im sorry to say this but you don’t understand people, let alone gamers.

if you deduce the core reason why all gamers play games is for a few hours of mindless enjoyment, congratulations but you fail to understand what enjoyment means to various individuals. Why do people read books or watch movies? obviously to be entertained of course, but what entertains us is different from one individual to another. the reasons someone would Enjoy the Blockbuster Film Transformers would not be the same reasons one would watch The Godfather. Same with the reasons why people love harry potter are not the same reasons why people love War and Peace.

in the formers you go for the battles, the explosions the sheer magic of it all simplified into one simple theme of good vs evil, in the latters you enjoy the character development, the emotion, the exploration of the human psych

Different games have different reasons they are enjoyed by its fans, for a game like Soul Caliber or Call of Duty, the story is at the back of the players mind, hell for the most part reviews of the game barely mention any form of a story. BUT THATS ALRIGHT, because the story isn’t what fans who play those game come for.

Now when it comes to games like Mass Effect theres a huge difference. THis is a game where the story was one of the main reasons why millions of fans invested hundreds of hours playing multiple playthroughs just to get the perfect character suited for the story they preferred. this is a game where even though game play matter, it didn’t sacrifice story for it.

the Ending to mass effect flew in the face of all that, science finction writers, bloggers, gamers have all agreed on it’s cop out , lazy, and overall nonsensical nature. the mass effect themes of self determination (not letting another race[reapers] control you, player choice, paragon vs renegade, consequence, were essentially disregarded in favor of…. well nothing actually.

and the fact that you label mass effect gamers as simply bitching shows why so many gamers have lost faith in the connection once shared by gaming journalism and actual gamers. you misrepresent obvious complaints as mere whining, you refuse to state when the vast majority of gamers found to be so irritating(the one that infuriated me most is that somehow game journalists thought mass effect fans were angry because Shepard didn’t live) and that it’s jsut a game.

Gaming jornalism showed its true colors the day it decided to label mass effect fans as whining and bitching, instead of reporting on why fans were justifiably angry. In fact the most honest account of this entire fiasco was given by forbes, a largely business centered journal.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/06/26/mass-effect-3s-extended-cut-too-little-far-too-late/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/16/story-telling-in-video-games-and-the-mass-effect-3-ending/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/30/six-reasons-why-changing-the-mass-effect-3-ending-wont-threaten-its-artistic-integrity/

sorry this is more of a rant than i would have liked it to be, please feel free to respond, i would love to continue the discussion of this subject with you