Mass Effect 3 advertising 'not misleading' ad watchdog concludes

Vocal haters of the Mass Effect 3 ending won't be happy, but an advertising watchdog agency has cleared Electronic Arts in an investigation whether the publisher's ads for the game misled players about how their actions would impact the finale.

A ruling from the Advertising Standards Agency determined that, while EA may have overreached a bit in its claims in a Mass Effect 3 ad that "decisions you make completely shape your experience and outcome," the three endings were different enough and the outcomes were determined by how the players performed in the three games.

The ASA, which got involved after complaints about the ads, continued (via CVG):

"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."

BioWare will be releasing Extended Cut DLC for free later this summer that offers a bit more explanation of the ending.