When Michael Pachter speaks, people tend to listen. But usually, when listening, those gamers are hanging on Pachter’s every word because he is a man who loves to make broad predictions about market and cultural trends not because he is trying to chastise gamers.
This time, however, Michael Pachter has spoke out in regards to an issue that has been blowing up the video game news world. Of course we’re talking about the Mass Effect 3 ending, and more specifically the incredible fan response that has arisen because of it.
Despite promising a conclusion that would be satisfying, and would take into account all of players’ decisions across the three games, BioWare delivered something that a lot of fans felt was pretty empty. The fans tried to voice their displeasure in numerous ways – from donating to charity to sending BioWare cupcakes – and ultimately BioWare acknowledged their wants, but not before being flooded with negative criticism.
For Pachter these gestures do nothing more than show “what a whiny group gamers are in general.” Moreover he feels that the fan response to the ending will end up hurting the chances of more creative developers like BioWare getting appearing.
“The reason we get games like Max Payne and Alan Wake only every six years or so is that the developers strive for perfection, and whiny gamers are only going to cause their beloved games to take even longer between episodes. The BioWare guys are prolific, but if they slow down development of future games to make sure that everybody is happy, consumers will have even fewer choices, and will have something new to complain about.”
Looking at sales of Mass Effect 3 (which he estimates to be about 2.5 Million) Pachter sees the “whiny gamers” as only making up about 1% of that group, but that doesn’t mean his comments will stop there. Gamers in general, according to Pachter, are some of the most vocal of consumers, so it didn’t surprise Pachter either when EA was named the Worst Company in America.
Pachter does make a few good points about fan response and expectations, but ultimately calling gamers whiny for voicing their displeasure is a bit drastic. He’s always been a guy who likes to stir the pot – like last year when he said Battlefield 3 didn’t have a chance of topping Modern Warfare 3 – but usually he has a pretty clear perspective on the topic at hand.
Fans have been feeling a bit too entitled as of late, and BioWare delivering this extended cut DLC isn’t going to help the issue, but could end up exacerbating it if the new content is equally as unfulfilling. Hopefully, at some point, gamers can move past this and start looking forward to another high profile series’ next entry.
How do you feel about Pachter calling gamers “whiny?” Do you agree that this fan backlash will result in fewer developers like BioWare getting a chance?
Source: Forbes
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I believe that everyone who got to that ending should be a little disappointed. I mean sure the overall game is phenomenal, the gathering of a galactic army had me feeling like a general of war, and yet when i got to the ending i was on the edge of my seat only to be disappointed. I replayed the game 3 times as both paragon and renegade, acquiring most of the galactic resources, but all the endings were just the same. The only thing different was the explosion could be red, blue, or green. I would have been fine with Shepherd being dead, but give me some closure to the choices i made throughout the series.
The extended cut will consist of captions describing what happened to the crew, one by one.
Snippet: “Tali moved and left the Normandy, she began her own college…”
No video, no voice, just caption. I called it lol
Sounds like Bioware is still lazy and half-assing it.
“No video, no voice, just caption”
Ah, that would explain why its supposedly free. Well its good to see the contempt they’re still manifesting
for their fanbase of the series. It would have been a nice gesture on their part to simply add more optional
endings to the ones they already gave. Given how the ending options are virtually identical I wouldn’t expect
variations of the captions either.
I think game developers should take as long as it takes to produce a game which not only gets top reviews but also keeps the fans happy. Pushing games out quickly only shows that a game developer cares about money more than the art itself.
As for Pachter, when he’s put in over 100+ hours game time (a lot of us have out in 200+ hours) into the Mass Effect games then I’ll take him seriously. However, he’s just another high profile ‘Suit’ and probably cares more about networking and Tuna Tata then he does about the opinion of the consumer.
That fact that you have put in 200+ hours (or even 100+) hours on a game that has barely been out a month is ridiculous. The guy won’t have time to put in that time because he has a job not loads of free time to park his behind to play a game.
He means over the course of the series. Every game is about 30 hours total if you do everything. Which you should know if you’re part of this conversation.
I see a lot of people assuming that he just didn’t play the game, or for very long. He may, or may not have, I don’t know. The point is that assuming things like this is not helping the argument. It makes you look like you are backed into a corner trying to find reasons to blame him for what he said instead of using logic.
So two is now a lot, thank you.
Nintendo takes 5 to 6 years to develop most Zelda games and they come out as darn close to perfect as gamers can get. BioWare spent 18 months on Dragon Age 2 and it came out with more bugs than Skyrim. BioWare spent 2 years on Mass Effect 2 and it had dozens of bugs including game freezing and crashing bugs and 3 (90% of 1) bad ending(s). Sounds like Nintendo has the better strategy here, especially when Zelda’s sell in the 10s of millions.
Now didn’t this guy complain once about there being too many games on the market? “But if they slow down development of future games to make sure that everybody is happy, consumers will have even fewer choices, and will have something new to complain about.” In politics we call this flip-flopping.
Listen, I hated ME3′s ending as much as anyone, but NOTHING had more bugs than Skyrim. It had so many bugs that fixing its bugs created more bugs. IT’S A BUG PLANET.
I said Dragon Age 2 had more bugs than Skyrim which on day one it did. My copy crashed 3 times in the first 3 hours. I haven’t had that problem with Skyrim. Mass Effect 3 isn’t as buggy as Skyrim.
I also meant Mass Effect 3 not 2 when I was talking about the dozens of bugs and 90% 1 ending.
I played both games. My copy of Skyrim, I couldn’t even get down from the mountain. To each his own. I just wanted to make a Starship Troopers joke
Pachter has a point. Even though the ending wasn’t the best, it could have been MUCH worse, and everyone knew they were going to release more DLC for it, with or without the outrage of fans. I know for a fact that a good percent of people who whine about the ending haven’t even played the game, but are just joining in with the masses of whiny gamers just to fit in. The ending is bad, but it could’ve been worse, and it doesn’t change the fact that the game was amazing up to that point. The fact that the ending of a video game can make someone react in that way alone should be enough to nod your head at.
I don’t read comic books by Will Pfeifer. Why? Because of how royally he screwed up Catwoman. I don’t watch Uwe Boll movies ether. I have other writers/directors I don’t read/watch when they mess up really bad. I don’t see why I should treat game companies any differently.
I also think that Dan DiDio is the worst thing to happen to DC Comics since McCarthy. His idea that even if the fan’s react negatively it still a good thing since they reacted. This is the reason that so many DC comics get retroactive continuity in the first place. I do not want to see this same mind set in games.
When you’re taking anywhere from 90 to 200+ hours on a series like this, and spending anywhere from $120 to $240+ (if you’re a sucker for pre-ordering and DLC), AND microtransactions are involved as well, I think it’s worth the investment to find out what you’re getting into. This ending took too much from BSG, The Matrix Revolutions, and Gilligan’s Island, instead of taking a few pages from MIT’s “Limits to Growth”.
I would buy Prachter and the Gamerant staff a strawberry pineapple smoothy. That’s how I feel Anthony..
Me and all of my friends are hardcore mass effect fans. we have been with the trilogy since the beginning. We have many hour long debates about our choices and our decisions throughout the series coparing different endings deciding which characters we didnt like “Cough”Kaidan”cough” and the entire series was amazing spectacular even. but in the end these characters that we love so much got little to no Ending. we were pretty much just saying bye and leaving them there. i would like a little more sense of closure. And saying we are whiny gamers because we felt the ending was unfullfilled? Shame on you. If this had been the last twilight movie,harry potter book,star wars film or any other pop culture.i gurantee you that everyone would be up in arms if they didnt like it. So just saying that we are whining, no This extremely detailed game having a not so detailed ending is what makes us upset.i still love bioware to death this series was amazing. This one bad spot on a very good trilogy will not make me leave them. But we are not whining, We are simply a group of critics on our piece of art.
that my friend, i salute you for because that is the truth. you spoke for our fellow Mass Effect fans.
As far as I’m concerned it’s not that fans are upset. That is fine. The problem are the vocal minority of fans that threaten,curse, and send hate mail to bioware. This is probably just an instance of extremists taking too far, sadly it makes all the fans look bad.
That’s a good way to look at it. It’s just how far people went to complain.
“He’s always been a guy who likes to stir the pot – like last year when he said Battlefield 3 didn’t have a chance of topping Modern Warfare 3 ”
how is that stirring the pot?! who the hell thought battlefield 3 would outsell MW3 because EA and dice sure didn’t.
anyways as far as this whole mass effect debate…yeah they are being whiny lol video gamers are really whiny people when it comes to their games. mass effect 3 was a great game until the very last part, but people are acting like the whole thing is a giant pile of s***.
To call a customer fanbase “whiny” is a poor choice of words an is frankly tactless. I wholeheartedly disagree Pachter. The sole reason they exist is because there is a market for their product. Like any other business they should respect the opinions of a majority of their fanbase, it’s like the automobile industry, some cars are great, some are bad…poorly designed or whatnot, as a customer we should be allowed to criticize a faulty product.
Did you enjoy Medal of Honor? I know I didn’t and yet gamers let it slide, I personally think EA has the Touch of Death when it comes to companies nowadays. Bioware by itself churned out a beautifully flawed game, with a touching story and some rather fond memories of several characters. Under EA, they broadened their fanbase to Third Person Shooters, and restricted the RPG elements. I played through all three games and am thoroughly disappointed with the ending. I find it trite and unimaginative, simply because it is exactly that. I took EDI and Tali with me to the final battle, and yet curiously they were aboard the Normandy when it crashed? Poor work with major plot holes, sloppy writing.
It was like the end to The Sopranos, a f*#%ing fade to black. While I appreciate their hardwork and realize they worked a lot on the game, I can’t help but be disappointed and a bit angry. Why did they end it in such a sloppy manner? Not taking into account anything I had done throughout my game, a sense of futility overwhelming me as I sat there thinking…what the hell was that, where were my millions of Krogans and Turians…where were my Quarians and Geth…? I understand that was their choice, but I can’t help but feel angry…it is their game, but it’s my money that paid for the game.
Mr. Pachter is dead wrong, the reason why innovative games don’t come out regularly is because game developers are worried about how much money they can make, so they use tried and true formulas. MW1, 2, and 3. Battlefield BC, BC2, 3, etc.
L.A. Noire was a fantastic game, developed by the sociopaths over at Rockstar games, Red Dead Redemption, also developed by Rockstar Games.
The videogame industry is suffering from the same issue the movie industry is, lack of creativity, and preference for the almighty dollar over imagination. I would rather see one amazing game every 6 years, rather than 6 s***** games every year.
This is a very good read. Thank you.
Spoiler alert!! Damn it!
Very good post, but I have to disagree with one thing. It’s typically not the developers that are super worried about the money, it’s the publishers. Sure they want to make a game that sells so they can make more games, but for developers for the most part they are gamers and just want to make a good game, that is until they get thrown deadlines and told to hurry up by the greedy publishers (Ie Activision and EA).
Sony seems to be one of the companies to work for if you want to make good games and get them out to a lot. They pretty much leave Naughty Dog alone and they give it their all every time. Just my opinion though.
This is what you get when you let EA run the show. Every time, their rush to make cash will s*** on the art side of everything. This game could have been a work of art, and a capital finish, instead of the heartless money grab that it so obviously is. There is no indoctrination explanation, there is no restitution, it’s as simple as insert coin to continue.
There is no doubt in my mind that this ending is the product of EA and their grab for cash. I wouldn’t put this on Bioware honestly. I agree with you there.
You guys are all a bunch of whiners like he said your gonna ruin it for the rest of us because guess what dont expect to see another mass effect game for a real long time. I dont know what you guys want from the ending you know its shepards last time so it has to end however they do it. You only get to choose decisions not the final ending its there game not yours. If your not happy then dont play mass effect again i really get sick of all the whiners out there complaining. Just play the game and have fun enjoy yourself dont take it so seriously.
I look at the ME3 ending similar to the movie Inception ending. Your mind is suppose to create the ending you believe to be real. Did Kobb actually wake up from his dream? Is he still stuck in limbo? Did the entire second half of the movie actually occur? Same goes for ME3 – Did Shepard die? Become Indoctrinated? or Did he fight Indoctrination and wake up? Honestly I think the intent was meant to keep the character Shepard in a limbo of not knowing if he could come back for another game. I understand the outrage of not having 16 different endings that were promised. However, I think if they really meant for an Indoctrination ending then they are geniuses. I think they may not have explained it as well as they should (you would hope probably for a Fight Club type recap at the end, which I’m hoping is going to be the extended cut DLC). So as being a fan of ME and entertainment in general I think it was creative (again if Indoctrination Theory holds true). The other aspect to consider as well is that unfortunately I may be looking at the ending in a different light because by the time I got around to playing the game, I was already hearing the the ending was “SO HORRIBLE” so obviously my mind set was that I was going to be utterly disappointed. So my perspective may be skewed, but I just wanted to say my piece. I just think to myself that if everyone stood up and complained at other times and at other issues, maybe we would have some decent Game to Movie adaptations and maybe more originality when it comes to Video games as a whole (i.e. we continue to buy Call of Duty games when they are recycled additions to the franchise).
Thanks for your time.
Sorry had to skip over some of what you wrote because I haven’t watched Inception yet and didn’t want to spoil too much. I don’t like BioWare using the Indoctrination Theory because it means another promise broken about this game. It wasn’t Mass Effect 3 plus DLC is the ending to Shepard’s story. It should be Mass Effect 3 is the ending to Shepard’s story but our DLC will give us things like retaking Omega or fighting as Anderson.
The only thing I hated about the game (besides the bugs and EMT) was the ending. The game is awesome till you get to the end. I just don’t have the desire to play it again, unlike Mass Effect 1 and 2. Plus I still can’t load my Infiltrator.
That doesn’t work when the character is an extension of your choices. I’m not saying you’re wrong per se, just that going down that road is really dumb for a game.
Make thing worse? Doubtful. It was Bioware and or EA who pushed that game out with out a proper ending. I rather have fewer good complete games than more games with endings like the one provided. This man sounds pretty much like all the Trolls just shouting “get over it” when people are listing and discussing legitimate problems with game. A lack of perspective and a lack of respect for people with legitimate views. I’ll remember his name and remember he is just a pathetic Troll.
I believe MANY “fans” took things way too far (like trying to get EA in legal trouble for false advertising). However, it must be kept in mind that there will be extremists in every group, gamers are no exception. However, labeling the entire gaming community as “Whiny” based on the actions of a group of disappointed Mass Effect fans is ridiculous. I was also disappointed in the ending to Mass Effect 3, but I don’t feel like it ruined the game or the franchise for me, I also don’t feel like i need to go bash away on EA because of it. I’m disappointed yes, but I didn’t create the game, EA did, so i have no right to complain that it didn’t end the way I’d have preferred it.
Actually, you have every right to voice your opinion on any matter.
Yes , you can voice your opinion openly. But with the recent events of the ME3 ending it has been taken farther than an opinion. Fans demanded a change to an ending. It isn’t their project, they didn’t create the source material, and the didn’t spend the last 7 or 8 years creating it. Fans should be aloud to express their concerns and opinions. That’s what criticism is and it’s present in all forms. But to flat out declare that they want a new ending is totally ridiculous.
This was their creative vision. We hold no claims to it. Personally my opinion of it is Bioware shouldn’t have offered to change anything. The fact that they went through with it just shows that if gamers don’t like it, they can complain enough to get it changed. Besides out of the proposed 2.5 million units sold what percentage of buyers actually were part of changing the ending? We don’t know at all.
People started a charity, not for Child’s Play to help sick children but to change a game ending. They essentially took a charity and exploited it to change a game ending. It wasn’t done out of kindness, it was done out of selffish motives. People scrutinize and slander Bioware again for day one DLC or DLC they feel entitled to because they feel it is essential to the story. In that light you could say any DLC is essential because it adds to the story, so I feel that’s an invalid argument.
I just don’t understand for the life of me why this continues to go on. Day in and day out, this ME3 controversy continues to go on. They need to just let it die. It’s come and gone, people have expressed concerns. But again your right, we all have a right to voice our opinions. I respect those like yourself that offer their opinion and actual constructive criticism over those that just want to complain.
I don’t want a different ending. What I wanted was for them to act like artists and not sound like corporate lawyers. Now, I won’t give them my money and I hope they vanish like every other game company that puts out subpar material.
It’s true we all want closure to our choices, but I also think the outrage is partially that this story described an interesting, desirable, positive sci-fi future (Reapers notwithstanding) for mankind that resonated with many fans, much in the same vein as the obvious popular sci-fi television examples that precede it. To tie-up the trilogy in this manner was a devastating realization that the chief writers did not share this vision, and did not even have time to come up with an ending without plot-holes and major lingering questions. Which ones, you ask?
As anti-spoilerific as I can be:
For starters, knowing that the ME universe stated multiple times that the geth are a pure software synthetic life form, the “Legion issue” seriously bothers me. Copying software is computationally easier than moving it, which requires the *additional* step of deleting source data. And how did Legion transport the necessary human-interface hardware for that non-priority geth/quarian mission?
Furthermore, when you have multiple ground forces capable of teleporting themselves across short distances of up to about 100 meters, via vanguard biotic charge, YOU USE THEM, like I don’t know, for rushing across a completely-exposed field where your entire unit is directly facing ridiculously-deadly firepower and the risk of failure means death for all advanced organics.
And while technically, we know the answer to this next question (because it was indirectly answered in the previous games), did anyone else wonder why Shep didn’t think to ask a certain someone what would happen if he just called the fleet to destroy the Citadel? Or ask why some consequences would be the same across all of his decisions? Or why he didn’t call the brat out on circular logic?
And the worst part of it is, that the chief writers publicly stated they initially started but scrapped the idea of answering burning questions like how many cycles had the Reapers been harvesting? THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN INTERESTING. How is it they don’t add that because it wasn’t “relevant”, but are okay with tons of useless (but once again interesting) geological data for each and every darn planet on the galaxy sub-maps?
Solid read bud.
It’s all a moot point. The important bottom line despite what that blabbermouth reportedly said, is that at some level Bioware AGREED with our collective assessment, and is releasing free DLC to correct their ADMITTED mistake. So following the argument that it’s their game, and their artistic vision, it’s also their call to side with the fans. Wonderful. I’m glad. This doesn’t mean we’ll get less DLC afterwards; ME3 is a cash cow. A glorious ride with a whimpering finish, which will only improve with time and more DLC. I think in a few weeks, we will al be indoctrinated enough (or our wounds will have healed enough) to give a second or third playthrough because, despite the ending, that game rocked.
I hope the DLC will finnaly stop people b****ing about the ending, and people saying “Still a better ending” on Youtube.