@MooncalfReviews

You are seeing Alan Wake as art due to the story, which could be told in any medium. The story's premise is not the game itself. Both flower and journey work only in the videogame medium, and as such are much more representative of art in a videogame.

Also, a game being about art doesn't make it art itself.

Besides, you know Alan Wake's premise was not that of introspection or art appreciation, nor was that the reason people bought the game, and most of those buyers did not even think of it as art. If you truly feel it is art, understand it is so indirectly, whilst journey and flower are actively pursuing that distinction, and are publicly recognized as such.

"Art isn't just about visuals and music"

You're right. And it fits, since the reason both journey and flower are considered art isn't solely due to those two components, but gameplay and other things as well. It's the game as a whole that makes it art.

"Journey and Flower aren't as damn artistic as the makers seem to think, so PS owners aren't being particularly cultured."

Your opinion on the "level of art" a pair of games are given makes the PSN demographics fake? The games are generally seen as being art in videogame form, the average PS3 owner is older than Xbox (due to the PS1 and PS2 era, the people who grew up then are more likely to have a PS3). As for being cultured, besides that being correlated with age, the PS3 and its library are seen as being more varied than the Xbox counterparts.

@Laura Parker Also, as not every painting can be called art, not every game deserves that recognition. ME3 is a good game, yes, but art? Highly subjective, not as factual as you're implying. Besides, even if it is art, it is a , its finished! Games are interactive by their very nature, unlike most classic works of art. That means they can change even after they're made, via patches, expansions, DLC, etc. You don't want a different ending? Don't get the DLC, it's not like we're asking for Bioware to remove the ending, only to add a better one. In a game that values player choice above everything, a DLC ending that allows just that would be showing proper respect for fans of the franchise, despite whatever self-righteous entitled game journalists have to say on the matter.

@Laura Parker "You have written several articles for this website. BioWare should ignore every single one of them." [quote]As any work of art, Mass Effect 3 should be discussed, dissected, and critiqued. It doesn't have to be loved. It doesn't even have to be liked. But none of this requires BioWare to listen. [/quote] You know what requires Bioware to listen? Their paycheck, that comes from gamers that like/love their product. You say ME3 doesn't have to be liked/loved? That Bioware doesn't have to listen? Sure, if they want to go bankrupt. , not to stroke the ego of snobby art enthusiasts. Why are you on this website if you believe otherwise? [quote]As paying consumers, gamers have the right to be dissatisfied with a game, its content, or its ending. They are free to comment, rant, or rave. They are even free to start a petition. [/quote] This whole article seems to claim otherwise. You say we're free to do it, but want us to be ignored? Just be honest and say you don't want gamers to do it. [quote]While this petition only represents the feelings and voices of a very small subset of the gaming community[/quote] Bioware listened to the LGBT minority on sexual preference diversity in their game. Why should this be any different? I think the ending affected a lot more people than sexual preference diversity, yet one gets heard and the other doesn't? Are you saying one minority is far more important than the other?

@billlabowski [quote]I'm one of those people who thinks that kids do not have any rights at all except basic human rights, until they are 18.[/quote] No. Annoying or not they still have rights beyond the basics. What they need is a proper education, and their lousy parents need it as well. Also, I was capable of being responsible for my actions as well as respectful towards others many years before I turned 18. A simple age cap will do no good. Some kids can be much better than some adults ever will be. Education is the main variable here, not age.

Post 4/4 But that isn't bad PR. This is: People getting warned or banned for entering high level areas with a lower level character or other minor things, as well as a UK campaign that misused a governmental petition system, warning and ignoring people that mentioned that misuse on the official forums, as well as allowing little to no negative opinions. The "Cancel Subscription" button disapearing during the first few days (they said it was a bug that caused it) and banning everyone that posted in the forums how to bypass that "bug" so you could cancel your subscription, one of the writers being arrogant and posting snide remarks on the forums against constructive criticism before this whole thing started, saying people that didn't like the changes weren't the fans the game was meant for, telling them they could go away (which they did, only to be replaced by other, more vocal and a lot less constructive complaints), among plenty other things that should have been dealt with in a much better way than this. When everything is put together, it leads to this. Not saying its ok to hate on ME3 or Bioware, but while I'm not supportive of spouting crap and screaming loudly on the Internet, I do believe Bioware could be doing alot better than this, and that its time to change. Sadly it seems no one at big companies like EA and Bioware listens to constructive criticism, you need to pull the gay card" and go ALL CAPS to get attention.

@Everyone Post 1/4 Myself, I don't really care about who's gay and who isn't, as long as they stay true to character. Not that I even pay attention or care about video game relationships anyways, other than the different endings they might provide. I can tell you, the game having gay relationships isn't whats causing this, regardless of what you or Kevin (who I consider the best reviewer here at Gamespot, btw) might think. Some of the people complaining might be homophobic, but if the relationships were the only thing they and others had against the game we wouldn't be talking so much about this. Being a regular visitor in 4 chan, where this whole thing started, makes me able to see why this happened, as it is a result from several different factors: Day1 DLC Hepler (the Writer) Dumbing down gameplay Dragon Age 2 "Action Mode" Multiplayer The Old Republic I will attempt to explain everything in detail over my following posts.

An editorial I can most definitely agree with. Some of my favorite games got average scores, but I still played hundreds of hours on them. I think we all have at least one game we like a lot yet didn't get great review scores, no?

@Sythion [quote]I think Jennifer's suggestion is great (...) Gameplay needs to involve the entire gaming experience, not just combat. Help grow the industry people. Don't be a cancer.[/quote] Did you read her original interview? [quote]A fast forward button would give all players -- not just women -- the same options that we have with books or DVDs -- to skim past the parts we don't like and savor the ones we do. Over and over, women complain that they don't like violence, or they [/quote] She doesn't want / isn't interested in gameplay. And she's entitled to that opinion. However, the option she wants, if implemented how she is describing it, would break a game. An option in the main menu that allows you to watch the whole story without gameplay interruptions is much preferable to just including a skip button during the main game. Because with a skip button available for both story and gameplay content would mean you can essentially skip the whole game from start to finish, and that isn't a great idea.

@GabrielOnuris You start by saying this: [quote]I can't believe I'm reading rude comments in here too! C'mon people!!![/quote] But follow up with this? [quote]Very well, don't skip it; but what if you want? What if your girlfriend wants? Oh, you don't have one, sorry.[/quote] You're not helping.

@Laura Parker *continuing from my previous comment* If you want to play a game consisting solely of dialogue options, you have a genre of Japanese games with that exact game mechanic. To want to implement it in every story-heavy game is ridiculous. Do you know what finishing a game is called? It's called WINNING the game. If you just skip to the ending you're not winning (or even interacting with) anything, there is no challenge or objective or anything at all but some 3d models of characters talking to each other without any player input, and that is NOT a game, so you might as well just go read a book or watch a movie. But I do agree that if you're only interested in the story and wish for something more graphical than a book or movie adaptation (that aren't always good or available) you could get an option the main game that lets you watch the story, like plenty of games that let you watch cutscenes outside the main game. To include a skip option on the gameplay would need a skip option on the story to be fair to those only interested in the gameplay, which would essentially provide a skip option for the entire game. And that is nothing short of ridiculous.