Unless they don't sell it. They're maintaining that this ending achieved a purpose by leading to discussion and speculation. Could be they wanted the ending to do that, invite a month of meaningful discussion, than reveal the Truth. They want us to think critically about what we saw. If they charge us for the Truth, then yeah, #^&@ them. But I don't think it's impossible that they consider the "real" ending a part of the base game, and they're just making us wait for it and discuss, like some sort of social experiment. It could be that most of the assets are already there on our hard drives, they just need to be activated.

I think your giving them too much credit.

That sounds like trolling to me.

There's absolutely no reason for them to not put the proper endings in the game, other than publicity. If it turns out to be true, basically they're indicating to their customers that they're willing to abuse them for the company's own ends. Not great PR.

But Infinity Ward does that every other year, and people still buy their crap.

Even without that, their PR has been hit badly.
Hell I actually think they are worse than activsion at this point. I have seen others with similar views.

IW hasnt developed content with the game, then sold it as day 1 dlc.
IW hasnt called fans entitled for legitimate complaints.
IW hasnt got a forums, where they censor everything negative, and ban you over petty [censored].

Lets not forget, how one guy lost access to his games, after getting a forum ban. IW treats its fanbase, much better than Bioware imo.

Why not? Hadn't the series, even the third game, been exceptional up to that ending? If it'd been terrible, we wouldn't even be discussing the ending. We wouldn't care. Why does the quality drop off so dramatically within the last 15 minutes. At the most important point in the series, the point where it ends.

To me it just seemed strange that the ending was so bad. It seemed uncharacteristic. Every story to that point had been giving a fulfilling, well-executed conclusion. Then the main story arc gets a feeble conclusion that leaves us frustrated and confused? Seems like there has to be more to it ...

I don't know what that is, but I'm sure they don't have geeks rushing their forums every day and wondering about what their games' characters' sweat tastes like. IOW, they probably have few or no rabid fans.


Both are big and bad.


Interesting. I like your version. But that should have been in the game. Or else, there should have been more of a denoument indicating it. There wasn't. You're giving them too much credit. ME has consisted solely of sci-fi cliche.

Not really. The series has been horrible since ME2 imo. I am discussing this becuase im bored.
It drops, becuase the devs had no idea what they were doing, and went "oh [censored] its the end, what do we do ?".

They remind me of Peter Molyneux. They promised lots of things, but failed to deliver any of them. Atleast Peter ctually tried though... Not even an epilouge.

If any follow-up is free? It's an interesting approach. It's certainly new. A phony ending intended to encourage a massive group discussion about the ethics of the three choices, then the proper ending. What lessons did we learn and how do we apply them when we have real decisions to make during the proper ending? If that's the way it is, it's bold and it's unique and it'll be talked about for a long time. I would not hold it against BioWare.

Again, if they set a precedent in the industry for withholding a proper ending then charging for it? Inexcusable and deplorable. I would not defend it, I would not touch any ME3 DLC's, and I'd probably avoid any BioWare products in the future. I'm not arguing otherwise. I'm just not discounting the possibility that a proper end will be free.

It's certainly an odd situation. It's kind of fascinating to watch also, seeing the Bioware forums explode, compelling in a really odd way. I guess where there’s the possibility for people to become emotionally invested in something then this kind of thing will happen. Look at Firefly and its cancellation.

Finished playing yesterday morning and was just blank after the ending (Pre-ordered N7 edition). All I could think was -Seriously? Was someone trying to be a smarty pants and really, really misjudged it? Someone trying to have artistic and ambiguous aspirations without having the chops to pull it off? Or did someone just have a major derp moment?

The previous 99% of the game as well as Mass Effects 1 and 2 were also brilliant. Having that ending, might as well refer to it as one ending as aside from some colour pallete changes there’s not much overall difference. Esspecially when including the feeling that all that time spent gathering War Assets, building alliances, essentially playing the game was largely pointless with the conclusion that you got. Feel sorry for people that paid for multiplayer on Xbox just to increase that ridiculous Galactic Readiness rating in the hope of getting the “best” ending. Thank you save editor for sparing me the tedious multiplayer grindfest…

The thing that stands out the most to me though is how the people that are unhappy, they make the distinction to refer to themselves as fans. Why do that? You’re a customer, you bought a product that can be seen to have been flawed compared to its advertising. Feeling the need to state you are a fan of it seems kind of pointless. Same with the arguments over artistic integrity. You make it interactive, market it in such a way then fall short of that and it’s no wonder there’s going to be a backlash. Worry less about proving fan credentials and concentrate on being a customer that expected a product that fit its description.

I’d be interested to see how many copies of the game have been returned, how many subscriptions to other Bioware properties have been cancelled. There have been a couple of people registering complaints with the FTC. It’s publicity for the game sure but is it really the type of publicity EA or Bioware really want? On the plus side the Childsplay fundraising is a really good thing.

It’s unfortunate that this has happened but they must have seen this coming with the ending they included. If they’re trying to play an angle and have an extension to the story then they’ve handled it really, really badly. Even more infuriating when the rest of the game, its atmosphere, involvement, characters and story were terrific. Beautiful soundtrack as well. Much <3 for Garrus as well!

See, here's the problem. You like my version better than what BioWare provided and ask me not to credit them too much. But I don't think for a minute that BioWare isn't better at this than I am. I'm a writer, and I can be pretty creative, but the ME series is far better than anything I could have pulled off, even if I really exerted myself. I have to give them more credit than I could possibly give myself. So the only conclusion I can draw is that that wasn't the real ending. They have to be planning more.

The indoctrination theory video is proof that BioWare sort of telegraphed that something's amiss about the ending. The "perfect" ending scene is another clue. Heck, the plot holes may even be clues:

One reason is that the game was rushed, and that they didn't have time to implement a "true" ending, intending to release it later.

I doubt all of that, but it seems to be a possibility.

Please, if they gave the endings they promised we would not only be praising them and taking about all the variations but people would be going back and potentially buying all the old games and DLC to see what impact They had on the end, peoe would have forgotten about the day 1 removed content to be sold back and went and bought that too. Not to mention how well any other DLC would be received. I think you are just doing some wishful thinking.

Post limit.