Art and patronage in the 21st century - a new paradigm?

March 24, 2012

 Citadel. Digital painting for Mass Effect by Mikko Kinnunen. 2009.

I believe passionately that games are an art form, and that the power of our medium flows from our audience, who are deeply involved in how the story unfolds, and who have the uncontested right to provide constructive criticism. 
Dr. Ray Muzyka
Co-Founder of BioWare Games


Spoiler warning - the following post contains descriptions of possible endings in Mass Effect 3

The history of art is replete with the influence of patrons on the final outcome of a work. Early altarpiece contracts specified that a commission be executed modo et forma (in the likeness of) an accomplished piece by another master. Other patrons would appear in works, as witnesses to the Nativity or in the guise of a saint. It is reported Isabella d'Este was so displeased with a portrait of her by Titian, that she asked him to instead create a copy of a painting made when she was forty years younger. As Gronau relates,
It was a little weakness on the part of the duchess, when a woman of sixty, to get Titian to copy a picture of herself in her youth ; no doubt because she was not contented with the likeness of her features the painter had taken from nature.
To this end, Isabella sent the great master a portrait of herself in her youth painted by Francia, which Titian produced a version of. Published correspondence relates that Isabella was so delighted with the youthful portrait that she joked to Titian that she had not looked so beautiful even in her youth. At around the same time, satirist Pietro Aretino mocked her as disonestamente brutta (dishonestly ugly).

Isabella d'Este - real vs ideal? Left: Copy after Titian by Rubens. Right: Youthful portrait after an earlier version by Francesco Francia. Both paintings are in the Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna.

Patrons sometimes outright refused the final product, as experienced by Caravaggio for his controversial Death of the Virgin - rejected by the friars of the Santa Maria della Scala church in Trastevere.


Giulio Mancini was an eyewitness to the painting's rejection in 1606. In a letter to his brother, he related that the Carmelite friars were dismayed by the "lasciviousness" of the piece. In the margins of his treatise on the painting, he also adds,
...the death of the Virgin in the Madonna della Scala...was removed by the Fathers from that church because Caravaggio had used a courtesan as a model for the person of the Madonna...he portrayed the Virgin, Our Lady, as a whore from the slums whom he loved, carefully and without devotion...and in particular that offended those good Fathers.
In more recent times, the whim of the artist has taken an increasing prominence over the wishes of those purchasing the art. A distinction must be made here however, between a collector and a patron. If the artist is still active, those collecting their works will exert less control over a piece than if they were financially integral to its commission. For mediums such as mainstream cinema, where the market exerts a powerful effect on the industry, fan reactions have resulted in specialised versions released of a film even though the director themselves has moved on from their original vision. A clear example of this being the Star Wars films, which now exist as original and special editions on DVD following a strong fan response against the altered versions presented by director George Lucas.

A fascinating case study is playing out across the world as players of the video game series Mass Effect complete the third installment of the epic sci-fi action based role playing game. Since the original Mass Effect in 2007, players have been able to create a character, following them on a story arc spanning three games and over 100 hours of gameplay.  Decisions made in the first two games affect characters and scenarios in the third in an unprecedented accomplishment by game developer BioWare. The widespread appeal of the universe created by the series has transcended video games, making its vision of the future a point of discussion in commentary on popular culture, and even in the  scientific community - evidenced by an intriguing piece by astrobiologist Professor Caleb Scharf in Scientific American: link
But the biggest idea, the biggest piece of fiction-meets-genuine-scientific-hypothesis is the overarching story of Mass Effect. It directly addresses one of the great questions of astrobiology – is there intelligent life elsewhere in our galaxy, and if so, why haven’t we intersected with it yet? The first serious thinking about this problem seems to have arisen during a lunchtime chat in the 1940′s where the famous physicist Enrico Fermi...is supposed to have asked “Where is Everybody?”
One of the greatest achievements of this game is that it gives the player a deeper sense of involvement in the story. After more than 100 hours of gameplay, your character has a greatly developed history, a trail of friends, foes, and fascinating adventures spanning the galaxy. Hence, with the recent release of the third part in the planned trilogy, players got to see the final outcome of many their decisions.  As players progressed through the game, closure is given to places and characters from previous installments - all culminating in a final epic battle on Earth. 

Having experienced an electronic semblance of being in control of one's destiny, many players were disappointed in the endings that were provided by BioWare. Without going into complex scenarios, it is sufficient to say that neither ending was neatly tied up nor particularly favourable for the lead character and their crew. I too felt a palpable sense of unease going through the three final pathway choices and noting in each instance the galaxy is forever reshaped, with your character seeming to have made the ultimate sacrifice in nearly all of the available scenarios*. In short, the ending was so bittersweet that it has promoted a massive reaction from patrons of the game, calling for more control or some kind of closure for the character and crewmembers they had invested so much time in. 

RIP Isabel Shepard? Your customisable player character accompanies you through over 100 hours of epic adventure - many (this writer included) found it hard to see them die - a testimony to the scope and great writing in the Mass Effect series.

It is necessary at this point to step away from the fan frenzy and speculation about incongruities in the final segment of the story.  It is instead more interesting to focus on the the debate that is occurring as an undercurrent - namely what constitutes artistic integrity in video games, and are developers BioWare responsible to their paying customers in some way?

Reactions to the game have polarised the gaming community and observers. Some view it as the by-product of a spoilt and entitled generation. Others see it as the right of a paying customer to express their discontent to the developer. There is merit to either of these viewpoints. To them, it would also be wise to add that this is also a first - an historic turning point in the development of a medium that is increasingly described as an art form.

Outside of the gaming industry, the world of art history has seemed weary to engage in discussion exploring the parameters of digital art, let alone video games. Fortunately, one sterling example rises to the fore - Professor Donald Kuspit.  His outstanding essay The Matrix of Sensations set the template for digital art, and video games to enter into art historical discussion. 
No longer is the artist confined to familiar configurations. The artist can invent fantastic new configurations alive with unusually exciting sensations. Digital art can thus affect a profound alteration of consciousness. The computer is not a new instrument for making an old architecture, painting and sculpture; it offers the opportunity for a new kind of architecture, painting and sculpture...Digital architecture, digital painting and digital sculpture -- all premised on digital drawing using the "ingrained" algorithms of the computer -- are new modes of art with unexpected and still incompletely explored creative, aesthetic and visionary potential.
Out of the numerous comments made regarding Mass Effect 3 in gaming and news forums across the world - this one particularly stood out - indicative of the struggle felt by some towards not only the medium as an art from, but its impact on the modern patron.  

Comment by alivealie at G4tv source
I recently thought that video games were evolving, getting closer to a place of pure human expression, with the added benefit of being interactive, thus bringing two or more people together in such expressions. But this decision seems to indicate that people are much more concerned with getting what they want, rather than being challenged and broadened by what someone else wants to show them. If games are to progress as art, they need to be given the respect art deserves. This is not only to say that gamers and fans should be more tolerant of a game if it disappoints them, but that the very notions of a game's production need to be given greater flexibility and creative space, allowing for teams to have the time it truly takes to complete something special, rather than the slap-dash tacked on multiplayer product spawning that has been the result of so much corporate teeth gnashing.
At the end of the day, I look at this as a small victory for gamers and fans who demanded change, and a great loss for the progress of games becoming more than products of glorified entertainment.

The massive fan reaction and subsequent Retake Mass Effect 3 movement has garnered worldwide support, including raising $80,000 USD for a childrens' charity along the way. The outcry prompted a fascinating response from BioWare co-founder Dr. Ray Muzyka. source
I believe passionately that games are an art form, and that the power of our medium flows from our audience, who are deeply involved in how the story unfolds, and who have the uncontested right to provide constructive criticism. At the same time, I also believe in and support the artistic choices made by the development team. The team and I have been thinking hard about how to best address the comments on ME3’s endings from players, while still maintaining the artistic integrity of the game.

Mass Effect 3 concludes a trilogy with so much player control and ownership of the story that it was hard for us to predict the range of emotions players would feel when they finished playing through it. The journey you undertake in Mass Effect provokes an intense range of highly personal emotions in the player; even so, the passionate reaction of some of our most loyal players to the current endings in Mass Effect 3 is something that has genuinely surprised us. This is an issue we care about deeply, and we will respond to it in a fair and timely way. We’re already working hard to do that.
This was subsequently reported by journalists as BioWare potentially caving to the demands of fans. Others speculate the nature of the endings was an astute strategy by BioWare to encourage players to seek further (paid?) downloadable content (DLC) to expand the game and/or the ending. The debate over whether downloadable content is an appropriate place to have put this option is beyond the scope of this discussion. It will be fascinating to track how the outcome of this case will affect the perception of video games as a medium with a distinct artistic integrity, and whether an artist-patron relationship exists in a mass-market context. 

Future imperfect and scholarly implications
Mass Effect is undoubtedly a beautiful game in an aesthetic sense. It is also an immersive game with a detailed universe to explore, and a story with discrete beginning and end, unlike other (online) role playing games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life. The visual art of Mass Effect is among some of the work exhibited in the current exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum. Beyond the visuals however, Mass Effect represents a turning point in an artistic medium particular to our age. Never has a video game affected such a widespread emotional response from its patrons. How the endings will pan out remains to be seen, including discerning whether BioWare had anticipated this reaction from the start. In an art historical sense at least, this example is a landmark iteration of a much older relationship between artist and consumer - something which is less discernible from the myriad reports on the web - which I wanted to more clearly state in this post. After this, we can only speculate at a point in time when art historical texts will readily include a case study of Mass Effect 2007-2012 as a discrete artistic expression. At the very least, the Smithsonian exhibition and its  catalogue is a heartening step forward.

Updates to the outcome of this story will be added as they are announced. BioWare are expected to outline the nature of their content addressing the endings in April. 

Addenda, points of inetrest
*Many following this story have pointed out the following tweet by one of the producers of Mass Effect, Michael Gamble. Posted on March 9, 2012 - shortly after the game's release - he makes a somewhat cryptic comment about what lies ahead. It should be noted this being 3 days after US launch date, would concide with the first waves of user feedback about the endings. A portent of the future, or great PR?

Hardest. Day. Ever. Seriously, if you people knew all the stuff we are planning...you'd, we'll - hold onto your copy of me3 forever.Fri Mar 09 02:24:03 via Twitter for iPhone

*A great post by Yannick LeJacq on March 26 2012 at the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog. It includes a summary of the case to date, as well as a deeper exploration of the writer's own reactions to the choices faced during the game. It also examines the narrative element of role playing games in comparison to their literary predecessors. The comments section is also full of interesting insights into how people are reacting to the game and the discussion about the medium as a distinct art form. See refs for full details or click this link to view.

*A wonderful interactive app/documentary has been released by G4TV gaming journalist Geoff Keighley exploring The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3. Among the many interviews, videos and images, there is a final quote near the end that hints at the great potential finality of players' choices at the end of the game.  The quote from producer Casey Hudson is included in the following excerpt:
Hudson isn't sure where the series goes next, but he's pretty confident that he never wants to tell any stories that take place in a post-Shepard era. "Whatever we do would likely happen before or during the events of Mass Effect 3, not after."
Hence, with the promise to deliver content allowing "more closure" for players and their characters, and even "new full games", it seems the universe you leave at the end of the third installment may never be revisited. Also poignant is the revelation that the concept of returning the galaxy to the "dark ages" figured strongly in development of the plot - which is perhaps a reason why the ending(s) were so disconcerting. Players who enjoyed the glimpse of a beautiful, fleshed out universe set 175 years into our own future would respond to the idea that their actions changed this irrevocably, and that this point in the story's timeline was the end as far as BioWare wanted to explore it.

The interactive app/documentary format is an excellent concept - kudos to Keighley and his crew. It is also expected that there will be a follow up to Final Hours that includes a summary of the reaction and BioWare's response once the dust settles (see faq).

March 20 2012, a thorough analysis of the "Indoctrination Theory" was  posted at the YouTube Channel of angryjoeshow. link This theory is summarised in the video by Acavyos, also at YouTube. link. Particularly interesting in the angryjoeshow analysis is the inclusion of tweets by BioWare staff hinting at a grander, more complex ending - lending creedence to the Indoctrination Theory's primary assertion that the game ending did not actually occur - but was a manifest dream or hallucination playing out in the protagonist's mind. It is hence believed the upcoming "extended cut" DLC will properly resolve the endings for players, although BioWare later commented the the new DLC will not change the ending of the game (see Derek Larke quote below).

April 5 2012, BioWare announced its "extended cut" DLC which will deliver a fleshed out epilogue to the story, without changing the end choices made in the game. Release date is presently listed as "summer 2012", where it is noted the content will be provided for free until April 2014. For more information, please see this post by Derek Larke on the BioWare blog link. Intriguingly the topic of the development team's artistic vision was re-iterated by more than one spokesperson:

Derek Larke source
"BioWare strongly believes in the team's artistic vision for the end of this arc of the Mass Effect franchise. The extended cut DLC will expand on the existing endings, but no further ending DLC is planned....Though we remain committed and are proud of the artistic choices we made in the main game, we are aware that there are some fans who would like more closure to Mass Effect 3. The goal of the DLC is not to provide a new ending to the game, rather to offer fans additional context and answers to the end of Commander Shepard's story."

Dr. Ray Muzyka source
"With the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut we think we have struck a good balance in delivering the answers players are looking for while maintaining the team's artistic vision for the end of this story arc in the Mass Effect universe."

Casey Hudson's comments seem to address the chief concerns about the promised personalisation of the experience, "We have reprioritized our post-launch development efforts to provide the fans who want more closure with even more context and clarity to the ending of the game, in a way that will feel more personalized for each player." source

June 22 2012, BioWare announced the release of the "extended cut DLC" on June 26 2012. Game producer Casey Hudson affirmed that the endings will not be changed but "extended". For more detail listen to this audio interview posted at YouTube, which also features lead writer Mac Walters and Community Manager Jessica Merizan. It includes an interesting account of how the developers gathered feedback during the creation of the extended cut DLC. link

References
Biadene, S. Yakush, M. Titian: Prince of Painters. (exh. cat.) 1990. Prestel. p.218. Entry 25. Portrait of Isabella d'Este

Gamble, Michael (GambleMike). "Hardest. Day. Ever. Seriously, if you people knew all the stuff we are planning...you'd, we'll - hold onto your copy of me3 forever." March 9, 2012. 2.24 a.m. Tweet. link

Gronau, G. Titian. (Trans. Todd, AM). 1904. Ballantyne Press. p.86 Accessed March 23 2012 at archive.org link

Johnson, S. Mass Effect 3 Ending: BioWare Vows to Address Gamer Concerns. G4TV website. Posted March 21 2012. Accessed March 23 2012. link Comment post by user alivealie made on March 21 screengrab of full comment image

Kuspit, D. The Matrix of Sensations. Posted at Artnet Magazine website. August 8 2005. Accessed March 23 2012. link

Keighley, G. The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3. Adobe Air Platform version. Part 12. p. 5. link

LeJacq, Y. Why the Ending of Mass Effect 3 Started a Furor. Kill Screen feature on Wall Street Journal Speakeasy blog. March 26. Accessed March 30 2012.

Mancini, G. Considerazioni sulla pittura, 1619-21, vol. 1. Rome, 1956. p.120, 132. English translation Cited by Spike, JT (see below)

Munkittrick, K. Why Mass Effect is the Most Important Science Fiction Universe of Our Generation. io9 website. February 17 2012. Accessed March 23 2012. link

Muzyka, R. To Mass Effect 3 Players, from BioWare co-founder, Ray Muzyka. Posted on BioWare blog March 21. Accessed March 23 2012. link

Nethersole, S. Devotion by Design. National Gallery Company. 2011. p.91

Scharf, CA. Mass Effect solves the Fermi Paradox? Scientific American blogs.  March 15 2012. Accessed March 23 2012. link

Snider, M. Star Wars goes back to basics. USA Today website. March 5 2006. Accessed March 23 2012. link

Tassi, P. Did the Real Mass Effect Ending Go Over Everyone's heads? Forbes website. March 21 2012. Accessed 23 March 2012. link

The Art of Video Games. Exhibition details. Smithsonian website. Accessed March 23 2012 link

Thier, D. Why BioWare Stopped Taking Donations from Retake Mass Effect. Forbes website. March 23 2012. Accessed March 23 2012 link

Retake Mass Effect. BioWare Social Network Forum thread. Posted by user UniqueName001 on 13 March 2012. Accessed March 23 2012 link

Spike, JT. Caravaggio. Revised Second Edition. Abbeville Press. 2010. p.155

*It is reported that one outcome of the game hints that the protagonist may still be alive - showing a body surrounded by rubble gasp for air. This ending is only available with a certain choice and only to highly achieving players. See this video for more information link

Image notes
Citadel by Mikko Kinnunen sourced from CGSociety. Copyright Mikko Kinnunen/EA link 
Isabella d'Este - composite elements sourced from about.com link and wiki link
Death of Virgin by Caravaggio via Web Gallery of Art link
Isabel Shepard - GIF animation of Mass Effect 3 player character created by H Niyazi. RIP Izzy.

14 comments:

Alberti's Window said...

I know nothing about gaming, but this topic seems to fit in with the current art historical interest in visual culture. Off the bat, your discussion about viewer experience and gaming made me think of Baudrillard's discussion on Disneyland and simulacra, which I first read in graduate school.

I assume that are art historians who are quite interested in this topic (and there might even be some discourse on the topic, though I'm not terribly with much contemporary visual culture analysis because of my own speciality and interest). If I come across any names, I will let you know.

I would be interested to see if anyone has written analyses on how the "viewer involvement" in gaming parallels the visual devices and used in other artistic styles (like Baroque painting or postmodern artistic installations).

Alberti's Window said...

This being said, it is significant to note that Jean Baudrillard is not an art historian - which is telling, given the context of your post. Baudrillard is a sociologist and cultural theorist. But I'm glad that art historians can take their cues from other disciplines...

Unknown said...

Thanks M! I'm also fond of Baudrillard's work, though I must admit I never viewed at as art historical either! There is of course much more discussion in social and cultural theory circles about the internet and gaming culture.

I wanted to used the Renaissance and Baroque examples to highlight some of the issues are the same and there really is so much that should be familiar to students and scholars of the Renaissance in the modern world... such as the wonderful posts on Renaissance colour we've had from Glennis McGregor or even the intriguing Dürer copyright case.

As Matthew Collings wonderfully states in his Renaissance Revolution series, Renaissance Art was the "modern art" of the day, replete with innovations in color, technique and form - something we can be lulled into forgetting seeing a pleasant Raphael Madonna sitting on museum wall.

I'm really looking forward to receiving the Smithsonian exhibition catalogue and hope to present a review at 3PP later in the year. Anyone near Washington is enouraged to attend - it seems an historic point in the course of the medium.

Kind Regards
H

Glennis said...

I sympathise with Dr. Muzyka in wanting to resist the tyranny of the focus group approach to big budget art and support the artistic independence of the development team.
I heard an interesting discussion on BBC Radio this morning about the metrification of everything we consume. (How our world is saturated with consumer metrics.) Art can only be a disruptive force in this environment - if it is crafted via focus groups and corporate research, it fails as art.

Unknown said...

Hello Glennis - thank you for your comment.

Is this really a focus group approach? A large number of consumers have registered discontent with a product that would not have been possible without their patronage. This is not a random sampling of persons (who often comprise focus groups) but active supporters of the company.

Even in those among us who are sympathetic to the idea of artistic integrity, there is a point where me must acquiesce that art is in the genesis of a concept - once the idea is put into action as a palpable entity, it will immediately take on a new group of stakeholders that may influence its final form, for better or worse.

That ME has managed to complete a three game cycle and hold onto some of its RPG elements is a feat in itself, even with all the trimming that occurred along the way. It is not a pure RPG, nor a pure shooter, indicative of the influence of its diverse, and extremely large audience.

No matter what BioWare decides, it is inevitable that not everyone is going to be happy. Art based on influence from forces that shape it is not easily describable in terms of failure. eg. Where would Raphael be without Julius II and the Papal Treasury? Is the Stanza della Segnatura a failure?! The "School of Athens" was likely mapped for Raphael in very specific terms, he was not sufficiently versed in Philosophy to populate it himself. His invention came in the design and implementation - but without his patrons and advisors, that work would not be the creation we marvel at now.

Kind Regards
H

Glennis said...

Yes - a 'focus group' is maybe not the right term for mass player feedback.
The question that now springs to mind is - are consumers actually patrons - or is BioWare more of a patron who funds the development process and the salaries of the development team?

Anonymous said...

(The following comment contains spoilers not limited to Mass Effect.) As someone who has loved the Mass Effect series and is also deeply disappointed in the endings, I would like to state, personally, that it is not the nearly inescapable death at the end that upsets me. I understand that many narratives that involve genuine plot and character development, and that try to maintain some internal sense of coherence result in the death of the main character. I didn't love Hesse's The Glass Bead Game any less for the main characters death, nor Big Love for its. Sometimes the story inevitably leads to it. And what I really is the challenge it poses to the player. For example, as much as I wanted to be as renegade as possible on my second play through I simply could not kill Mordin. But because of this way in which I understand a good narrative I have a general problem with this ending of Mass Effect. If I remember correctly, the developers stated that there would be something like a thousand choice from the previous two games that influence the third game. This makes the inevitability of Shepard's death in most of the available endings problematic. With so many variables surely narrative coherence would have led to many more possible endings. I realize that the attempt to account for so many variables is laudable and difficult in itself; for that I the praise the game developers. This was a long-winded way of saying that some of us (I hope I speak not just for my self) are less disturbed by the death, and more disturbed by the breach of the most laudable narrative qualities of the series.

die-yng said...

This is a very interesting article, bringing the discussion to a whole different level.

An analogy that comes to my mind is a craftsman of any kind.
He delivers a finished piece, it is handmade, he put a lot of effort into it, today many would consider this as a work of art.

And indeed a finely crafted piece can very easily also be artistic.
... but alas, his measurements were wrong and it doesn't work as it is suppossed to and does divert from what he promised his customer.

The craftsman would never dare to defend himself, using artistic integrity.

The same should be applied to Bioware.
The ending is broken, it's flawed and it contains logical errors.
It contradicts basic elements of the games and their established setting.
Last but not least, it is also in no way what Bioware promised to deliver.

If the ending to Mass Effect 3 is to be considered as a piece of art, then it is objectively a very bad and unskilled piece of art.

Unknown said...

Thank you for the insightful comments.

@glennis - ME would not have made it to the third iteration if not for the immense commercial success of the first two. EA themselves did not become involved in distribution until the second title. BioWare have always been very involved with their fans, supporting user created content and creation tools in previous titles. For them to have "gone corporate" and ignored their patrons response to the ending would be uncharacteristic indeed, and would have likely caused a backlash beyond what we are presently seeing. These sentiments are of course clearly reflected in Dr Muzyka's comments that lead the above post.

@Anon - thank you for stating this clearly - I think many would have been able to accept Shepard's ultimate sacrifice as long as it reflected the diverse set of choices that led to that point. Instead - the great congruity of the end cutscenes, with the main variations often being in colour seemed so out of character with the depth of the rest of the series. We can only wait and see what BioWare will do next. I will admit that bright flash of light when you are sprinting towards the beam immediately made me think along the lines of "dream sequence" because what followed seemed just so unlike the rest of the entire series.

@die-yng - I like your analogy. It is true - it doesnt fit the spirit of the rest of the presentation. The game would not have made it this far if it was vague and nebulous from the start. It built its following and supporters exactly because of its complexity and diversity. I'm always still amazed when I hear of folks having characters around in the end who I said goodbye to in game 1. It was an amazing feat...but that last 15 minutes was perplexing. Also to see the characters I paid attention to the least (in my case EDI and Joker) emerge from the wreck at the end... seemed to add further insult to injury!

I have a feeling the upcoming DLC will bring *some* resolution, but will it be enough to make the majority of presently disgruntled players happy...probably not!

Kind Regards
H

Anonymous said...

I look forward to seeing the conclusion of this piece after Bioware's action in April.

Unknown said...

Cheers anon... this makes me think of ME producer Michael Gamble's cryptic tweet not long after launch - I'll include it as an addendum to the post for the sake of completeness.

Kind Regards
H

Unknown said...

Edit notes - March 31 2012
Included new addenda - a great write up by Yannick LeJacq on Wall Street Journal Kill Screen blog and an intriguing quote from BioWare/ME producer Casey Hudson via the interactive app/documentary "The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3" by Geoff Keighley.

Many thanks to all readers and commenters for their amazing feedback and linking to this post from the many corners of the web.

Kind Regards
H Niyazi

Unknown said...

Edit Notes - April 5, 22
Added sources and descriptions of announcement re- "extended cut" DLC, including comment by Casey Hudson on responding to players' demands re- personalised story endings.

A further update/post-script will be added once the extended cut DLC is released

Kind Regards
H Niyazi

Unknown said...

Edit Note - June 23
On June 22nd, Bioware announced the "extended cut" DLC will be released on June 26, 2012. Added link to audio interview with Casey Hudson and Mac Walters by Jessica Merizan discussing this DLC and its development process.

Kind Regards
H Niyazi

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