If you don't like something, it's your right to complain about it, no matter how justified or unjustified the complaint may seem to others. That's the essence of freedom of speech. Abuse-hurlers are always in the minority; most complaints are quite rational. 

Voting with your wallet doesn't contradict voicing your opinion. You can do both.

Perhaps, but complaining about something just to complain doesn't make someone any less entitled, whether they have a right to do it or not.

Trashcanxtx At this point the gaming population at large is starting to look like a bunch of crybaby pussies that need their diaper changed.   Game companies don't owe you a thing.  It's not like you pre-paid for the game with the promise that you got exactly the game YOU wanted.

Voting with your dollars is far more powerful that voicing your opinion because most of you entitled gamers are hypocrites doing exactly what you say you will not do.  So stop crying wolf and put your money where your mouth is.

What an absolute moron. Do you not know how a proper business transaction works? Let me teach you: Company makes a finished quality product, customer buys product at reasonable price, company makes profit, customer is happy. Company is happy.

It isn't: Company makes unfinished product masquerading as complete, customer buys product at unreasonable price, company makes large profit, Company punishes customer for paying for product by charging more for finished parts. Company removes ownership of product, negating any form of ROI.

Game companies definitely OWE you the content that you PAID for. Which is a finished, quality tested product. Funny thing is, in the past that's what game companies gave us. That is the business model that should be EXPECTED.

Revolt2015

What an absolute moron.

Coming from a guy that is commenting on a 3 year old article. I was kind of shocked at your timely reply so I felt that you deserved a reply in return.

Do you not know how a proper business transaction works?

Yes I am gainfully employed, I know exactly how transactions are born I have done the work to make it happen many times. Given how late in the business day this reply is I am speculating you just got out of bed? :)

Let me teach you: Company makes a finished quality product, customer buys product at reasonable price, company makes profit, customer is happy. Company is happy.

Your feeble attempts at sarcasm are noted but completely unnecessary. Quality is completely subjective from user to user.

It isn't: Company makes unfinished product masquerading as complete, customer buys product at unreasonable price, company makes large profit, Company punishes customer for paying for product by charging more for finished parts. Company removes ownership of product, negating any form of ROI.

I am not aware of many in the game industry adopting this model of business. Of course it doesn't help that you have created a hyper-real situation that doesn't really exist in the real world. On the console games generally have to ship in a finished form (although this process isn't flawless and never will be). Sony and MS both certify code that gets punished, games out of the box generally don't lock up your console and make your system start smoking.

The fact is all games receive a great deal of press. If you are one of those people that buy a game at midnight without much information about the quality of the game via reviews YOU are the issue NOT the game company. There is ample press about the quality of any given title if you elect to forgo those warnings by buying games prior to the review embargo I am sorry but you have MADE YOUR OWN BED -- NOW SLEEP IN IT!

Let me borrow a page from your book and flip your little sarcastic 'teachable moments' on it's head.

The way business translations usually work from a reasonable customer point of view:

Reasonable customer does research before spending his hard earned dollars. Reasonable customer purchases product based on his or her research that said product will meet their expectations and quality standards. Reasonable customer buys product and is happy with product.

The way you propose business transactions work:

The crybaby customer will do no research and will swallow all marketing materials with glee. Crybaby customer will purchase product and will likely have expectations that lie outside of what product is due to lack of research. Crybaby customer will take to internet and whine to everyone about he or she was screwed because said company wronged even though full information was available about said product before he or she needed to purchase.

Most intelligent people in the world can avoid being crybaby customer, especially when it comes to spending entertainment dollars.

Game companies definitely OWE you the content that you PAID for. Which is a finished, quality tested product. Funny thing is, in the past that's what game companies gave us. That is the business model that should be EXPECTED.

All they owe you is the data on the disc/download which you are licensed to use and nothing else. It would be very good business for them to fix issues and support their products, but if you read your terms and conditions that you agree to when you purchase a game those things are not guaranteed.

You owe it to yourself as an advocate for your wallet to do the best job finding valuable products to spend your money on. If you don't like what a company does, don't do business with them again, and do us all a favor and not whine about it on the internet. Of course that may require you grow up a bit. :) Just be happy you live in a world with options.

seriously man? they do owe us are money can make or break them, but your right about this gens of gamers being idiots and speaking with there wallets but were no longer consumers to game devs were cash cows, stupid cash cows like main brand shopers except with the after taste of being ripped off. all i want is a group of gamers to pile up and refuse to give money to these greedy companys and wait for the poison to drain out of the gaming industry. but with gaming being so mainstream thats a never fools will die fools wise men will not.

No need for personal attacks. 

BioWare did a great job of creating endearing characters, but didn't do them justice with a logical, consistent ending. That's what most people are upset about, not the fact that Shepard didn't get to go on a Caribbean cruise with his pals.

Of course "upset" needs to be taken in context. People can be passionate about lots of things: sports, films, music. Games can be as engaging as any other hobby because the player is an active participant, not just a passive consumer. It's understandable that people are unhappy, and I sympathize.

 The answers to explain the ending are in the game. It's not illogical or full of plot holes if people look at it from a non-literal point of view, which the developers themselves have hinted the ending was non-literal. If people take the ending literally (plot holes, doesn't make sense), then they can't really take a non-literal ending and make it a literal one. What they did over the last year was try to explain the ending rather than completely redo it.

In short, the last mission (20 minutes or so) does not take place on Earth, but rather Shepard's mind. It is not a dream, but rather the Reaper's final attempt to indoctrinate Shepard (and the player as well by picking the wrong choice at the end)

There is a ton of information in the game to support this, and when asked about this "theory" at a gaming panel, Mike Gamble, one of the producers responded "we want the content to speak for itself, and we'll let it do so". Speak for itself, as in the ending being an indoctrination attempt doesn't need to be explained, as it was meant to be pretty obvious.

If people don't understand the ending, they need to read the codex or listen for the clues. There was plenty of foreshadowing throughout the game and even going back to the first game. The Vigil conversation was kind of a warning of things to come. The conversation with Rana Thanoptis on Virmire is another one. Plus many others.

In short, the ending isn't really an issue with the game, it's more of a "user issue" to put it nicely. One of the things they said before the game launched is that you are going to be gathering clues to solve a puzzle. The ending is that puzzle. Gather all the clues throughout the game and you figure out the ending.

It's an ending that makes people think, a rare treat in this medium. If people just kind of stare at it and don't think about it (take it literally), then that kind of explains some of the responses of "the ending doesn't make sense or fit in with the rest of the series".

"That doesn’t mean that developers who work on your favorite games are
greedy, lazy, or lack motivation; it’s quite the contrary. Most of the
men and women involved in creating the bigger -udget titles you enjoy
with your friends and family barely get to see their own, especially
when they’re knee-deep into development. With that dedication and
sacrifice in mind, the ends need to justify the means."

They can take all the time they want to develop it.
It's the greedy publishers that set crazy ass deadlines for them , that make them end up being at work 80% of the time.

Publishers are all about the money. It's plain and simple. That's why they are investing in DLC, because it's cheap, smart and EASY money . People snatch it up like coffee. I don't know why, I vote with my wallet and absolutely REFUSE to pay for DLC that doesn't come in a later Greatest hits/GOTY editions of the game in some form of physical release.

You know how many games would be less buggy, be more polished if Publishers truly cared about the games? Probably a lot.

I'm not entitled, and it's not about what I want. It's what EVERYBODY ,including the developers deserve.  What the product deserves to be in it's launch window.

This especially more true on the PC side. Few games are given the time they need to be polished into a proper PC game ,instead of a bottlenecked by sub-720p Possible ,7+ year old Hardware port.

Just look at Crysis 2, if EA had given Crytek extended development time on the PC version, we maybe wouldn't have had the clusterfuck of a launch on PC it had. Maybe the Multiplayer wouldn't have been so god damned buggy, with no anti-cheat measures, lag spikes, netcode issues. Maybe it would've had DX11 and (slightly)_High Resolution textures. Everything that takes advantage of modern hardware. And if that happened people maybe wouldn't have been "LOLTHISGAME LOOKS AND PLAYS LIKE ASS"(The game design was clearly limited by what was possible on the Consoles. Doesn't mean its' bad though. I personally loved it) and instead the "HOLY SHIT CRYSIS 2 IS AMAZING" that a lot of people talk about when they post screenshots now days.

And on Consoles, they just need to give developers more time instead of harsh deadlines and then +DLC that was unfinished on the Disc when the "Final code" was supposedly done.

It's all planned ahead of time. No developer just decides one day "oh hey we are gonna do DLC" after the game is done

It's illogical from a business standpoint to not plan it ahead of time(to allow development) because DLC comes out pretty quick after release. which = quick and easy money.

Gamers expect everything to be perfect at release. Do you know, that what you are suggesting would probably cost a developer twice as much in terms of their budget. I think you need to lose the Michael Moore utopian attitude and start living in the real world.

I'm going to play devil's advocate and point out that the reason that publishers have to set "crazy ass deadlines" is that, left to their own devices, a lot of developers would simply never finish a game. The publishers are typically ponying up the money for the developer's salaries, their necessary software licenses, hardware, and what have you - they need to get that money back or they will not be able to fund any further development - the deadlines are based as much around past profit and predicted profit margins as they are on anything else.

Most devs think of themselves as artists, and left to their own devices would want to work on something until it was *perfect* - only art is very subject to the law of diminishing returns. It tends to fall to the publishers to set the standard for how buggy is *too* buggy, and what is an acceptable level of polish, and force the devs to ship the game before the devs think its ready because, honestly, devs will never think it's ready if they don't have to. The reason devs have the passion they do and are willing to work those hours is because it is art to them, and because they do want to put in that extra bit of polish. Even the times they're *forced* to work crazy hours, because their company is competing with other companies where people work insane hours, there is always the option to leave the industry- and they don't, because one or two, or three dozen shitty project experiences aren't worth abandoning the art over. Devs also tend to not worry nearly enough about the monitization of the game, even though it's the thing that pays for their groceries.

Are some of the deadlines legitimately unreasonable? Hell yes - half the time they come down the pipe as a "get from point A to point B" - places that look incredibly close on their little map, but in the developer's reality are on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon. Pretty close as the crow flies, yah, but not so much if you're on foot.

But to say that any particular game, given more time, would obviously be better is patently false. In my opinion, a solid team will create solid products given six months or six years -the only difference will be the scope of the project. Bugs are caused by over-scoping, poor processes and systems, failing to devote adequate time to polish and optimization during the project, or thinking that bug fixes and optimization can all be scheduled for the end of the project. Design flaws are caused by more ambiguous reasons, like a lack of focus, or having your focus directed at the wrong thing (like worrying about fiction instead of gameplay mechanics), but nothing a solid team wouldn't know how to deal with. Sometimes these issues can be blamed on the publishers demanding a new feature that wasn't originally planned for, or publishers slicing a project planned for 12 months down to 11, but often they can be blamed on the devs for promising too much (which is incredibly easy to do, especially on day 1 of a new project)

The argument that too many games end up on consoles and the pc versions suffer is also somewhat maddening from my perspective. Games should be about the game mechanics, the interaction - the whole reason game developers are in the game industry and not Hollywood. This is something we can innovate on on only any platform, regardless of its hardware specs. Your argument is basically that devs should be making more eye candy. Focusing too much on eye candy is another pathway to making a shitty game. Consoles are a hell of a lot easier (read, cheaper and/or faster - assuming you're shooting for the same AAA bar) to develop for - standard hardware means that version you test on your dev console will work exactly the same on the user's console - pc's give you no such guarantee, and for what, a few more polygons? Additionally, as much as PC gamers like to see those extra thousand or so polys, the reality is very few people actually have machines that can do that. For most people, a 360 or a PS3 are a much fiscally responsible choice for getting basically the same experience - leading to a higher potential market for next-gen console games than for PC's. I'm an avid PC gamer myself, but I think we should at least acknowledge why you're going to see more games on a $300 console than on a $3,000 pc, and why so many games will target the console first and the PC second.

 Thank you, its nice to see some thinking people on the internet.  :)

Cheers to you sir!

What a bunch of fallacious bullcrap. If a customer is PAYING you to deliver a product, then they damn well better expect to get what they PAY for. That isn't "entitlement", that is called properly conducting business, moron. And it's something clearly not practiced in today's gaming industry. Publishers are in fact greedy, so greedy that they've gone to such great lengths to take a giant crap on the people that got them to where they are.

Overcharge for less content? check. Take away physical ownership? check. Force draconian DRM onto paying customers? check. Put game features that should have been included as DLC an charge for them? check. Release game in segments and charge more? check. Use the public as your QA and Beta testing division? check. You are charging someone 70$+ for a buggy, half-assed product, and these greedy number crunching pigs wonder why piracy still exists? All of those reasons give a higher insensitive that ever to pirate a game. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, you treat it with respect and give back what it gives you. It's a common sense business model that makes everybody happy. And if you hadn't noticed, the best companies are the ones that respect their customers.

I don't understand this last paragraph..."Instead of boycotting and nagging on the Internet, use your wallet to cast your vote". Aren't "boycotting" and "not buying" the exact same thing? Which is it you want from gamers exactly? If we decide to not buy a product any more because we disagree with the product itself or the business practices of the company, are we not doing exactly what you are telling us to by casting a vote with our wallets?

And What's wrong with giving feedback? Now I completely agree that flaming and threatening are not good ways of sending constructive feedback, but telling the developers, the company, friends and family what you truly thought of the game and where it could have been better is actually good - this gives the industry a chance to "win back your dollar vote" by incorporating your feedback. 
So many businesses set up pages on Facebook or use online surveys to find out how their customers felt about their product/service (How many times have you come out of a restaurant or retail store and they've asked you to do they're online surveys for a chance to win something?). Why? Because recurring customers are valuable. The popular 80/20 rule in business states that "80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers". Feedback is a great way to encourage this 80% of your business to continue. I think if anything, the fact that the video game industry gets so much feedback from its fans indicates how dedicated they are as consumers to the product. There is so much potential here, but for gamers and game developers to profit off each other.

You almost got through an entire article without talking about porn! ...almost.
Regardless, great article, Joel.