Last year there was a huge uproar over the ending of Mass Effect 3. A lot of people felt the vague and ambiguously flat ending left a lot to be desired, and so BioWare had made some extended ending DLC for free... but it wasn't always going to be free.
Geek Gamerz picked up a quote from the panel where BioWare was attending PAX Australia, and it was none other than Chris Priestly – yes I know, I know, many of you BioWare community members aren't fond of this guy – who cleared the air about the company's intentions with the DLC and whether it would be free or not...
“Probably shouldn’t say this; there was discussion if it should it be charged,” … “And Casey Hudson [executive producer] said ‘No, we can’t do that. We have to make this better. We can do a better job finishing the game, providing clarity, answering some questions.’ And it was very important to the team to end it as best as possible. ”
Wow, what a face-turn for Case Hudson in this case. It's all very interesting given that if we remember correctly, Hudson was the one that the company used to defend the game on most media fronts, which basically caused the fire to rise like the burning desire for control and dominance in the Scottish/Prussian/Irish(?) heart of Bane.
Poor Casey became the media punching bag by angry fans and disgruntled gamers alike who felt as if BioWare was abandoning its own fanbase in order to suckle the financial udder of Electronic Arts.
Priestly's admission to the potential charging of the ending DLC also did not got unnoticed in the community, as it was widely suspected that the ending DLC would carry a price tag on it, with many joking that it would be about $20 for the true ending similar to Asura's Wrath, or that it may not have been intended to be free at all.
However, Priestly picks up the fumble and carries it to the endzone for a few points considering that he really works hard to paint Hudson as the baby face in the matter, as opposed to the flaming heel that he appeared to be during the initial fallout.
Priestly went on to say that...
“...it was the right thing to do [to fix the endings]”... “It would have been really easy for them to have hidden. To have put their heads down and said, “nope, we’re done. That’s it. DLC coming next month. They didn’t. And it’s hard; it’s really hard when you’ve put stuff in as a dev team for years making this game to have people say how bad it is. But they didn’t. They listened and they made the Extended Cut because it was the right thing to do and release it for free to the fans because again, it was the right thing to do.”
He does have a point, because that's exactly what happened with EA and Maxis after the modders/hackers managed to enable and provide the general gaming public with an offline mode for SimCity after EA and Maxis vehemently defended their stance in saying that it was simply not possible. Shortly thereafter, Maxis and EA went into hiding and only re-emerged to sell indignantly livid gamers some additional DLC to “fix the game”.
It looks like BioWare has learned from their mistakes and they really want to repair their relationship with the community in order to work out some decent sales for the upcoming Dragon Age: Inquisition.
(Ending parody image courtesy of Dorkly.com)
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