In some of the advertising for Mass Effect 3, EA promised players that their decisions throughout the series would directly "shape your experience and outcome." Some people seem to have thought that there would be an infinite amount of endings, a different ending for every possible combination of decisions and, after weeks of anger on the internet, the Advertising Standards Authority got involved.
Months later, the controversy has passed and most people are over complaining about their disappointment in the Mass Effect series. Still, the ASA have finally finished their investigation and have concluded that EA did nothing wrong in the way they advertised the last of Shepard's adventures.
In a statement, the ASA explained their decision: "The ASA acknowledged the belief that players' choices in the game did not influence the outcome to the extent claimed by EA.
"However, we considered that the three choices at the end of the game were thematically quite different, and that the availability and effectiveness of those choices would be directly determined by a player's score, which was calculated with reference to previous performance in the game(s).
"We also acknowledged that there appeared to be a large number of minor variations in the end stages of Mass Effect 3, and that those were directly impacted by choices made by players earlier in the game(s).
"Whilst we acknowledged that the advertiser had placed particular emphasis on the role that player choices would play in determining the outcome of the game, we considered that most consumers would realise there would be a finite number of possible outcomes within the game and, because we considered that the advertiser had shown that players' previous choices and performance would impact on the ending of the game, we concluded that the ad was not misleading."
