The Backhand of Pachter
As consumers, we like to think that what we buy is what we want, or else we wouldn’t buy it. Games are kind of weird, though: we don’t want endings spoiled for us, but we feel that we need to be personally satisfied with the game itself or else it “sucks” or is “broken” when it’s simply that “it’s not how we felt it should happen”. Well, that’s life, kids. In the end, will this hurt EA or BioWare? I doubt it. People will still buy their products because gamers have soft memories, and they actually thrive on being part of a controversy. For some, they’ll continue to take things to extreme because they think it’s appropriate, their duty, or because it’s their right as a consumer (like going to the FTC), and for most the next time a Dragon Age sequel comes along, or when the Baldur’s Gate version for iOS is released, they’ll be throwing wallets onto the stage.
Really, I couldn’t care any less about ME3 specifically. If people don’t like it, that’s fine. People have expectations in their heads, and rarely does reality live up to expectations, so I have no beef with people who can rationally explain their dissatisfaction with the game (and thankfully, that has been the majority of my personal interactions). What’s left, then, is the sorry perception of the consumer from outside the industry. A lot of gamers would say that they couldn’t care less how the outside perceives them. Those people are assholes, because when they act like herds of spoiled brats, and when that gets the attention of people outside the industry who know nothing about what goes on inside the industry and who are quick to paint the unknown in whatever caricature presents itself, that means that I can’t be proud of myself as a gamer because someone didn’t like the product they got, threw a public fit like a 4 year old in a department store, and made us all look bad.
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W:
April 10th, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Movies are constantly created by consensus. That’s the point of a focus group. Novels are regularly written to satisfy the biggest possible audience. strategy nearly always leads to bland unentertaining final products, but it’s essentially the same thing that you’re accusing Bioware of.
TV shows regularly change in response to the outside perceptions of fans and critics. And it often works well for them and makes mediocre shows into great ones.
creeptheprophet:
April 10th, 2012 at 1:07 pm
The fit thing is still no bueno. I mean saying you would have preferred something to be different, that works, but just whining makes us all look bad.
Commenting on the biz side of games from a biz perspective can make a person seem harsh. In the end though our games aren’t built for free and the biz side is critical to keeping servers live and new content forthcoming.
As much as we all want to see publishers put out games for the love of the game, they have to make money. At least enough to run things and maybe turn enough profit to keep investors interested.
spinks:
April 10th, 2012 at 1:10 pm
It is partly about how you spin it, though. You could equally say that the audience is deeply engaged and readily involved in user participation exercises. There are plenty of industries where that is not the case.
The reason I don’t like Pachter is that he gets paid huge amounts of money for stating the fucking obvious and I don’t
Chris Smith:
April 10th, 2012 at 1:15 pm
The thing is, Mass Effect 3 was NOT created by consensus. It was a work of fiction that was created by the owners of the IP who felt that this was the story they wanted to tell. Many people disliked it, made their distaste known, and now Bioware is bowing obsequiously and apologizing for presenting their vision of their product.
Focus groups and satisfying the biggest audience are both dark paths that certainly lead to blandness because no one thing can possibly be all things to all people. If anyone tries, then the product becomes disjointed and meaningless. The products with the biggest impact are the ones that elicit the biggest emotional response, and if that means inciting rage, then so be it! BioWare basically removed any creativity “cred” by giving in, because they HAD that emotional response, which have have chosen to neuter.
Chris Smith:
April 10th, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Hehe. XD
And the spin is absolutely true. One thing to ALWAY keep in mind is that if people didn’t care, they WOULDN’T get angry. The tipping point, though, is how they express that anger.
I’m OK with a petition, or venting on blogs…I’d like to see constructive anger, though. Some people take the passive aggressive route and re-Tweet every nasty comment, for example. Taking things to the Federal Trade Commission…that’s really above and WAY beyond the offense.
THAT I think is the troubling part: at what point does the issue reach such a critical mass that someone thinks that it’s a good idea to escalate it to that level? To me, it would NEVER be an option. I’m sure the FTC just screwed up their faces in “WTF is this” style disbelief and then circular-filed it, but whomever kicked that off is suffering from some serious delusions of entitlement. I can’t honestly say that it’s a symptom of a wider illness that exists in some corners of the Game-O-Sphere, but the end result is what Pachter suggests: It makes us all look bad.
Chris Smith:
April 10th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
I’d be willing to bet that there’s a segment of the gaming community which doesn’t even consider the business side of gaming. I think that’s a point of view that comes after having put in a certain amount of time as a gamer, and having experienced a wide breadth of what gaming offers to the point where there’s no frontier to explore except the unsavory underbelly of business XD Until that time, though, it’s almost like “the business of gaming” is the same as “cutting up babies” or is something totally alien and obtuse that has no business (!) being connected to gaming at all.
Liore:
April 10th, 2012 at 2:27 pm
One of my favorite movies of all time is Shaun of the Dead. Initially the movie was given a sad ending, but the focus groups reacted pretty poorly to it. So, the writers, director, and cast got together and created a much more upbeat ending where certain people lived to see another day. The movie is now considered, as you might know, a cult classic and critical success that launched the international careers of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Ed Wright.
Creating an ending that satisfies the audience does not always have to happen, of course, but I certainly don’t think that it is always a sign of blandness and meaninglessness as you imply. ME3 certainly made an impact on me — I don’t buy EA games anymore.
Chris Smith:
April 10th, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Something about movies doesn’t quite equate in my mind. A movie is generally a one-off thing. It has JUST one shot to make it’s mark if it’s not based on a well known and anticipated IP. It makes total sense for them to do what they can to get it right.
With ME3, part of the stink is that people got invested in ME1 and 2, and all the way through 3 until the end, and felt let down. It was a foregone conclusion that uber-fans of ME couldn’t pass up ME3. Well, they COULD, but they WOULDN’T. I wonder how many would have actually skipped it had they known the ending…