Retail tracking service NPD has released their monthly sales data, and as expected, Mass Effect 3 was March’s biggest hit. Despite Bioware’s success, overall sales in the games industry continued to decline.
Earlier this week Bioware announced that they would “expand” Mass Effect 3′s divisive ending with a new DLC chapter that will hopefully get the legions of angry fanboys on the internet to put down their pitchforks. In a further gesture of good will, Bioware will also be providing the game’s first multiplayer expansion, entitled the “Resurgence Pack” for free as well.
So a good chunk of the hardcore gaming community is pretty butthurt over Mass Effect 3′s ending, and rightfully so: as I stated in my review and my follow-up editorial, ME3′s ending really is pretty terrible. But instead of reopening that bitter wound, let’s talk about game endings that were actually good.
Fans who were let down by the endings of Mass Effect 3 having no real differences to them are giving Bioware a surprising gift, a large amount of delicious cupcakes of different colors. The subtle trolling is that they all taste the exact same, just different colors.
I liked Mass Effect 3. I hated the ending. I wasn’t the only one, obviously, and for the past week nerds everywhere have made a Bruce Banner-ish transformation into unstoppable beings of pure, unsubstantiated rage. I’m all for voicing your dissatisfaction, but the means that many fanboys have used to share their hatred for Mass Effect 3 — stalking Bioware employees and launching personal attacks over the internet, running and crying to the government — only serve as a reminder that a good chunk of the gaming community really are the whiney, emotionally unbalanced man-children that the mass media likes to stereotype gamers as.
The controversies over Mass Effect 3 are heard loud and clear over the internet. If it’s not Tali’s face, then it’s the disappointing ending. However, it’s extremely rare for gamers to actually demand a refund for a game they’ve been let down by. In this day and age where piracy is much more rampant than it was ten or fifteen years ago, refunds are often met with a flat-out “no”. Regardless of this policy’s age, Origin has apparently been doling out refunds for the game.
One massive, boneheaded mistake casts a shadow over Shepard’s final sortie, but overall, the final battle against the Reapers is still a fight worth finishing.
DLC is controversial, on-disk DLC is something I believe is breaking a law somewhere, forcing people to fork over money to use something they have already bought. EA made this comment over on-disk DLC. Their response to a recent request for info was basically “We have already commented on this matter”.
Even though use of stock images is very common among all forms of media, including stock footage, stock music, creative commons, and public domain works, gamers seem to have thrown quite a bit of anger in BioWare’s direction over the use of a stock image in Mass Effect 3 to portray the face of Tali.
We’re just weeks away from the finale of Bioware’s Mass Effect trilogy, and if the demo is a sign of things to come, Bioware has saved the best for last.
On Wednesdays I spend my time looking for a digital buffet of gaming goodies – I post them here on the Humpday Bump.
Today’s bump is unique as i’m showcasing a studio rather than a game. Ever wanted to know what the inside of Valve looked like? Thanks to Penny Arcade you can take a look and see for yourselves…
If Mass Effect 3 is on your most wanted listed for 2012, I have a little treat for you this afternoon. Head over to your Facebook page and check out the new FB app called Mission Command. This is a direct promotion to go along side with the upcoming launch of Mass Effect 3.
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