Fallenfromthesky wrote...
Morning all any new news or till in the speculation/discussion mode
Amazon UK has stopped selling ME3 while it investigates complaints that the product sold was not the same as the product advertised. There is a copy of Amazon's reasoning a few pages back, or you could just go to Amazon UK and see for yourself.
Humm, I wonder if the guys at Forbes will pick up on that and comment?
Now might be a good time to reiterate Bioware's apparent position, and the options open to them.
They don't, realistically, have an option of doing nothing - in part because the press reported that they were going to change the ending (Bioware never stated this, but the media will get annoyed at looking like idiots for saying it and are likely to take that annoyance out on Bioware if not EA at the first chance). The other reason is Amazon UK - if they uphold the complaints about the games advertising they might well continue to refuse to sell the game, and other retailers will probably follow. I'd certainly expect Amazon stores in other countries to follow Amazon UK's lead.
As this is the second Bioware game in 12 months that retailers have ended up having to offer full refunds for (the other being DA2, on the basis its bugs resulted in a broken product). Doing nothing will make it very difficult for Bioware to find retailers willing to sell their products in future, or at least not stock their games in large numbers or on favourable terms.
'Explaining', 'Clarrifying' or just adding a slideshow onto the end of the game would be just as bad, if not worse, than doing nothing. It would not counter the misadvertising claims and would really tick off customers.
The 'suits' at EA and Bioware will be screaming blue murder at all the bad publicity, and quite probably the way the situation was mismanaged. They will want the situation resolved in a way that doesn't make things worse. This is especially likely given the existance of a Mass Effect film in early pre-production and hopes for a long-running franchise. If the situation is allowed to get worse neither is likely to happen.
So. The basic position, as I can see it, is that if Bioware wishes to remain in business they will have to;
A; Address the ending issue at PAX, meaning that they will have to state than they either have or are working on an ending DLC. They have no option of stalling for time.
B; They will have to indicate, at least in general terms, what it will contain - ie, new endings - and a rough idea as to when it will be released.
C; Indicate if it will be a paid or free download. They *might* get away with paid DLC, but it will badly damage their image and probably kill off a large percentage of their existing customer base. The smarter move would be a free DLC, which would come over as better for all involved and unless it is very bad could very well result in a surge of sales - it is NOT too late for this to happen. Both Mass Effect and Dragon Age Origins showed and increase in sales from around week 5/6 after release.
Now I am nursing the faint, if wary, hope that they will announce a new ending at PAX. This is based mainly on two things.
First are comments made by one of the writers who will be there, who seemed fairly cheerful and said 'We have a lot to talk about
'. This would appear to be the comments of someone who feels he has good news to impart, and unless he has been living under a rock for the last few weeks he MUST be aware that the only news that is likely to be well received at PAX is a new ending.
Second is that Bioware intends to live-stream their talk at PAX. Like the above this would seem like a very strange thing to do unless you were very confident that you could provide a statement that is going to be well received.
So, keep nursing a faint hope of good news and keep holding the line.
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