Amid controversy, Mass Effect 3 still amassed huge praise from critics and widespread success, selling 890,000 units on launch day in North America alone. While those numbers are favourable, it's the controversies that surfaced after which dominated the conversation. From day-one downloadable content to the multiple endings to Tali's identity, the seemingly inescapable wealth of troubles have rattled BioWare's reputation amongst its faithful and cast ubiquitous doubt over future games.
The troubles have amounted to fans taking an unusual stand: start a petition to change the ending. Likely this won't amount to anything concrete, but a petition is definitely a sign of the displeasure and passion fans feel toward the franchise. Not to enter spoiler territory, but the three possible endings are particularly grim, and those advocating a change wish for happier times. Personally, I found the endings abrupt; commentary to reveal the ramifications of your choices would've been better.
The critical response to BioWare has served rather fortunate for Capcom, battling its own problems. Also released this week was Street Fighter x Tekken, and the fighting community is up in fisticuffs because of on-disc content. Twelve characters, meant as DLC and to be unlocked this fall, are already on the disc, yet Capcom claims this is to balance 'compatibility'.
Of course, what Capcom is saying is purely dishonest. It's been a standard for multiplayer components of most games to be compatible, not just limited to the fighting genre. This is a blatant attempt to monetize an anticipated game, and Capcom certainly isn't the first (and aren't the last) to sham consumers.
Because of a well-crafted PR response, some sites have shown sympathy, saying this saves Capcom the trouble of releasing a "super" version later. First of all, Capcom will release another version regardless because fans will blindly purchase it in droves. Secondly, "ensuring the smooth transition for DLC" is beautifully woven PR language, and apparently it has worked.
Normally I don't watch the Angry Joe Show, but he puts it far more eloquently than I ever could:
It's difficult to assume where both cases are going. But it's been an interesting month so far. Jeff out.
Whilst I think these two cases are good examples of bad DLC policies, I really wonder whether gamers even understand why the developers and publishers feel the need to do this.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is, they're not profitable enough right now. And I'm betting the people who are complaining most vocally about these DLC policies are also the ones that either wait for most games to go on sale, or buy second hand games.
Sorry guys, you can't have your cake and eat it to. Gamers (and the retailers, they're not blameless with their damaging bias towards pushing second hand sales) need to take some responsibility for overly commitising the games industry.
I'm torn on some of this stuff. On the one hand, I tend to buy my games used. Or at least used to probably 9 times out of 10. The last year? Probably 50/50 or even 3/4 of my titles were new. The reason was usually either due to the DLC included or because I just had to play that game ASAP and didn't wait - or some combination of those two factors.
ReplyDeleteStill, the idea that the content is on the disc is sort of odd - seems like if you're buying the game and the disc, you should have access to the content. For some reason, that bugs me even more than first-day DLC. Honestly both of those things bug me a lot less than online passes. Still, it feels like DLC is something that should be coming out months after a release, to add life to a game you already have and like.