Electronic Arts has had a weird week. It extended multiple olive branches to its audience, both to embittered fans still raging about the ending of Mass Effect 3 and to gay players suffering from underrepresentation in video games. It was also named the worst company in America by approximately 250,000 people.
First, accolades for EA. Speaking with GamesIndustry International, the company defended the inclusion of same sex relationships in Star Wars: The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3. The publisher has received “several thousand” letters and emails from people complaining about same-sex content. Its response? If you don’t like it, too bad. “Every one of the EA’s games includes ESRB content descriptions so it’s hard to believe anyone is surprised by the content,” said EA vice president of corporate communications Jeff Brown. “This isn’t about protecting children, it’s about political harassment.” No same-sex content will be censored in EA’s games.
On the very same day that EA defended diversity in its games, it was named the “winner” in Consumerist’s Worst Company in America tournament. A quarter of a million readers voted for the game publisher primarily for its price gouging and corporate imperialism that’s seen it gobble up independent studios like Mass Effect creators BioWare. That game in particular demonstrates just how complicated EA’s relationship with consumers has gotten.
As covered previously here at Digital Trends, fans loathed the ending of Mass Effect 3 so much that EA promised it would make new endings for the game. EA announced preliminary details for that additional ending content, named Mass Effect: Extended Cut on Thursday morning. Not only will it work to satisfy fans disappointed by the content in the retail version of the game, it’s making that content free to download until 2014.
What at first seems like a gesture of good will may just be canny public relations maneuvering though.
It’s still unclear just how “new” this additional content will be. Commander Shepard voice actress Jennifer Hale said in an interview with Edge on Wednesday that she has not been contacted by EA or BioWare to record any new dialogue for Mass Effect. If Shepard herself won’t have new content prepared for the Extended Cut, that suggests that BioWare has had this new ending content planned for the game all along.
Mass Effect executive producer Casey Hudson’s comments in the press release announcing the Extended Cut reinforce this. By saying that BioWare has re-prioritized its “post-launch development,” he’s really saying that EA and BioWare have simply shuffled their schedule for DLC, not decided to backpedal and create wholly new content for the game that addresses fan concerns.
If it turns out that EA has simply decided to make already-planned downloadable content free to mollify noisy, angry fans, that fact will be even more disturbing than if EA had simply shipped a game with a shoddily written ending. It will mean that EA and BioWare had planned all along to provide an ending vague enough to lure players into spending more on a story they’ve already paid for.
It’s choices like this that get you named the Worst Company in America, Electronic Arts. That title seems overly harsh though, especially considering your good words on behalf of the LGBT community. How about the title “Company Staffed by Somewhat Decent Human Beings That Makes Unsavory Business Decisions to Satisfy Angry Shareholders Still Upset That EA Isn’t Returning Profits Like They Were in 2007?”
My problem with the “gay” thing (besides it being completely repugnant) is that they are making NPC’s bisexual… If you want to do it ME3 style, and have a gay character in there as a romance option, then fine. But don’t make every character in the story bisexual (a la Dragon Age.) That is ridiculous, unnecessary, and just plain bad from a narrative standpoint.
(*SPOILERS*) Making it’s peace would really involve a new ending attached to the existing one, allowing you to argue with the “god-child” since his logic is flawed and just accepting it doesn’t make sense for any Shepard anyone has played since ME1/2. The “epilogue” they’ve been telling us their making doesn’t make peace with the fans and gamers, it just adds some after thought, which doesn’t stop the game ending from making no sense as far as the universe (exploding Mass Relays destroy whole star systems), the characters (at least 4 of the main love interests suggest through the course just how important you are to them…. and then leave you to die alone without a second thought), or Mass Effect as it has existed up until now (choice is key, Shepard never gives up, and most people if not all would argue with crazy little “god-child”!). But that’s just my thoughts.
EA Games has been on my hit list all the way back to the days of the Westwood Games buyout. They shut down Earth and Beyond before it even had a chance. I vowed never to play anygame they are tied to.
EA is not out of the fire yet. The confidence of many of their consumers have been shaken, who wants to support a company who has been voted as the worst. It is also a bit to early to say that peace has been restored with the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy cooling down, but can come back like a bad habit when the Extended cut DLC is released.
The Mass Effect 3 Extended cut is an opportunity to win back confidence but it could also backfire and make things worse by encouraging customers to look for greener pastures. Sure, there are other EA titles but I have not seen many of them mentioned when I Google Electronic arts.
Mass effect 3 has become the embodiment of the frustrations customers has and are experiencing with EA and no amount of PR and marketing will be able to repair the damage in the relationship between EA and customers if the Extended cut DLC is released and it turns out to be a even bigger disappointment.
The best for EA would be if they allow Bioware to go All Out. Sure, it will be a time and financial loss but at the moment the best PR solution would be a high customer satisfaction with the release of the DLC.
A bit of positive publicity would be nice or what do you thing EA/Bioware?
EA is an Awesome company, because a large group of self entitled people don’t like what they bought…. BOOHOO, I think I hear their mommies calling. what if some didn’t like the Mona Lisa as a brunette we all going to cry and demand a blonde HAWWWWWW ” I see Stewpid people and they don’t even know their DUMB” . LOL
They don’t know THEY’RE dumb, huh? Actually, a large group of people don’t appreciate false advertising… and they also don’t appreciate bad grammar and spelling, just FYI. BioWare specifically promised that they wouldn’t be writing something as simple as an A/B/C ending (SPOILER ALERT), but that is exactly what the ending consists of – Choice A, B, or C. They promised no less than a total of 17 possible outcomes, but there are only 6 variations on the 3 endings Oh, and by the way, the 3 endings are almost completely identical. Look it up on youtube, ME3 ending comparison. Regardless of what our opinion is of the ending, the fact remains that we did not receive what we were promised, and that is false advertising, whether you see Stewpid people or not.
People are mad for reasons more than just personal tastes. They provide poor costumer service, buy out their competitors, and don’t listen to their costumers. Btw, learn how to spell stupid before calling other people “Stewpid” kid.
god its comments like this that make me realise that there are still people in the world who need to grow the hell up. Comparing the Mona Lisa to ME3 is like comparing a car to a submarine, both used for travel but in different ways so there are only very small similarities, ergo both a painting and a game are a form of art but in different ways. In hollywood films are often screened for critics before the release, and if the critics completely pan it then guess what, changes are made. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t happen all the time but it has happened. Plus an artist who paints will have a certain criteria that they are obligated to adher to if requested, that’s fact and pure commmon sense. If you requested a certain work from a painter with a clear outlay of what you wanted and they didn’t deliver it after they had your money, your damn right you’re going to complain. The same argument can be said of ME3, they outlined everything we could expect before the game, no bespoke endings, every choice would matter and they didn’t deliver that, so as a consumer you have a right to voice your dissatissfaction with the fact that you were fed a complete load of rubbish during the marketing campaign which as another commenter has already pointed out is false advertisement. Regarless of your personal opinion of the matter you obviously do not understand the complaint itself or your have managed to grasp the meaning of the ending and if that is the case I applaud your astuteness for being able to decipher such a plot-ridden, speculative ending.