Bioware Responds to Fan Outrage

Earlier today Bioware's Co-Founder, Dr. Ray Muzyka, posted a response on the Bioware Blog to all of the fans disappointed by Mass Effect 3's ending.  From what I see, Bioware is handling this better than any other company I could imagine if they were in this same situation, and for that, I believe they deserve respect simply for listening to their fans.  On his post, he addressed how:

It’s incredibly painful to receive feedback from our core fans that the game’s endings were not up to their expectations. Our first instinct is to defend our work and point to the high ratings offered by critics – but out of respect to our fans, we need to accept the criticism and feedback with humility.

It's nice to see a company who really listens to their fans, and defends their work by taking criticism and using it to improve their game.  We will be hearing more about how Bioware is going to handle the endings in April.

In related news, the "Demand a Better Ending to Mass Effect 3" protest has gained over 50,000 likes on Facebook, and over 5,000 followers on Twitter.  They have also been working to more organize themselves, by getting pages setup in other languages, working on a website, and creating more ideas to support the movement.  Someone also organized a Child's Play Charity Drive to help petition Bioware, which has raised over $77,000 dollars for Child's Play.

It's amazing how a disappointing ending can not only spark uproar all over the internet and get Bioware's attention, but also bring gamers together. 

90% of Gamers Unhappy with Mass Effect 3's Ending

Recently, gamers have been in an uproar about how they feel that the Mass Effect 3 ending(s) are/were unsatisfing and don't actually take your choices into account.  There is a large Facebook/Twitter movement with over 25,000 backers so far, which you can find on facebook as Demand a better ending to Mass Effect 3 and @retakeme3.  There was also a poll put up on Bioware's website, which found that an alarming 90% of gamers were not satisfied with the ending, and only a mere 2% were.  

As this "protest" of sorts goes on, it'll be interesting to see what the outcome is.  Because I've never once heard of people protesting that they wanted a company to change an ending to a movie that's already been released (unless it's on some sort of "we find this unappropriate" group, but I digress) and while with the magic of updates and DLC it would be possible for Bioware to add endings to Mass Effect 3, it would really be surprising.  Depending on how this turns out, it really could be a turning point in the industry, so we can see just how important fans' happyness is to companies like this.  This is also the first time (or atleast the largest time) in which an entire gaming community took to the internet in uproar about a game's ending, and demand change.  We at Gamerzitch will definitely keep a sharp eye on this movement and continue to update our website as it progresses.  To wrap this up, here's a quote from the #RetakeMassEffect movement, which shows that this is more of an organized protest that it is a fan flame war.

Bioware is a business if we can make them understand that by using the current endings they alienate (no pun) their customers, and destroy the replay ability of the trilogy they are hurting their profits we CAN bring about a change for the better.

Description

The #RetakeMassEffect movement does not in anyway condone attacks or insults on Bioware, EA, Bioware employees, or anyone associated with them. We are not here to make enemies. We are here to show a company that their devoted fanbase has been hurt, and alienated with some of their actions, and to ask for an explanation, and hopefully a solution.

Several members of the ME team are suffering from attacks on their Twitter and social networking sites. Rude, and inflammatory remarks are UNACCEPTABLE. Anyone found to be contributing to such activities will be removed from the #RetakeMassEffect movement without warning.

And to finish this off, here's a video which I find to best explain the unhappy fan's stance in a intelligent, yet comical way. *Spoilers*