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[oothal]

This recent uproar over the ending of ME3 has shown a growing trend of differing opinions of who is in control of this media we so love an enjoy. The deveoloper Bioware and many critics have a point of view that tries to stagnate and hold onto old and outdated thinking. The belief that whatever the developer does is sacrosanct and has full and complete control over the narative of each and every aspect of the medium.

When the developer gives me the choice to drive the narative in the direction I want, do they not loose some control of the narative? The deveopers have chosen to shair their power for driving the narative with me. They loose some power and control and I gain some power and control.  I (the player) gets to chose who lives and who dies on my team. I get to choose which team member to accompany me. I get to choose what places to go see and what order to do them. I can even choose to stand in the line of fire letting my character die if I so choose to do so. The developer just set the framework, but I am the one driving the story. It is my own personal story. Then as the end of my personal narative approaches I had all my control over the story taken away. Yanked unexpectedly away and then forced down a narrow unwanted path.

They act surprised that I would dare be upset at having lost control of the narative, that they gave me. So they could feed me their vision of how my own personal story should end. The ever so over used artistic integrity phrase usually pops up at this time. Artistic integrity is non existant is this series. Each of the 3 games are vastly different in play, graphics, GUI, weapon mods, armor mods and even lore. The only continuity is the over arching story line.

In the future developers will be increasing under pressure to provide content that the players who actually pay for the content want to play.  

Bioware should take this as an opportunity to provide content because that is its sole purpose of existance. Bioware is not in business to provide us what they want us to have but to provide us with what WE WANT to to have. Our fulfillment of wants is what makes us pay Bioware money. Not some artistic mumbo jumbo that they want to feed us. One difference between capitalism and socialism is that in Capitalism the consumer controls what products are purchased where with Socialism the State controls what products are purchased.
 
I have read several critics support Bioware and show their disdain for the fans wanting a better ending.  The critics usually start to compare video games to movies. They suggest that movies are such an entitled medium that movie fans would not ever dare to ask for a different vision of what ever plot line they were hand fed by the studeo that made the movie. I am 51 years old and have seen many movies I would have asked to see a different ending to, if it would have been possible.

When I was younger there was no internet to voice an opinion about what ever crappy ending a movie had. The only people that had a voice was movie critics and their power to effect change in a movie was almost nill. But that goes to the very core difference between movies and video games.

By the time a movie is seen by the general public the ability to film more or added material is non existant. The actors have moved on, the set is busy with other work, the money appropriated to filming has all been used up. It is all but impossible to go back and change a few minutes of film just from the cost perspective alone. Let alone trying to get studeo time, resign actors, it is just not worth the cost.

Because of that films have always been a one shot deal. Like it or leave it, you can't change it. But video games are not that way. It is much easier to pull together your team especially if they are all still there making DLC to add to the game. The critics that loath the new ending fans seem to want to place this thinking that movies and video games are exactly the same. A take it or leave it approach.

An archaic way of thinking,  forcing this new medium of interactivity and individualistic story telling and comparing it to a one story line, one size fits all catagory.

Critics and developers alike will have to wake up and smell the coffee. User driven story telling is here to stay and will only get more pervasive. No longer will we be force fed someone else's idea of what we want. As computers get more and more powerful we will bypass developers and "artists" all together. I see a future where my computer is so powerful that I can have it analize all past Sci-Fi stories and develope on the fly, an interactive video game for me personally to play. It will be able to match my wants and needs for action, romance, dialog, explortion and anything else I would enjoy in my entertainment.

That day is coming but until then, more forward thinking is going to be required and an end to the backwards thinking of some of todays critics and developers.