Essay talk:Mass Effect and the entitlement problem

Bob Soles' take on this

One of my alter egos writes internet porn erotica which gives me a very definite perspective on this. Porn is such a personal thing that I get lots and lots of feedback when my stories don't go exactly the way a particular reader wants. I sometimes wonder if my readers understand what I'm writing - I try to give a little more depth than "her DD breast swayed delightfully as he pounded his twelve inch manhood into her juicy..." well, you get the gist.

And here's the rub. I don't get paid so what do I do it for? Well, I do it for the applause. As such my biggest moment was getting one of my stories into the Literotica top ten (Yay me!). But to do that I need to provide what the reader wants and what the reader wants is "her DD breast swayed delightfully..." etc. Where do I draw the line between artistic integrity (don't laugh, please) and the desire to sell, or get readers at least. How much should I be driven by the need to tell the story and how much by the need to provide the reader with the desired stimulation?

For me, at the end of the day, I have to say that I don't care how "entitled" my readers feel. It's my work, my effort, my man hours and, if they don't like it, don't read it. It's my choice as the 'artist' to decide where I draw the line between integrity and commercialism - even if I don't actually sell my work. The fans don't have an entitlement beyond voting with their wallet - or in my case the voting button - however much they might feel they do.

Having said that, were my livelihood to depend on my 'art' then I might give the fans the impression that they had some entitlement.

Bob Soles (talk) 11:31, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Doing it for pay is a whole different problem, because the shareholder analogy with fans becomes somewhat more apt. However, that comes back down to the whole clusterfuck of "what is art?" and whether you can maintain this pretension that what you're doing it more meaningful and artistic when you are just catering for needs. My view on this is that even if you are making money from it, your primary purpose is to affect your readership in some way. That means getting under their skin however the hell you like, and giving the fans what they need, not what they want. The best current example I can tell is with Castle. Obviously, what the fans want is for the sexual tension to break and for Castle and Beckett to just fucking well get together, but that would destroy the entire point of the series beyond recognition and it would be broken beyond repair. Sometimes, even if you are doing it to please people, it can be about not giving people what they want. ^{d hominem} 11:41, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Long rant

Choices are limited yes, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be any choices. Take for example the genophage. Do you cure it or not is the most obvious choice, but there are other variables: is Wrex alive? Does Eve survive? The outcomes could be vastly different, with the genophage cured and Wrex and Eve alive, the game heavily hints at there being a brighter future for the krogan (except the ending screws everything up, Wrex is stuck on Earth, and there are no mass relays so the krogan are now all stuck on a dead planet that won't be able to support them once they start shagging like bunnies); alternatively, with Wrex and Eve dead, a repeat of the krogan rebellions is just a few centuries if not decades away (except, once again, the crappy ending prevents that too).

And since they planned to end the series here, they could've diverged drastically, without needing to later account for each branch.

Then there are the other issues with the ending. I don't know if you know this, but the original idea by Drew Kapryshyn was that every 50000 years stars begin to explode because of some dark energy problem (Haestrom is an early sign of this happening again), and the reapers culling advanced civilizations resets the timer. Every cycle the most promising species is turned into a reaper, with the hope that this new reaper can permanently fix the problem. Harbinger was the first reaper, the first species to recognize the problem. They couldn't fix it, so they sacrificed themselves and turned themselves into a reaper, to at least temporarily delay the destruction of the galaxy, and have a shot at fixing it later. The Asari were up next, but the Protheans' meddling with the Keepers delayed the cycle. The Rachni wars were started by Sovereign, that was his attempt to take the citadel (like with the geth in ME1), but it failed thanks to the Krogan.

Meanwhile, Humans entered the galactic stage. Humans are special in ME because they are diverse, unlike other species, and this is what the reapers think would fix the dark energy problem... that's why they start building a human reaper in ME2. However, time is running out, with only a few centuries left before stars start to go nova all over the galaxy. In the original ending for the series, you'd be given a choice: sacrifice humanity and indeed fix the problem, or tell the reapers to screw themselves, and then you're left with a few centuries to fix it yourself. It's not a great ending, but still satisfactory, it gives you two vastly different outcomes, and it also fits the bittersweet label that they really wanted to force.

What we got instead: the reapers go away/are destroyed (doesn't matter, it's the same), mass relays are destroyed, galaxy is thrown back into pre-spaceflight for thousands of years (that's how I interpret the stargazer scene), and optionally everyone gets glowy green lines on their skins. No divergence, makes no sense, throws away all the foreshadowing, makes all your choices pointless (see above about the genophage for example). Basically it feels like they really wanted that Stargazer scene in the end, with Shepard becoming a legend on a pre-spaceflight civilization thousands of years later, and forced that without any regard for anything else. That's why they have the Normandy racing away from Earth for no reason, and the Mass Relays blowing up - so that whether Earth survives or not doesn't change that last scene.

And let's not get started on all the plot holes, this comment is long enough. Prometheus (talk) 11:52, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, I never actually played Mass Effect so I couldn't give a flying fuck about the specifics. ^moral 11:55, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I assumed you had played the games. Ok, to sum it up: the game ended two of its subplots (the genophage and the geth/quarian conflict) in a satisfactory manner, with multiple vastly different outcomes (that are then made irrelevant to a large degree by the game's ending). They could've done that for the ending too, especially since it was supposed to be the end of the franchise, so they didn't have to worry about branching plotlines, but they screwed up. That's probably because the two head guys, Casey Hudson and Mac Walters, wrote the ending alone and without review from the rest of the team, unlike the rest of the game. And it shows.

It's interesting you bring up Battlestar Galactica, because the situation is very similar. In both cases they had a fixed outcome they wanted to have (stargazer scene/colonials arriving at Earth in the distant past and being our ancestors), but then they couldn't come up with a way to get there that makes sense. Prometheus (talk) 18:17, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Not really a rant, but a perspective.

I think that one of the key factors in this situation is not just that it's an ending, but that we have had two endings before this one that haven't been this way. Especially ME1. Both of them made me feel, at least, like I accomplished something. If the series as a whole is just one larger story, a succession of semi-climaxes leading up to a crescendo in the final installment, then the last 10 minutes of ME3 make this a story without a final climax that's appropriate to the rest of the story. Not only that, those last 10 minutes seemed to totally redefine and ignore the rest of the series, thus retroactively making all of those fun, cool moments that people just did worse.

And it was sold as the be-all, end-all of the ME story. It was sold as something good, on the trust of the franchise, all but asking people to be uncritical with it. I sort of feel people see this like a normally-trustworthy company sending out a bum product. They can show that it's a fraud and the company will recall it and apologize for their lack of quality control.

I don't think that it's really the best thing to expect. Bioware is not really the same kind of company as the kind that can do that easily. But in all of my time writing fanfiction, there is one thing that is never, EVER OK. Writing something that is total crap and then asking people to tell you it's good anyway. THAT is what entitlement is. Publishing anything is like getting up on stage and performing for an audience. If you douse yourself in fish guts, take off your pants, and throw rotten eggs at the other people on stage, the audience is not wrong to tell you it stinks. Calling them entitled whiners is almost the same as a horrid fanfiction writer (or a defender of said fanfiction, as with all of the counter-fans against the criticism) whining about all the flames they're getting. Critics expect the artist to take criticism. They don't have to change their work, but if the work is bad, creating later work that is then not-bad, based on the criticism they got, is what criticism is supposed to do. No one tells another person they are wrong without wanting them to be a little more right.

Expecting ME3 to change? I think that's a liiiitle bit out there, but maybe not as much as you'd think because of the availability of DLC updates. I don't expect it to. But it's fully within their capabilities to do such a thing, and if they did, they'd get a head start on winning back their audience that just watched them dance the fish guts dance on stage. Without it, they'll have to wait for the next game they develop to try and win back the fans they lost with this one. And many won't be willing to listen. But Bioware can do whatever they want. They just won't get my money if they keep doing this. And I think that's the same for a lot of other people out there. And with the way The Old Republic started out (shaky, after an enormous investment) Bioware had better be glad for any people who support them at all. ±KnightOfTL;DR^{critical thinking is the key to success!} 13:12, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

They can show that it's a fraud and the company will recall it and apologize for their lack of quality control. Fraud?? Really? Fraud? Whether you liked it or not I see no reason not to believe that the writers thought it was good. OK, so you don't share their vision, and, based on this, you won't be buying any more of their products but demanding that they recall it and calling it a fraud. That goes way beyond. I thought that the Star War prequels were crap and bitterly disappointed when I paid good money to see them but I don't go demanding that they're recalled and calling them a fraud. I just know that my vision and Lucas' are different. You can refuse to go to shows with dancing fish guts but you can't tell those who want to dance with fish guts that they're wrong, only that you don't like their art. Bob Soles (talk) 13:33, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

c.f Bob Dylan getting booed for going electric. Bob Soles (talk) 13:37, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't see it as a problem of art. As someone who writes, I see it as a problem of craft. It was poorly crafted, poorly constructed, poorly conceived, and poorly executed. I suppose you can defend anything if you call it art. But there's also an element of craftsmanship in any piece. This one was poorly crafted. It didn't hold up. Sure, it may have been someone's vision. But everything is someone's vision. It doesn't really matter if that item, be it story or be it tool, is flimsy and badly-made. Art is subjective. Construction isn't. The ending didn't further the story, didn't finish the story, and just didn't to the things and ending is supposed to do. If you want to call that art, fine. It's art. But that doesn't mean it was well-made, well-thought-out, or useful as a part of a whole. If this was a fanfiction, I'd tell the writer that they did great until the overly-pretentious, over-blown ending and they should stop and realize they were condescending to a fairly intelligent audience. If that' the artistic vision? OK. I can't demand they change that vision, demand my money back, or demand they change it. It would be nice if they did, but that's not something they should be obligated to do.

But nothing will stop me from writing them off as a hack, and telling them so. People telling me that I should just accept things uncritically because they're art is unacceptable to me. A poorly written movie is a poorly written movie. A poorly written book is a poorly written book. A poorly written ending is a poorly written ending. They're all art. Everything can be said to be art. Poorly made things are still poorly made, regardless of their artistic vision. ±KnightOfTL;DR^{free guybrush threepwood! no new taxes! down with porcelain!} 13:46, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Fine, but don't call them a fraud. You have every right to criticise but calling them a fraud and demanding a rewrite is well beyond criticism. Let's say a reader felt that one of your pieces of fan fiction was below par - would he have the right to call you a fraud - that you went out of your way to deceive? Would he also have the right to demand a rewrite? Not in my book. You can say that you don't like what they have done but you have no entitlement to demand that they do it differently. Bob Soles (talk) 13:53, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Um, I didn't mean to call Bioware a fraud. I said that other people's mindsets may be that way. I don't think they're a fraud. Regarding fans who are making petitions and expecting them to fix it. The people I don't support. My OP: "I sort of feel people see this like a normally-trustworthy company sending out a bum product. They can show that it's a fraud and the company will recall it and apologize for their lack of quality control." ±KnightOfTL;DR^{going galt: the literal crazy train} 13:57, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

And this is where we came in. Across many media there are fans who feel they have a right to tell the creator what to do. I have no problem with the creator being told what they want, or even that the product is below expectations but those who demand a rewrite have, in my book, "the entitlement problem", that, somehow, the creator has an obligation to provide what the fan wants.

Along with the Dylan going electric fiasco I can give another classic example from the sixties. The White Album came out when I was 15. The excitement surrounding a new Beatles album was massive. Would this be the new Sgt Peppers? And then it's the White Album with a rather mixed set of tracks and one which, to this day, I feel is far from their best. I paid several weeks worth of pocket money to afford that on the day of release and was gutted. Now, were the Beatles a fraud? Did I have any right to demand my money back or that they redo it? No, I had to accept that the Beatles had changed and were not going to produce another Sgt Peppers ever again. Oh well, time to get into the Pink Floyd. Bob Soles (talk) 14:11, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

So we're agreeing, but we argued anyway. Oh, internet. ±KnightOfTL;DR^{walls of text while-u-wait} 14:13, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The reason people might think it's a fraud is because it has been falsely advertised. Up to a month before release, we were being told that we'd have different endings and that our choices would matter. I can't believe they didn't have the endings and the story finished by then, which means that they didn't just promise something that they couldn't deliver, they were flat out lying to their customers. The epilogue DLC might fix that to a certain degree, though I'm skeptical. Prometheus (talk) 18:05, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Bioware

This isn't really related to the core issue, entitlement, but Bioware has really been stinking of late. Dragon Age was a brilliant game, but Dragon Age II was utter shit. Most of the settings were recycled over and over, the characters were all irrational and violent, and the choices the character was given basically amount to shit versus shit. I mean, was anybody else confused when the head of the mages' circle decided to turn into a giant deformed horror?--"Shut up, Brx." 13:31, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Wasn't that the head of the Templars that turned into a horror, Brx? A powerful mage turned into a pride demon in Origins. Anders could blow up the chantry but he wasn't really a deformed horror. ±KnightOfTL;DR^{longissimus non legeri} 13:36, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

No, no, I'm talking about the elven guy with the dragon staff. Anders was an apostate, he couldn't have been head of the mages' circle.--"Shut up, Brx." 13:37, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh. That guy. Yeah, that. To be honest by the end of DA2 I just didn't care. :\ ±KnightOfTL;DR^{yeah, well you fight like a cow!} 13:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

So fans can ask for remakes or re-releases...

...but directors of, say, Star Wars, can't? -- Seth Peck (talk) 19:00, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Osaka rises from the ashes for a second

Here's a bit of context about the issues. Snark ahead.

The series has gone from, as mentioned before, a potential classic to a case study in storytelling. This isn't some fringe group that's doing the complaining...the reaction was the metaphorical equivalent of giving LOTR's film rights to Michael Bay.

I understand the implications of an "entitled" gamer culture, but there's a bit of slippery slope going on here. Osaka Sun (talk) 19:11, 11 April 2012 (UTC)