Aucune réponse à ce sujet

[Casterdael]

No wait – this is not about whether BioWare will change the ending of Mass Effect 3, nor about any problem this game has. I want to point with this thread however, that BioWare has created a number of problems, which the company easily could have avoided. In this case, BioWare has committed itself to various promises, at least at face-value. Several lead designers, producers, or even the director himself, have promised the community clarity about the endings, non-linear endings and so on. Yet BioWare has reneged itself on these promises.

Commitment – from a business strategy point, but also from interpersonal perspective – creates expectations. A commitment can be credible, if the company often honored its promises. People tend to  have a level trust companies based on their previous attitude and products, and accompanying promises about their products. If this is the case, the people reached by the commitment – in this case, the Mass Effect 3 fanbase – will form reasonable expectations based on these promises. Note that I said ‘reasonable’, because firms and customers relate with each other, in normal terms, on reasonable grounds.

So if BioWare states the following:

Interview with Casey Hudson (Director) 

http://www.gameinfor...ostPageIndex=2 

Interviewer:
[Regarding the numerous possible endings of Mass Effect 2] “Is that same type of complexity built into the ending of Mass Effect 3?”

Hudson:
“Yeah, and I’d say much more so, because we have the ability to build the endings out in a way that we don’t have to worry about eventually tying them back together somewhere. This story arc is coming to an end with this game.
That means the endings can be a lot more different. At this point we’re taking into account so many decisions that you’ve made as a player and reflecting a lot of that stuff. It’s not even in any way like the traditional game endings,
where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got ending A, B, or C.....The endings have a lot more sophistication and variety in them.”

“We have a rule in our franchise that there is no canon. You as a player decide what your story is.”

Mike Gamble (Associate Producer)

http://www.nowgamer....ry_details.html

Of course you don’t have to play multiplayer, you can choose to play all the side-quests in single-player and do all that stuff you’ll still get all the same endings and same information, it’s just a totally different way of playing"

 

Casey
Hudson (Director)

http://www.computera...ly-good/?page=2

“There is ahuge set of consequences that start stacking up as you approach the end-game. And even in terms of the ending itself, it continues to break down to some very large decisions. So it's not like a classic game ending where everything is linear and you make a choice between a few things - it really does layer in many, many different choices, up to the final moments, where it's going to be different for everyone who plays it.”

These are only 3 committal promises which have, quite actually, have led to nowhere in the final version of the game itself. There might be more examples available, but right now, I’m going to stick with these three.



Because of these promises – promises about closures and non-linear endings – fans are upset (not to speak of all the great plot-holes the end came up with). Are fans right to be upset with these endings?

Even if we take the so called ‘Indoctrination Theory’ into consideration(which would be a great
way to twist Mass Effect 3 into its possible final ending), the game, as it stands now, is still incomplete. There is no closure, and if we say this is the real ending, there is still the fact that it is very linear, and we can only choose between A, B or C.

Does this mean BioWare has reneged on its promises? I think the company did. Not only did we get an unsatisfying ending, which is altogether incomplete, no matter which ending theory you’re on, but even more, it is unsatisfying from even an economical perspective, because the company has admittedly committed itself to the promises Mike Gamble and Casey Hudson made.

So what did this lead to? Fanrage, and even more fanrage. From several perspectives, this is
rightly so. Even now, most of the detractors of the ending have remained civil and constructive, while the company itself remains on the background, occasionally giving vague promises.  

In the end, I don’t think BioWare has learned its lesson. Not only do they not commit
themselves to a promise anymore, they aren’t basically promising anything anymore. This has led to much confusion on customers’ end and has even led to more fuel for the detractors. There are some ways to improve the BioWare/Mass Effect brand from here on, but BioWare, you still have to take those
steps. 



So what can BioWare do to control the damage it has done to itself – or even, I think, the company can  improve the relative standing it had before the release of Mass Effect 3. It simply has to commit itself again, and prove that the company is indeed quite credible. If there are any promises made in public, live to it, or just renege on it, but be fair and open about it. Don’t give vague promises. Be honest with your customers, that is all I ask. Because in the end, honesty is all that matters. 

Modifié par Casterdael, 21 mars 2012 - 11:40 .