Aidan Rhane wrote...
We expect better. That’s the message I take (ha!) from the Retake movement. We know you can do better and we expect better from you. And why shouldn’t we expect better – not just as consumers, but as gamers, as fans of this medium? Does this attitude make us ‘entitled’? If it does, I don’t see that as a bad thing. Striving to improve is a good thing, it’s what challenges and motivates us to do better.
I see Retake as a great compliment to Bioware. People care about these games. They care about these stories and these characters. They care enough to get angry – and that’s a rare thing. It shows Bioware succeeded where so many other storytellers fail – in any medium. They made us care.
Games, traditionally you might say, have disappointing endings, but most of the time we just shrug and accept it. So why not now? In fact, why didn’t we see this coming? When it’s the norm for games to present us with a lacklustre ending, why did we expect ME3 to be any different? It’s because we cared. It’s because of the quality of what came before. Bioware set their own high standards in an industry with low standards when it comes to characterisation, plot and resolution. We expected better of them, it really is that simple.
So why not just shrug it off? It’s just a video game, right? I shrugged off the crappy ending to Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I shrugged off the crappy final boss fight in Bioshock, a game often lauded in the 'are games art' debate. I shrugged off the lacklustre final sequence of my favourite game ever – System Shock 2. So why not this?
Well, why should we? ME is special because it made us care, but why should we shrug off any game with a crappy ending? For me, Retake represents a shift in gamers expectations. We’ve become a more discerning audience and I think that’s a great thing for gaming. We’re becoming less content to just sit back and say, ‘well, that was disappointing, what will I play next?’ We see, where perhaps developers and publishers sadly do not, the potential for this medium and how it can improve and evolve.
Now, I’ve seen some bloggers and even people within the industry suggest that if Bioware change or alter the ending it will, in some unexplained way ‘set back’ gaming. But ‘set back’ in the eyes of who? Whose validation are they seeking? Isn’t it ours? You know, their fans and customers? Ordo they seek the approval of...I don’t know, Roger Ebert perhaps? Why should we care how critics of other art forms judge the gaming industry? Games aren’t films, books or paintings. Games are games and they shouldn’t try to be anything else. If gaming truly is an evolving art form, then there are no rules – why should we apply arbitrary and subjective rules established for other mediums to gaming?
To Summarise -
1) Retake is a welcome reminder that gamers are passionate about this industry and desire to see it raise its standards.
2) Retake and Biowares/EA's reaction and handling of it (free content - from EA? - the mind boggles!) WILL be considered by other Developers and Publishers in the future. Maybe they'll start to wake up and realise we're not going to continue passively lapping up everything they churn out as quickly as they can. We appreciate and expect quality for our money.
3) Some of the major gaming sites that were so critical, even downright rude, to Retake already seem to slowly be backtracking on their words. This whole fiasco has really served to highlight the serious disconnect between gamers and the so called 'professional' critics. They'll have to do a lot to win back trust, if they can indeed win it back at all.
Overall, Retake has a lot to be proud of and maybe it is a welcome kick up the backside for the gaming industry that seems to be increasingly out of touch with its own customers.
This post should be required reading for all retakers. You're absolutely right, everything that's happened has happened out of love for Mass Effect. I consider the series to be better than the original Star Wars until the God Child appeared, and I stick to that. For those reasons, we Hold The Line, for the ending the series deserves.
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