Not Very Observant

Things I don’t get: The sheer number of people I run into playing Star Trek Online convinced the game is set in the reboot-verse.

Never mind everyone’s flying Defiant or Galaxy-class ships, never mind the setting’s clearly post-TNG, from Bajor being part of the Federation to the Borg being major adversaries… the second mission has you visiting Vulcan.

Who are these people who care enough about Trek to be playing a Trek MMO in the first place, who are aware there’s a difference between the reboot-verse and the prime-verse, yet can’t notice the most obvious hint about which timeline they’re in?!

Rules of Acquisition

File under ‘Most Surreal Aspect of the Whole Mass Effect Ending Fiasco’:

Forbes Magazine – yes, that Forbes Magazine - has not one, but three articles on their website discussing the ending and its fallout.

How BioWare Could Find Redemption Using Mass Effect 3
Why Fan Service is Good Business
Mass Effect 3 And The Pernicious Myth Of Gamer 'Entitlement'


Unlike most gaming ‘journalists’, Forbes actually seems to have realised that alienating your customers isn’t a good policy, and that it’s not whining to expect quality from a product. Honestly, it’s the bad business sense of the ending that baffles me more than anything: Mass Effect was clearly BioWare’s attempt to create a new franchise where, unlike Knights of the Old Republic or Baldur’s Gate, they owned every aspect of it. It was, I think, a gamble – their previous original setting, Jade Empire, wasn’t particularly successful, but this time, they got it right. With Mass Effect, they managed to create an intellectual property that rivalled Star Wars in scope and popularity; I do not understand why they would then so cavalierly burn the setting to the ground at the height of its popularity.

If the fan backlash doesn’t get through to BioWare, maybe Forbes’s analysis of just how bad this was for their business and brand identity might.

Less seriously, I can't shake the image that Steve Forbes is sitting in a mansion somewhere, still staring blankly at a monitor, muttering to himself in shock “But… but Garrus and Tali will starve…”