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(This post is NOT about "Artistic Integrity", nor it tries to propose another angle from which to see the current ending. It is only about common sense and logic and it goes beyond different opinions, so we can come to a consensus; you are more then welcome to post your replies and discuss what you think about this, and I will try to reply in detail to every concern etc. but please try to be civil and respectful or I will simply ignore you).
Bioware has shipped ME3. The game has been played by many, many people and it will continue to be played (no matter what) by many others to come. Many of these same people have already finished the game and have their opinions on it, whatever it is. Some don't like the ending, some like it, some hate it, some love it. It doesn't matter where the majority stands, there are different opinions on the same, as it's perfectly fine this to happen.
Now while some of you, as individuals, can also not care about the others' opinions and would like the story to end as you prefer, Bioware cannot do the same. You, as individuals, have all the right if you want to complain and either do what in your power to have Bioware listen to your opinion, also if this opinion goes against the one of the others in practice, but Bioware (as a company that has to care for ALL of its fans, and not just some of them) cannot.
As I said, Bioware cannot. That would be like admitting that one part of the audience (those that don't like the ending) have an opinion that matters more than those that like it. It would be like admitting one part of the audience better than the other. Morover this decision will be based on purely arbritary parameters; if there would be reliable and fool-proof statistics (admitting they would ever exists) of what kind of people like/dislike the ending, either if morally questionable, they could base the decision on some kind of basis (as for example if those that don't like the ending are of a certain kind of demographic, or they have an higher IQ or similar idiocies). It would be still completely inappropriate and bad, but as it is now it's even worse, because the decision would be done on completely arbitrary parameters, i.e. they would have to base who is "better" and who is "right" based only on the kind of opinon they have, a purely arbitrary decision, since opinion is purely subjective.
Either if the ending was really "badly written" (questionable, but whatever) this is not, by this point, anymore a plausible parameter (as explained before) on which to base the decision, because also if it is really so, some that now like the ending as it is are tied emotionally to the same, no matter what. Just like if you have a dog from an year and you then discover that it has a genetic disease, a dog breeder cannot propose to change the dog to you just because it has a problem; you would obviously react not too well to the thing.
Given this, it is obvious that by this point Bioware cannot change the ending for purely objective motives. You, as an individual can also not show tolerance versus others, but Bioware has to consider all the users as having the same importance one another.
EDIT: The thing, then, doesn't work in both ways. Some of you (usually the most determined on disliking the ending) can think that not changing the ending would be anyway frustrating a part of the audience, but the two arguments are completely different. The product shipped in a certain way, the ending is already as it is. In the case of changing an ending now that would mean doing an action that annhiliates a part of the audience, that's completely different than simply having people dislike what you did to begin with. The product of Bioware at the moment of shipping already generated a shift in opinion, what would create an arbitrary decision on that same different opinion would be doing an active action that prefers one point of view to the other, that's completely different from having people like/dislike the product you produced from the start. If you dislike a product it doesn't mean that the authors are actively frustrating your opinion, it just means that they produced something you don't like. A thing completely different is, instead, if the authors do an active action to frustrate what you think.
The only thing they can do to try to please those who don't like the ending is what they are doing, i.e. expand the ending there is already to provide more closure (a thing many are complaining about). Expecting something more would just mean that you pretend something that cannot happen, and not only for technical motivations (as it can be "artistic intergrity" or the fact that the ending has a theme behind that many don't know) but, primarily, just for the sake's and respect of the audience in its totality.
I will add another thing about this: also if this solution can seem the best of both worlds given what I said (and so a move of Bioware has done just for their personal end), this move is, in fact, anyway a gamble because it risks in any case to alienate some users that like the ending exactly as it is (without the full closure). So Bioware it is actually risking this to please a part of the audience, and this is not at all "not listening" because, if you think about it, it's always a risky move from their point of view. They can end up not pleasing nor one nor the other spectrums of the audience. So, please, consider what I say here. You insist they don't care but what they are doing shows the exact contrary.
To finish I want to reply in detail to some of the most used examples of "Changing the work it has been done before so there's nothing wrong with it" to let you see that the things are not exactly as you put them to be:
- Sherlock Holmes, Doyle: I usually laugh inside myself every time people quote this example because they are actually providing proof of the opposite point they are trying to make. Apart the fact that resurrecting a character is not properly the same thing as changing the ending (because the former ending remains the same, you just add to it; it is true that you indirectly change it but it is different than a direct change in the sense that you can decide if to go a route or the other) then Doyle was harshly criticized by critics and fellow artists for the inconsistency and for alienating a part of the audience in doing this. So much, in fact, that even today his name is not considered well by fellow writers just for what he did, and he is quoted many times just for the contrary evidence of what people want to prove it: i.e. of the BAD it happens when you alienate a part of your readers.
- Fallout 3: the ending has NOT changed as people want Bioware to change the ending of ME. It is just a sort of "expansion" as it can be the EC, because the outcomes are exactly the same, you get only to have some more decisions on them. The ending has not changed at all, the same things happens in their context, the difference is only on the execution of the same, nothing more.
- Alan Wake: same thing. While many people called the ending a cliff-hanger it has not changed. The authors just expanded on the same and provided more closure, just this. Nothing different than what's happening with the EC for Bioware.
- Great Expectations, Dickens: he never changed anything at all for the audience. The endings were already decided to be two.
Modifié par Amioran, 01 mai 2012 - 08:30 .
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good manners. You cannot treat every faction of an audience as the same. That makes no logical sense.
