invulnerable23 wrote...
I'm sorry, but really? You are likening Mass Effect 3 to the great stories of old simply because you enjoyed it? Yes, I love Mass Effect. I loved the entire series, but the last 5 minutes are a different animal than the rest of the series. I hate that they lost touch with the world I loved so much that they created such a poor excuse for an ending.
Let's examine your ideas. As a philosophy student, let's look at the idea of Mass Effect as art.
If it's any type of art, it's commissioned art. It's being paid for and made to make a profit. If you release a series of novels and write the conclusion to the story that is utter nonsense, your fanbase has every right to ask you to change it, to petition the change, to demand the change. You, as the author, don't need to listen. You made it for the publisher and for yourselves, not the fans.
BUT Mass Effect 3 was made for the fans. It was made for it's target audience. Hence why all the females wear tight-fitting clothes and you can fall in love. Hence why you fight and shoot and dodge and do all the action movie staples... because that's what fans want. This is a PRODUCT made by a COMPANY, not some painting made for the sake of art.
I get it. You want video games to be on the same level of art as novels and movies, but video games are beta tested and reviewed, like movies are shown to test audiences, to see if the viewers will enjoy the product. Many games undergo changes multiple times, and if you want video games to be recognized as art you have one problem:
DLC and patches. They change the games and update them constantly. How can a "unchanging artform" be altered constantly and still remain the same as it once was? It can't. They've already changed the game with the addition of day-one DLC. Not
to mention the game is different for each person playing. So why would it be wrong for Bioware to change their ending for the fans instead of for proft?
/Rant.
Any story is art. There are lots of bad stories, but they are still art. Storytelling is the foundation of all art and as long as the art tells a story, it is art. Mass Effect tells a story, therefore, it is art. It may not be a good story, in your opinion, but it is still art. I agree with you about the ending, but I still defend their creative intergrity.
The average novel takes about 1,000 hours to write over a six month span. I then have to edit it, which takes about 3 or 4 drafts before it is ready to be included within a book proposal package. A book proposal package consists of a marketing plan, a chapter by chapter synopsis, and a query letter. I submit this to my agent. He gets 15% of any contract I sign with a publisher. So, the publisher gives me a $50k contract. He gets 15% of that 50k. Then the government gets 30% at the 50k. I get $27,500. I won't get royalities unless the book hits good sales-the golden number is 10,000 copies. Even then the percentage never tops 15%.
Oh, and publishers won't pay to market me. I'm not Stephen King. I have to pay for my own publistist or pay for my own marketing; all out of pocket. Compare this with the reader who buys my book for $10 and spends a day reading it. My present novel project will have taken 2 years of my life before it hits store shelves. Bioware has spent 7 years, millions of dollars, and thousands of hours. The gamer, like myself, spent 100 hours and a couple hundred bucks. We are invested in the story, but we don't have creative ownership of the story.
Now, I write for my readers, I do. Every professional writer must write for the readers otherwise what they write will never sell. And every author is bound to write a bad book or two. It doesn't mean all of their work is suddenly rubish. James Patterson, Stephen King, etc have all writtten some bad books, but the majority of their stuff is very good. We learn from our mistakes and move on. Always learning...man, as I writer I have tons to learn.
DLC's and patches are great for the technical end of gaming. The story is a different beast. The story is where the real art is at. My novel will go through edits rquested by the editor and then by my agent and then by my publisher. But after it is released, the story stands on its own. The same should be said of games. Yes, there are bugs that need patching. More dlc can be added to expand the story and explain things. But don't alter it. That would be opening a can of worms that you don't want opened.
P.S. Philosophy sounds like an awesome major. Do you intend on being a Philosophy Professor, out of curosity? Seriously, I love psychology and philosophy. Awesome stuff.
Modifié par thebatmanreborn, 21 mars 2012 - 04:16 .
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