Is Mass Effect 3 not a work of art?

Whether you think Mass Effect 3's ending is good or not, the real issue is that 50,000 gamers apparently no longer consider it a work of art.

[LouisGarcia]

That whole "work of art" debate is getting old. I agree with what Hideo Kojima once said about games not being a work of art, but having artistic elements. I think it was something like that, but that article was read years ago and I'm getting old.

[Tolkoto]

I don't know if it is art or not. I don't care. But it's definitely a product.

Also, they kinda threw the whole "artistic integrity" thing out the window when they wanted $10 more dollars to unlock one of the characters.

[Canvas Of Flesh]

If I could I would literally carve a 10 foot tall "+1" out of stone and give it to you.

I don't know how many times I've tried telling people that the only thing keeping video games from being considered an "art form" is the industry's very own business models.

[MysticStrummer]

If Mass Effect is a work of art, then many more games are works of art than usually get mentioned in those conversations.

[palaeomerus]

The idea that art is sacrosanct (in a world where nothing is really held as sacred), and is never to be revised is absolutely stupid.

[SeraphimBlade]

Exactly my point. If you want Bioware to change the ending, and have EVER defended a game that people wanted changed because of violence or sexual content, you're just a hypocrite to me.

Developers shouldn't be allowed to write whatever they want if it's good and we like it. They should be allowed to write whatever they want PERIOD.

[SkolarVisari]

They already are allowed to write whatever they feel like, however if they want to charge people money for their work they are going to have to live with the fact that people other than themselves will have an opinion on what they like. Furthermore this opinion had better be considered if the artist wishes to continue to sell their work.

Books and movies have been changed in the past and will continue to be in the future because the readers and viewers take issue with something. Artistic integrity doesn't just mean the exclusive vision of the creators, it means in this case maintaining consistency within the universe and not insulting the intelligence of the people consuming the work.

This wasn't violence or sex this was a case of the work introducing things that literally insult the intelligence of the players and utterly destroy the all important suspension of disbelief that is required for all fiction to work.

[Coolmanrico]

Personally I don't understand why everyone is throwing artistic integrity around to defend the mass effect ending. Let's face it every gaming company can pull that excuse to defend any problem in there game that we dislike with the exceptions of glitch and bugs.

[googergieger]

It's kind of like comparing James Cameron/Micheal Bay to your respectable directors. At the end of the day they aren't as much directors as producers that direct. I.E. they want to make the most successful movie possible and not the best movie possible. Mass Effect 3 was that in a nutshell. The whole game had cringe worthy dialogue and phoned in written all over it. It abandoned what set it apart from other scifi stories period and decided to give us more of the same. Some cliched cheese fest that was capped off with a nonsensical and downright horrible ending. So no, this game wasn't art. It'd have to have at least tried first in order to even start this argument.