RiouHotaru wrote...
...And once again, Forbes runs his mouth off without considering WHY it might be a dangerous precedent.
Fallout 3 got Broken Steel because the DEVELOPER didn't like the ending. The "dangerous precedent" is in giving the fans control. Fans should NOT have control over whether any part of a game gets changed or not.
But then it's easy to like the article because it agrees with you.
Yeah, because Bethesda suddenly realized that the ending was bad with no input whatsoever from the community...? In any case, thanks to the magic of public opinion, if you can destroy the credibility of another person, you don't have to address his points. Moriarty's credibility is shaky at best, and this article proves it more. So why take the time to reply his argument? Anyway, I'll indulge.
This is not a precedent. This is merely an example. Every single developer out there presented with a situation like Bioware's now will have 2 difficult choices before them and there's no way to go around it.
A) Lose the fans, market the hell out of the product at hand to minimize short-term loses and preserve artistic integrity.
Cave to the fans, minimize long-term loses and show some artistic humility. (Any artist can stick to his guns claiming artistic integrity but only good artists are humble enough to admit that they might be wrong).
Moreover, this particular situation is enhanced by the fact that most of the customers complaining where the ones that had their expectations set to unrealistic levels by developer comments and 2 very successful games over the course of several years. You put yourself in that spot and the stakes will be high. If anything, regardless of the outcome, it'll be harder in the future to see trilogies as connected as this ones. The damage is already done. Fans already didn't like the ending. That's going to hurt the bottom-line anyway.
This situation will make everyone wary to conclude a trilogy after so much investment from the fans. But that's just human nature, whenever fans get invested in such a work by anyone else, the have a sense of property. Fans have complained with other great works of art in the past. Some artists "caved", showing some humility, while others simply ignored. The fact of the matter is that other developers would love to have such an invested fan-base. They would love to have products that successful. 1 loyal customer is worth 10 casual ones.
This is a chance, an opportunity if you will, for Bioware to try and correct this situation. An opportunity extended by the community, a 1up. Not because we're arrogant, but because we're disappointed. Imagine if we all left suddenly and told our friends that regard us as the fans of the franchise that the game's good but the end is bad. That's disaster right there, and it's already happening. Furthermore, some casual gamers that bought ME3 just now might simply not go back and buy the first two. That's impressively damaging to the company, and that's what this ending achieved. Instead of giving me replay value, it outright destroyed it for THREE games.
Bottom line is, it's always going to be their choice. We can complain all we want, but there's nothing in our power to actually make them change it. Some think that going to a court is a way to achieve it, but they're just desperate (like the guy that went to the FTC). It doesn't matter if one developer "caves" in. There's no contract binding other developers to do so as well, because this is not a court of law. On the other hand, this isn't a hostage situation either, we're not picking on a random guy on the street and demanding outrageous stuff with no reason. Bioware is not going to "die" unless we get what we want, but we won't stay customers just for the sake of it. It is, after all, a business.
Think about those differences and then tell me, how the hell this Moriarty guy is right?
Modifié par Lugaidster, 22 mars 2012 - 11:01 .
Retour en haut
can and do change.
