This can only lead to the ridiculous scenario in which gamers can choose/buy the ending of their choice in the form of post release DLC.

On the flip side, I'm sure publishers have no problem green stamping choose your own ending DLC options if players are paying for them.

While I can understand the nerd rage behind the Mass Effect trilogy storytelling design (starts at one point offers a wide array of different paths depending on player choices/actions, but ultimately ends at the same point regardless of player's chosen path) I don't really agree that Bioware should feel obligated to change the ending unless it was so ill-conceived and poorly executed that the majority of players felt there was no point in bothering to implement a three game spanning game save for the end result.

I think Levine's real concern here is that story/plot oriented games in the future could potentially end up being written in part by community/open forum which is typically either a disastrous or unintentionally comical way of writing anything if publishers and developers have to tailor their stories for optimal mass appeal (which often means most predictable, least offensive).

Maybe Bioware should have taken notes from Quantic Dream when it comes to writing a player influenced forking plot line with real consequences, or maybe the Mass Effect trilogy was always intended to have the single ending produced regardless of player choices throughout.

I already thought the ending of ME2 was disappointing, not because people die but because the whole premise was ridiculous. Just reading the often mentioned deus ex machina statement about the ME3 ending has me lost all interest already.

Based on most of the feedback it seems all they had to do was add some what happened next slides based on your choices like at the ending of DA: origins and Fallout games. (Apart from the apparently badly contrived ending on its own)

But I agree it's too late to chance it now, the damage has been done. Adding DLC will only enrage people more. They should have screen tested the ending before releasing the game as is done with movies, which regularly get different endings based on feedback.

I guess I'll get the game 2nd hand some time when it's down to $20. The rest is still good I hear, although you never read about it anymore with the bad ending overshadowing the entire trilogy.

I think it's kind of ridiculous that Bioware is being bullied by it's "fans" to make a new ending. Hopefully this doesn't result in more companies doing the same thing just to please some pissed off fanboys.

I would consider a new ending an added insult. They cut content from the ending and now they'll probably use it to make a new one and they'll quite likely charge for that. Not to mention lore-rich day-one DLC. It's all money-grabbing tactics. EA really did influence BioWare after the acquisition and not in a good way.

I'm pretty sure this is exactly the kind of thing Levine is concerned about.

I can't agree with Mr. Levine. Mass Effect has, from the beginning, been sold as a product of community involvement, where the development of the series has been largely dependent on fan feedback. This reflects in the game mechanically (better combat in 2, more RPG elements and bigger decision-based consequences in 3) as well as in terms of story progression.

Levine's perfectly right that it's possible for games to have "artistic integrity" in the sense that the authorial vision is primary, and there's nothign wrong with that. It works out positively for many games. However, that's not how BioWare operates, and it hasn't been how they operate for over a decade. BioWare's games are exactly about the back-and-forth with their fanbase, about building trust as a way to further the producer-consumer dialogue. They benefit from that relationship, because it makes fans spend money, and gamers benefit from that relationship, because it gives them something to spend money on.

There is no violation of the vision of the auteur in the decision to expand upon and explain the ending (BioWare has not stated any intent to change anything, not yet) because Mass Effect was never built upon the image of a single person, or even a single team of people. It's the product of thousands of voices, and has been sold as that from the start.

Why not just let the fanbase write the entire story then? Why just stop at the ending? 

If a sizable portion of the FF7 userbase had their way the game would've ended with Cloud resurrecting Aeries and the two getting married or some crap like that. 

That's just it: they did. That's how they sold Mass Effect, as a story that was written as a collaboration between the development teams and the fans.

What BioWare is doing here is rendering a service, like Doyle did when he brought Holmes back from the dead (after which all the best Sherlock stories were written, I'll point out). There is nothing inherently wrong with admitting that you are not the sole owner and proprietor of your product.

Get over it. Sopranos fans eventually did.

That's just it; Mass Effect fans don't have to! BioWare has acknowledged that somehting is wrong, and that these concerns need to be addressed, because the ending was written for the fans and should make the fans happy.