Rewriting the Ending

I still have yet to pick up Mass Effect 3 - the day will come when I'll play it true but for now I'd rather wait for a price drop or, better still, when a Special Edition is released with all the DLC readily available.
But maybe I should go ahead and admit it: I find the outrage over the ending to ME3 far more fascinating than the actual game itself. It may be a disturbing thought but I have never seen fans grow so outraged over something that it's creators have to make drastic changes.

So yes whilst Bioware may have given in and produced a DLC ending, it does place an interesting spotlight on game endings and how makers have been forced to change it. This does suggest that an ending CAN be changed - which is fascinating to me as gaming history is littered with games that have been challenging and demanded effort but have ultimately yielded an anticlimactic ending (Xenon 2 anyone?).
But ultimately, this is one more chapter in the relationship between the developer and the gamer - where the developer has made a decision and the fan's reaction it is one of disgust that changes are made. That being said, here some anecdotes to ponder on:

In 1990, the Sega Megadrive was blessed with a rare RPG game: Phantasy Star 2. It was a followup to a popular game on the Master System and expanded on it's predecessor in more ways than one. One thing PS2 set out to do was to do things unique to RPGs at the time to set itself apart from the crowd. One telling sign is the permanent death of a party member partway through the game: The artificial human Nei is confronted with the truth of her genesis and attacks the scientist who created her with reckless abandon. She is subsequently killed - forever - and her death inspires her comrades to win even more. It was a bold move that saddened many players to a point where denial crept in and rumours began circulating that there was a way to resurrect her. All of which proved untrue.
Interesting enough is that years later, PS2 players finally got their wish: As part of the Sega Ages revamp for the Playstation 2, Phantasy Star 2 was dusted off and given a new lease of life - and as part of it, Nei could be resurrected (and effect the plot) once players accomplished a laundry list of requirements that were anything but easy to achieve.

In 1997, Final Fantasy 7 did the same thing: The permanent death of a major character in the form of Aerith Gainsborough. Like Nei, the player reaction was the same. Unlike Nei, the scale of said reaction was much, MUCH bigger. Some gamers cried, some gave up playing and some are STILL talking about it a decade and a half later. But most importantly, the denial was much bigger and, with the rise of the Internet, much easy for rumours to get about. Many methods were tried but all failed.
There was some demand to Sqauresoft to bring her back but they refused - for it was their plan to kill someone in the party off partway and Aerith was their choice - and she did the job better than anyone could've hoped for. And thus Squaresoft have resisted any demands - even her role in (admittedly fanwank) movie Advent Children was a small one. But if the rumours of a new FF7 continue to persist, it seems doubtful the Aerith will ever be left to rest in peace.

And then we have the Mass Effect 3 ending - And the reaction/outrage has been incredible to say the least. The effort to persuade Bioware to change their mind has been unlike anything before it and the anger invested puts a lot of Star Wars devotees to shame. Fandom may have decreed Aerith to have eclipsed Nei but the fracas over the ME3 ending leaves the flower girl in the dust. Mind you, I can see and understand just how a delicate balance it is for a creator/writer in trying to keep true to one's vision and trying to keep the fans, the people who decide your success, hanging around - so credit for Bioware for handling this the way they have amid accusations of false advertising, betrayal, and spin doctoring (I'd sure hate to have been Bioware's PR person during all of this).

So yeah, three tales of fan outrage and how the company reacted - all yielding three very different outcomes. As said above, the outrage over ME3 has been mind-blowing - even to the point where similar outrages that have come before it seem pitiful by comparison.
Still, as this post has hopefully proven, one cannot forget the past - otherwise we are doomed to repeat it.