Mass Effect 3 cleared by UK advertising regulator

Electronic Arts has been cleared of complaints that they misled consumers with the advertising of BioWare's Mass Effect 3. The controversy stemmed from consumer dissatisfaction with the ending of the game, a narrative choice BioWare has pledged to fix with upcoming DLC. After an investigation, UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled in favor of the publisher.

"The ASA acknowledged the belief that players' choices in the game did not influence the outcome to the extent claimed by EA," said a statement from the advertising regulator, as reported by CVG.

"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)," the statement continued.

"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 realize 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."