Hey look, Herding Cats got its very own domain! If you have a blogroll link or bookmark, I’d appreciate it if you could update it to the new URL: lioreblog.com. Thanks a lot.
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Warning: ME3 spoilers
Okay fine, I didn’t want to write about the Ji Firepaw debacle because other people have already written about it extensively and I bet y’all can guess what I think anyway. However, a few recent posts about the issue caught my eye. It seems the current popular argument against Blizzard changing Ji’s dialogue is that there is a place for -isms and making people uncomfortable in the name of characterization. Removing that element, folks say, creates a world of drab boring fiction. At its core, the argument is a defense of art.
So, here’s a story. Some time ago there was a highly anticipated game with what many people felt was a very disappointing conclusion. Eventually so many people were outraged by the ending that they rose up into internet mobs. The game developers in turn defended their game and its ending. “This is our story,” the company said, “and we hope you will all evaluate it on its artistic merit.”
“What!? Art schmart!” cried out the angry players. “It’s a damn game that I paid for so go make me an ending where my FemShep adopts a krogan baby and lives happily ever after with Garrus.” (Or, um, something like that.)
I am of course talking about the Mass Effect 3 ending outrage. It seems that gamers themselves aren’t sure of the relationship between video games and art. So why, in the general arguments on the internet, is Mass Effect 3 considered a consumer good that can be changed to meet the demands of the audience while the lines of Ji Firepaw, level 3 questgiver, should be protected as artistic expression? Hmm?
I’m pretty sure you can guess the answer to that on your own. Look, my fellow gamers, I think many of us would like some aspect of games to be accepted as art, much like with books or movies. But to do that you can’t just wave the art flag when it’s convenient and opt out of thinking about the difficult stuff.
If Ji Firepaw’s old greeting is a work of characterization worthy of protection, then so is Shepard blowing up the galaxy.
Herding Cats is the blog of Liore, known in the real world as Jessica Cook. She writes mostly about MMOs and RPGs, and believes in 
The difference being, of course, that one of those things is the conclusion to a half-decade trilogy widely (and falsely) advertised as something it wasn’t… and the other is a level 3 quest-giver.
And I doubt Snurk Buskquick was changed, but nevermind.
I think the art “problem” has been poorly defined anyway. Where is it decreed that art can’t or shouldn’t be changed? If it was art before, it should be art after. If Blizzard changed the text to offend less people, it’s still as much art as it was before. While I do believe there is more than a material loss moving from “slimy and lecherous” to “flirtatious, impulsive, and reckless” (based on your link), the loss does not necessarily diminish the whole. In fact, less is often more.
I do find Blizzard’s renewed interest in player feedback amusing, though. Remember the Wrath beta? So many people complained about the torture quest in Borean Tundra, and that sailed right through. Suddenly 2 million subs down, things get fixed right quick.
Ack! Your comment got lost in the spam filter pits until today.
I agree about Blizzard’s attention to feedback now. It feels weird for them to respond to players that efficiently. Usually I’d be writing this kind of post AT them. :)