Newsbrief: The UK's Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that the various endings to the Mass Effect 3 story were "thematically quite different" and that EA did not mislead gamers with its claims that the player could affect the outcome of the story.
A number of consumers complained to the ASA after they felt the ending to Mass Effect 3 did not correlate enough with the decisions they made in the game. The debacle has previously caused a charity drive and led BioWare to promise free new content and scenes for the end of the game.
The ASA has now said that while it understands that consumers may feel that they could not influence the game's story as much as advertised, it considers the three choices at the end of the game, plus the effectiveness of the ending based on the player's "Effective Military Strength" score, to be enough such that the advertising was in fact not misleading.
I hate the ME3 ending with the venom of a thousand snakes, but I'll be the first to admit that complaining to the ASA was a pretty stupid way to show your displeasure to the developers.
@david. totally agree, just pointing out that it actually was an effective way for raging gamers to show their displeasure to dev, assuming their goal was attention...thats all.
It seems EA can't get involved with anything and not mess it up. 5 years of precedence with a genre and poof gone in a flash with a seemingly cobbled together ending that stomps over all previous actions. Hmm, I wonder why users find that disquieting?
What's that bad taste in your mouth? EA telling the team to forget everything that has happened previously on choices between Paragon and Renegade and just end the damn game!
What's that bad taste in your mouth? EA telling the team to forget everything that has happened previously on choices between Paragon and Renegade and just end the damn game!