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Pale HorseLevel Up recently interviewed BioWare co-founder and CEO Greg Muzyka and asked why the developer didn’t step up to defend it’s new title, Mass Effect, when it became the target of wildly inaccurate allegations. Spike TV’s Geoff Keighley did his best to defend the title on TV, and EA (which owns BioWare) demanded a retraction, but BioWare itself had little to say, limiting its comments on the “controversy” to a single quote that appeared in the NY Times:
We’re hurt. We believe in video games as an art form, and on behalf of the 120 people who poured their blood and tears into this game over three years, we’re just really hurt that someone would misrepresent the game without even playing it. All we can hope for is that people who actually play our games will see the truth.”
Muzyka let it be known that BioWare was happy to let its community come to Mass Effect’s defense. This tactic was certainly successful … to a degree. Some of those who over-reacted to Mass Effect have apologized for their hasty words, but Fox News is sticking to their guns.
Level Up says that BioWare should have done more:
In order to sit at the grown-ups table, culturally speaking, developers are going to have to act like adults. And that means not letting other people do their fighting for them.
What do you think, gentle readers? Should developers be at the front lines when their work comes under attack, or is it ok to let others set record straight?
Filed under: Games, internet | Tagged: BioWare, EA, Fox News
I think that Level Up is right. The relentless, uninformed attacks on Mass Effect were bad enough (when I could bring myself to watch them - some of the stuff is embarrassing to even observe), but BioWare’s decision to take no official position on the matter was just puzzling. “You worked so hard on this game,” I thought, “how can you sit quietly while people are saying these things?”
Maybe they were being muzzled by EA, who wanted to handle things themselves, but it seems odd that they leave it to the public to step on their behalf. It makes you wonder what they would have done if the game had not managed to capture a large fanbase…
At any rate, I think that artists should always be ready to defend their creations. If Mass Effect were a painting or a film or a sculpture that was being subjected to ridiculous, sensationalist “interpretation”, one would expect the people responsible for creating it to come forward and say, “No, that’s ridiculous, and if you actually bothered to observe my work, you’d see that,” So why not games? Muzyka himself refers to game development as art.
If it’s worth creating, it’s worth defending.
quote: “If it’s worth creating, it’s worth defending.”
I agree entirely. That said, Bioware may just have been being cautious - the furor hadn’t gotten even close to the point where censorship might become an issue, and people were still buying the game. Developers have been burned before trying to defend themselves without thinking it through, though Bioware really is in the right here.
Frankly, I think this will all blow over quickly. There is no “malicious code,” and the scenes are tasteful, so there really isn’t anything for Hilary Clinton to get mad about. As long as the game is still stocked at Wallmart, this all may have served as little more than a bit of free advertising. I know I was sold the minute they said “xeno lesbian action.”
Besides, I’m sure Fox News will have thought of something new for us to be afraid of by later today.
oh, and here’s a counterpoint to the Fox News version of events. It is just one guy, but I’m glad someone is saying this stuff. Maybe one day we’ll see a broad study that covers not just video games, but the realtive effect of income level, schooling, number of parents present, and other factors on youth violence.
The irony of the ME debacle was that there was nothing to be afraid of/offended by. With Hot Coffee, the objectionable content existed - even if you had to hack your console to get at it. For Mass Effect, virtually every criticism levelled at the game was based on gross exagerrations … when they weren’t based on outright lies.
The fact that most of the people who spoke out against the game have since retracted their statements certainly helps, of course. Hell, even infamous whack-job anti-game crusader Jack Thompson didn’t see what all the fuss was about.
When even the crazies are calling you crazy, you know you’re in trouble.
Thing is, Bioware is the software author, but EA was the publisher - therefore whatever BioWare output, it was not Bioware but EA that was responsible.
I think that’s why EA did all the talking.
Well actually, Microsoft is the publisher (the Mass Effect deal was struck before EA bought BioWare/Pandemic and MS remained the publisher for the first game at least). But this point returns to what I was saying before - that EA decided to handle this themselves. This certainly seems to be the most logical explanation, given how things transpired.
But it still doesn’t sit well with me. If we were talking about “traditonal” art - like a painting or sculpture, one might expect the museum where the piece is housed to speak out in its defense. But you wouldn,t be out of line if you thught the artist might step forward to say something on their own behalf.
I guess maybe this is a case of the legal and business side of things taking priority.