Why social media sometimes does more harm than good…

I rambled on this topic yesterday on Twitter, but since I ramble about a lot of things, this topic passed through the stream pretty fast. Summing up, the changes to Twitter’s RT system have made cross-promotion more difficult for indies, while making it easier for cliques to either promote themselves or to shut others out who don’t share their same interests. The problem is Twitter, though, and not the actions of the users.

Giving brief anecdotal examples, when I’m online all day, I’ll see someone RT something I tweet or retweet, and many times, it’s not even people following me. They just saw my tweet in the general timeline and sent it along. It might be a one-line joke, or several tweets strung together in a ramble. Or it might be a news story from someone else that I was passing along. So if I sit here all day and watch those little user portraits changing, I can confirm that several people are RTing links, and that the people of Twitter are doing their part. The key point is, I only see it if I sit on top of my stream like an owl watching for a mouse to come popping out of its hole.

But let’s say that I’ve published a new book, and I post a link and then leave for a nice dinner with hubby to celebrate. And let’s say that five authors also RT that link in the time I was gone. When I come back, all I see is the one RT. I don’t know who to thank, or who to make a note of later so I can promote their stuff in return. The only way I could know that is by being here 100% of the time, and that’s not how Twitter is supposed to work. People check in when they want, and they ought to be able to see when other people retweeted their stuff.

I’m a die-hard Twitter junkie, and if I can miss stuff like this, you can be sure authors who only check in for an hour or two are also missing out on who retweeted what. So even if they’re committed to cross-promotion and reciprocating retweets, they can’t know who to retweet anymore. This isn’t authors behaving badly. It’s twitter cutting off their ability to keep track of their follower’s activities. And if this is a problem for authors, its even more so a problem for the casual user who only checks the most recent tweets and mentions before checking back out.

Game review: Shinobido 2: The Revenge of Zen

After completing Uncharted: Golden Abyss, I’ve had bad luck finding a Vita game that I can enjoy as much from the other launch titles. If you read my last post, you know my language problems with Unit 13, and as of this writing Sony still hasn’t resolved the problem. This is forcing me to write to them at least once a week to remind them again that I’m still waiting for a patch, for a possible release date for a patch, or for a refund. The last would seem more likely, since they already refunded the game once. But we shall see what happens there.

Since I didn’t have much luck with the online store, I went out to the local shop to pick up Shinobido 2: The Revenge of Zen. This meant shelling out 50 euros for a box and a manual, along with some coupon codes for Touch My Katamari and Ridge Racer, two games I wouldn’t touch even if they were free.

Getting into the game involves a long, long intro with some really lousy acting. In fact, I may have to stop giving Skyrim shit about its lousy voice acting because of all the shit voice acting I’ve seen in recent Nintendo and Sony games. The opening story is pretty much standard fare from Japan. In a prefecture called Utakata, war breaks out between 3 daimyo, again. This is just six months after events in the original Shinobodo, but you don’t need to know about that to get into this story, because they sum up the whole other game in the opening act.

After you are introduced to Zen’s life partner San, she is murdered and set ablaze by Shu the Cypress, who is supposedly a family friend. Zen shows up in time to watch his partner roasting, and to be attacked by Shu and dumped into a river. Except, we aren’t allowed to see that part. We’re only told that by the dude who claims to have fished Zen out of the river below, a ninja master named Zaji. (This later turns out to be a lie, and in fact, Zaji lies like a rug to suit his own ideals.)

Revised verdict for the PS Vita…

Well in the course of one week, I’ve gone from being a potential fangirl for Sony’s PS Vita to being a hater. Part of this has to do with my problems with Unit 13, which I wrote to both Sony’s US division, and to their Italian techs, and I’m still waiting for an answer back. But the other problem is, I’ve just bought Shinobido 2, and less than ten missions into the game I feel ripped off. There are only a few locations used over and over for the same repetitive missions, the same character models are used in every level, and the combat controls are terrible. What little dialogue that isn’t delivered in text boxes is atrociously bad, being both poorly written and poorly acted.

At first, I was trying not to complain about the lousy combat system, since the game had a one-shot-one-kill method of dispatching common foes. I figured maybe the combat being so awful was like an intentional punishment for me not being sneaky enough. This idea was further bolstered by me picking up a new technique, again, a one-shot-one-kill maneuver. BUT, the first time I ran into a boss, the game put two big shit-covered middle fingers right up my nostrils, as if to say, “Oh, you paid full price for this game? TOO BAD, FUCKFACE! YOU LOSE, AND WE WIN! HAHAHAHAHA!”

See, at that point, you can’t target the boss for the newer technique. You can tap the icon, but the attack doesn’t even recognize him as an enemy. You can’t evade and then sneak up behind him for the other kind of killing blow, because he just grabs your sword. The fucker is armed with a musket that fires like a semi-auto, and that he never needs to reload. AND, if you dare to run away to take him from another angle, the fucker drinks healing potions. The game couldn’t be any more cheap in its tactics without the boss being telepathic.

This is one of many launch titles that are awful, and that don’t really use the Vita’s features. Aside from the second killing technique, all other menus and screens ignore touch input, and the menus are put together sloppy. The whole thing feels like a half-assed effort, but Sony is charging premium prices for this shit, like this is comparable to a PC or console game. It’s not. In fact, phone and browser-based games like Angry Birds offer more depth and fun than this.

Why race NEEDS to be discussed with our kids…

Those of you not following me on Twitter may think that Trayvon Martin’s murder doesn’t matter to me. But I’ve been retweeting links from other writers as the story plays out. I’ve watched in horror as white reporters ask blatantly racist questions to a grieving mother, as a white police chief erases the racism of the murderer to try and make a bullshit claim of self-defense, and as thousands of white people downplay this as “a black problem.” And I recall how right after Obama was elected, many of those same white folks declared that we were all over race, and clearly we don’t need to discuss it anymore.

But race is not a topic that can ever go away, because all it takes is not talking about it for a few years before white supremacy takes over again. And the sad fact is, whites don’t perceive granting equal rights to other races as equality, but rather as a loss of their position in the world. Enforcement of white supremacy is so important, white people will belittle every black issue and ignore reality whenever they can. So even though Trayvon was a good student with better grades than I ever had, his value as a person is limited by the color of his skin.

And to give you an idea about how fucked up some peoples’ priorities are, There’s mass outrage from white gamers over the ending of Mass Effect 3, which has resulted in Amazon issuing refunds for the game being “defective.” (Which is bullshit, but this is so not the right time for that rant.) So white gamers can generate rage over a game not ending well, but they can’t generate much give a shit for a child murdered by a documented racist and white supremacist, a man who had formerly assaulted a police officer, and who shouldn’t have been allowed to carry a gun, or to appoint himself as a vigilante of his neighborhood. But Zimmerman can do whatever he wants, because he’s white.

Partial game review: I Am Alive

I…you know, in my last post, I just got through saying I didn’t want hand holding in a video game, and the very next video game I played grabbed my hand in a vice-like grip and dragged me along, kicking and screaming the whole way. I Am Alive is a game that I wanted to like because many reviewers said it had “gritty realism.” BULLSHIT. If you think this game is realistic, you are a severely sheltered and ignorant moron. The game is so awful in every facet that I don’t even know where to begin.

Oh wait, yes, I do. In the opening scene, the bland, dulls as fuck hero makes a video for his wife using a camera. He’s so boring that I know he gave his name, and I just don’t care to remember it, or even to look it up for the purpose of this review. It’s not all that important anyway. But so our hero highlights his handgun, what looks like it might be a 9MM semi-auto of some sort. (This is relevant in a moment.) Then he says, “I’ve never even fired a gun before.” BUT HOLD THE PHONE. You mean that a year after a post apocalyptic event that changed the world, this dude NEVER went hunting for food with his gun? He’s just been carrying it around, just in case? And if that’s so, how come he’s got perfect aim from the first shot? Most people I know who fired guns without training jerk the trigger, or don’t expect the kick and have the gun fire wild the first few times. When I first fired a gun, my accuracy was so piss poor, I was lucky to still have my shots on the edges of the paper target. But not our so-called “hero.” No, he fires sure and true with the first shot.

After he gets a bullet, and this…this is a fucking bit of stupidity that I really can’t stand. To get a bullet, you slit this guy’s throat. THE INSTANT HE’S DEAD, YOUR GUN IS LOADED. There’s a sound effect of a revolver cylinder spinning, and a click of the cylinder being fit back into a revolver. But our hero isn’t carrying a revolver, nor is anyone else. Assuming that the gang boss had his one round chambered, (and that everyone everywhere is carrying the same caliber of handgun) to get your own gun loaded, you would have to slide the top of the dead guy’s gun to eject the live round, drop your own clip, put the bullet in the clip, put the clip back in, and then cock your gun to chamber the round. But, since the game writers have obviously never fired a gun, all of this happens INSTANTLY.

Most every other video game that you have an empty gun, there’s an animation of loading the clip. That’s slightly implausible in some games for how fast it happens, but they at least try to concede some precious seconds to giving reality lip service. Not this game. Reality and this game aren’t on speaking term. This game doesn’t even bother with a loading animation. Slash a dude’s throat, VWORP! His bullet teleports into your gun chamber. You don’t even have to cock it or pull back the hammer.

Difficulty settings and “casual” insults…

So yesterday, I lost my whole day to watching Angry Joe review games. I just wanted to get his take on Kingdoms of Amalur, but that review was so good, I had to keep watching. I don’t even know how many reviews I saw, but I do know that at least twice, I risked breaking a rib from laughing. Lots of gamers try to be funny, but end up being cruelly insulting or just lame for trying to be punny with pop culture references. Joe can be funny without being insulting, and in something like 25 episodes, he only goes for a gay joke once. And then his evil bizarro twin called his moustache gay. In a gamer world full of people who can’t stop using gay as an insult, Joe’s show is like a breath of fresh air…or, he is if you can get over his cussing. Obviously, that shit doesn’t bother me any, cause fuck is like my favorite word in the whole English language. (Something that will be shown in the rest of this post.)

And Joe is as passionate about games as I am. So when he hates something, man, he’s fucking pissed the same way I would be. When he loves something, he can’t stop gushing about what went right this time. Just like me, except he’s got that cool moustache going for him. If I had the same moustache, it would just look wrong. (But if I wasn’t married, I would so ask him for a moustache ride. Cause Joe ain’t no slouch in the looks department.)

I agreed with almost everything Joe said about games. Every time he talked about no character development or lousy writing or acting, I was nodding my head so hard I almost gave myself whiplash. But one place we do not see eye to eye on is difficulty settings, and I need to write a rant on why this issue is my number one pet peeve with some gamer guys out there.

Okay, so like a new game comes out, and it’s brutally difficult to play. No, like, even if there is an easy setting, it’s not really easy. Game makers could make challenges in the game realistic, but instead they spam the screen with enemies and bullets in this ridiculous copy-pasta assault. There’s rarely much variety of the enemies, and there’s no AI to speak of. There’s not even the semblance of an enemy strategy. The enemies all rush you like waves of suicide bombers, trying to dog pile you and kick you out as soon as possible. There’s no time allowed to take in the level designs, the pretty graphics, or the soundtrack. There’s just one long crushing line of clones cock-blocking me from enjoying my time in the game. It makes me wonder why game makers spend so much time lovingly crafting their graphics, and then their enemies make it impossible to notice anything going on in the world.

Why consoles and portables ain’t going anywhere any time soon…

To hear some people tell it, the console and portable video game markets are DHO_OMED because Apple and Android also play games. While I could go for an easy pun about comparing Apples and oranges…okay, I just did. Never mind. The thing is, people making these statements are misguided fans of the mobile gaming platform who are failing to recognize some basic truths.

First of all, touch screens suck for controlling complex games. This is not to say there are not genres that can use a touch screen well, nor to suggest that all touch screen games suck. But when it comes to controlling a character in 3D space using a touch screen, the results are less than desirable, nor do they convince me to give up physical controls any time soon. I love buttons and analog sticks too much to part with them, yo.

I’ve played several games on my Win Phone, and I’ve sampled a number of iPad and Android games while hanging out at Fnac and Saturn. Saturn has a cafe with a bank of tablets out for users to sample the goods while sipping coffee or munching a sandwich, and so I’ve had a chance to play with games on both capacitive and resistive touch screens. Even with better sensitivity on those resistive screens, there’s all kinds of times when a game didn’t recognize the right input, resulting in my character’s untimely demise.

On games like Assassin’s Creed for the Win Phone, users are given a direction pad and standard buttons. But if I had a nickel for every time a button press didn’t work, I’d have an impressive stack of nickles. And even increasing the size of the direction pad and moving it to the side of the screen instead of the lower corner, I still had hell trying to get poor Altair to walk slowly in a straight line. He either ran flat out, or he wandered like a drunk. And lest you think it’s just the Win Phone, I watched YouTube walkthroughs of players on the iPad version, and clearly, they were having similar problems. The problem isn’t one of sensitivity, it’s one of failing to imitate haptic feedback. And until they can work out the use of micro-vibrations to simulate “bumps” on a flat surface, this lack of haptic feedback will always hinder certain kinds of games in the mobile market.

An open letter to Sony’s customer support…

I’ve had a problem with one of the games I bought for my Vita, Unit 13, which will not play in English. When I set the system language to Italian, the game plays in the right language. But when I set my system language to English, the game plays…in French. For as dreadful as my Italian is despite living years in the country, my French is even worse. So this is not ideal. I wrote to the US support, and got back a reply directing me to Sony’s Italy customer support division. I wrote to them and got no answer, and I pasted the same message into the Italy support forum and had hubby write a direct translation. I got a flippant answer there. So, this is my second attempt at getting help for my problem, and I’ve decided to make this an open letter. If I get back an answer, I’ll post an update here as well. Why? Because if some of you were still on the fence about getting a Vita, I feel you may want to know how the customer service experience is. So, here were go:

Megan,

I’m going to be sending this email to you, and to as a CC to the email you gave me for Italy’s support, whom I have written to with no answer. I’ll also be posting this as an open letter on my blog. In any case I wrote the same message that I’d sent to the US on the Italy support forum, with my husband writing a tanslation. There, the technician said that the company has made the choice to region lock Unit 13 and restrict English from the list of choices. Then the technician made light of my problem and said (In italian,) “Just play the game in Italian.” (Folllowed by a flippant winking smile emoticon, which was even more infuriating.)

In spite of my anger at being ignored, I tried that, and I can’t play Unit 13 in Italian. I can’t understand what the mission objectives are, and I’m stumbling blindly through the first level of the game. Not because it’s hard, but because I can’t understand the language. This is very frustrating, and what makes it worse is Sony’s apparent failure to recognize that the UK, all English speaking countries, are part of the EU. Sony’s Italy support in the forum has also made it clear with this one response that they don’t care about my problems. And the email address you gave me has made no response at all.

So, I need to make myself more clear in the hopes that something will be done to resolve this problem without me just giving up on the Vita less than a month after I bought it. This would be a shame, because I love the hardware and really would like to be a loyal customer. I’m just asking for a small show of support to gain that loyalty.

Sony has been saying in press releases online that they don’t want casual gamers who buy only one game every few months, or who only buy games when they’re deeply discounted. Fair enough, and I can understand your company’s concerns for making this new platform a financial success. In this first month, I have purchased five games, three of the cheaper and shorter indie games, and two premium titles. I bought Uncharted at Fnac along with my pre-ordered Vita, and I’ve since made those four other purchases from Italy’s online store. For all intents and purposes, I am the gamer you claim to want.

One of my main reasons for buying the Vita was the number of reviewers saying that I could buy any game from any of the online stores, regardless of country, and then play them in my language of choice.With only one exception, the other games respected my language choice. Even the Italian version of Uncharted respected my choice. When I wrote to Sony via their support forum to point out this problem, their response seems to be that they are okay with one game being region locked when all others are not.

Feeling unsatisfied with Sony’s response, I tried to find a way to contact Zipper Interactive. But their site refers me right back to Sony for tech support. Megan, your message as the US Sony representative was, “That’s not our problem, so contact someone in Italy.” I’ve made two attempts at contacting Sony here in Italy, and the email response is dead silence, while the forum response is a flippant answer that ignores my problem outright as if this is no big deal. So, even though I’m the gamer you claimed to want shopping in your stores, the company’s customer support is already making it clear that you don’t care if I walk away mad.

Megan, I hope that instead of replying to me with another “Sorry, not my problem” response, you will forward this message to your manager, and that they will in turn forward this to someone higher up to sort this mess out. As I’ve paid for a copy of the game and cannot use it, perhaps Sony could clear me to have a UK or US copy of the game? Failing that, perhaps the Italian store could update their version of Unit 13 so that UK English is one of the language options. Both of the premium games have already had patches, so I know it is possible to fix a mistake after the game is launched.

This choice to deny me a language option is a mistake, even if you won’t acknowledge it. But if you choose to ignore me, then you are turning away the very kind of gaming customer that you claimed to need for your success. So please, consider this before you pass the buck again and wash your hands of me. Assuming you do forward this on to someone else, Thank you in advance for your time.

Sincerely,

Zoe E. W.

Turn out the lights, the party’s over…

So…this is going to be a familiar tune to regular readers, so if you want to skip this, feel free. Last night, I wrote to the folks at NBP to ask when my name would be added to the list of authors on the blog. This morning, I was informed that I’m not really an NBP author, and therefore won’t be listed on the blog. This also means the blog won’t be listing my releases.

I’m not complaining about this, but it does upset me how my author page has books by NBP authors in every flavor of porno kink possible, and yet, I’m not good enough to be listed among these people on the blog. I also want to note that this is why I’m no longer with Smashwords, because while Mark Coker is willing to stand up for the authors of rape, incest, and bestiality porn, he still felt he had to ban three of my titles for being “illegal”. I’m not good enough to be a Smashwords author, and now, I see I’m not good enough to be an NBP author either. Which is par for the course at this point. I was never good enough to get attention from my parents, teachers, or any of my friends and family either. So why I should expect anything different from complete strangers, I dunno.

Needless to say, I’m in a deep depression, and not even a trip to Cartoomics has done much to change this. I faked happiness while wandering the stalls, but as soon as I left, I started thinking again about this. I wasn’t good enough for Belfire to carry my only book with them, and even though I continued to promote their titles and authors, when The New Bedlam Project anthology was released, my stories were dropped from the collection there too.

I’d hoped to at least use my blog to talk about important issues to me, but online, the discussions most important to the moral majority focus on whether women are really human beings or just cattle to be owned by men. I wanted to talk about racism, and I was lectured for not caring about the plight of white people. I wanted to talk about child abuse, and I was labeled a pedophile. I’ve been accused of promoting deviant values, and that’s pretty much the opposite of what I’d intended. I’ve had friends abandon me despite my continued support of their efforts, both financial and personal. Everything I did, it didn’t mean a thing, and just about everyone cut me loose without a second thought. I was never a real friend, no matter what may have been said between us before. And now that the winds have changed direction, all those fair-weather friendships have drifted on to other places.

It’s been almost four months since I was able to sit down and write with any consistent quality, and lately, everything I write, I hate. Not because it’s bad, but because I know I can’t sell it.

No one can really say this is the results of my last series, because my releases were being ignored long before I wrote Peter’s book. Every release has been a failure, and I’m tired of asking people to give me a chance, only to end up with the feeling that I’m shouting into a void.

On fandom entitlement…

Before I get all ranty and/or rambly, I need to give a bit of personal history where you see where I’m coming from. Some of you know that I’ve just recently returned to console gaming after roughly a decade playing only PC games. I’ve never stopped being a gamer, but for a long time, I couldn’t afford to be a console gamer and still pay for book covers and other writing related services. Actually, I still can’t, but since I’ve scaled back my writing operations, the cost of consoles is now within my meager budget once again.

I’m a gamer in more than one sense. Before coming over to the Xbox360 and PS Vita, I’ve had an original Pong console, an NES, a SNES, three Game Boys, a Game Gear, and a Playstation. During my childhood, I sank a lot of tokens into arcade games, and I was always picking up new Tiger LCD games. In addition to these varied electronic diversions, I’ve been a role-play gamer and have played in many fantasy and sci-fi settings. I’ve been an ongoing fan of Magic cards, and briefly got caught up in the Pirates card game before they got stupid with the constant updates. I can even be talked into playing board games if there’s enough players around to make it fun. (I don’t care if the box says two can play. Two players for any board game usually makes it a “bored game”. Add just one more player, and the whole dynamic changes because “cutthroat” behavior begins popping up somewhere around the middle of the game.)

What I’m saying is, I’m not some neophyte approaching gaming for the first time. I’m just getting back in touch with my nerd roots, even if some of my roots are turning grey by now. So I hope other gamers will not take this as an outsider talking down to them, but as a fellow gamer expressing their opinion.

So, if you’re a gamer, you know that Bioware made a “polarizing ending” to Mass Effect 3. Fans would use other words, possibly something like “crap ending.” I went online to watch the various endings, and wow, that is some truly shitty shit right there. Even the good ending is shit. In a game where the player is given so many choices that affect the plot on a fundamental level, the lack of choices for the endings is disappointing people, and rightly so. But this wouldn’t be so bad if at least one ending didn’t foster an instant WTF reaction. But even the good ending is a major WTF for the sheer impossibility of it. So that lack of choice and the multiple lousy endings is like a one-two combo punch to fans.

I’ll agree with players that the endings suck. I also want to say that I think Bioware has failed to grasp why people were playing their games. When you come to the end of a game trilogy this expansive, you want to have some sense of accomplishment to counter your melancholy that it’s finally over. You want to beat the bad guys, get the girl, and ride off into the sunset. But without giving spoilers, most of the endings seem to be Bioware’s way of saying, “Fuck you for spending $200 on our series.” This sum is assuming you just played the games and didn’t buy all the DLC expansions, books, and the comics. If you shelled out dough for the extras, you’re out for a much higher sum to get this middle finger shoved in your face. On top of this, the Bioware executives are saying, “We HAD to finish the series this way, or you might forget about us.” What a crock of shit.

I haven’t spent a dime, and I’m already pissed at Bioware for this attitude. So I totally, 100% get fan anger over these lousy endings. What I cannot get behind is this push to change the game to suit the players. It’s one thing to say the ending sucks and that you won’t buy the next Bioware game, even if such a statement is unlikely to be true. (Lots of gamers say they won’t support a vendor, only to switch stances as soon as a new game has teaser screenshots come out. Gamers have the same resistive willpower as a pothead does against a batch of freshly baked brownies.) But to suggest that Bioware owes you a better ending is a level of fandom entitlement that sets my teeth on edge. (Assuming I’m wearing my dentures, of course.)

The fact is, Bioware doesn’t owe you a damn thing, aside from the product that you already voluntarily paid for. It’s not like you didn’t know this was coming, with the game script having been leaked ages ago. To suggest that they owe you some missed gaming pleasure is to suggest that all stories should only being emotionally satisfying, and that anything less should be changed to reflect the audience’s desire for maximum satisfaction. And really, why would any creative team cede that much control over to the audience?

As a writer, I certainly wouldn’t change the ending to any of my stories just because what I wrote upset readers. Sometimes, my whole point is to get under your skin and upset you. I frequently market this dark facet of my writing, so I’m not trying to trick you into thinking you’ll be reading Mary Poppins only to pull a bait and switch over to Amityville Horror. (Also, my intros are usually pretty blunt about what you’re walking into, so the endings shouldn’t be a surprise.)

I see some folks making a petition to change the ending, and they are saying on their site “We are not acting entitled.” Yes, you most certainly are, and frankly, it’s pathetic to watch, even if you did generate $28,000 for a children’s charity. That was a nice touch, but you coulda donated that money without attaching it to an entitled request that Bioware make a do-over to please you. Plus, it’s kinda scummy using sick kids as a shield for your cause.

Based on the fan reaction to the various Mass Effect 3 endings, I will not be buying any of the series. I see no reason to invest in a story when the conclusion is guaranteed to be unsatisfying. So in this regard, Bioware has cost themselves gamers like me who might have invested in the older games, bu now won’t because we know the company can’t be trusted to deliver a satisfactory ending. But then again, I’ve not seen anything from Bioware that got me excited enough to plunk down my money. My stance isn’t a boycott based on one game so much as my continuing “meh” reaction to the quality of writing in all Bioware games. For all the pretty graphics they spend millions to develop, it feels to me like Bioware hired a monkey to shit in a typewriter, and whatever dried shit flecks resembled words, that’s what they used.

In fact, it’s the shitty writing I see used in most games that makes me wonder how companies can continue to push the myth that the gaming market is maturing. It’s even more frustrating to watch the bubble that game executives live in, as in the assholes responsible for Skyrim gushing about the arrow to the knee line becoming an internet meme without acknowledging that the meme was criticism for their unimaginative and repetitive writing methods. And to some extent, because of this, I really do understand gamer rage over this lack of accountability. A game company releases a game to howls of outrage, and then can’t admit that they’ve released a dog. Or if they do, it’s long after play testing is done, as with the lousy bosses in Deus Ex: Human Evolution. The best we can hope for from some game companies is “Ooops, sorry about that.” And the worst we can get is, “Thanks for all the kind feedback! We’re glad you’re so vocal about our game!”

But you can’t go back and unfuck a lousy game just by changing a few lines of the script or the code. What fans are asking for is a major retooling of the game and the script, requiring new voice acting sessions as well. That’s a few million in salaries and studio fees to change the game to suit you, and you folks will expect that update to be free. Plainly put, there’s no incentive for the company to make that update for you. It’s better for them to move on and hope the next game will be received better by fans.

So, what can you do about this? Don’t buy Bioware’s next game. Put them out of business and teach everyone involved that it is not wise to burn fans with a shit ending to their trilogy. All those people who get fired will remember this as they move to new studios, and they’ll worry more about whether the story is as satisfying as the graphics.

This, obviously, won’t happen. Remember, gamers have little resistive willpower, so all it takes to break a boycott is a little mea culpa and a few new shiny screenshots of their next game. Voila, all is forgiven, and the company will continue to produce crap writing and call their lipstick-decorated pig a masterpiece. You can’t change this by demanding a do-over on past games, and you cannot punish a company without first giving up on their next titles. If you can’t resist Bioware’s next title, it isn’t their fault for giving you more of the same shit. They’re operating on the simple guidelines that if this shit sold well last time, it should sell well in a new game too. And they’re right, because gamers never give up on a company.

You want this shit to stop? Then close your wallets and don’t buy the next Bioware game, no matter how awesome and shiny it looks. Be sure to write to the company and make it clear that you are a past customers who is boycotting their next game for their past mistakes. Make them aware of their shortcomings in a civil manner. But don’t whine that you want a do-over. It’s no more likely to happen in gaming than Hollywood is likely to re-shoot the ending to a film due to poor audience reception. This kind of demand is a sign of massive egocentric entitlement, and nothing you say will change this fact. So if you can’t boycott Bioware’s next game, stop whining about the ending of Mass Effect 3 and get on with playing something else. Life is too short for you to waste breath talking to people who live in a bubble.