Regarding that magnum opus on IGN: Arrogance and condescension just drip from that video. Who has the entitlement issue here? I think it's the guy who feels ENTITLED to verbally abuse those with whom he disagrees.
It's one thing to engage in a real debate and quite another to set up a strawman, pretend it's the issue, and bludgeon it into the ground like Shepard head-stomping a husk. It's easy to be a bully when your targets stand silent behind a webcam lens, I suppose.
How many times do we have to say this? The real issue here is product quality, not user preference. ME 3's ending is of such poor quality that the contrast with the rest of the game is stark. From the perspectives of writing, gameplay consistency & mechanics, editing, plot development, conceptual coherence, characterization, user experience -- every important facet of game dynamics -- it misses the quality mark.
Moreover, this is NOT about an artist's right to freedom of expression or the idea that creativity is not a democratic process. (ALTHOUGH... is that really true? See the footnote
*)
We are not saying to a novelist "we just don't like your novel -- rewrite it!" We're saying "We paid you for a portrait, but you failed to capture the likeness. It needs to be reworked so that it looks like the subject."
Perhaps of equal importance is the simple fact that this is NOT a novel or a painting or a movie. It is an interactive RPG -- unfortunately one that, when interactive role playing is most critically important, completely ignores that role, dictates a completely generic set of outcomes and rushes to a completely incoherent conclusion. Can it really be true that no one at BioWare understands this?
There are objective standards that should have been met. They were not met. The product is defective. As consumers who have purchased the product, we are requesting that those defects be resolved. No amount of dismissive ridicule or name-calling invalidates the legitimacy of that position.
* Those who have so quickly invoked the notion that the public is wrong to evaluate or criticize or suggest (even demand) changes to a "creative work" like ME3 have clearly never been artists or writers. I have an undergraduate degree in art. From day one, it was hammered into us that criticism is the single most valuable gift an artist can receive. Once you've sat through a few hundred critique sessions during which your professors and peers excoriate your work, you begin to develop a thick skin -- and to understand that an artist who cannot graciously accept and respond to criticism -- no matter how harsh -- cannot grow or improve. Literary agents, editors, and publishers provide the same essential training to novelists. This prepares creators of art or literature for the final gauntlet -- the public. It would likely surprise those who feel the need to speak out on behalf of poor artists who are being "unfairly criticized" that Renaissance masters considered it to be not the right but the responsibility of the public -- in their case made up primarily of illiterate peasants -- to critically evaluate their work. How could they believe such a thing? Simple. They understood who their art was for.
Today, we more commonly hear retorts like "what gives you the right to criticize my work?" or "how dare you suggest that I change my personal creative expression!!" My, how things change...
Modifié par SkaldFish, 13 mars 2012 - 06:45 .
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