Adaptation Blues - Mass Effect: Deception

As an aspiring writer, I found this whole debacle fascinating.

When loyal fans of the blockbuster video game series Mass Effect picked up their copy of the latest tie-in novel, Deception, they were outraged to find within its pages a number of glaring continuity errors. And, according to this webpage, these are not insignificant oversights:

Gillian and Nick are 18 years old in Deception—They were both twelve-going-on-thirteen in Ascension, set a bit less than three years prior to Deception; in Retribution, which takes place mere months prior to the events of Deception, Nick was just fifteen.

Gillian’s autism is never mentioned—The closest the book gets is noting that she was an “unstable twelve-year-old” and a passing reference to her having a “temper.” This is not presented as a disability, but rather an adolescent phase she has largely "gotten over."

Hendel Mitra is described as ogling asari strippers, a very heterosexual reaction—Hendel was established as homosexual in Ascension.

Kai Leng enjoys watching an asari dancer, going as far as to wink at her—Kai Leng is physically repulsed by aliens. In Retribution, he is completely uninterested in Liselle’s nudity, thinks of asari as “whorish,” and finds the sights of Afterlife disgusting.

To be honest, none of that really surprises me. When a writer is hired to dip his toes into the expanded universe of a beloved franchise he had no part in creating, mistakes are inevitable.

What did surprise me was the apology issued by BioWare and Del Rey Books:

The teams at Del Rey and BioWare would like to extend our sincerest apologies to the Mass Effect fans for any errors and oversights made in the recent novel Mass Effect: Deception. We are currently working on a number of changes that will appear in future editions of the novel.

So they allowed a flawed product to be released in order to meet a deadline, but promise they'll fix it later? Who do they think they are—Bethesda?