The PC version of this game is nothing but a copy/paste shoddily made consolitis port. They didn't even invest the time fixing the resolution; however one guy was able to create a resolution fix on his own within a few hours after it's release. Not an ounce of effort was made to make this game PC compatible. Don't even think about trying to playing this game without a controller. The experience will probably send you over the brink of madness, because this is one of the worst PC ports ever created and playing the game without a controller is quite impossible.
This game was made as a "FAVOR" to the fans' outcry for a PC version. But it is not a "FAVOR" when that "FAVOR" carries a hefty price tag.
First of all I agree that music is art. It's a reflection of society and its wants desires passions and frustrations. But if a musician performs something an audience doesn't want to hear they are booed off stage. Just as Bob Dylan was booed off stage when he went electric. Musicians, like The Beatles, who were more in tuned to society's climate and the generation growing in it went through great lengths to adapt their music to what the audience wanted to hear. I wouldn't compare video games to any great musician. But if I did make a comparison it would be that musicians gain audiences by listening to what their fans want to hear and lose fans when they don't listen to what they want to hear.
You said, "If creators are willing to change the fundamentals of their art just because the audience didn't like it, then clearly those creators didn't care all that much about what they were doing or saying in the first place. "
Interactive role based video games are governed by rules with goal-based interactivities that present a malleability that would otherwise ruin real forms of art. If a video game is being changed by the audience while he or she makes choices while playing, how is this any different than a company listening to a customer's feedback about a game and using that feedback to change what is bad or not popular in a game?
Also the interactive dynamics of video games makes your comparison of video games to great works of literature asinine. The stories and endings of great literature can't change since they are incapable of being altered or controlled by the readers. Video games are expensive products sold to hard working consumers who have the right to complain and to give negative feedback when the companies that make and put out these games sell us defective and inferior products. We also have the right to tell off bought off cubicle trolls, such as yourself, who think that they are self-appointed leaders of an imaginary new world order funded by game developers and publishers, and call them boot lickers and hypocrites to their own profession.
Another example of lapdog journalism from GameSpot. The BBB has been corrupt for years. I trust the BBB about as much as I trust a GS game review. Better Business Bureau Sells Its Grades. 20/20 Investigation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8kfV9kONw Terror Group Gets 'A' Rating From Better Business Bureau http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/business-bureau-best-ratings-money-buy/story?id=12123843#.T2zlDtWNlCA BBB Members get the benefit of the doubt, time and again, and employees of the Better Business Bureau smother complaints against members before they ever show up on a member’s record and dismiss complaints as not qualifying as a complaints. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/your-money/13haggler.html?_r=1&hp BBB memberships buy businesses what could politely be called the benefit of the doubt. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/your-money/27haggler.html?pagewanted=all Dispute resolution is provided for a cost to the customer. (As seen from the BBB website.) http://www.bbb.org/us/Dispute-Resolution-Services/Process/ And some BBB chapters like Austin, TX refuse to resolve complaints against companies if customers do not pay a $70 "mediation fee". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Business_Bureau#cite_note-28 More information on the corrupt history of the BBB. (Which to this day is still not committed to full public disclosure of factual limitations and of fees paid on reliability reports.) http://www.betterethicsbureau.org/
EA Control-Issue Child: Why are you here? Shepard: What? Where am I? EA Control-Issue Child: The EA complaint department. This is my home. Shepard: Who are you? Why are you here? EA Control-Issue Child: I am the catalyst. I am the controller of the game. Shepard: But I thought I could contol my own outcome of the game. I thought my choices mattered. EA Control-Issue Child: (laughs evily) No. Like you the game is simply a tool. One that has been reclaimed by EA to make absolutely no sense, so we can make money selling DLCs to you. Shepard: You're ruining game series and taking advantage of your customers. I'm going to stop you. EA Control-Issue Child: (snorts in contempt)There's nothing you can do. All the major game review sites are mine. I bought them off and control them. They are my solution in convincing video game customers like you that all EA games are great and they should buy them no matter what the price of the game is. Shepard: Well I have news for you that will put a dent in your plans. EA Control-Issue Child: (laughs sarcastically) What? What could a petty customer say that could possibly have any effect on my grand schemes? Shepard: Nobody believes review sites anymore and they aren't buying any more of your games. EA Control-Issue Child: NO...........!!!! The EA Control-Issue Child fades into a few ramdom pixels and then is no more and the gaming world is once again free of the tyranny of the Evil EA Empire.
Actually it's not a matter of semantics and logistics. It's a matter of a company lying to customers in order to make money from them. Also, this isn't the only issue that customers are having with BioWare and EA. A simple Google search will show you the many other issues customers are having with both companies. In regards to the DLC: "The content in From Ashes was developed by a separate team after the core game was finished and not completed until well after the the main game went into certification." BioWare Mass Effect 3 Associate Producer Michael Gamble (February 22, 2012) http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/323/index/9403705/1 "We would never take stuff out of the core game and only have it in DLC" BioWare Mass Effect 3 Executive Producer Casey Hudson (March 2, 2012) http://www.oxm.co.uk/39384/mass-effect-3-dlc-is-sugar-on-top-always-optional/ Although I agree in part to what you wrote and I give you props to writing anything remotely pro-player, I feel that the fact that BioWare blatantly lied to its customers about the DLC should've been included in your article. Also, I feel that customers' issues with the DLC aren't just a singular problem with BioWare and EA, but part of many multifaceted issues that all stem from the corruption and greed of both companies. You said that the solution to the problem is for us to let the publishers know how we feel. I think Gamespot should do the same by stop plugging games like these and honestly review them.
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