Why Gamer “Entitlement” is a Bullshit Buzzword
A new word has been popping up a lot lately in the crazy world of gaming media. It’s a word used to devalue the complaints, movements, petitions and consumer rights of gamers everywhere. That word, in all of its insulting glory, is “Entitlement”.
You see this word thrown around constantly by all variety of gaming sites, and its become especially common over the last few weeks as various media outlets attempt to report on the recent controversies involving Bioware and Mass Effect 3. Frankly, I’m less interested in outlining the myriad of issues in Mass Effect 3 than I am in pointing a finger at the countless gaming websites, publishers and developers that have insulted and mistreated so many of us with sickening smugness.
Take for example this video by IGN’s Colin Moriarty. This is a man who can get on camera and say that he wouldn’t see anything wrong with ME3 being 90% on disc DLC, all while dramatically steepling his fingers and laying down the law of reality on what he clearly sees as nothing more than a gaggle of impotent nerds. It’s a growing sentiment amongst the gaming media, and it’s shocking that anyone who actually contributes to a professional gaming website can be such a massive douchebag to so many people while keeping a relatively straight face.
I’m sick and tired of seeing this buzzword spread from one corner of the web to another, spouted by people who haven’t had any proper sense of perspective in years. It’s for this reason that I will now thoroughly and utterly crush the concept of gamer entitlement into the ground.
First of all, what is entitlement? Originally it had more to do with the concept of rights and how you, as a citizen or human being, were entitled to be treated by law. In modern times, entitlement has taken on a different meaning and is now interchangeable with spoiled. Essentially, someone who believes that they should be treated better than others, despite the fact that they are undeserving of this treatment or have done nothing to earn it. However, I don’t believe that this concept applies to consumers.
Imagine that you’ve gone to a restaurant for a nice steak. Once you’re seated your waiter doesn’t bother to bring you a menu until you flag him down and is generally rude and impatient with you. He brings you a drink that’s different from what you ordered and doesn’t even bother to refill your drink a single time. When you finally get your steak it’s cooked twice as long as you wanted and has a nice thick hair on it that’s not yours. In the eyes of the gaming media, if you complained to management, gave the waiter a bad tip (or no tip at all), wrote a bad review about the restaurant on a local attractions website and then never ate there again, you would be an overly entitled eater. Which is, of course, wrong.
The above argument perfectly illustrates my point in that there is a clear difference between being a spoiled brat and simply being entitled to a decent treatment from the goods you’ve paid for.
Consumers don’t buy rotten food from grocery stores. They don’t like using services that screw them out of their money or don’t do what they’re advertised to do. They don’t keep broken electronics and other goods. If you buy a $60 appliance and it doesn’t work, you can take it back to the store for a full refund. If you buy a $60 game, open it, play it and find that it doesn’t meet your expectations, you’re often shit out of luck unless you want to resell it for a massive loss (something you can’t even do if you purchased digitally).
Wherein then is the gamer’s recourse? Message boards, Twitter, Youtube, Metacritic and countless other communities are often the only place that these people can go to give voice to their issues. Sometimes this happens in destructive and controversial ways, with threats of boycotts, public flaming of developers on Twitter, and occasionally even hacking. All of this is usually quite dramatic and exactly the sort of thing that the gaming media loves to report on, but they tend to criticize and paint the fans as rabid basement warriors, rather than trying to understand how a group of rational people could feel so out of options that their passion drives them to such actions in the first place. It’s no wonder that these controversies pop up left and right given that the gaming industry has a tendency to treat its fans in an adversarial manner quite unlike that of any other entertainment medium.
In a netscape where developers openly call people “Fucking Morons” on Twitter and casually delete complaints off official forums, why shouldn’t angry consumers bomb Amazon and Metacritic reviews? Why shouldn’t they create petitions and flood message boards with their anger? What else can they do? Besides, numerous are the petitions, lawsuits and fan movements that have brought about real changes in the way developers and publishers do business and treat their customers.
I suppose that when you get right down to it, what really bothers me is that when we work and live in a world already rife with so much trouble and hardship, why is it that we have to play in a gaming landscape such as this? An environment where developers have all but cut support for split-screen and LAN play out of their feature list. Where game content is cut into pieces and sold to different companies to entice you into buying from one retailer or another. Where PC gaming is treated to terrible port after terrible port, some so shoddily done by major studios that they prompt you to hit the “Start” button on the menu screen. Where Microsoft can charge millions of gamers for peer to peer online and nobody cares. A land where it’s okay to lock away content on the disc that you’ve bought so that they can sell it back to you. Where mod tools are barely an afterthought. Where it’s policy to tack a multiplayer component onto a single-player game just so that they can charge you for an online pass. A place where it’s perfectly fine to release buggy, broken games and then rely on patches to fix them months later, or even more commonly, not at all. Where beloved franchises are gutted and turned into generic first-person shooter properties. Where the reviews are done by websites whose paychecks come from the company whose product they are reviewing. Where intrusive DRM punishes the consumer far more than the pirate. Where you can get in-game advantages in multiplayer focused titles by buying Mountain Dew.
That sad, barren gaming landscape isn’t one that I would ever want to call home, yet here we are. The next time you see a website calling you entitled just for wanting better for yourself and the games you love, call them out on it. Stand up for yourself, because none of these media outlets really care about your best interests and they never will. What they do care about is exclusive preview content, early review copies and ad revenue. For that reason the vast majority of these sites will always be on the side of the corporations and not the consumers.
Entitlement? I think we’re all entitled to our own opinion and the right to express it however we like; for good or bad. An industry where such a thing is looked upon with smug contempt is not the sort I would ever wish to be a part of, and neither should you.
Wally
March 14, 2012 @ 2:43 pm
Thank you, couldn’t have said it better. glad there are still gamers like you out there.
Event Status on Youtube – a gamer show for gamers that like it real!
Danny
March 14, 2012 @ 3:05 pm
Your food example is ridiculous. A better example would be if you went to a restaurant and complained that they didn’t give you free bread before your meal, even though your favorite restaurant does. They are not required to give you the free bread simple because another restaurant does it, just as you don’t have to eat there. If you want bread, go to a restaurant that offers it or else pay for it.
On another note, day-1 DLC is stupid, and Mass Effect 3’s ending is disappointing. And you are correct: everyone is entitled to their own opinion and has the right to voice it. But expecting a game company to roll over and let their business die to the used game companies just so that a vocal minority can be happy is stupid.
Taylor Parolini
March 14, 2012 @ 3:16 pm
The used game market isn’t killing anything. That market has existed for decades and has seen videogames go from a child’s play thing to the dominant entertainment medium in the world. Certainly used games take some money out of the developers hands, but not nearly enough to discount word of mouth sales and people buying DLC or map packs down the road if they enjoy the title, thus givng the developer some income.
My analogy still stands, as I wasn’t directly talking about used games or day 1 DLC, but about the issue of entitlement and how consumer expectations for a quality product and service don’t directly equate to a sense of spoiled entitlement. I think you’re missing the point a bit, but that’s okay. I appreciate you taking the time to share your opinion and that you read my article.
Samuel Houston
March 14, 2012 @ 3:36 pm
Hey man, this is a really great article. I’ve listened to all this stuff that’s been coming out over the last week and I’ve just found it to be bullshit frankly. Why are people so willing to excuse lack of quality and talk down to people who expect more from something they’ve poured plenty of time and money into?
Preet
March 14, 2012 @ 4:47 pm
Online passes are just a way to make consumers buy the product full price, which is poor because that means used market suffers because buying a used game + online pass = more expensive than full price game, but at the same time if you was to go to a Shop Like Game the price of used is usually not that much cheaper than the item itself which doesnt make sense, meaning its flawed with the company itself. If a company sells 500K copies at full price, and say 15-20K traded in within 2 weeks, and they was to be sold on. They have still made profit off the 500K at full price, even if they get sold on. Even with the excuses like but servers need maintenance, well if person A sells the game to person B they need a pass why, how are they going to play without a game but with a pass. Another example say you had a multiplayer co-op game but you wanted to go to you mates to play it but need a pass to play online. That goes to show one of many examples of the greed in the gaming industry & its only getting worse.
Kyle
March 16, 2012 @ 2:18 pm
The biggest point is that what we got as an ending was NOT how the game was advertised to us. There are tons of official quotes & advertisements to this effect, but here’s just one link-
http://www.oxm.co.uk/37677/mass-effect-3-citadel-is-bigger-than-ever-endings-will-be-more-sophisticated/
Virtually everything that Hudson said they wouldn’t do, *They Did*. This false advertising is so blatant, it would be foolish to not hold them to account.
JD Mason
July 18, 2012 @ 3:19 pm
Actually, your restaurant analogy is stupid.
A better one would be more like, you go into MacDonald’s and order a big mac combo, and pay for it. You wait a while and ask them where your food is and they say it’ll be there in a couple days, maybe. So you say “Well, I see my fries on the tray, can I have those now?” But they’re all like “No, I can’t give you anything until we have the whole combo on the tray.”
They created an expectation and a promise, fast food and that you could play on May 15th, PvP and all! Wait…it’s July 18th and STILL NO PVP?!
Okay…let me start again… they created an expectation, and a promise. Then entirely knowingly failed to fulfill their promise, or live up to their self-imposed expectations.
You’re right to eat there, but you’re also right to tell everyone how bad the service was.
Preet
March 14, 2012 @ 4:29 pm
Mate whoever took there time are rote this deserves respect, its not often you heard some real talk from sum1 in the gaming community. You have truly voiced out wat many gamers (including me) have been crying about. This industry is doomed to fail, unless things change. I blame publishers with their cheap moves.
Facepalm Ranger
March 14, 2012 @ 5:32 pm
“Entitlement? I think we’re all entitled to our own opinion and the right to express it however we like; for good or bad. An industry where such a thing is looked upon with smug contempt is not the sort I would ever wish to be a part of, and neither should you.”
The problem isn’t that people are voicing their opinions, it’s that people are demanding things be a certain way for them because they aren’t satisfied with what they have. They want cheaper games, they want free content because they feel like they know better than the makers/producers/developers. Video Games are one of the few things that have stayed the relatively same price for quite some time. New Game boy games were £25/30 and New 3DS games are around £30/35. At max that’s a £10 mark up and remember you’re getting much more in terms of the quality of the presentation and content in the 3DS game compared to the game boy one £10 increase over the last 20 years is a bargin.
You see entitlement in comic fans aswell, they complain/bitch/moan about one issue because it doesn’t conform to their ideals of a story/character and I think it’s the same with the video game fans (particularly all this Mass Effect whoo haa).
At the end of the day most of this has reached a tipping point because of the ME fans feeling like they are entitled to the DLC for free (those who bought the collector’s edition kind of got it for free) and believe that bioware should have included the character in the game. Nothing wrong with that but the way they dealt with this disappointment is what gives off the sense of entitlement (nice way of saying ‘spoiled brat’). EA and BIOWARE are companies who are out to make money, as a customer we can buy and experience their product but with things like entertainment, movies/books/comics. if we don’t like it we say just that, not demand that the writer go back and rewrite something because it didn’t conform to they’re ideals of the story. Which is what’s happening with the ending bull shit, these spoiled brats what the game to end their way and not the way the writer intended it to.
You can complain about shitty food or a broken washing machine but when a story doesn’t follow your ideals of a premise and you don’t like so much you throw a fucking shit fit over the internet then yes you are acting asthough you are “entitled” to have things your way.
Enjoy films, games, comics, books but you are just here for the ride, give you critism so that the creators can better their work for the next product but if it’s stuff like “well Tali should have looked like this” or “The ending should be…” and demanding that they change it that’s entitlement.
Gamers are not the writers of the games the play because if they were they would probably be shit.
Finally, if you don’t like day 1 DLC don’t buy it.
Gabe
March 14, 2012 @ 5:37 pm
Players don’t ask for free content, only that it doesn’t cost extra to unlock content that’s already on the bloody disc or day 1 DLC that could have been included anyway.
Facepalm Ranger
March 14, 2012 @ 6:17 pm
The locked content on disc is shitty I agree, but I don’t buy it because me not buying it means more to the company than throwing a shit fit.
and in terms of day one DLC it is a case of this content being developed later, it got released on the same day so that you could get to it sooner. remember mass effect’s space thing? get it two weeks before the release date? yeah the DLC wasn’t out then was it?
Also before those two weeks all the data had to be pressed onto the discs. Now how much longer does it take to upload a copy of a game onto one server for download compared to how long it would take to press (for agruments sake) a million discs? During this time people will still be working on the DLC for release. It keeps people in jobs and give fans more content.
the general public are upset because they think it could be on the disc but they mis-understand the full process of how game production works and how much they is to go into release.
Currently I’m working on a game, once I have the models and textures done I will move onto creating all the over aesthetic stuff such as audio. HUDS etc I would love to create more content for my game but I have a deadline to do but if I pass on this work to another group I can work on extra content in the mean time and when the main game is finished and getting ready for release on steam or what ever I can finalise this extra content and if I have it ready for the release date maybe I will release it on the same day and maybe I’ll charge extra as I’ve put extra work into it, but I’m not forcing you to buy it as you already have a complete experience with the game.
All this comes down to is customers seeing this DLC and wondering why it wasn’t on the disc and assuming that it was included originally, maybe it was, but you weren’t there to see it and I really don’t believe that the DLC could have been included otherwise they would have done it. But no, gamers are acting like they know better than the developers thus feel ‘entitled’ to how a product they buy should be packaged and sold.
And asking for DLC no matter when it was released to be on the disc is asking for free content. As any DLC could have been included on the disc.
Robert Strick
March 14, 2012 @ 6:39 pm
I certainly think that you’re missing the point. No one is claiming they want free stuff. The “From Ashes” DLC was on the disc at the time of release and when people purchase it they expect to have access to that content. This wasn’t created after the core game was created.
As far as the ending goes, I’m on the fans side with this one. While personally I don’t hold the same opinion I certainly believe that the fans have a legitimate reason to be upset. Bioware over the last several years has created a universe with choice as the governing factor of gameplay. Mass Effect 3’s ending in particular throws that out the window. It’s not a matter of people wanting it changed, but rather what was originally advertised. Fallout 3 is a perfect example of how a developer can modify an ending, while still making a profit off of it. Both parties were happy and that situation.
Your price argument is just silly.
Facepalm Ranger
March 14, 2012 @ 6:57 pm
“I certainly think that you’re missing the point. No one is claiming they want free stuff. The “From Ashes” DLC was on the disc at the time of release and when people purchase it they expect to have access to that content. This wasn’t created after the core game was created.”
so far all i’ve seen is that the character is on the disc but the mission to get him and the extra stufff that comes with the download isn’t. this is for the sake of having the dlc meld with the original product so that the game doesn’t spaz out due to coding errors. Again it’s not up to the consumer to how a company packages their products I believe that you don’t need the dlc to enjoy the game but if you really like it you can buy it to enhance your experience or what ever. maybe the DLC was planned for a very long time but it was planned as DLC not as content to be on the disc.
AGAIN…we do not know the inner workings of the company and there are people out there who are acting like they do.
I’m not saying that fans shouldn’t be upset but it’s the manner in which they’re upset. The haven’t not put any actual work into PLAYING the game and if Bioware chose to end it that way then so be it, if Bioware release DLC that alters the ending so be it.
My price argument pretains to the concept that games cost more and more to make but it terms of retail price, they’ve relatively stayed the same and the fact that people were complaing they had to pay for this extra content. (and don’t tell me they’re not because i’ve seen people doing it).
Lot’s a things people are getting upset about all falls down to speculation of how they think the industry works behind it’s closed doors and how they would prefer it to be. If you bought an album you wouldn’t demand a refund or that they change the chords/lyrics to their last song cause it’s a bad song to end the album on. You wouldn’t do the same for films or books but games are a medium where it seems critism turns into demand that’s the problem and even though companies give into these demands (being used in a nuetral sense not neghative) gamers are still complaining.
Taylor Parolini
March 14, 2012 @ 7:04 pm
Robert pretty much took the words out of my mouth. Unlike movies, television, and printed media, a game isn’t locked into a state of relative permanence. Fallout 3 and its Broken Steel DLC has already set a precedent in the industry for this exact sort of thing.
For many fans, the ending of Fallout 3 was extremely abrubt and a complete anticlimax. Nor did it make sense that characters such as Fawkes and Charon wouldn’t simply brave the radiation for your character. It was an unsatisfying ending with major plot holes that left the fanbase of the game wanting something more. They poured forums full with their complaints and Bethesda released a DLC which allowed players to continue the story, gave them a more explosive ending and fixed many of the plot holes in the original ending.
Overall, most of the fans were happy with this solution and Bethesda made a good deal of money out of it.
Robert Strick
March 14, 2012 @ 7:15 pm
Prices haven’t stayed the same. Inflation, while unrelated is a huge issue. One that customers pay the price for.
In regards to the DLC I think it’s more of a question of customer protection. Say for the sake of the argument that the content was on the disc, which seems to be the case given some recent developments.
This establishes a very dangerous precedent in the industry. Obviously there’s more cases than this and it would be unfair to give Bioware the brunt of this argument, but it’s not really an argument of entitlement, but rather rights. If I purchase a title from Bioware or any other company I expect to have access to everything that I purchased day 1. If it’s on the disc I should have access to it. This particular instance doesn’t have to do with wanting free stuff, but rather what they actually paid for. It also doesn’t help that Bioware has been lying to their community specifically when it comes to how they would handle day 1 DLC.
In regards to music, or even movies it’s not an interactive entertainment medium. Gamers in particular invest themselves more than any other person in any other entertainment medium, that’s why it’s different.
Btw, thanks for commenting. It’s great to have these discussions, good or bad, in order to positively progress the industry.
Dave
March 14, 2012 @ 11:55 pm
I’m sorry but I couldn’t even finish your post because it immediately starts off ENTIRELY WRONG. I don’t know where the hell you’re coming up with “gamers just want to pay less for games” because I sure haven’t seen any outcry over game prices anywhere. The things people are so pissed about is day 1 DLC and on-disc DLC and they are entirely within their rights to be upset about it. The problem with these is that it is content that has either diverted resources from the core experience of the title just to be pumped out the same day as the finished product OR it is content that has literally been cut from the finished product to be sold back to us at a later date and the developers hardly need to do squat for that extra money. It’s a broken, bullshit system and it needs to stop. If this content is finished alongside the release of the final game, then why is it not in the game to begin with? And you’re also forgetting the other major factor that’s caused this argument to flare so hard. Street Fighter x Tekken has a total of TWELVE CHARACTERS planned as DLC down the road ON THE DISC. This is content that has been finished, printed to the disc, and locked away from us until we pay them more money. This has abso-fucking0lutely NOTHING to do with gamers thinking games cost too much or asking for free content. We are upset because we feel that when you release a game, all content that has been completed for the release day should be part of the finished product, otherwise, why were the resources diverted from the main development or why wasn’t the game released sooner if this content wasn’t meant to be included? Not to mention there’s all this store exclusive bullshit going around. There is plenty to be legitimately upset about here and you have somehow missed all of it and have no understanding of why we feel entitled.
bleachorange
March 19, 2012 @ 5:54 pm
I understand what you’re trying to say, but you’re missing the point of ME3. MOST people are upset not about it ‘conforming to their ideal story’ but about the story contradicting itself in so many ways it invalidates the plotline.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QT4IUepvrU1pfv_B95oQj0H84DlCTUmzQ_uQh1voTUs/preview?pli=1&sle=true
Facepalm Ranger
March 14, 2012 @ 7:45 pm
“For many fans, the ending of Fallout 3 was extremely abrubt and a complete anticlimax. Nor did it make sense that characters such as Fawkes and Charon wouldn’t simply brave the radiation for your character. It was an unsatisfying ending with major plot holes that left the fanbase of the game wanting something more. They poured forums full with their complaints and Bethesda released a DLC which allowed players to continue the story, gave them a more explosive ending and fixed many of the plot holes in the original ending.
Overall, most of the fans were happy with this solution and Bethesda made a good deal of money out of it.”
Bioware is not Bethesda nor do they have to do what they did. They are out to tell the story their way and make money from that. I expect there will be a DLC ending cause it WILL make money but from previous comments can’t I just say “well why wasn’t this ending on the disc from the beginning?” Surely I as a consumer am entitled to every piece of content they make because it should have been on the disc from the beginning? God forbid a company having a business plan to make money.
ALSO; “Unlike movies, television, and printed media, a game isn’t locked into a state of relative permanence.”
My Reply: The Star Wars movies.
Also Robert and Taylor, I feel you both skimmed past other things I mentioned that have relevance and both focus on Fallout 3 as though it was some shining example. So why wasn’t Fallout 3’s ending right the first time round? shouldn’t that have been on the disk?
We have DLC to prolong the life of a game regardless of when it’s released, the game’s life span becomes longer from the moment we buy it.
This “entitlement” comes from attachment to an IP and you seen this attachment in the comments or articles on the web about Mass Effect, especially about the ending. Who are we to say that the ending should change because we don’t like it? Also in terms of it being advertised, “Mass Effect 3 will react to each decision you make as you play through a truly unique experience of your own creation”. It never says “ultimatums” or “conclusions” it only says experience which is a terms which fall down to opinion as to me personally the experience is going from point A to B. It is not mis-advertised just mis understood.
(section below was written after Robert’s latest reply)
“In regards to music, or even movies it’s not an interactive entertainment medium. Gamers in particular invest themselves more than any other person in any other entertainment medium, that’s why it’s different.”
This right here^^^^^, this is where the entitlement comes from, you’re putting your prefered medium above other forms of entertainment thus feeling like it should be treated differently and “entitled” to this different teatment. By that logic I can watch/listen/read one movie/song/book 30+ times and expect the director/artist/writer to listen to me and do as I say.
Don’t like the way game companies present their games? Stop buying them all together. I mean ALL forms of video games no matter what platform.
That’s all I have for now as I’m going to bed.
Fagin
March 14, 2012 @ 8:01 pm
I appreciate what you’re saying, though I differ in my viewpoint. This game was billed as my choices having meaning. For 4 years I’ve played different characters and classes that attempted to open up all the avenues that the developers said would change the outcome of the game. I invested my coin and my time into this medium so I’m damn well entitled to say what I think.
Now to be told that my choices were irrelevant without even kissing me first makes me feel like I’ve been on the receiving end of a prison date.
bleachorange
March 19, 2012 @ 6:05 pm
http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-ending-hatred-5-reasons-the-fans-are-right/6/
Nastra
March 26, 2012 @ 12:22 pm
“Bioware is not Bethesda nor do they have to do what they did. They are out to tell the story their way and make money from that. I expect there will be a DLC ending cause it WILL make money but from previous comments can’t I just say “well why wasn’t this ending on the disc from the beginning?” Surely I as a consumer am entitled to every piece of content they make because it should have been on the disc from the beginning? God forbid a company having a business plan to make money.”
No one is arguing against DLC. Many people, myself included, don’t mind DLC as a whole. When it provides additional content. Nor is anyone arguing that we are entitled to all future content. You are creating a strawman and knocking it down. What people ARE saying is that day one DLC is crass. It’s weird because I make videogames as well while my company is a small one even I get that it is just crass to release day one DLC. Wait a couple weeks and introduce it as new content and for the love of God mention that the character was on the disk because you were balance testing but his mission wasn’t ready yet.
“My Reply: The Star Wars movies.”
My Reply: Peoples response to the Star Wars movies. Furthermore, really only someone like George Lucas could do that. Going back and performing such modifications is a monumental effort. Furthermore, in many cases modifying such things might be impossible. Actors get older or die. Etc.
“Also Robert and Taylor, I feel you both skimmed past other things I mentioned that have relevance and both focus on Fallout 3 as though it was some shining example. So why wasn’t Fallout 3′s ending right the first time round? shouldn’t that have been on the disk?”
Well, Fallout 3’s ending wasn’t right due to large plot holes. And no, it shouldn’t have been on the disk because it wasn’t created yet. Again, strawman. The point is that Bethesda saw the fan reaction and figured out that the best choice was to provide fans with a superior ending. Everyone came out a winner. Fans got their ending and Bethesda got dollars.
“This “entitlement” comes from attachment to an IP and you seen this attachment in the comments or articles on the web about Mass Effect, especially about the ending. Who are we to say that the ending should change because we don’t like it? Also in terms of it being advertised, “Mass Effect 3 will react to each decision you make as you play through a truly unique experience of your own creation”. It never says “ultimatums” or “conclusions” it only says experience which is a terms which fall down to opinion as to me personally the experience is going from point A to B. It is not mis-advertised just mis understood.”
We are to say because we are the consumer. If you don’t like a CD you can return it. Don’t like a movie at the theater you get a refund. Don’t like a meal at a restaurant you demand a new meal or a refund. The only realm this isn’t true for is games. Don’t like a game? Trade it in for a reduced amount of store credit…Add in the modern standard of pre-orders, and taking on online passes and most people need to walk in blind.
“This right here^^^^^, this is where the entitlement comes from, you’re putting your prefered medium above other forms of entertainment thus feeling like it should be treated differently and “entitled” to this different teatment. By that logic I can watch/listen/read one movie/song/book 30+ times and expect the director/artist/writer to listen to me and do as I say.”
Actually, no. Watching a movie once, and playing a game once each involve deeply different time investments. That’s just reality. Even then, more and more today directors, artists, and writers are all directly engaging their audiences. They give themselves greater online presences, setup kickstarter funds, and generally attempt to learn what their audiences want. They develop books and peripheral media in response to audience interest. Even Bioware has stated that their development and featuring of Liara in their other media was a direct result of fan interest. It’s ultimately a two way street, allowing fans to directly interact with the creators means more direct support but it also means that fans can directly address creators when there is a problem as well.
“Don’t like the way game companies present their games? Stop buying them all together. I mean ALL forms of video games no matter what platform.”
So because I get poor service at a restaurant I shouldn’t go to restaurants? Because I hated Star Wars episode 3 I should never see another movie again? Now that’s ridiculous. Why punish everyone for the actions of specific companies? Perhaps a more reasonable response would be to lodge a complaint to their corporation, post reviews on the internet informing of their poor service, and perhaps request that they correct the problem?
guy
March 14, 2012 @ 8:30 pm
The “90% DLC” thing was a bit hyperbolic, but the overall point of the article is still good. Too many devs have become very petulant about the reception of their games. To be fair I’ve found that videogame consumers are much more vocal and caustic with their criticism than other consumer demographics, but that doesn’t necessarily invalidate our rights to quality.
Taylor Parolini
March 14, 2012 @ 8:44 pm
If you check the video link, you’ll see that Colin actually did claim that he wouldn’t see anything wrong with ME3 being 90% on disc because it’s their game. If that isn’t what you meant then I apologize.
Mord
March 14, 2012 @ 9:59 pm
Of course he doesn’t see anything wrong with it, he doesn’t have to freakin’ pay for it. IGN/EA gives him all that for free AND more…
I can’t wait until the next generation of consoles and technology comes out and renders all current DLC worthless. What we are buying now is equivalent to a digital paperweight. Sure it seems “fun” now and it’s pretty goofy lookin’, but it’s just going to sit there taking up space…
james beard
March 14, 2012 @ 9:11 pm
“Again it’s not up to the consumer to how a company packages their products”
I hate this stupid fucking argument. If a consumer does not like how the company packages or ships their products, they have every damn right to complain. That’s why customers ask to see the manager if they don’t like the way a business does things. Bioware has closed down these options, they ban people who criticize the games from the forums. Sometimes they even ban them from the games they paid money for! they have open disdain for people who sometimes have well reasoned arguments and generally do not respond to their customers in a professional or positive manner. To top it off no mainstream journalists call them out on it. It is for these two reasons that they have taken more underhanded routes of expressing their frustration (IE, forum flooding, metacritic etc.)
“if you dont like the way an album ends you dont ask for a refund”
this is dumb because an album can be taken on a song by song basis, very few people listen to music for the “story.” Many people spent countless hours deeply invested in the storyline. It is not that the story ended in a way that certain people “didnt like” as much as it contradicts heavily with the way the story had presented itself previously. The game had stressed the importance of the decisions of the previous games, yet the 3rd game abandoned that.
All of this is somewhat irrelevant though as it is not the storyline that is the big issue as much as the business practices surrounding it. The argument that “you are the consumer, you dont understand the way things work” holds no water unless you can come up with a damn good reason as to why. Bioware have been terrible about keeping people informed. They told people the DLC was not on the disc, that was a lie. They told people it had no pull on the story, this was a lie. It is at this point that people called into question Bioware’s motivations
At the end of the day, people payed 60 dollars for an incomplete game that played out completely differently from the way it was advertised and contradicted heavily many points in the earlier games. Bioware responded by calling people entitled and heavily dismissing all criticism, and YOU WONDER WHY PEOPLE ARE ANGRY?
Mord
March 14, 2012 @ 9:39 pm
“An environment where developers have all but cut support for split-screen and LAN play out of their feature list. Where game content is cut into pieces and sold to different companies to entice you into buying from one retailer or another. Where PC gaming is treated to terrible port after terrible port, some so shoddily done by major studios that they prompt you to hit the “Start” button on the menu screen. Where Microsoft can charge millions of gamers for peer to peer online and nobody cares. A land where it’s okay to lock away content on the disc that you’ve bought so that they can sell it back to you. Where mod tools are barely an afterthought. Where it’s policy to tack a multiplayer component onto a single-player game just so that they can charge you for an online pass. A place where it’s perfectly fine to release buggy, broken games and then rely on patches to fix them months later, or even more commonly, not at all. Where beloved franchises are gutted and turned into generic first-person shooter properties. Where the reviews are done by websites whose paychecks come from the company whose product they are reviewing. Where intrusive DRM punishes the consumer far more than the pirate. Where you can get in-game advantages in multiplayer focused titles by buying Mountain Dew.”
Nice to see all the people skipping this entire section yet focus on a bung analogy. Perhaps a better one would have been a restaurant suddenly charging you for your side dishes with your main meals, when previously it had always been complementary. I mean, the chefs have to make money too, what are you, some kind of entitled faggot?!
Trying to argue with Biodrones is time wasting, unfortunately. In fact I think you’d have more luck trying to convert a Christian into an Atheist. The people that are for your arguments have already understood them for a long time now, but those who are against will never change their ways. In all seriousness, that entire paragraph quoted above could not be said any better, and I dare ANY MAJOR VIDEO GAME PUBLICATION to come out and say what you did. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, they’re all deep in the pockets of the publishers (proven on multiple occasions) and would never in a million years have the guts to bite the hand that feeds them.
The only thing that could save us now is another gaming crash, where the Indie devs rise up out of the corporate ashes to finally start delivering us GAMES again, made BY GAMERS and FOR GAMERS. People have just gotta stop buying into this over indulgent “movie experience” garbage. Support the developers that deserve it (Hint: It’s not ANYBODY associated with EA Games), and pirate the rest.
porky
March 15, 2012 @ 6:11 am
Bravo.
I was simply bewildered when a bioware forum member used this term against me. Having worked in retail, I know when a customer actually has “entitlement issues” and it just isn’t the same as this case. I don’t understand why people are so content with mediocrity. You can still acknowledge the flaws in a game and enjoy it; shouldn’t issues be addressed so the next game can improve? For some reason consumers are made to feel guilty that someone else is pirating or buying used games, and that we should just accept business practices because you “can’t blame a business for wanting to make money”.
They’ve forgotten that, while that statement may be true, business is also a competitive environment and company’s need to earn your money just as you earn yours every day. You can chalk it up to your own prerogative, and I can’t challenge that, but you and I both know it’s a weak argument. I could fold my bills into paper planes and throw them out of my window, because it’s my money. Doesn’t make it a sound investment. Maybe you’ll tell me it’s none of my business what you spend your money on, but the fact that I and others even care is a little contradictory to the concept of entitlement, don’t you think?
mDuo13
March 15, 2012 @ 12:30 pm
Well-spoken. I couldn’t have lambasted the current gaming environment better than you did in one paragraph.
An Attempt At Sense
March 15, 2012 @ 1:36 pm
When you purchase a book and read it through to the end you’re allowed to be disappointed in it. Because a large portion of the readers believe book ends badly it doesn’t mean that the author should go and change the ending, it means that, to them, the book was a bad book. They’ll tell this to the people they care about to prevent them from being hurt in the same way. This isn’t entitlement — it’s community.
In our society community has expanded to a diffuse and nebulous level, but it still functions with the same rules that it always has: you don’t want the people close to you to be hurt. Whether that person is your childhood friend and neighbor or someone who shares your values that you’ve only met through text on a screen. What companies and corporations are reviling is that communities have grown so large because of the technology we have, and that they aren’t capable of pulling the same tricks on different, smaller communities over and over again.
In essence companies are battling against the communities that support them in the interest of profits, but this is not something any entity can do for long. The community will lose faith in the author and turn away, and remember only that the book they sold was a bad one.
Bioware has taken a step down this path, and there is this outcry because the community wants to believe in the company, and they’ve loved all of the products sold up until this one. Does the wailing and gnashing of teeth mean that Bioware should change the ending of the product they (presumably) worked long and hard on? No. But it does mean that they should be careful and calm, listen to the voices of their community and take those opinions into account for the next product they create. Because there will be a next product. And it will be bought. But if it serves to disappoint, if it’s a bad book, the community will begin to turn away from them and the company will go the way of Capcom and Sega: it will become a joke, and it will start to die.
We, the community, need to start acting more like a community and less as individuals. This doesn’t mean knee-jerk boycotting, it means less fury and keeping a careful eye on the company’s actions. Because, to us, they’ve shown that maybe they can’t be trusted. It hurts that this thing we’ve invested our time in has disappointed us, but that has already happened. We cannot be fickle and over-righteous. If Bioware is truly a company we want to succeed we need to send them a different message; not “I am enraged with you and demand my experience returned!” Instead we should say, “do better next time. We’re watching you.” And if they don’t? Then we, as a community, let them fade away.
Taylor Parolini
March 15, 2012 @ 1:55 pm
Wonderful comment, really enjoyed that read. Sadly, when people get angry they tend to take drastic action. The gaming media quickly latches onto these stories without really examining what drives entire communities of people to such a degree that they lash out like this. Instead they write completely one dimensional stories that are overwhelmingly in favor of the companies that keep them alive, and throw around buzzwords like “entitlement” to devalue our position. It’s a sad state of affairs.
Brad
March 18, 2012 @ 12:26 am
This guy gets it.
Justin Brown
March 15, 2012 @ 2:10 pm
A well-written article with good points made. I feel you’ll get a lot of disagreement with the food analogy. It breaks away from reality when you consider that, at a restaurant, The food is made to order, well done, medium, or rare – but when you buy a game, you aren’t asked what you would like before they start cooking; you don’t get to order the version where the hobbits get killed before reaching Mt. Doom, nor is the “galaxy-lost-to-the-reapers” ending on the menu. Comparing food to gaming in this way, you would have to have a restaurant that only serves hamburgers and fries, which you could eat in any way you wanted to. But pickles cost $.50 and bacon costs $0.75, a slice of lettuce $0.15, and so on and on. I see no problem with this model, in fact, it’s pretty much every fast food place.
The question of “what gamers can/should reasonably expect” isn’t being asked or answered anywhere, and perhaps because, if we were asked, we would want ten times as much of everything for half the price. Some people want the Shepard gay romance, some people want to kill civilians, some people want the Mako to come back while others hated it. Some would want to skip the story and have an infinite mining sandbox.
You can’t please all of the people all of the time, so the way I see it, when devs use it properly, DLC allows developers to shoot for a broad base, and allow the hard-to-please people customize the level of content they want to see.
DLC will evolve, and it will not be like buying a glove with a missing finger, which could be had for an extra $. It should be like a glove with NO fingers, and I get to choose exactly which 5 fingers (out of 20 possible materials) give me the perfect fit.
Jim
March 15, 2012 @ 3:29 pm
I think the problem is that there it’s so hard for a casual observer to separate legitimate complaints from ignorant and unreasonable complaints. The people that stand out the most are always going to be the people making jackasses out of themselves by making death threats, posting spoilers out of spite, spamming, etc. And even without the media highlighting these people they’re still going to seem louder than the reasonable complainers. You can see similar problems outside of gaming, like in politics. You have rational people with certain beliefs getting lumped in with idiot extremists.
When I personally think of entitlement as a negative term I think of people making unreasonable demands that have no clue how game development actually works, not just anyone who isn’t 100% happy with a game.
Daniel Flatt
March 15, 2012 @ 4:05 pm
I haven’t beaten Mass Effect 3 and I do not want the ending spoiled for me, but don’t you get to decide the ending to the game based on your readiness meter and the amount of the game you completed? I’m assuming the ending gets better directly correlated to the amount of time you spend in the game preparing for war.
As far as the DLC I have a massive difference of opinion about the From Ashes DLC that got everyone so butt-hurt. For a long time now the CE was said from the moment you can pre-order it to include a exclusive character and a quest related to that character. Everyone who looked at that and decided not to preorder the CE really no longer has a say in the matter in my opinion.
If you as a consumer looked at the bulletpoints of a product and then decided not to buy that product and then get mad when it actually comes out and you don’t get it that is insane.
To continue with a restaurant analogy it’s like ordering a plate of food that costs 20 dollars less then the guy the table over who bought the deluxe plate. When the food gets there your mad because your plate doesn’t include what his plate does, even though you knew when you ordered from the menu it wouldn’t. Now though because you see what’s on his plate you want what he bought, but feel it should be free and already on your plate even though you went with the cheaper option.
Instead that restaurant, called Bioware, allowed everyone else out there who didn’t want all the extra deluxe plate stuff, but just the content, to save a whole ten dollars.
At this point I wish they had just announced what the character was for the CE and then let everyone who decided not to preorder the CE to simply not get the character. Then it would have been all these people whining about how they wanted the character, but now they can’t have it even though they’d gladly pay for it.
That’s the entitlement I think a lot of journalists are talking about and I think it’s the very definition of the word.
dan
March 16, 2012 @ 2:23 pm
I couldn’t agree more. Well said. This is exactly what I said in my video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW9DmIGHjfc&feature=colike
There is a growing distance between these game reviewers and the consumer.
Miri
March 16, 2012 @ 3:05 pm
I just want to say thank you so much for writing this piece. I’m getting awfully tired of being called entitled for wanting what I was told I was going to get. You said it better than most of us could. 🙂
Kenji S
March 16, 2012 @ 3:12 pm
You sir are my hero, Thank you for writing this! 🙂 I dont usually comment on this stuff but just..well done, I think i will be following this website now 😀
Facepalm Ranger
March 16, 2012 @ 5:49 pm
Jim has it right;
“When I personally think of entitlement as a negative term I think of people making unreasonable demands that have no clue how game development actually works, not just anyone who isn’t 100% happy with a game.”
people aren’t voicing opinions, they’re making unreasonable demands and I’m sick of trying to explain it politely.
It’s clear my opinion isn’t going to be taken as anything more than “sucking up” or just plain advocating but you know, I see no problem with this business model. (Locked DLC on disc is a shitty thing to do but meh I don’t care)
I’ve pointed out how your logic when applied to other pieces of media falls apart as just plain stupid (ie the album example or how you try to tell me once a film is made it’s impossible to go back and change it) and you try justify it by saying games deserve to be treated differently because players invest more time/skill (which is where some of this entitlement is coming from along with unhealthy attachment to characters/story).
This all comes down to you all feeling like developers/publishers are being greedy and not playing by your rules and forcing you to pay for something you don’t want to have to pay for (tough shit) not that you shouldn’t have to pay for, you simply just don’t want to pay for it.
So, you know what let’s lower the bar, I can now see why this website is called paranoid gamer .
If you all change the industry to the way YOU want it to be, bravo. I doubt you will though.
Also fuck y’all. I’ll continue to buy DLC and continue buying my luxury items such as video games.
Just Remember: Video Games are serious business! hurp derp!
Robert Strick
March 16, 2012 @ 10:23 pm
Nuff said: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjy_7haflaM
Brad
March 17, 2012 @ 11:46 pm
I agree with the sentiment of this article, but not with the message.
You are not ENTITLED to fun. You are not OWED quality videogames by society. It’s not a fucking rule that entertainment has to be cranked out on a regular basis at a shining sterling level of quality for you to wet your pants over. There are products, and you buy them, and if you buy them without waiting for review or learning what you are paying for, then you don’t have the right to complain. That’s like going into a voting booth, checking off the first alphabetical name on the list, and being really fucking upset when it turns out you’ve voted Adolf Hitler The Second into power.
The metaphor about buying a steak at a restaurant isn’t analogous at all. What gamers – particularly the people creying hard about ME3 – are doing these days is walking into a huge chain restaurant and telling the waiter to bring them the chef’s meal of the day without checking the menu, and then acting outraged when someone serves them a shit sandwich on pumpernickel.
Telling a whiny customer to “fuck off,” in this kind of situation, while rude and kind of extreme, is totally justified. Hi, asshole. You’re the one who blindly threw their money around. The company just made a fucking product and put it up for sale. So either tie a fucking bib around your neck and dig in, or think a little more carefully about where you want to eat lunch tomorrow, you fucking dumbass man-baby. But don’t throw a goddamn fit.
TL;DR Noone likes shitty games, idiot. But don’t complain if you bought one without thinking. Maybe if you’d stop throwing cash at these companies they’d stop shovelling garbage into your open expectant arms.
Brad
March 18, 2012 @ 12:33 am
You can’t tear the pages you don’t like out of a book, find the author, and tell them to write it better.
You can’t snip your least favorite scenes from a movie and tell the director to shoot it again.
And you can’t take a brand new videogame to Bioware and tell them to give you a new ending, split screen multiplayer and make all the dlc free.
Buying a product does not mean you OWN it. It means you purchased it. Getting mad and flipping shit at the creator is an indefensible and completely childish response. Maybe if you’d waited a week and read a review, you wouldn’t have pissed your pants over this. But you have no one to blame for how you spend your money, save yourself. The entertainment industry owes you nothing. YOU invested in THEM, not the other way around. Realize that, and grow up.
Avery
March 18, 2012 @ 5:09 am
You know, nobody is calling you entitled because you have an opinion. They just aren’t. Not many are going to disagree with your ability to have your opinion, and share it.
I, for instance, was not a fan of how Mass Effect 2 ended. Just my opinion, and I am a minority on that. I have my belief that I did not like the game overly much, but you know what I did not do?
I did not demand Bioware change the game to my taste. Because I see game as an art form, not as you see it; food to be shoveled into your mouth without paying attention to whats on the end of your shovel.
I hated how Fred died at the end of Harry Potter. Loved the character, but in the end it was her artistic vision of that universe. I did not make a petition and give 45k to charity to demand that the ending be changed to my liking.
I did not like “Blackout” on the Thousand Suns Linkin Park album. I like a few of the songs, disliked others, and I get my enjoyment and disappointment out of it. I do not, however, write articles or forum posts to Linkin Park demanding they give me a new remix of the song to appease me.
I’m sorry sir, but games are not food. Where your disconnect, and many others disconnect stems from, is the fact that you think that sight and sound are not a form of interaction.
What I mean by this is simple; you interact with a movie by watching it. You interact with a book by turning the page. Nobody forces you to do these things, just as nobody forces you to buy games, or dlc.
I’m sorry, but the comment that games are “different” because they are more interactive shows your disrespect for the medium as a whole, and a pretty clear disrespect of art as a whole. You believe because you put 25 hours into Mass Effect makes it a more important piece of consumerism than, say, a book or album you put 30 minutes into.
You believe that because you made “choices” (of which are binary and predetermined by a writer/artist) in a game, you have an artistic say in its creation and inception. I’m sorry, but you have no more “say” in a game than you do in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book.
You then go on to talk about dlc, and then have the gall to bring up mod tools?
I’m sorry sir, but Valve is not obligated to give you Hammer, and especially not obligated to give you Hammer for free. Neither is Epic with their engine, or Crytek, or Bioware.
I believe it is you who has no real concept of what “entitlement” means, because you see the word as a slander upon yourself, and individuals. You fail to, however, see it as a broad term for a community’s view towards an artistic medium.
A community that, for instance, demands more content for Team Fortress 2 is entitled because they get that content for -free-.
A community that demands free modding tools because it is “expected” is entitled to something because they have been spoiled by very generous companies like Valve and Epic.
A community that demands all content be available day 1 is, I’m sorry, entitled to something they do not deserve.
And that is what it comes down to; what do -gamers- deserve over any other fan of any other medium. Your argument is that they deserve the same treatment as someone in a restaurant, but your simile falls apart when you take in mind you are also asking, essentially, to be allowed into the kitchen, be given free access to the stove, talk with the head chef, and have a hand in preparing your own meal.
See, where we disagree is that games and the gaming industry as a whole is much, much closer to that of the Book market than that of the Movie or Food. The difference between us is that you in your description say you’ve seen games come into their own as an entertainment outlet, where as I see it as an artistic form of expression that is -optionally- enjoyed by others.
Is it advertised as entertainment? Yes, just as books are. But like Brad has said, you don’t rip pages out of a book and demand the writer make you new ones. Time is an illusion; my sister spent literally years more time reading Harry Potter instead of playing Mass Effect, and watched the movies, and so on. Her “interaction” with Harry Potter exceeds your investment in Mass Effect 10 fold, yet she does not demand the ending changed by writing letters, and why?
Because people treat Books and Movies and many other forms of entertainment as they are; a respectable art form. People, on a whole, realize that even though Transformers 3 may not have been good to them… that it was also someone else’s artistic vision.
Whether you want to accept it or not, Mass Effect is someone elses artistic vision. It was not -your- vision. You did not -write- Mass Effect. You did not work on -any- of the art for Mass Effect.
What you did, good sir, is you -partook- in Mass Effect. All of your so called “choices” were merely an illusion granted to you by an artist to suck you into -their- vision of this story. Did you guide the story? A matter of fact, you did not; you were along for the ride in a story that was pre-guided for you.
The endings to Mass Effect are not yours, were never yours, and no matter how much money and time you put into it… it will never -be- yours. Just as a Mona Lisa is not yours, even if you spend the money on the plane ticket, entrance free, and then sketch it yourself in front of her for 100 hours straight.
You partook in the Mono Lisa. You partook in art that is presented to the world and the community as a whole to enjoy. Can you feel ripped off? Absolutely. Underwhelmed? Completely welcome to. Burned? I feel bad for you, but its not the -artists- fault nor is is the Mono Lisa’s fault.
See, this is ultimately where entitlement comes in; You firmly believe that if you spent all that time and money invested in the Mono Lisa, that in some small way that makes her more yours than anyone else.
You believe that because you spent 25 hours on Mass Effect 3, have a podium to speak from, and spent money on it that it is more yours than the developers or other fans.
You believe that because you control the movement of a character in a Video Games that it makes it a medium better than movies, music, and writing.
You believe your medium, and by extension you, are more important than others.
That -is- entitlement at its core.
Fact is, you can have your opinion. But fact also is, you and others demand an art form bend to your will and your will alone because you are more important than my opinion.
What is my opinion?
My opinion is that I didn’t like Mass Effect 2, but upon seeing the endings to Mass Effect 3 I have a higher respect towards Bioware and its writers for what they dared to do with the medium and endings to a beloved series. I respect the direction they took the endings, and respect they gave us a grim reality opposed to a typical, cookie cutter happy ending.
I, unlike you, like Mass Effect 3 and respect it as someone elses artistic vision. I may even hate Mass Effect 2, but it was someone elses vision.
I may hate Twilight, but I do not burn the books. I do not boycott the movies. I do not write hateful things towards its fans, or its creator. Because she had a vision, she expressed her vision to the world, and she let them accept it or reject it.
As an artist myself, it is hard to put your vision out in the world and see how it reacts. It an be mixed, nice, or hateful. I’m sure you are well aware of this as a journalist and an artistic of words yourself.
But while I may disagree with you on a fundamental level about your disrespect towards an entire artistic medium, I do not however want this article removed from this site. I do not demand the last paragraph is changed, nor the title altered.
You are free to express your artistic opinion upon this websites canvas, but the different, good sir, between you and I is that if you were in my place, you would demand the colors of this website changed, and the language of your article altered because it did not meet your expectations of what a website and writing should be.
I believe art is something to be respected, preserved, and enjoyed/hated. Not something to be cooked and shoveled into your mouth because the mood takes you.
You believe art is something to be torn and burned when it does not meet your expectations, and that is why I can respect your opinion as art, but I cannot respect you as a person.
Good day, and good life.
Robert Strick
March 18, 2012 @ 9:36 am
First of all, thanks for taking the time to put a lengthy reply on the site. It’s great to have everyone’s points and opinions up here. I’m sure Taylor will respond in full, but I just wanted to make a few points.
There’s already been a precedent in the gaming industry that pretty much says an ending can be changed or altered to meet the expectations of both developers and fans, which still respects the overall artistic vision. Just look at Fallout 3.
The same can be said for books. The fourth Mass Effect book had several plot holes and didn’t fit with the overall canon, and Bioware came out and publicly apologized for it. They essentially reprinted and updated the book so it fit better with the overall universe.
The ending for Mass Effect 3 is filled with so many disservices to the fans that given recent examples it would be totally acceptable to tweak the ending to account for those inconsistencies.
Taylor Parolini
March 18, 2012 @ 12:46 pm
Thanks for writing that long response, Avery. Always great to see somebody that is this passionate about the medium. I’m not sure I agree with most of your statements. While I think that games can approach art, and I have played several titles over my many years that I would consider to be literal pieces of art, I don’t think the matter is quite that cut and dry. Because of the interactive medium at work here, a game can have a fantastic story and setting and still be a grave disappointment due to its lacking gameplay or even various technical issues. The interactive side of this medium makes it quite different than almost any other form of expression out there in the world today.
I think that you brought in some arguments with you that have nothing to do with the article. Never once do I directly support the efforts of fans to change the ending, nor do I call for that change myself. What I did support was the idea that these people, as consumers, have every right to complain about what they feel is a faulty product.
I understand the idea of the developers and the writers having an artistic vision, but there are exceptions to this. For example, I would never suggest that Fumito Ueda change the ending to Shadow of the Colossus just because I personally wish that things could have ended better for Wander. At the same time, Fumito’s vision for Shadow of the Colossus was solid, with a consistent artistic vision throughout, nor did it have any aspect or illusion of choice.
Mass Effect on the other hand, doesn’t have a consistent artistic vision. Its ending alone indicates numerous plot holes which call into question the very legitimacy of the entire series as a whole, and also completely throws out entire portions of the lore and universe that they’ve clearly labored so hard to create. I’d argue that the angry reactions of so many fans just goes to show how amazing this universe and its world building truly was. Certainly all the choices presented to you and your version of Shepard are all pre-programmed choices that merely give the illusion of choice, but nonetheless the series was built upon that mirage. The fact that the same endings are available to you no matter what choices you’ve made through the course of 5 years, is a massive slap in the face to many of the devoted fans of this work. I’d argue that the angry reaction is literally the result of all those people being torn out of that illusion, that mirage, and realizing all of a sudden that the choices they had expected to be given were completely absent and that, in the end, none of it meant anything.
Now, should they change the ending? I don’t really care what they do. I was merely arguing that these people have the right as consumers to say what they will, and that expecting a quality product and service are not innate signs of entitlement.
Juan
March 18, 2012 @ 11:41 pm
I actually find your POV compelling and I was extremely moved by the points you made in your response. I do agree with you in many aspects and I can see how many fans may seem spoiled when they start demanding the impossible. The thing here is that the article is trying to stop the use “entitlement” as a way to antagonized many gamers who are not satisfied with a game, be it that they simple didn’t like it and from now on will stop supporting that developer, or as you mention start making impossible demands. What I believe Taylor is trying to point out is how sometimes the Game Industry has no respect for it’s own fanbase. I’ve seen and read cases about how journalists and developers sometimes look down on gamers, which I find insulting and appalling, considering that we are the ones that support them. Also I do believe games are a form of Art and self-expression, I’m currently a Game Design Major in SCAD a great art school and the first thing you learn when you get there is that art once created is as much yours as it is the public or the patron or anyone that takes their time to, as you say, partake in the art process, which does not just end even if you lower your brush. I don’t know if you can see my pov or if you even care, but i just wanted to add something to the discussion after I read your passionate comment. Also I don’t want to go into the whole ME3 thing ( I actually feel this is getting out of hand), but if you really read why many people feel betrayed by the game it’s not only because of the ending or whatever, this has been going on for a while when the game industry went from a lets make entertainment into lets make money.
Taylor Parolini
March 19, 2012 @ 2:57 am
Thanks for the reply, Juan. I’m glad that you were able to gleam the true point of my rather long and impassioned rant. That’s pretty much exactly how I feel. Most of these companies and the media that supports them, only care about money. They’ve steadily been lowering the standards and features of games for years, all in the name of profitability. Sadly, I think that they’d find their profits and customer base increasing with a little more love and care, rather than another handful of on disc DLC and online passes. Hopefully people like you finding your way into the industry will help change that mindset over time. Good luck in the game design world, Juan.
QuixoticMage
March 19, 2012 @ 9:50 am
Excellent article.
There are also some people who seem to think that this ME3 ending controversy is a matter of user preference, when it is not.
It is a matter of product quality. The ending of Mass Effect 3 is objectively bad and makes a stark contrast with the rest of the series.
John Smith
March 20, 2012 @ 12:37 am
The gaming industry is an interesting thing. No other industry in the world gets as much open and honest and most importantly free on the fly criticism about their product and how to improve it. It’s extremely valuable stuff. Other industries invest billions to harvest this information. But what does the gaming industry do with it? They throw it in the garbage. Then they yell at the trash can and call it names. Then they pay other people to yell at the trash can. It’s bloody ridiculous that we are even having this conversation.
But this is what happens when you have an extremely successful and entirely unregulated industry that is completely detached from it’s customer base. The gaming industry can lie, and pay others to lie, all day long and there is nothing the customer can do to stop them or hold them accountable. We simply don’t have the same protections under law as we would if we were buying a car or a steak.
As far as copy and pasted damage control talking point posters such as Avery go, fuck off. We are sick of your bullshit. Games aren’t art. It’s a mass produced product, made by professionals who get paid to do a job. Maybe they love their jobs and are talented, maybe they dont. It doesn’t matter. There is nothing noble about this. You are just trying to confuse the issue with some emotional bullshit. Games are a product, a product that is being cut up into little pieces. Sometimes we get these pieces back for free, sometimes they are sold to us, sometimes they get thrown away! This is not acceptable. In most industries it is illegal, or at the very least impossible to pull off due to competition. The real problem here is that video games are essentially their own little monopolies. If you want to play mass effect, you have to buy mass effect. This encourages bad behavior on part of the developer/publisher, and lowers the standards of the consumer. 10 years ago you’d buy a game and then be able to do whatever you wanted with it. Everyone was fine with that, developers, publisher, player. Games are, ultimately, toys and we should be able to play with our toys how we see fit. Then someone got the bright idea of chopping our toys up and selling the pieces separately, or never giving them back at all. Games aren’t cheaper. If you want the full monty you end up paying obscene amounts of money and this trend is getting worse and worse with each new release.
But there is hope. If the recent slew of kickstarter projects actually manage to be successful, maybe the community will be able to take back their native position of content dictator, rather than some random guy in a suit.
Janice
April 30, 2012 @ 7:09 pm
This is something else that isn’t commented on in this article but should have been. namely the “cut & past commentary” from the likes of “brad” and “avery. It’s an unspoken secret some of the marketing flunkies do post shill commentary like this. It’s nothing other than the same dirty trick street corner con-men use running their shell game, having a friend or two in the crowd “conning the mugs” to get the action going. But in this case its creating the illusion that real gamers support their illegitmate actions. Truth of the matter is as gamers, we don’t. And its so badly done that it immediately shows as amateurish. We’ve seen what happens in other areas of business what happens when corporations treat their customers as the enemy at worst or as an endless revenue stream at best. I don’t think we need reminding of such examples like, Enron, Bernie Madoff, or any number of wall street finance firms during the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The only real difference is this is entertainment, something we don’t need to survive and we can take our money elsewhere. This industry as a whole needs to be reminded the customer comes first. They need us as customers to survive not the other way around.
Mistletoe
March 21, 2012 @ 3:24 am
I’d just like to say that I think a lot of people, Retakers and BioWare loyalists alike, are viewing this whole fiasco as a trial-by-fire for gaming journalism.
People who are covering this in an even-handed and considerate fashion, generally agreeing with my opinion or not, are moving fast up the ranks for media outlets I turn to for objective, thoughtful analysis on the video game industry and industry news.
Needless to say, I’ve severed all ties with IGN. I will not listen to their podcasts any longer (and I’ve listened to Podcast Beyond, Podcast Unlocked, and Game Scoop for at least two years each now), I will not give them page views, and I encourage gamers (again, whether they are on my side of this issue or not) to consider doing the game.
The people who tell us what we should and should not consider buying should do so in an ethical fashion. When you run ads for a game/developer at the same time as marginalizing the shortcomings of that game/developer and the people who are critical of it, I have a hard time accepting your judgement as anything besides biased.
Thanks for the fair shake, Taylor, and thanks to all the people over at ParanoidGamer. Expect my repeat business.
Fagin
March 21, 2012 @ 12:09 pm
This video just sums up everything I felt about the game perfectly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b33tJx8iy0A&feature=related
Daniel Flatt
April 4, 2012 @ 6:19 am
I watched this and laughed and laughed and laughed.
igcompany
April 4, 2012 @ 5:59 am
Y’all should stop this hate on Bioware.
Simon
April 7, 2012 @ 6:59 pm
Your comparison to a restaurant is complete rubbish and irrelevant to the problem, in a restaurant you get a meal and a service that is designed to be tailored to the individual. With a videogame you get a mass produced product.
Gamer entitlement is less complaining about crappy service in a restaurant and more moaning because the generic headphones that came with your cheap MP3 player aren’t as comfortable as the ones with your mates iPod.
Johnn
April 18, 2012 @ 5:25 am
The hilarious thing about all of this is that entitled literally means to be owed something.
So when idiots call gamers entitled, they’re saying that gamers deserve things – the very opposite of what they mean.
Unimportant
April 24, 2012 @ 3:17 pm
People are entitled to their opinions… even “professional” ‘game journalists’. I must say though that that video is still as cringe-worthy now as it was when I first saw it. The man is the living embodiment of smugness and self-satisfied hack ‘journalism’ of the finest order. His distain for his audience is almost as high as his high horse and his high falutin’ opinion of himself – it’s is almost Morrissey-esque. It encapsultes everything that I hate about IGN and American “New Organizations”. I suppose it comes as no surprise that he is an employee of News Corp.
KMiller
May 1, 2012 @ 12:18 pm
People have the right to want better, but they can’t force producers to do it by anything short of deciding not buy. If that restaurant was terrible, then don’t go there again, and warn others off.
Though, with Mass Effect, I think there was a lot of hate for the end in regards to its writing. In that regard, video games are an art form, a way of story telling.
It’s my belief that artists need to be free to shape the image of their work as they please; as soon as they start to bend to the will of the consumer, to what everyone wants, imagination dies. We end up with series like COD. Developers become prostitutes of sorts, giving the crowd whatever will give them a cheap thrill, just for a couple bucks in the future.
Mass Effect’s ending was clumsily executed, and for that, I can see your point. I just need to point out that the two issues are so relatable, so people have to be careful about how they walk the line.
You have the right to say the story wasn’t the best, or even that it sucked, but I really oppose trying to buy off artistic vision. You can always mod 😉
avmf8
May 10, 2012 @ 5:10 pm
Actually the ending of ME3 was a shoddy workmanship thing. Since they did not fit into the established rules the writers already put forth.
That is simply lazy writing and yes you should be able to call a developer out and make them refund you or make a proper properly written ending.
That is the issue though if you could return games for a full refund if they don’t stand up to what they were advertised to be you can get a refund.
The reason I am demanding Bioware fix this is because I bought the game bassed on the fact Bioware lied to me. I bouhgt on info of them saying that the game would have 16 divergent endings and not be an A B or C ending.
Well I bought the game on that premis. So I either want Bioware to refund my money or give me 16 different endings. When a game developer pulls a bait and switch they should pay the price of that.
The only reason Bioware should have to change the ending is because of what they promissed. Some of what Bioware said was a blatant lie because they said it had 16 devergent endings after the core game was done.
Bioware should be held responsible and so should any company that lies about there products. For me its not about changing an ending just because people don’t like it.
I just get angry when people lie to me. You want to be creative with a game fine. Just do not say a game will be such and such and then do something else because you felt like it. Bioware is not the first company to lie about a product.
I am just sick and tired of buying games only to find I bought a game I did not want because the developer was not honest about what I was buying. Had Bioware been honest saying what the game really was I would not have bought it. Then I would not have been breathing down Bioware’s neck. I am sure others are the same.
True they would have gotten some. Also for me I never demanded Biware change the endings. I asked them for my money back in which they reffused. So then I became one of the people demanding the ending be changed. Had they just given me my money back they would have heard not even a peep from me.
Also should add I was one of the people who was banned from the bioware forum for speaking my mind. I was also “accidentally” banned from my games bought on origin. I had to call EA games and get that sorted out.
Kelsey Miller
May 10, 2012 @ 8:55 pm
I can see, understand, and agree with your anger over false advertisement. Developers say a lot of things during production stages which end up not being entirely true, and it’s their responsibility to inform their supporters.
However, I was merely speaking from the viewpoint of someone relatively well-versed in literature. I come across numerous stories which don’t sit well with me, often due to poor endings (in my opinion). Yet, I can’t expect the author to rehash it to my expectations. All I can do is attempt to appreciate it and true to find something valuable there.
Just defending the artists, and not entirely at that. The unexpected ending was a bold move. Poorly executed, but bold. I’m not denying that Bioware has something to own up to. I’m merely indicating there is a line there, and that some, not all, people are taking it too far and for the wrong reasons.
csm
April 17, 2013 @ 11:39 am
The entire game is the ending. You did see your previous choices pay off along the way. Almost every character you met along the way did get some closure, even Conrad Verner. They said that previous choices would affect the war during the pre-release statements. Mass Effect 3 is a galactic war against the Reapers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4B_MkzXMMk&t=7m30s
Alas, ask any gamer and they’ll say the last 5 minutes is the ending, and they want the game retooled so it takes into account your choices there, instead of during the course of the game.
Christopher Deleanides
April 17, 2013 @ 9:41 pm
Eh… I know don’t know. I think that kind of dilutes the definition of the word “ending” when you count what happens during the story.
csm
April 28, 2013 @ 7:16 pm
Fair enough, look at it like this:
Matrix — Beginning of the trilogy
Matrix Reloaded — Middle of the trilogy
Matrix Revolutions — End of the trilogy
Mass Effect 1: Beginning of the trilogy
Mass Effect 2: Middle of the trilogy
Mass Effect 3: End of the trilogy
Oh and they also said that the game wouldn’t finish with “beat Reapers, proceed with closure”. So as much as people are clamoring over the lack of closure for characters during the ending, they said this is not how the game was going to end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4B_MkzXMMk&t=7m1s
Also says that you’ll be gathering clues to solve a puzzle. The ending is that puzzle. So all those peole saying that the ending doesn’t make any sense with what’s going on with the rest of the game clearly didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle put together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8BSg9KIe0k&t=16m10s
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/speak+for+itself
Gnova
May 12, 2012 @ 10:53 pm
Interesting article.
What I have found myself doing more and more in the past few years is to wait for around three months before buying a console game.
By three months the game has patched with most, or all, of the game breaking bugs taken out.
It also gives me a chance to see how the community has responded to the game after a reasonable amount of playtime. If the response is mixed I will frequently wait for a price drop before buying it.
I will pay full price for game that is stable at launch.
I will pay full price if the game is considered to be stable and completely patched after a couple months.
I won’t pay full price for a game that is riddled with bugs and has a endless list of DLC content after just a few months. In this case, wait for the content to be fixed and the game price to drop and then buy the game plus the DLC for the same price that the base game cost at launch.
If more people stopped being pre-order suckers and instead waited to see how the game was received by fans (not by the gaming media calling customers “entitled”) the first day DLC and buggy releases by the gaming companies would be reduced.
hellomyfriend
December 18, 2012 @ 2:53 am
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Vic George
February 24, 2014 @ 7:49 am
It is NOT a BS buzzword when gamers go beyond the acceptable limits of voicing their complaints about games to make a game developer’s life a living hell. Granted, game developers shouldn’t be shielded from legitimate valid complaints about a game, but neither should gamers be shielded from being called out on their behavior. You want to drive people out of the gaming industry because you just hate them so much? Fine, I hope you people can live with yourselves from the loss of creativity your nasty attacks on them causes.
Jacob
March 30, 2014 @ 5:30 pm
Most consumers vote with their wallets if they aren’t happy with something. Gamers scream at the top of their lungs until the developer or publisher comes over and tends to them.
We are past the point where the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Voicing your concerns does nothing if you keep handing the company you hate more money.
Example: I hate day 1 DLC or other stuff about [insert company].
Gamer buys game anyways, in addition to all the DLC and future titles. Expects company to change, while keeps rambling on about stuff they hate.
A lot of gamers are weak minded consumers.
Another example is, despite all the complaints about Star Wars, it still broke a ton of sales records for its Blu-ray release. So you see how being vocal doesn’t really do anything to change things. Now if people voted with their wallets and simply not bought it, then they wouldn’t be making any more films.
Voting with your wallet > Running your mouth on the internet.
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June 22, 2022 @ 10:46 pm
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