Nobody is going to look at Mass Effect and say, "yea, lets do that", "lets do what they're doing, lets get 'inspired' by what they're doing". Mass Effect is an interesting dead end which will add nothing to the discourse of "games as art". Calling it the greatest games ever is infact hyperbole.
Well, I disagree with practically all of the above.
If anything, the Mass Effect series have shown that it is worth investing in such overarching features, because the games have steadily sold more with each new episode and the critical response was very good as well. The decision to push the core game towards a more polished third person shooter implementation, and the addition of the new story/action/rpg 'modes' have certainly helped to further increase the third game's appeal. But overall I still think it was far more about new players jumping in because of the good reviews, articles, word of mouth and so on; and many have also decided to get the previous chapters, in order to build a personalized background for their characters.
However, the biggest point was that people kept buying the next release because they wanted to see their own personal stories to continue, because they became invested and emotionally attached far more than it's possible with a game where you play a much smaller part in how the story develops. The scale of the fan reaction to the ending - whatever it might be, as I haven't completed the game yet - is a pretty good indicator of just how much this game actually matters to people. I actually find it hard to recall any other recent game that provoked such buzz with its ending.
So, I wouldn't be surprised to see other developers looking into such features and offering more personalization in their games for the upcoming console generation. Permament local and online storage are both looking like a default feature, and we can definitely expect the large publishers to keep their focus on long standing franchises. Assassin's Creed in particular is an IP that could benefit a lot from this approach, but I can imagine nearly every kind of game to implement some overarching features. Multiplayer would probably be the easiest way, like transfering stats, perks, whatever. Sports games could also keep results and stats from last season's release, for example, and we've already seen continuity in the later Call of Duty MW games, so why not go a little further? And let's not get into how much a GTA type sandbox game could do with the concept...
These features can drive sales in many ways, for example as a differentiator over competing products and as a way to get players more invested and willing to buy further releases. They don't necessarily require less work than new graphical features or more content (in fact it can easily lead to even more content) but I think that Mass Effect demonstrated their advantages quite well. And Bioware itself will almost certainly look into at least a similar approach for their next big project - but I wouldn't be surprised if the success drives them to even more ambitious goals.
So Mass Effect is not a dead end, far from it: in my opinion it's a good indicator of just how much further interactive entertainment can and should go in the future.
