumphant.

And speaking frankly, I don't know that I've ever seen this much backlash against an ending. I think BioWare would be making a poor decision to not recognize that and address it.

Anthony, yeah I agree. I don't see the need to actually *change* the ending, from the perspective of the story. I don't particularly like where they took it, but there was no way I was going to be perfectly happy with it. No one could have been.

But yes, tying up plot holes, adding some cohesion, and basically elaborating on the ending would be appreciated. We all lived in the ME universe for a good long time. Let us put the controller down and truly enjoy the culmination of our efforts, whatever they may be. Give us some closure, and give the characters the send off they deserve.

Anthony, thanks for your feedback - but if you've read my work you know I've been doing nothing but trumpet the case for games as art. Heck, I even wrote a whole article entitled, "The Case for Games as Art". I came to game design out of the more 'respectable' area playwriting because I see *more* artistic potential in games than anywhere else.

Yet nowhere in my philosophy is art good simply because it's released to the public. I'm sorry Anthony, but bad writing isn't unicorns. It *exists*.

My objections to the ending are purely from an artistic perspective. It's simply bad writing and could be improved on. Furthermore, it jolted players out of the experience and made them frustrated; angry. People are returning games and Bioware's losing a lot of money and goodwill. Personally, I think enough of their talents that I believe they could craft an ending of power and majesty that wouldn't leave people hating them and their losing money. They've done it before.

Finally, as I've said before, some of the greatest artists of their genres have changed their work for the better based on the reactions of the audience. Oklahoma! Is credited with revitalizing American Musical Theater... Yet audiences hated even late versions of it. The creators redid the production on the train-ride up to New York, even changing the name to Oklahoma! and the new show was adored.

If you had your way and they had been stubborn, Oklahoma would never have existed and never would have revitalized the American Musical Theater. They brought art to life by admitting their mistakes and working to correct them, they didn't kill it.

First, thanks for commenting and sharing your thoughts. It's great to see people are thinking deeply about this.

Now let's take a look at your points.

"Ok I'll start by saying that I have not finished the Mass Effect saga, and that I have never been in love with it's story. Now I don't think that is the least important when judging a game or any sort of narrative fiction."

My only response to this is to raise my eyebrows. It seems like you're implying that finishing a saga or caring about its story is not the least bit important when judging narrative fiction. That seems... A little odd.

"However, I believe asking for the creator to change the ending they have given to their series is in my books absolutely unacceptable. Yes, many games give you the illusion of choice, and let you play in a certain way, and decide certain aspects of the story, but you are still an option in the game universe, and the author's vision is still the driving force."

Authors changing their content in response to audience demand has a long history. Early screentests of movies result in plot points being changed, and even great art like Oklahoma! - the core of the American Musical - flopped out of town. It was called, "Away we go!" back then and had tremendous flaws in the story, pacing and musical as a whole. The authors, Rogers and Hammerstein, responded to the audience reaction by completely revamping it on the train to New York - including the change of title - and the result became one of the most loved and influential musicals ever to grace the American Stage. If the authors hadn't listened to the audience response, we would never have had Oklahoma.

Additionally, staying with musical theater, "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" was originally killed in out-of-town runs by a jarring opening that ruined the audience for much of what was to come (Stephen Sondheim writes extensively about this in "Finishing the Hat" - a great read). The opening killed the experience for much of what was to come and severely hurt audience enjoyment. Stephen Sondheim, considered by many to be one of the greatest artists of the modern musical theater, responded by changing the opening to fix the issues - creating "Comedy Tonight!" which is still heralded as one of the most brilliant openings for a Musical Comedy in the history of the musical. The change turned the musical to a hit and left the new audiences adoring the show.

These are just two examples I can think of off the top of my head where authors made mistakes, owned up to them, and the result was some of the highest quality art in the genre.

"Trying to please everyone is the most venomous practice of today's narrative"The current poll on Bioware's own forums lists the amount of players who hate the ending at 91%. The amount of players who want the ending modified in at least some small way is 6%. The amount of players who think the ending is fine as-is clocks in at 2%.

Of course you can't please everyone, but surely you should try to make sure that at least more players like what you've crafted for them than hate it.

Here is the link for reference: http://social.bioware.com/633606/polls/28989

"If you read a classic novel where the main character dies, you don't have any right to whine."

You seem to think that the reason people dislike the endings are purely because they're not positive. This isn't true. If the crucible's ending had featured a cat suddenly springing onto the shoulder of John Proctor and lecturing everyone on the will of Zeus (yes, Zeus - a completely different god) then fusing all christians with non-christians in order to end the killing... It would make you raise an eyebrow. The problem with the endings isn't just that they're bittersweet - they're simply full of plot holes, last-minute contradictions and generally don't make much sense.

For a highlight of some of the many plot holes that have so many people concluding that the only logical explanation is that it must all be a hallucination, you can check here. I'd pay particular attention to the section discussing the Star Child - as some of the other aspects are more nitpicky than these central plot violations (the document examines the ending in chronological order, not the order of greatest plot holes to least)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QT4IUepvrU1pfv_B95oQj0H84DlCTU mzQ_uQh1voTUs/preview?pli=1&sle=true

However, a significant issue is that Mass Effect is a game that is made to empower player choice. The fact that the players have no chance for a total victory or defeat is what cheapens the bittersweet endings. It feels makes the game feel meaningless, because your efforts are for essentially nothing. As mentioned, many tragedies are tragic because they could have been avoided. Mass Effect 2 made brilliant use of this. Mass Effect 3 clearly did not, as the players feel shocked, confused and disappointed - not moved to tears. People love Mordin's heroic, tragic end. People overwhelmingly hate the ending of Mass Effect 3. You can't possibly say it's because they just want a happy ending.

"I suppose you should probably learn to enjoy the narrative more than believe that the game universe belongs solely to you."

Will you next tell me to learn to enjoy the narrative of the Starwas prequels? The issue with the end of Mass Effect 3 is that it's a great game damaged in the last few minutes by poor writing and a betrayal of the themes. It's not something one should learn to enjoy, there are flaws and the players reacted overwhelmingly negatively to them - hurting Bioware's fanbase.

This is something that can be easily fixed and improve the artistic integrity of the game.

Ok ok, true that first phrase is misleading. I mean that MY personal enjoyment or completion of the game shouldnt affect my opinion on the ending conflict.

I understand you are quoting to prove that by audience feedback a cultural production can be improved, and this is obvious, it happens organically in nature. However I don't think this is the case. I much appreciate when a creator stands by its vision, and follows through without compromising for mass appeal. If Artists compromised, we wouldn't have had Van Gogh, Picasso, Gaugin or Kandinski. They might not have been popular immediately, but they didn't bend over.
Immediate audience praise is not the only target.

Alike the ending of The Sopranos, one of the best TV series of modern times, many found it confuse, absurd, unlike the rest of the series etc etc.. but I believe it was a fantastic comment on the series itself. I'm sure many people would have prefered a more linear simple expectable conclusion (bread and circus, for the masses). But I am thankful for an alternative. And I thought we were past the obvious absolutes.

I would find your ending to the crucible rather amazing, but then again I would read it in the light of the ending I know. Even if i didnt like it, I would think to myself.. "odd .. I would have thought it would end differently, maybe i will write my own book".... I would't search for the author and demand a change in his writing. And I would be offended if he DID change it to please someone else. I believe out of respect, that they gave me this solution because they thought it was a worthy one (although I have never thought the solutions of ME are very worthy).


About those numbers in the forum, they are quite likely inaccurate, why? Because people who liked the ending (or thought it was ok) probably moved on and are not complaining for it to be changed. They are not dogmatically sticking to the image they have of what it should be. For them to be happy, Bioware would have had to release a ME:EPILOGUE with all the possible plot threads explained, and even then a lot of people would have likely been dissatisfied, simply because they dont want Mass Effect to be over, EVER.

Empowering player choice is a catch-phrase too, the truth is that Mass effect encloses a plot within a range, you can see the precise turning points, and limited variations. It is sometimes impressive at pretending to change with your choices, but that's all. There is still a clear sequence of events that you need to complete in order to finish each game. From what I understand there are also options in the end of ME3. Are they as fulfilling as most people expected? Maybe not, but that's absolutely subjective.

No game (or any cultural product) I know is my bible, I don't (and shouldn't) EXPECT to be given special treatment, from an author, although many have made me feel very special.
As much as we want it, the only place where we are authors is (arguably) real life.

I dont like the starwars prequels, but I don't hate the original movies because of them, same as I don't hate the original matrix because of the following ones. I acknowledge they do exist, and I think they could have been done in a better way, but I am not assuming the authors lacked of "artistic integrity" when they made them. Do I have more artistic integrity than the creators? Should I expect or even WANT to get them re-done, to appease me.

“Ok ok, true that first phrase is misleading. I mean that MY personal enjoyment or completion of the game shouldnt affect my opinion on the ending conflict.”

That makes a lot more sense.

“I understand you are quoting to prove that by audience feedback a cultural production can be inproved, and this is obvious, it happens orcanically in nature. However I dont think this is the case. I much appreciate when a creator stands by its vision, and follows through without compromising for mass appeal. If Artists compromised, we wouldn’t have had Van Gogh, Picasso, Gaugin or Kandinski”

I’ve already provided examples of great artists changing their work for the betterment of the experience when there was a specific problem with it. It isn’t that Mass Effect 3 was an overall terrible game and we’re demanding a new one – there was just one specific problem that ruined the experience for the vast majority of players… And doesn’t mesh with the rest of the series. If Picasso had painted his masterpiece Guernica, but in the corner added a classically-styled portrait evoking pure realism… It would clash with the rest of the painting.

Your examples are flawed because you’re citing great, cohesive art that stays true to its style. The whole problem with the ending of Mass Effect is that it betrays the themes, makes little sense and weakens the work’s artistic power for many players.

“Alike the ending of The Sopranos, one of the best TV series of modern times, many found it confuse, absurd, unlike the rest of the series etc etc.. but I believe it was a fantastic comment on the series itself. I'm sure many people would have prefered a more linear simple expectable conclusion (bread and circus, for the masses). But I am thankful for an alternative. And I thought we were past the obvious absolutes.

I would find your ending to the crucible rather amazing, but then again I would read it in the light of the ending I know. Even if i didnt like it, I would think to myself.. "odd .. I would have thought it would end differently, maybe i will write my own book"”

While I’m glad you like my on-the-cuff ending for a dramatic masterpiece, it seems you’re of the opinion that there’s no such thing as a bad ending. If that’s the case, we simply don’t have anything to talk about. And arguably, that’s even more justification for the players to ask for a change. After all, if there’s no such thing as a bad ending – there’s no such thing as a good ending… And one might as well pick one that gives players as much enjoyment as possible.

“.... I would't search for the author and demand a change in his writing. And I would be offended if he DID change it to please someone else. I believe out of respect, that they gave me this solution because they thought it was a worthy one (although I have never thought the solutions of ME are very worthy).”

While as a writer, I appreciate your respect for artistic decisions, I must wonder if you have any objection to an author reconsidering his work and editing it later. Rough drafts and scrapped ideas are common, heavy rewrites are the soul of the process. Why does a work become inviolate the moment it’s released to the public? If an author later decides they’d like to try and improve their work due to the response from the players not being what they’d hoped – they have every right. It is simply letters like this, polls of player reactions and the Facebook group mentioned in the first comment that inform Bioware of how many of us feel. They have no obligation to change their work and we aren’t forcing them, but they have every right to change things if they feel they want to help more players enjoy the conclusion to their epic science-fiction saga.



“About those numbers in the forum, they are quite likely inaccurate, why? Because people who liked the ending (or thought it was ok) probably moved on and are not complaining for it to be changed.”

Really? Frankly it makes just as much sense to claim that the numbers are inaccurate because the people who hated the ending would have quit the forums in disgust. Many are claiming to be done with Bioware, which is a huge and I believe completely unjustified overreaction – but if this is the case, the number of dissenters might be underrepresented.

Nor can self-selection influence bias here. The thread title is neutral, simply asking people what they thought of the ending. It’s very hard to argue that the thread results are so biased that the people who liked the ending are so underrepresented in that pole to turn a miniscule minority into a sizable portion of the fanbase.

“They are not dogmatically sticking to the image they have of what it should be. For them to be happy, Bioware would have had to release a ME:EPILOGUE with all the possible plot threads explained, and even then a lot of people would have likely been dissatisfied, simply because they don’t want Mass Effect to be over, EVER.”

The idea that we simply don’t want Mass Effect to be over with is just not the reason for the objections. Personally, I wanted a thrilling conclusion – I like having an ending in sight and feeling like we’ve had a complete experience. Futhermore, this goes against the core argument against the ending – that things aren’t explained enough and they want a concrete idea of how their decisions played out. Bioware tried to leave us with lots of speculation and room for additional Mass Effect content. Overall, people don’t want that, they want a conclusive ending.

“Empowering player choice is a catch-phrase too, the truth is that Mass effect encloses a plot within a range, you can see the precise turning points, and limited variations. It is sometimes impressive at pretending to change with your choices, but that's all. There is still a clear sequence of events that you need to complete in order to finish each game. From what I understand there are also options in the end of ME3. Are they as fulfilling as most people expected? Maybe not, but that's absolutely subjective.”

Here you’re simply not understanding what people mean by ‘player choice’. It’s the results of decisions that matter and the dramatization on their results that feel like the world has been impacted. Not many people complain about having to do the same events in Mass Effect 1, 2 or 3 – they’re complaining here because they have no idea what happened due to their choices (and their choices don’t make any sense). Further, their previous choices have no demonstrable impact on the game’s final conclusion. Space-magic makes everything happen.

“I dont like the starwars prequels, but I don't hate the original movies because of them, same as I don't hate the original matrix because of the following ones.”

Of course, because those are completely separate movies that can be watched independently of one another. Claiming you should grow up and learn to like the Matrix sequels or the Starwars prequels is absurd. They’re just deomonstrably bad writing, and we have no obligation to learn to enjoy bad writing.
“I am not assuming the authors lacked of "artistic integrity" when they made them. Do I have more artistic integrity than the creators? Should I expect or even WANT to get them re-done, to appease me.”

I’d never accuse Bioware of lacking artistic integrity. In fact, it’s their very artistic integrity that we’re appealing to. The vast majority of players feel that the last 10 minutes horribly weakens the artistic power of the game, broke them out of the story, lessens replay value and made them resent the otherwise wonderful experience. This is as huge a problem as a bug so crippling it makes 91% of your fans upset. You can argue that this one bug shouldn’t affect the overall experience and that the developers should stick to their vision and not patch it, but when you get down to it… Those arguments don’t hold water. And when a game is as focused on narrative as the mass effect series, with so many plot holes and bizarre events in the last ten minutes that completely clash with the previous themes, events and motivations… It amounts to a ‘narrative bug’.

Bioware is under no obligation to patch anything. But they have the right to do so if they care about providing their players with a satisfying experience.

I, for one, hope they take advantage of this.

OK I understand your points...I dont think you are understanding some of my points...
as you note, I dont believe there is a GOOD or BAD ending, but that it is all tied to the observer's expectation and the intention of the author, it might seem relativistic, but that's because when it comes to fiction, it is. You might not like an ending (I hate all sorts of things from everywhere), but there is a long shot between me hating it and me considering it is unworthy, or demanding it re-done.

As far as publishing and becoming set in stone, I believe that is actually the case, rewrites are fine, as long as you have not released it. After all the interaction with the audience makes a piece, it doesn't exist as a cultural construct before it is seen by its audience. It is the writer that has deemed it worthy of release. If you were wrong well you probably shouldn't have released it like that, too bad nothing can be done. Now your audience has given it shape, and a change is just an option, your universe is fragmented, weak and muddled (And the writer is stuck in a limbo).

And you are wrong, all of those artists I cited consciounsly tried betraying their own themes, It unwillingly became a style sometimes, but some of their chief intentions was not to "see" as they had seen until then. They wanted to destroy their own conventions. Not that Mass effect has any of those intentions, since I would consider it more of a popcorn sci fi flick.

(Any way, saying how wrong my examples are doesn't really change the underlying idea of what I'm saying: You can deslike it all you want, but you shouldn't expect it to be changed at the audience whims, since its nothing more than that: An empowered espectator's whim.)

Even if this was THE WORSE ENDING EVER, I still don't think "demanding a better ending" is a better idea..... But what if we make a parallel universe where shepherd is commander of the enterprise now, and he has a pet reaper now, and he teams up with Lex luthor and became friends with batman and PFFF. Yeah i dont like there being paralel universes in comics either...

I look at it more like this:
http://penny-arcade.com/2012/03/14/mass-effect-3-ending-spoiler-wa rning

In any case I believe that mass effect 1 and 2 both ruin the internal coherence of the mass effect universe by themselves (I have only played a bit of ME2, but it is already a complete mess)...I am shocked at people expecting profound sense from a storyline that has always been shakey at best (but maybe that's just me).

Well Bernardo, it seems that you're simply of a different philosophical mindset here. You are of the opinion that once something is seen by the public, it should never be changed. If this was the case though, as I've mentioned, we'd never have Oklahoma or Comedy Tonight - and that would be a great loss.

Furthermore, you claim there isn't any such thing as a good or bad ending. In that case, why shouldn't you have an ending that as many fans enjoy as possible?

Ultimately though, my open letter doesn't even demand a new ending - it asks for at the very least an open conversation with the many disappointed players.

Fundamentally, even as a writer myself, I don't see the moral objection to patching a narrative flaw any more than a programming one. I'd hate to see EA force Bioware into doing it though just for profits, I'd object to that as well. My issue stems solely from the fact that the ending is damaging to the game's overall artistic impact and shouldn't have been released as-is.

If something is changed, I'd like it to be for artistic reasons - not monetary ones. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I don't think "it should not be changed", I think it is unchangeable. Changes are just an addition that weakens the original as a complete opus and the complete vision of the creator.

Enjoyment is something subjective again, I believe you have enjoyed the game, it is the ending which you don't control what many dont seem to enjoy, although many have had positive reactions to. Question is.. would you really like an ending that goes WHOOPSY we didn't actually mean that, we wanted to say THIS!?

That's what would offend me.

Well, in that case we'd never have Oklahoma, never have Comedy Tonight or many other great pieces of art.

And again, if you think this is an utterly subjective issue - then why should Bioware not listen to the subjective opinion held by the overwhelming majority of their fans instead of the subjective opinion of a miniscule minority?

They aren't required to change anything, but if they want to - I heartily disagree that things are unchangeable. You wouldn't prevent developers from patching coding errors would you? Why prevent them from patching narrative ones?

Don't worry, I don't for a moment think you're braindead. I'm very glad you enjoyed all three games. That's what this movement is about. A vast majority felt that their enjoyment of the otherwise incredible conclusion to one of the most epic franchises in history ruined much of their enjoyment. If instead 90% of people loved the ending there would be an academic discussion to be had, but no real reason to change the ending.

Sadly, that's not what happened. The ending was so odd, so at war with the themes of the game, so destructive and full of so many plot holes/out of character moments that many people are convinced it was a hallucination. Lots of people have done in-depth critiques of the ending from a story perspective and I might write one myself. However, I currently feel that the critical analysis done by review sites such as Gamefront and even internet commentators like Angry Joe have made most all the major points.

And even if the ending was artistically defensible - it wouldn't change the fact that 98% of the players polled are unsatisfied in some way, with 91% of them outright hating the ending. When only 2% of your most dedicated players respond positively to what you've crafted for them (and most of their reaction is based on plot holes that jolt them out of the story and objections to the ending clashing with the story's themes and not fulfilling the promises of the developers - which are valid criticisms) that's a pretty major sign that you've made a mistake.

Taken at its principle - there is an aspect of the game that severely hurts the enjoyment of 91% of your players. Once you step back, this is no different than releasing the game with a critical bug that severely hurts the game's enjoyment for 91% of your players. The fact that the mistake lies in narrative and not in code is immaterial to the core of the problem. Players aren't enjoying the game as much as they could be, and disappointment is reigning in overwhelming numbers.

And that is why we hold the line.

Absolutely, provided the ending doesn't clash with the themes. Oedipus Rex is about the inevitability of fate. Romeo and Juliet is actually not about inevitability, though it uses such to create dramatic tension, it is in fact a completely arbitrary set of circumstance that provides for the narrow situation required for the true theme, "Great love defies even death".

Mass Effect however, has been promised from day 1 as being all about player choices. Not only has this been a huge aspect of the themes of the games, but it's been promised endlessly by the developers. Along the way certain tragedies should be inevitable, but even then the choice of how you deal with them is compelling. Choosing who lives and who dies for example.

The endings, however, are flawed in that they don't provide choice in the way the players find meaningful or relevant. Players are fighting for their friends, their character and the galaxy as a whole. Making each ending result in the same cataclysmic destruction varied principally by the different color of explosions completely undercuts the themes.

Just as Oedipus Rex would be cheapened if the ending suddenly switched to proclaim that there was no such thing as fate - at war with the rest of the play - Mass Effect is cheapened by suddenly being about irreconcilability, lack of meaningful choice and gaping plot holes.

Inevitability toward an undesirable end cheapens the ending here as it's at war with the core themes of your actions mattering, meaningful decisions being core to the experience as well as the developer's own promises.

And, again, players overwhelmingly hate the ending.

Additionally, when I mention "an interactive masterpiece" in that quote - I am referring to the core themes of Mass Effect being predicated on meaningful decisions and your actions having an impact on the story. It's solely referring to a game with a theme of player choices having meaningful impact. It isn't meant to imply that *all* interactive titles require modular endings.

Quite possibly, but from what I've read of their story notes - that doesn't seem likely. Also, it really doesn't explain the incredible amount of plot-holes crammed into the story.

Also, this really does run completely counter to everything they said leading up to the game and makes no artistic sense with the rest of the story's themes.

But stripped of all artistic discussion - the simple fact is that a vast majority of the players absolutely hated the last few minutes of the game. I find it difficult to defend an ending when so many people feel that the ending ruined their experience and soured their memories of Mass Effect as a whole. Fans feel betrayed, disappointed and angry at the company in incredible numbers.

Does anyone really think this is something a developer should strive for?

While we're on Reaper plotholes... If they're so worried about synthetics wiping out organic life... Why not just kill any synthetics who try to wipe out organic life?