SHINAN'S PROFILE

I won't deny this exchange between bots/spammers that has persisted through the years is kinda cute so I can't delete it.

Hmm... Actually. I had to google it so...
Andromeda HAS a demo https://www.masseffect.com/trial I don't think it did much either way.
(edit: Apparently the demo became free-for-all in July, a number of months after the release and patches. But before that it was part of an "EA Access" thing that... I odn't know... is a subscription service that might give access to betas and free games and stuff maybe)

The people who refunded after the kerfuffle I would say are... not very many in the grand scope of things. People who are loud on the internet are generally not a huge portion. It's over time that publishers might see the effects of their policies.

I agree with a lot of what others have said about how the happy endings aren't properly defined in this article. I'm a big fan of the sorta happy ending or the "Well I went to war and saw some bad shit" ending.

You know. The Lord of the Rings and The Hunger Games did these. The character does all the hero stuff, but when they return home they see that they've changed forever. So in the end they might not be able to enjoy what they fought so hard for.

I mean this is a happy ending that I'd like to see in games somehow. The disconnect when you return to the starting area but you're so overleveled that it's just crazy. The great adventures you had in the beginning of the game seem sort of meaningless or something.

Doing a game ending that isn't dependent on the actual writing but the gameplay. It might be a different discussion completely. But how do you convey a "bad ending" through gameplay?

I guess games like Defcon manage somewhat, with all those numbers just dying all over the place and the player not really realizing what the hell's going on until it is almost over. (how the world just goes a little bit quieter by the end)

I also played Papers, Please the other day and that one also seems to mechanically show a pretty bleak existence :) Though with 20 endings I'm sure one of them is going to turn out... well... possibly optimistic.

But with papers, please that's also the thing. I don't agree with the fact that the ending is the most important thing in a story either. Especially in, say these new telltale adventures that are all about the choices and character interactions. The story stays pretty consistent but it's the individual choices that are harrowing. Like I was playing the second season of The Walking Dead and at one point during I realized that I was slowly turning the main character into a pretty cold and heartless survivor in the post-apocalyptic zombie world. It is probably the same no matter what you do but the fact that I (felt like I) chose this path had a different impact on me than just being told.

I guess the ending was... about as happy as zombie endings are. But in the end it wasn't the end, it was the journey. (such cliche)

Speaking of horror (zombies) and I think this will be my last rambly point. I recently read a horror short story collection. I am not a big reader of horror. I don't think I've really read any stuff that self-identifies as horror. Generally I just read science fiction and fantasy that clearly has horror elements, but it seems it's mostly SFF.

Anyway I found that the only real difference between these short stories and "regular" SFF short stories was that they had an unhappy ending. It was extra clear to me since they were short stories so I read a couple in a row and by the end I just knew that they wouldn't end well.

Of course I'm not saying regular SFF stories always end well, but there was a certain kind of ending to the horror stories. If you take a zombie story. In a... more optimistic version the short story ends with the heroes getting through the first obstacle and maybe by the end they face another great challenge. That will not be tackled in the short story because it's a short story. But it's clear the the protagonists are resourceful enough that they might make it through. Or they might not. It's a difficult place. In the horror zombie story the story ends the same but then the protagonist notices the bite mark.

So one has the possibility of maybe they'll make it and in the other their days are always numbered. That was just an observation I made. I don't know if all horror is like this but from this short story collection (and reading a little Lovecraft :)), this certainly seems to be the case.

The actual results are going to get published too right? Without having to listen to them?

Movies were pretty ruined for me from before. That's why I couldn't say this "ruined" movies for me. Instead it was just a new way of ruining movies. Again. :D