Mass Effect of Mass Effect on Mass Media

So, despite the fact that most people who read this may not have a huge affection of videos games, there has been a huge development in that community over the last week. Last Monday was the release of one of the years most highly anticipated games: Mass Effect 3. This RPG/FPS (Role Playing Game/First Person Shooter) was said to be the conclusion to the story arc set in place during the first two games. Players would have concluded the protagonists journey/mission with an ending based on decisions made over the course of not one, not two, but all three games; a feature that is unique in that it was set over so many titles. With breathtaking visuals and incredibly thorough and deeply detailed back-story and lore, this game had a lot of hype to live up to. Now it is difficult to not give the game a review here, but that isn't what this blog is for so I shall not stray into that area, instead I will say that the gameplay and actual story had most gamers content up until the ending itself.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW (If you are a gamer who might enjoy this game, be warned there are spoilers to the games ending below)

An outcry from the ME3 community came within twenty-four to fourty-eight hours from the games release as many were compelled to stay awake all night and day finishing a story five years in the making, the common reason being they felt robbed of a 'perfect' ending. (I should note the idea behind the endings of all three of the games is that your choices throughout allow you access to different outcomes, each different and unique to the choices and morality of your character.) Gamers desired an ending that allowed their Commander Shepard to live and not be a sacrifice. Unfortunately, the game only offered three primary possibilities, with slight variations following suit: Sacrifice yourself and postpone doomsday, sacrifice yourself and annihilate the threat also sacrificing some of your allies, and sacrificing yourself and completely re-write all life in the galaxy. This lack of protagonist-saving choices made many players lash out against Bioware (publisher).

Now, how does this play into media? Well, I'm getting to that.

Angry gamers decided to put together a petition to get the developers to re-write the ending and change the possible outcomes; some went so far as to create a fund to promote such a change, a fund now some $40, 000.00 strong. This kind of backlash has been getting publicity around the nation, and even other parts of the world, but why do some people think they have a right to make such demands about the art the developers have worked so hard to create? What makes this different than a book or motion picture where one might not always agree with directorial choices? Well, there is a debate here: some believe they have the right because unlike Film/TV/Books video games such as this have players investing hundreds of hours making decisions that cause them to be morally, emotionally and mentally invested in 'their' story, so why shouldn't they demand better care be given to the writing so that there is a possible ending to satisfy 'their' style of play?

Having played the game myself, and feeling some disappointment in the ending, I can say that I do respect the decisions made and the artistic value, that not all things are as altruistic as some would like to believe, but that some might be jumping the gun on this thing because what if this was a marketing ploy to get consumers fired up over something so that additional materials sell better?

Can consumers make such demands over art and products? I puts it to ya, and I leaves it to ya.