10 Extreme Moments Where Video Game Fans Took Things Too Far
4. Rage over Mass Effect 3's ending
Before the 2010s, many gaming controversies were confined to smaller segments of communities.
That changed in 2012 with Mass Effect 3, Bioware's finale to the sci-fi role-playing trilogy. At the time, it was the biggest backlash to any game yet seen, and it all came down to the final ten minutes of the game itself.
After over sixty hours of playing through three games, making countless decisions that changed the fate of the galaxy, the ultimate conclusion players got did not reflect the path they had taken. Instead the trilogy's ending was merely a colour swap between red, blue and green, with little closure on the characters you'd followed for so long.
The Bioware forums were set ablaze by legions of enraged fans that took things too far when their favourite trilogy ended poorly.
Some sent the developer cupcakes that all tasted the same, others were furious, issuing constant death threats for the rest of the year. Forum moderators were constantly removing comments they considered out of line.
Once the flames finally died down, the community suspected that EA rushed the game out the door to meet profit quotas, or otherwise split necessary story DLC to rake in more cash.
The greatest victim of the controversy, however, was Bioware themselves. Mass Effect 3's bad ending forever altered their reputation, and put them on a downward trajectory they're yet to recover from.