![]() ![]() And amongst innumerable other such examples, the publication Game Informerwas happy to publish pre-release quotes such as Case Hudson's promises of no 'A, B, or C ending' in expansive, gushing advertorial articles, while going on to not only fail to question the hypocrisies in such promises in their 10/10 review, but actively dismiss fans who questioned such contradiction after the fact.* Sadly, however, incidents such as these have proved to be merely the tip of the iceberg in an industry that appears to lack the necessary objectivity that a word like 'journalism' necessitates. (At the very least it threw a glaring suspicion over his ugly, and weirdly wounded vitriol.) Similarly, the majority of reviewers of Mass Effect 3 were sent copies that could not import decisions from previous save games meaning that they had no way of speaking to what is arguably the central conceit of the game experience (a fact many did not disclose in their copy), with consequentially few (if any) speaking of the face import issues that spoiled the experience for a great number of players. Indeed, it was a decision that made the ferocious screed Moriarty spewed at disgruntled fans appear a little personal. After all, Jessica Chobot, one of the principle representatives of gaming site IGN (one of Bioware's most vocal supporters throughout), actually appeared as a character in Mass Effect 3, muddying the journalistic distance one might hope for in a publication's criticism or review. But as many in the games media shook their collective heads in disappointment, lamenting that their audience was failing to live up to their expectations, the heightened scrutiny that this controversy stirred soon revealed some rather glaring omissions and conflicts of interest few of which had been previously disclosed all of which left the moral high ground from which they clucked their tongues a little unstable beneath their feet. ![]() ![]() ![]() Indeed, in an extraordinary amount of cases, it was they themselves that had repeated these very sentiments in their reviews of the game (your choices matter you define your ending you decide your fate), and yet they immediately sought to discredit the fans who wanted to question those statements after making their purchase and finding it a distinctly different experience from the one promised. After all, it was they in the press themselves who had spent years hyperbolically parroting the promises of Bioware's publicity machine, ensuring player's that, yes indeed, their choices would matter, that they would help shape the ending that they chose. Art if the audience dares to question the absolutism of its creator's vision? It is a premise that embraced a reductive, narrow illogic that fundamentally misunderstood the whole history of art but more than that, it revealed a self-righteous indignation at the heart of the gaming press itself. ![]()
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