The Ending Must Not Be Abstract

Fiction is about characters. There are many styles of writing, and many ways to tell a story, but in order for the audience to connect on an emotional level, the story must be about characters. Not in the abstract sense, either: if the audience is to feel something about the story, they must be able to relate to the story, and that means there must be people that the audience likes.

Without likable, relatable characters that the audience can invest in, the story becomes little more than a thought experiment. This, I think, is the largest part of why Mass Effect 3's ending was so unsatisfying: it disconnected from the characters that held us in the story so much that it became abstract and lost its connection to the people who clearly cared so much. The choice provided at the end of the game makes for an interesting thought experiment in which the player is asked to think of what the implications of their choice might be, but at the end of the day, it was the characters that held the player's interest. They were likable and many players would go so far as to claim they even fell in love with them, and to have their fate glossed over in a broad few seconds of footage showing that they essentially had "not died in a crash landing" does little to resolve the concerns of the fans who had grown so attached.

This is an important lesson for writing in general, but I believe video game designers in particular should take note. The investment people give in a story in which they make key decisions and literally become involved in the outcomes such as this means that people will make attachments that become difficult to disentangle. Even in a tragedy, it is relieving to know that the characters you sought to aid would have not died in vain. To rush past all this and pretend that it was just about "saving the world" or "fighting the enemy" misses the point of having a story altogether. While some games, such as games heavily focused on multiplayer deathmatches like Team Fortress, can get away with minimal focus on plot, it is notable that to create a game that is heavily focused on storytelling such as BioWare tends to make, you cannot simply pretend the players will not care about the characters.

A great example to look at is Halo: Reach. While the game is heavily focused on action, it does have a well thought-out story in the single-player campaign. In particular [spoiler alert, for those of you who care and have had your heads stuck in the sand], it is relevant in that the story IS a tragedy that does end with the protagonists, including the player's character, dying in battle. While I had actually bought the game to play with a friend, I found myself deeply involved in the story and the characters. They had likable personalities, unique quirks, and, above all, they were watching MY back. Not just each others', but MINE. That is a key thing that you don't get in any other medium: not only do these people become likable personalities, but they can become people you TRUST, in spite of being fictional.

The ending, in contrast to Mass Effect 3, is sad, but not disappointing. That is a key thing that is so often missed by critics of the fans' complaints: it is NOT about wanting a happy ending; it is about wanting an ending that feels like an ending. Noble Team, in Halo: Reach, dies off throughout the course of the story while fighting to get critical strategic resources safely off-world, as well as helping to get the people evacuated. Yes, they die, but they die fighting for a chance. Even if they hadn't succeeded in securing the cargo they needed onto a transport, it would have meant something that they died fighting.

By comparison, it is also possible to have a happy ending that is totally meaningless. Deus Ex Machina, a narrative device in which something or someone shows up to save the day without the need of the heroes' help, is not always a poor plot development when used sparingly, but it is an easy one to misuse. If victory is achieved and the heroes did not struggle, had no triumph of their own, then the ending will feel hollow because it is disconnected from the characters themselves. This often comes directly into gameplay when it comes to video games: there is a fine line to walk between cinematic immersion and technical gameplay. On the one hand, gameplay can seem rather dull from a storytelling perspective. Fighting a boss is often more instinct than drama. On the other hand, it can feel incredibly disappointing if you had a boss you wanted to fight and instead it was relegated to a simple cutscene in which your character performs a spectacular move.

To put it all together: a satisfying ending in fiction must include the characters heavily. While it is interesting to explore complicated ideas in science fiction, it is always abstract if not viewed through the eyes of characters we have come to identify with. The ending must include triumph of some kind, even if that "triumph" is emotional instead of literal, such as dying in battle failing your mission; the "triumph," in this example, being that the character did not succumb to despair even when all hope for success was crushed. It is the "triumph" that brings catharsis to the audience, and without that catharsis we find ourselves left hanging as though the final episode of our favorite tv show never saw the light of day. You'll never know what happened to the characters you were so worried about, and now you don't only have to mourn the show but to do so knowing that you will be left on a cliffhanger forever.

Gamers and Gaymers

Another large part of the reason I've been such a loyal BioWare fan for so long is, admittedly, a little bit self-centered. Being that I am a woman, it is no surprise that I tend to particularly enjoy games in which I can play a strong female character, but even beyond the ability to choose my character's gender is the significance of sexual orientation. Being that I am also both transgender and lesbian, I have grown accustomed to game developers specifically refusing to acknowledge my existence. BioWare was (and, I hope, still IS) one of the very few companies that not only acknowledges its LGBTQ fans but actually caters to them directly.

As "choice" is a huge part of what BioWare has traditionally brought to the table, they have also added options for LGBTQ players to enjoy, including the ability to choose supporting characters of the same sex to pursue a romance storyline with. This is, of course, exploited, at times, by people who get "turned on" by seeing two members of the opposite sex "getting it on," as it were, but usually the romances are typically short on the actual "sex" side of things, meaning that anyone that goes to that length for their own pornographic interests ultimately gets a pretty weak pay-off. The result is that, while some people simply get off on it, many of us in the LGBTQ community genuinely feel like, for once, we're not being totally ignored.

In a culture infused with homophobia, sexism, and harassment, as gamer culture often is, it is extremely refreshing to feel like you're being acknowledged. In my own personal experiences, I have had many instances in which I have felt like people were deliberately ignoring me, even denying my very existence. It grates on your psyche more than people who are not members of a minority can ever really understand. It can feel so fulfilling to see someone you can relate to in a place where you have grown so used to not seeing it. I had actually thought, at one time, that I didn't like romance at all. And then I actually saw a lesbian-themed romantic film and discovered that - holy shit! - it all suddenly makes sense!

BioWare is, of course, not the only company that has given acknowledgments to the LGBTQ community. There have been others as well, such as Bethesda and Lionhead Studios, in particular. Yet, for every game developer that makes a game with characters that identify as anything other than cisgender (that is, "not transgender," for lack of a better term) and heterosexual, it seems as though there are a hundred that would much rather pretend we don't exist. And while it's fine to not have positive LGBTQ characters in every game - after all, it'd be hard to have any sort of narrative variety if everything were required to incorporate such things - it becomes potentially destructive to have so few, because to ignore an entire group of people only manages to make them feel unwanted, and feeling unwanted can lead to depression, to say the least. I have known many people who have either committed or attempted suicide because they didn't feel that could talk to anyone about their problems.

But there is also the other side of the culture to contend with: the consumers. Many, though by no means all, gamers can be extremely hostile to others, particularly in online gaming, where "trash talk" has become part of the norm. Often, the "trash talk" includes sexual harassment, insinuations of another player being homosexual, and outright homophobic slurs. This is something that needs to be fought against. We, as a community, need to stop giving players that behave in this manner any reason to persist. The best way to do this is simply not to play with them. When they discover that everyone who joins their games immediately leaves their games, it becomes harder and harder for them to keep it up. Eventually, they either get the message and stop doing it, or they don't and they continue playing on their own.

There is one other thing that can be done to counter homophobia in gamers. Whenever you can, try to confront a person about it. If they seem to just want to be hostile, don't bother, but if you can get them to step back and think for a second on their attitude, it just might be possible to convince them to change. Perhaps I'm too much of an idealist, but I feel it is not okay to simply walk away, because to do so is almost as bad as saying it's okay, so long as you aren't around.

Bullying is a big problem, and we can do a lot to prevent bullying of LGBTQ gamers by standing up and pointing out the bullies. It is on all of us, I think, to change the culture to be more positive and welcoming of peoples of all different walks of life, because the consequences of not doing so can be more damaging than some realize.

Why Quality is Essential to the Survival of the Games Industry

Some game developers have been making dramatic shifts in some disturbing directions lately. Instead of pushing out great games that make you feel they are totally worth the money and time to be spent on them, they seem to push games out the door far too soon before they can truly be completed. In other words, it seems like a push toward quantity over quality.

This is a mistake, not only from an artistic perspective, but from a marketing perspective as well. One of the reasons many of these game companies become as successful as they do is because they have made great games. To suddenly turn away from that direction and start churning out half-assed games as quickly as possible with as much for-pay downloadable content as you can get away with not only makes your games weaker, it also generates negative feedback from players. In an age when consumers can communicate rapidly among large groups and spread ideas at lightning speed, negative feedback has become an Achilles' heel in a way not possible before. When someone posts an extremely angry critique of something in a forum, for instance, others will read that and it will strike them far more powerfully than if they had simply played the game themselves. It creates a sort of "emotional magnifying glass", where every idea and opinion becomes amplified by a magnitude relative to the amount of emotion behind the initial comment.

The result of this, of course, is that negative player response becomes extremely negative player response, and when that gets to a certain point, it becomes extremely bad press. Obviously, I'm thinking about BioWare as I write this. As it is, I have stood as a defender of BioWare for years. I have loved their games, and I'm not just using the word as hyperbole. I have worn their merchandise. However, I cannot deny that their games, in recent years, have been declining. I've still loved them, but there have been some details that seemed rushed. And then we have this whole fiasco over the ending of Mass Effect 3... This has been, I believe, the influence EA Games has had over them since they bought the company. Make more games faster, make more money, which has seemed for a long time to be EA's entire business model. But I think it fails to accept some truths that will be a major chink in its armor.

First, EA is not the only gaming conglomerate out there. Activision has been around the block, and suffered its own losses. Activision ultimately had to make some sacrifices to keep their business going. One of the biggest keys to their readjustment came when they merged with Blizzard Entertainment, the developers behind the wildly successful WarCraft, StarCraft and Diablo franchises. What makes this merger different, however, is that Activision truly needed Blizzard more than Blizzard needed Activision. As Blizzard makes their own games, and were doing quite successfully for many years, they have maintained a significant amount of independence, and have been free to take as much time as they need to develop a game that meets the quality standards they have set for themselves. The result is that, in spite of the increase in their budget they have gained by being part of a larger company, they have managed to produce games of consistently high quality (your mileage may vary, of course, but the general reception of their games has remained steady).

The obvious key here is that Activision truly NEEDS Blizzard. Activision's falling on hard times meant they needed to restructure, and the result was that they found a willing partner that was already doing quite well on their own but felt they could still benefit from being part of a larger company. EA, on the other hand, brings nothing to the table. Instead, EA manages to avoid developing games at all, while at the same time making enormous sums of money off their subsidiaries. Capitalism is not evil, but there is something to be said for what works and what doesn't work in a capitalist society. For years, EA has gotten away with this business model. Unfortunately for EA, however, you can now begin to see some rather nasty cracks in it. The recent blowback against the ending to Mass Effect 3 is just the largest example of these cracks.

I cannot say for sure that the reason the ending came off so rushed and inadequate was a result of a deadline imposed by EA, but it is my suspicion that this is the case. And it really is just the largest scandal to hit the internet. It can't even be considered the "latest" because even MORE criticism is coming over one of BioWare's other large IP's, Dragon Age, as new information comes to light about the development of Dragon Age III. It's beginning to look like a veritable shitstorm of bad news for BioWare alone, which is just one of EA's subsidiaries.

I have been bothered by EA's practices for years, even going so far as to consider boycotting them, but the fact remains that many of the companies they own still produce games I truly want to play, in spite of their faults. But as the years roll on, I find myself worn thinner and thinner trying to defend my interest in these games. It's getting to a point where even I have to admit that I'm losing trust in BioWare, in particular, which has been a game developer who has consistently held my loyalty.

It is my hope now that EA might soon learn its lesson and back off before it is too late; to allow their subsidiary developers to take the time they need to develop quality products, because EA is, at this point, the video game industry's equivalent of Wall Street. They have grown so big that, if they fail now, a huge portion of the industry will crumble with them the same way banks began to fail after Lehmann Brothers fell apart. I can't ask that people boycott EA, because I don't even believe I could hold myself to that promise, but if you can, try to avoid letting them get away with their "quantity over quality" business practices. It's quickly becoming far more destructive than I think anyone even truly realizes.

Mass Effect is the Gaming Industry's Star Wars

I recently watched a video that made the argument for a positive side to all the drama over the lackluster (to use the understatement of the century) ending to Mass Effect 3. The argument Jim Sterling makes in the video is that, regardless of what your thoughts might be on the ending or the ENORMOUS outcry over it, the outrage, itself, is a good thing. That Mass Effect can generate such a loud and even potentially destructive response means that, regardless of the "destruction" people might see to video games as an art form or the possibly demeaning behavior of some fans, means that video games have officially made it as a legitimate entertainment industry. And, you know what? He's right.

I have argued for years that Mass Effect is the video game world's Star Wars: an epic that manages to be both a critical success as well as having, no pun intended, mass appeal. It's a trilogy with spectacular action; enjoyable, innovative gameplay; clearly identified heroes and villains; but it also has thought provoking themes; a memorable, likable cast of characters; exploration of choice and consequences; and explorations of morality beyond the simple black-and-white of "good and evil." It is, like Star Wars, not the first blockbuster in its medium, but it is one that has set a standard going forward by which others will attempt to imitate.

Of course, Mass Effect being the video game world's Star Wars, comes with the obvious downside: Mass Effect is the video game world's Star Wars. Along with all the great things about Star Wars, there is a definite dark side (once again, no pun intended) to the fandom. With that level of success, you inevitably open up a Pandora's box of criticisms, with fans who have been around longer believing themselves to be the "true fans," newer fans feeling they have a better understanding of the series, and of course, people who, no matter what is done, will always feel they had better ideas and be upset when those are not the outcome they get. There is also, inevitably, fan fiction written to "fix" the problems their writers perceive in content.

This is all, normally, manageable, as in the case of the Star Wars prequels, which are generally seen as of significantly less quality than the original trilogy, but still accepted, if somewhat begrudgingly, as canon. Individual complaints about midichlorians, poor acting, excessively padded screenplays, too many digital special effects or what-have-you are ultimately pushed to the fringe and the movies themselves become a central part of the Star Wars universe. This is, largely, the case with Mass Effect, too, with one small caveat: the ending is SO poorly written that even professional writers have come out claiming it completely misses every quality that an ending is supposed to have. Endings being so pivotal to a story, of course, as well as the fact that the ending itself is the last thing we experience in a story, have caused the fervor to achieve critical mass. No where did Star Wars ever have an ending that was literally in dispute. People may not have liked where a film finished, but it was never so bad and so vague that absolutely no one can agree on any in-universe facts about it. In fact, one of the most popular theories about the ending is that NONE of it actually happened, and that it's all something the protagonist essentially dreamed. When what is now known infamously as the "Dallas Ending" is a better ending than what you have, you KNOW there's a problem.

If my feeling is correct that this is the game industry's Star Wars breakthrough, that leaves many things up in the air. If this is the response that comes out of it, where does it lead from here? Do video games now enter a sort of dark age where no developers venture further out to develop compelling stories? Do we never see anything even remotely like Mass Effect EVER again? As always, only time will tell, but I fear we may be entering a period when some of the greatest fiction in the world could be held back because no one is willing to stake their careers on a dream. I am hoping that there are creative and enterprising developers out there who will pick up the pieces and continue to bring forth the world of gaming into new and wondrous experiences.

The Critics Are Lying To You

I am not one given to conspiracy theories. I am usually more the sort of person who tries very hard to think rationally and often considering things at a glacial pace. However, sometimes the writing is just there on the wall and you can no longer deny what you've been seeing, and recent events have shown me a very dark side of the video game industry: the critical establishment.

The recent uproar among fans of the Mass Effect "trilogy" over the disappointing ending to Mass Effect 3 has seen immense derision from professional critics from various media sources. Some have been generous enough to simply disagree, but when that is the generous response, do I even need to go into detail about the not-so-generous ones? And it got even worse after BioWare's co-founder, Dr. Ray Muzyka, issued a statement that implied BioWare would at least develop some extra downloadable content for the game to "help answer your questions."

Nowhere in the statement is it implied that BioWare intends to change the ending. He appears to be simply offering to fill in some of the massive plot holes and unresolved issues. Of course, this creates an enormous, derisive response from critics claiming it creates a dangerous precedent of "changing the ending" whenever people don't like it. Not a single one could even admit that the fans might actually have had a point about the ending, whether or not it was right to "change the ending." No critic's response from all of the ones I had read even mentioned ANY of the arguments the fans had brought forward, instead attacking straw men to claim themselves superior. None acknowledged any of the plot holes or nonsensical circular logic. At least one writer from GameSpot.com went so far as to throw homophobic insults out while blatantly admitting to not having played the game to begin with.

It is this incident that has led me to conclude that the established media for the video game industry is corrupt. Many of them commented that the only person who wins if BioWare "changes the ending" is Roger Ebert, referencing his famous quote that "video games can never be art." However, after this shameful episode, it has become clear to me that the only reason Roger Ebert is proven right is their own damn fault. Roger Ebert, at the very least, can analyze story, and provide an educated response to whether the story makes sense, or if the ending is a trite, quickly thrown together patchwork of pseudo-philosophical nonsense. These critics have focused so broadly on gameplay and the story up to that point that they can't even recognize a bullshit plot twist when it is set right beneath their noses and had the scent "livened up." Essentially, the only reason Ebert's assertion is affirmed is because these critics, in the context of claiming to understand art, don't understand art.

None of this is to say that Mass Effect 3 is not a good game. It is. It could even be considered "great" in many ways. But the ending is severely lacking in material where it counts, and instead just comes off as though BioWare just threw it together at the last minute to meet a deadline. Most critics who are analyzing "art" or "story" would recognize that. Instead, they are focused so much on actually playing the game that they don't sit down for a second and analyze the story itself. Many of them don't even seem to have finished the game or know the ending, and the ones that do don't even seem to want to acknowledge any of the actual criticisms.

The deplorable, shameful behavior I've seen while purporting to represent major groups in the gaming media has put a very dark stain on them that I feel will be very hard to wash from my mind. The treatment I've seen them give to their own readers is very much like an abusive relationship, beating them down for having a difference of opinion and saying it's their own fault. Some would claim they're bribed by game companies. I don't know what the cause is, but entitlement to a superiority legitimized by receiving a paycheck seems enough to me. The critics are lying to you.

A Digital Glass Ceiling: Women in Video Games

In a previous post, I discussed how the iconic character of Jennifer Hale's performance as the voice of the female Commander Shepard was both amazing for its brilliance and directly inspiring to me personally. This does, of course, come with a significant caveat: Shepard is a character that was written as a man. This, above all else, is what essentially established Commander Shepard's character, as, for all plot purposes, Shepard had to perform the same actions, or else drastically alter the plot, as well as greatly increase the amount of voice over recording needed. It is all dependent on that personality, for which it was Jennifer Hale's job to interpret into a voice that was believable and likable, which she does stunningly.

Few people in the game industry, or indeed the greater entertainment industry, even think about this simple failure: women in fiction are women first and everything else second. This isn't true for the real world, but in a society so dominated by male privilege, women are, ourselves, seen as a sort of commodity. We are treated as though being a woman is the defining trait in our lives, and thus find ourselves repeatedly being shown in fiction having features that are almost entirely exclusive to women.

I look at the Batman universe to draw examples from, primarily because Batman has such a wide cast of characters with clear psychological profiles that, while unrealistically over-the-top, serve as excellent and fairly well-known character archetypes. When asked to name some of Batman's nemeses, usually the first names that come to mind are the Joker, the Penguin, and Two-Face. These are three characters whose identities are simple to identify, but also complex in detail. The Joker is a psychotic, disfigured man who portrays himself as a clown and enjoys causing mayhem and destruction. The Penguin is a wealthy and sophisticated mobster with a thing for birds. Two-Face is a disturbed former District Attorney, obsessed with a twisted perversion of "justice" based entirely on chance, whose formerly hidden dark side exploded to the surface after half his face was horribly scarred by a criminal he had sought to prosecute.

All of those are spectacular character profiles; all extreme and overblown, but easily identifiable. But what do you think of when you are asked to think of female villains in the Batman universe? Well, you will almost always hear Catwoman first, followed by Poison Ivy. If the person you are talking to is particularly knowledgeable, they may mention Harley Quinn or Talia Al'ghul. Let's examine these characters individually.

Catwoman: First up is the self proclaimed "Greatest Thief in Gotham." In most continuities, Catwoman is basically an expert cat burglar who has a thing for cats and wearing skin-tight leather clothing. What makes Catwoman a particularly dangerous foe to Batman is her potential as a love interest. She teases him, and even occasionally helps him, and in return Batman has a kind of respect and admiration for her that he wouldn't afford to most thieves. Essentially, this is a role that can ONLY be filled by a woman.

Poison Ivy: Poison Ivy is a botanist mutated by an accident that gave her control of plants as well as the ability to poison people with a kiss. She is essentially a superpowered eco-terrorist, but it's the latter ability that defines her role in fiction. She is a seductress, dangerous and attractive, but almost entirely defined by her sex appeal. Again, a role that could ONLY be filled by a woman.

Talia Al'ghul: Now we're getting into territory that fewer people are familiar with, thus showing that, after only two entries, we're already somewhat scraping the barrel for examples. Talia Al'ghul is the daughter of R'as Al'ghul, a man who has survived hundreds of years using a mystical well he calls "the Lazarus Pit" and has established the League of Assassins, a group of extremist vigilante ninjas who see it as their duty to execute any and all criminals without trial. R'as serves as a sort of corrupt father figure to Bruce Wayne, which makes him one of the very few enemies that knows Batman's identity. This also establishes Talia as a particularly deadly love interest, as she knows Bruce Wayne and has been intimate with him as well as knowing his identity as Batman. Again, since her particular role establishes her as a love interest, this is again a role that could ONLY be filled by a woman.

Harley Quinn: Harley Quinn is a character first introduced in Batman: The Animated Series in the 90's and quickly became a fan favorite. She is the Joker's girlfriend and most loyal henchwoman, and adores "Mr. J" more than anything in the world. The Joker, of course, treats her like dirt, but she's so madly in love with him that she doesn't even realize it. This is a particularly degrading example, as it depicts a woman in an abusive relationship who simply accepts "her place," even relishing in it, while actually being a DOCTOR as well. That's right, Harley Quinn, aka Dr. Harleen Quinzel, had managed to earn a Ph. D. before having a series of psych eval sessions with the Joker that drover completely bonkers. On top of that, she's also an expert martial artist and acrobat. In other words, not only is it a role that could ONLY be filled by a woman, but it's also a particularly offensive one when looked at in detail.

Clearly, all these examples fail the simple test of finding a female character whose role in the story would be possible to replace with a man, but it's not just in the Batman universe. If you look around in films, video games, comic books, and even most novels, it is hard to find any female characters for whom the narrative either specifically required to be female or fills a role traditional to a woman. This is something that needs to change if we are ever to encourage more women to play games.

With the example of FemShep, I am hoping that door is finally beginning to open. We still, five years on, have yet to see very many female characters that don't fit into traditional female roles in video games, but there has been a crack made in the glass ceiling. Even with statistics saying that only about 18% of people who play Mass Effect play with a female Shepard, most of the fans that do have become some of BioWare's most loyal fans, even the men. There is hope for a more diverse field of women in video games.

Gamer Entitlement and the Argument of Exclusivity

One thing that consistently irritates me about the gaming community is its immense sense of entitlement. Gamers often make the mistake of thinking they "own" games, and therefore get to dictate what does or does not go into them. This, of course, results in enormous outrage when they don't get things exactly their way. It also creates a situation whereby they tend to push people out of the community for having a difference of opinion, thus destroying diversity.

I have a friend who is an incredibly intelligent and exceedingly vocal gamer. We discuss games every so often, but this occasionally results in some serious arguments. I'm usually pretty open-minded and accepting of other peoples' views. Problem is that, in this case, my friend tends to think of himself as always being right, even when he thinks more with his heart than his head. Anyone that follows our arguments can usually identify that the things that are upsetting him are almost entirely colored by his anger at a particular game company who shall remain nameless - it rhymes with fee-pay - that he feels has destroyed his favorite game developer, which it bought some years ago. His opinion generally contends that their games have gone downhill since then, but usually the evidence he cites for this opinion run hollow since the things he complains about are, in fact, not at all what is actually there upon an empirical look.

This, I think, is the core problem: emotions often overrule critical thought. Not that this is a bad thing, and certainly everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but this should not be reason for making false claims about anything - or anyone. It is perfectly okay to dislike something merely because your emotions about it run high. I myself have entire lists of books I will not read because their authors have made public statements that have so offended me that I cannot dissociate their work from their personal views. But it is an entirely different problem to start placing blame for problems that don't exist merely because your own perception of things is heightened by anger.

Perhaps I come off as being too erudite at times. That's a common criticism of me, and it's fair. I totally admit it. I'm even kind of ashamed of it, but I try very hard not to let my emotions get in the way of serious thought. I have allowed that to happen in the past, and it only resulted in people getting hurt, least of all myself. However, I expect the same sort of restraint from others, and occasionally I give people too much credit. It is okay to levy criticism; no art or business would be able to do its job if it weren't. But to place false criticism of something only demeans you and the people who would take you seriously. Furthermore, it causes more damage than it promotes in creativity.

And this is where we get back on the subject of gamer entitlement. No gamer is ever right as an individual. If you want to be a gamer, you have to accept that there will ALWAYS be other gamers you disagree with, which means there will always be an audience for games you are not interested in. The idea that a game developer making changes to a game in order to make that game more accessible is a direct assault on you is a failure to understand games as a whole. Game companies desire more money, therefore it is in their interest to sell more games, which means they must make those games accessible to more people. To criticize a developer for doing this is literally the same as saying "it's popular, therefore it sucks." As a point, I try not to criticize anything based on its popularity. After all, things become popular for a reason.

Movies, Video Games, and Why The Two Are Such a Terrible Match

If you've ever seen a movie based on a video game that is actually good, then you've seen one more than I have. It's no secret that video game movies are typically bad. No one in the gaming community would deny that, nor would anyone in the film industry. They are, at best, mediocre films and, at worst, cheaply made cash cows, exploiting tax loopholes, licensing deals and sleazy accounting practices to turn an enormous profit (I'm looking at you, Uwe Boll).

Many people will say it's because the writers left the best parts out, or because the producers had more interest in marketing than actually remaining faithful to the source material. Sometimes you will hear gamers say that it's because of the game developers' lack of involvement. All of these are valid criticisms, but they fail to address the core of the problem. They are merely symptoms of a much greater issue.

The heart of the issue is one that can sound simple but is, in fact, far more complicated than it appears at first glance: a failure to understand the differences between the two mediums. Video games and movies, as well as books and television shows, are excellent mediums for telling a story, but they have fundamental differences that make them particularly suited to certain things. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages that lend themselves to telling very different stories. These can each be broken down into the following.

First, and perhaps most obvious, is audience interactivity. Video games, being an interactive medium, can draw the player into the story in ways no other medium can by having the player be an important part of the show. Indeed, the most important part, controlling the action, to some extent. Movies are fed to the audience, and the audience is disconnected from the movie, but video games require the audience to get involved and have a stake in the story itself. This creates whole new complexities because a), one the game requires the player to WANT to play and b), when the player does get involved on that level, they create a connection to the characters that you can rarely find in any other medium. While typical moviegoers can like a character in a film, gamers will often fall in love with the characters in their stories. Not in a sexual way, mind you, but in the way you would love a friend. Numerous times, playing a sequel to a game you enjoyed will feel like catching up with old friends. You don't get that experience in any other medium, not to the extent you would in a video game.

The second major difference between the two mediums is a little more banal: length. Movies, for all intents and purposes, require a much shorter attention span. This is not to offend fans of film; film simply is a medium designed around finishing a story in one sitting of a few hours (some exceptions apply, but this is still mostly accurate as a general rule). Video games require a much greater attention span. Whereas most films fall somewhere between one and three hours long, I have never played a mainstream game that took me less than six hours to complete in its entirety, and that was a particularly short game around fifteen years ago, in a time when most video games were not even as long as they are now. Many of the games I play these days require a minimum investment of twenty hours in order to complete the main story. Naturally, not all of that time is spent on narrative, but, even so, that is a considerable length of time to expect someone to spend on something purely for entertainment value. As such, a lot more can happen in a video game than you could ever find time to fit into a three-hour movie, so whenever one is adapted to the other, sacrifices must be made. For a video game to become a movie, an enormous amount of material must be cut from the story. On the other hand, for a movie to become a video game, an enormous amount of material must be ADDED to the story, or else a gamer will not feel they've gotten their money's worth.

Which brings me to the third major difference: cost. Last I checked, a ticket to see a movie cost somewhere in the realm of $10. A lot of people complain about that price, but none of them ever bother mentioning that the average mainstream video game today costs $60 at release. If you do the math, assuming a 90-minute movie and a 20-hour game, the movie is about $5.40 per hour versus the game's $3.00 per hour. That sounds like a bargain, at a glance, but there are large factors in place that make the cost of a game far more volatile than that of a movie. For one, consider that you're paying for many more hours right off the bat. If you see a movie and decide half an hour in that you don't like the movie, you spent $5.40 more than you otherwise would have. In a similar situation with a game, in which you spend an hour playing the game and decide you just can't stand the game (again, a major concern when you remember how much more personal involvement is required), you are out $57.00 that you likely will not be getting back. You might trade the game in at a store for store credit and get something else, but even then you don't get a 1:1 ratio on cash back, and you wind up spending the credit on another game that you may or may not actually enjoy. For this reason, gamers tend to be far more judicious with their money than moviegoers.

So, given all these major differences between films and video games, what can be done to make a good film adaptation of a video game? I have an answer to that, actually. Most video games with a decent story are incredibly rich in background content. It is entirely possible to tell an entirely new story in the same setting and draw in gamers who wish to get the full experience of the worlds they cherish. Perhaps major characters that the players love might not be in the movie at all, or only make small cameos, but if the story to be told is one that is significant to the universe itself, a major part of the history that is not told in any other medium, fans would be devoted to seeing it. Much in the same way that Wicked is a story about background characters from the Oz books, a movie could easily be written about background in video games. Maybe an Assassin's Creed movie need not focus on Altair or Ezio Auditore, but it could be just as exciting of a film if it were about Desmond Miles' parents in their youth. A Portal movie might not be about Chell attempting to survive GLaDOS's twisted tests, but instead about the rise of Aperture Labs, the ultimate declining health of Cave Johnson, and the challenges Caroline would face keeping the company alive in the face of tragedy.

Naturally, no one gives a damn about what I think, but I put this out there in the hopes that, one day, gamers can actually see a movie based on one of their favorite games that DOESN'T suck. In fact, with enough good work and skill in production, I believe it would be possible for such a film to win Oscars, but video games are rarely given that level of credibility among the public. I only hope that, as time goes on and more games are developed with excellent stories, people will begin to see the value of video games as an artistic medium.

How Mass Effect and Jennifer Hale Changed My Life

I intended this blog to be a general place for me to put my thoughts on gaming in general, but so far it seems like all I've talked about is Mass Effect. This is not entirely coincidence, as it's been a big topic in the gaming world this past week, but it's also a big deal for me personally. Mass Effect is more than just a series of games to me. It's more than the universe those games are set in. It's so much bigger, in my mind, than I think most people could even truly believe without having understanding of where I'm coming from.

Hang on, folks. Things are about to get VERY heavy here.

In the Fall of 2009 and Winter of 2010, I was going through an extremely rough period in my life. I am transsexual, and in that period of time I was in the early stages of transitioning from living as a man to living openly as a woman. At the same time, my parents were going through a divorce. As I suffer from a rather severe case of social anxiety disorder, I was not exactly able to work, so I lived at home with my mother. As if to cap this all off with a cherry made of pure black comedy, I was also coming to grips with the fact that my mother was very abusive my entire life.

Wow. After reading over that last bit, I'm actually beginning to realize exactly the scope of how crappy my life was at that point. These aren't things you think about at the time. It's just life, so you kind of forget how good or bad things might be in relative terms.

It was during this period that I found myself extremely bored on a sunny November day (I live in Southern California, so sun is pretty much a constant year round. Go fig). I was eager to play a game that I had wanted for several years. That game was, of course, Dragon Age: Origins. However, DA:O was not to be released until some weeks later, so I found myself in a Best Buy looking for something cheap to kill time. That was when I had an encounter that, thinking back on it, seems silly to imagine as anything more than a ridiculous inevitability.

Some necessary background: I have been a gamer all my life, and I suspect I shall be a gamer until the day I die. In particular, I have been a BioWare fan since I first played Baldur's Gate back in the late 1990's. I'm also a big fan of the fantasy genre, as well as Dungeons & Dragons, which was what ultimately led me to Baldur's Gate in the first place, so it was only natural that I would be highly anticipating DA:O, which was being hailed as a "spiritual successor" to Baldur's Gate. So it was not exactly like I had no reason to be interested in Mass Effect, but I had never thought myself to be as big a fan of sci-fi as of fantasy.

Back to that November day in Best Buy: I saw Mass Effect on the shelf, and being that I was already a fan of BioWare and was in the mood to play a BioWare game, I found myself purchasing Mass Effect for $20. I had no idea at the time that it would be the best $20 I had ever spent.

When I booted up the game on my PC for the first time, I was surprised. For the first time I had ever seen, not only was I allowed to pick the dialogue of my character, but that dialogue was fully voiced. But Commander Shepard's voice was not what I had come to expect from women in video games; her voice was husky, deep, and disciplined in a way a person would expect from a military officer, but also carried the timber that is typically associated with speech patterns in women (forgive me if this goes beyond your understanding, as, being transsexual, I actually had to train my voice, so picked up a level of understanding and analysis of speech patterns between genders that most people just take for granted, and sometimes I don't realize how much more I might know). This was wonderful, in my mind, as I've never considered myself to be the most "feminine" person in the world, in spite of identifying as female while living as male.

The game offered two forms of "morality" that you could play Shepard to align with, Paragon and Renegade. I told myself at the time that it made more sense to try to play primarily Paragon on my first run through the game because it made the most sense to start with. This was a complete lie. The truth was that was what I needed at the time: a paragon; a female role-model who was strong and brave and didn't give in to the temptation to be cruel or rude. A true heroine, as it were.

As I continued to play through Shepard's adventure, I was enthralled. Not only was the story amazingly well-written and the characters likable, but I found Samantha (as I had named her) Shepard to be an amazing character in her own right, a dimension I was left to imagine entirely on my own in previous BioWare games. It became apparent that my own imagination was not, in fact, as thorough as I had previously believed, since in games where my character never spoke, I never became so attached to that character.

Jennifer Hale, the woman who performs the voice of FemShep (as the fan community has lovingly dubbed the female version of Commander Shepard) was not new to me. I had heard her voice before in several games, including as Bastila Shan in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, a previous BioWare game. But it was her performance as Commander Shepard that literally inspired me. She could look death in the eye and just say "No." It was exactly the thing I needed to experience - to see as well as hear - at a time in my life when I had no one else to believe in. When my mother came to me and decided she would shame me for not dropping to my knees and praising her for no reason, I asked myself, "What would Shepard do?" And the answer was always to hold onto my own self-respect and stand up; to do what was right, regardless of what was safe.

I know Shepard isn't real. I know that most people don't think of Shepard in the same way I do. For some, Shepard is a man, or a jerk, or a racist. A soldier, an adept, an engineer. But none of that matters to me because, to me, Shepard will always be the woman who stood up and delivered a great, big verbal middle finger to the Reapers, an enemy so impossible and powerful that anyone would have been afraid. Shepard does not exist, but the Reapers do; everyone has seen them. The Reapers are those things we fear. For me, it was my mother, and I did what Shepard would do: I stood up and held onto the courage to speak for myself rather than let my abusive mother define me.

So, yes, my first three posts in this blog may make me out to seem like a one-trick pony, but there's good reason for why so much thought has been devoted to Mass Effect lately. To me, Shepard is an ideal. A strength that comes from courage and not physical ability. I am a stronger person now because of these games, their developers, and Jennifer Hale, whose voice personified the heroine I needed.

I am Commander Shepard, and these are my favorite games in the galaxy.

More Thoughts on Mass Effect 3's Ending (Spoiler Warning!)

The more I think on the ending of Mass Effect 3, the more I suspect something is going on that is far cleverer than most people might initially perceive. Many players saw the ending as being something so intentionally confusing and vague that it would be seen as somehow "profound" and "thought-provoking" without actually having any distinct substance to it. A sort of video game equivalent of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which, admittedly, would be a sort of genius in its own right when you consider that Mass Effect was, from the very beginning, intended to invoke classic science fiction in exactly that manner. Another idea is that it's actually a downer ending; a hallucination concocted by Shepard in his/her final moments while either lying dead on the battlefield or in the finalization process of Indoctrination, and thus becoming the Reapers' pawn.

However, probably the most controversial theory is that this is just a scheme to cause players to have to purchase a DLC ending, in essence releasing the game with an unsatisfying ending in order to get long-time fans seeking closure to shell out more cash for a "true" ending. It's this theory that has come to capture my own attention. The more I think about it, the more I am beginning to suspect that DLC is coming that would alter the ending, but not in the way the most pessimistic players see it. Indeed, I have come to believe that not only is this NOT a disingenuous plot to make more money, but rather an actually very clever way to make the ending far more meaningful than it could have otherwise been.

My reasoning for this begins with the controversy and outrage itself. People are upset, and reasonably so, that there are numerous apparent plot holes and depressing aspects about the finish to the trilogy. I, myself, was extremely depressed for about 48 hours after initially finishing the game. Part of that depression was that I had been lead to believe this was not, in fact, the end of Mass Effect, simply the end of Shepard's story and of the overall Reaper war story arc. The ending seemed to shatter that perception, and left me mourning for something I had come to truly love as well as all the characters I had become very attached - perhaps TOO attached - to.

But it was that point that my grieving lead me to a sort of denial that feels, to me, like it's not actually denial. Is this REALLY the end of the Mass Effect universe? Something feels like it's missing. Not in the sense that there is a lack of closure, or that the ending left us with more questions than answers, or even that the ending was missing reasoning (i.e. "all organic life must be harvested by synthetic life to save it from being destroyed by synthetic life" being a ridiculous tautology). It was missing something else. And then, as I was exploring some of the various theories and the evidence presented supporting those theories, I realized what it was: the ending is so incredibly complex and has so many potential implications that the leaps in logic seem even more glaring than they would if things were truly rushed. It's as though there's a sort of ingenious profundity peeking through the trees in a forest of gaps; a truth that is right in front of us, but concealed just enough that no one can make sense of it. The conclusion I draw from this is that there IS more to this story. There is a part of the tale yet untold that fills in the gaps.

And that's where the second part of my theory comes into play: the outrage is a good thing. The fact that so many fans are SO riled up over an ending they see as unsatisfactory plays into a greater narrative, generating a sort of suspense that Hitchcock could only have dreamed of. Whether the controversy and outrage were intentionally manufactured or wholly accidental, it presents an opportunity for BioWare to create an ending that is far more powerful and memorable than anyone could have anticipated by holding off and letting the ending sink in on the minds of brokenhearted gamers and then, when many of them would lose hope, to surprise them by bringing to light something else; something new. Not an entirely new ending, but something that alters the perception of the ending by presenting new evidence or ideas that bring a whole new level of excitement to the fans.

In essence, there is a level of brilliance to the inexplicable "ending" that was either cleverly executed or foolishly stumbled into, but either way the result is the same: the ending we are given is not the "true" ending, or rather it IS a true ending, but it's not the whole ending, in the same way that if you were presented with half an apple, but could only look at one side, you might see just an apple and not realize the truth of the object before you.

Mass Effect and Midichlorians

At the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader discover that the galaxy will forever remain in a cycle of endless death and destruction as the Light and Dark Sides of the Force constantly vie for control because the “midichlorians demand it.” In order to end this cycle, they both dive into the Death Star's core in order to destroy the Emperor, and in the process destroy both the Force and hyperspace in a colorful explosion that spreads across the galaxy. Fade to black; roll credits.

Obviously, that's not actually how the movie ends, otherwise Star Wars would have faded into obscurity the same way the disappointingly awful Matrix sequels dragged the first film into the mud. The prequels may have done some damage to the series, but as a whole the original trilogy remains intact as an amazing story. However, the Mass Effect trilogy of video games created by BioWare has had an ending much like the one I just described, and as you can probably guess, many of the fans are PISSED.

Let me be clear: I am not a fan of “changing the ending.” To do something like that would be a slap in the face to anyone like myself who considers video games worthy of being considered an art. I do, however, recognize when something is not of a particular quality, much as many critics out there can recognize a bad film, book, or game, many of us can recognize a poorly thought-out ending. The video gaming media has responded to the fan outrage largely by saying “suck it up” and throwing the fans' concerns back in their faces as if they don't matter. It's now time to set the record straight: the fans DO matter, and I intend to demonstrate this using the above described ending to Return of the Jedi.

Imagine that was the actual ending released in theaters back in 1983. How many people would have left the theaters entirely confused? How many people would have seen the sudden change in tone as entirely unfitting of everything up to that point? How many people would be fully insulted by the massive plot holes introduced by the sudden mention of “midichlorians,” a word up to that point never even hinted at, let alone actually UTTERED. Even in spite of the otherwise brilliant quality of the film, the ending makes much of it seem contrived in an attempt to create some incredible light show instead of bringing any meaningful closure to the story. There is no explanation of what happens to the rebels suddenly finding themselves stranded on a remote, unsettled planet, or the civil unrest left in the wake of an entire empire that has essentially had all communication and travel cut off, isolating billions, if not TRILLIONS, of citizens from trade routes critical to their planets' infrastructure.

But the real slap in the face is that word, again, “midichlorians.” What the hell is that? No explanation? No reason for why that is? Just saying “midichlorians did it?” What possible sense would that even make? Ask any Star Wars fan old enough to have been a fan before the prequels came into existence what midichlorians are, and 9 out of 10 of them likely wouldn't even answer the question. It's a topic brought up one time in one film, and was so utterly despised that it has essentially been completely written out of its fictional existence, and most critics would acknowledge that instead of trying to pretend that it somehow enriches the experience.

The fact of the matter is that video games may be an art, but much like film, they are also an industry. This is a business, for good or ill, dependent on customers, and BioWare has taken a step in this case that threatens their credibility, whether that threat is justified or not. Changing the ending is not necessary, nor is acknowledgment of whether the ending was good or bad, but accepting the fact that people are upset is not the same as agreeing with them, nor is attempting to shame them the same as telling them you disagree with them.