Leaving gay characters out of RPGs is “beyond” BioWare

J Station X writes

"According to the statistics, less than 1% of all games released in 2013 let us play as a gay (or LGBTQ) character and the crux of that is because although the majority of gamers are a fairly progressive lot and wouldn’t mind gay characters right in there with the rest of the heterosexual ones, plenty of publishers and developers are guilty of shying away from the subject in fear of the vocal, ignorant minority coming for them with pitchforks and torches aflame.

Developer BioWare are actually one of the few developers to embrace queer characters wholeheartedly, with all three Mass Effect games and both Dragon Age 1 and 2 allowing same-sex romances.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is set to include same-sex romance too and, BioWare say, they have plans to keep putting gay characters in their games in the future."

[SaveFerris]

So long as the characters and story are both good, and it isn't gratuitous, I have no problems with this practice whatsoever. It's great to see developers such as Bioware and Naughty Dog produce great games for everyone to enjoy.

[Christopher]

I have no problems with BioWare doing what they want to do in regards to creative decisions like this. I may not agree with them, but it's their game. These are decisions they have the right to make without hatred from the public.

[vishmarx]

my only issue is that i see no decent romance options for straights in this game
just 3 female companions you can romance,one's gay(elf),one's scary(the vodoo mage girl) and the third one looks like (the army girl)she's gay but she doesnt know it yet or she'll make me her bitch if she is straight.
da 1 had lilleana and morrigan.
da 2 had merril and pirate girl.
i found all 4 reasonable but sadly none in this

[Anthotis]

That's so progressive...

[Conzul]

There is no such thing as having a right to do something while forcing others to not feel the way they want to about it.
That's just silly.

You have the right to do what you want.
You don't have the right to dictate the feelings of others.

[Christopher]

***You don't have the right to dictate the feelings of others.***

As it relates to this creative concept, I believe it does. Note I said "these are decisions" and not "every decision."

[Conzul]

Nope, that's absurd.
Also, the distinction is irrelevant. All decisions may, upon scrutiny, form realizations; therefrom reactions; therefrom feelings. That any Feeling may be righteously abolished is absurd. One has no right to censor the inevitable.

[DevilOgreFish]

It doesn't bother me to have it in the story really. I thought it was funny to cross dress in FFVII. I just like though the whole idea of choice when i play their games.

[Ogygian]

There's a lot of misunderstanding surrounding this topic. Of course nobody should have a problem with homosexual characters being in the game. They're part of society (and always have been) and it's important to represent them.

However the only consistent, rational definition of "fairness" provided that is what we are seeking, is that homosexual characters are randomly distributed based on statistics (5% chance of any character being homosexual, as that is the IRL prevalance of homosexuality) or (in the very unique situation with Bioware and romances) that they are allocated development time proportionally (5% of characters are X, 5% of time on X romance).

If you don't agree with that mutually agreeable definition of fairness, you may as well declare that "fairness is when everyone in the world gives me all their money", as any other definition will be just as logically inconsistent. You cannot, as a decent, fair-minded human being, believe that over-representation is OK while under-representation is not.

So as long as the prevalence of homosexual characters is representative of the population and the allocation of developer time in the case of optional romances is proportional, I have no problem with Bioware. My fear is that they are pandering to a vocal minority and vastly over-representing what is actually a small minority of people (I mean there are more muslims than homosexuals in many Western countries).

[Christopher]

@Conzul: I specified hatred, not feelings.

I think you completely misread what I've said to encompass it to say that no one should feel anything or something. I'm just not sure.

[Ezz2013]

i don't like Gay people or Straight people
and i don't like Earth people too

[DarkOcelet]

Hahahaha mashy :)

[amiga-man]

Somebody better explain to them it's 2014 already

[DarkOcelet]

The problem in bioware is that they are making a huge deal out of it , as if they are saying hey guys look we have made a gay character , he is fully gay , bla bla bla . Ok we get it but you dont need to shove it down our throat , just announce it and move on .

[Anon1974]

Shove what down your throat?

[Benjammin25]

@darkride666 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[mixelon]

I think it's more the media making a big deal out of it, as it's still such a novelty. They (rightly or not) ask a lot about it.
Once more developers are inclusive like this it won't be a big deal and everyone will stop talking about it. That's not likely to happen any time soon though..

In short i wouldn't blame Bioware for being progressive, the attention comes with the territory though.

[EvilWay]

As long as they aren't in sex scenes I am okay with it

[Reddzfoxx]

So you are okay if there are gay sex scenes in a game as long as your character isn't participating?

I am assuming you just like to watch?

[Toiletsteak]

Watching isn't gay it is the taking part lol.

[Salooh]

O.o . Are you serious Toiletsteak ?..

[EvilWay]

How did you get that assumption from what I said?

I said I don't want gay scenes at all

[TheTowelBoy]

Who cares if they are? Dont play a gay character and dont have sex with them.

[Benjammin25]

It's hard though. They 're so pretty.

[NicSage]

@Benjammin25 yeah it's hard...

[Toiletsteak]

Why does it matter if they are gay or not it really doesn't matter, it's the way they go about it that is annoying like they are trying to prove something.

[Nicominoru]

(sigh) Why do they keep making this a thing? I wish they would stop, nobody cares just make the character and move on...it's annoying when it seems like they're doing it to try and make a statement...seriously whats the statement? "Gay Characters can be in videogames too?" no shit...it's been done before and nobody cared then...so nobody is going to care now.

[Spotie]

Unfortunately, some people DO care. They see gay people as some horrible monstrosity, oblivious, apparently, to how monstrous many straight people can be.

Oh, well. I see no reason to avoid the subject in games; you can't avoid it in real life, either.

[iDadio]

Announcing it repeatedly is contradictory to the point they are trying to make. It's not exactly promoting equality when you make it out to be a big deal and out of the ordinary.

Anyone that gets offended by the sexuality of some pixels needs to have a word with themselves.

[thelaughingwiseman]

I do hope they make a game of only gay characters, nothing else lol

[shadowraiserx]

it could be very interesting.

[SaveFerris]

I think that has already been done with 'Cho Aniki'.

[no_more_heroes]

Can't relate, but as long as its necessary to proceedings and isn't being done just for the sake of it, then I say go for it.

[Saryk]

I say who cares, what you do behind your closed doors is your business. I just want players to be who they want and do what they want as long as it does not affect another unwilling human being!

[MEsoJD]

click bait

[DiscoKid]

Such a sell out. I guess today's standard is "Make a stereotypical gay guy to cater to LGBT crowd" rather than "Make a believable, fleshed out character that happens to be gay".

[n4gusername]

Yes, too much being loud and proud versus just being...

[TheTowelBoy]

Jesus I'm not here to defend either side just make your god damn games and to the people whining about it, just play the games your beliefs shouldn't even come to the table when playing games anyway. I fucking hate how much the gaming industry is turning political.

[deadchucky]

if they make a lesbian Characters everybody will love it it's the same thing try to say something useful @

[NicSage]

Who doesn't love a good chicken of the sea sandwich.

[SilentNegotiator]

"plenty of publishers and developers are guilty of shying away from the subject in fear of the vocal, ignorant minority coming for them with pitchforks and torches aflame"

They get one if they do and another if they don't.

[XtraTrstrL]

Article title made me chuckle. I didn't know anyone was hating on them for making gay characters. I thought it was the other way around, like how Ubisoft was getting hate for not immediately showing off a female Assassin for Unity.

[Baccra17]

If they spent less time on the gay stuff and more time on making a good game with a good story, choices that mattered, and a good ending DA2 and ME3 would have done much better.

[Mike_D82]

How gay is that?

[Mike_D82]

Boycott? Yes, because no one cares about this s***.

[theXtReMe1]

Good, this isnt about gay rights or anything else. It's about mimicking what's great about this world. The choices human beings can make about who they want to be and not hiding those who make different choices than the norm away, like they are different than the rest of us on earth. We are all the same: black, white, gay, straight, anything. The sooner these bigots around the globe get that through their minds, the better this world will be for everyone. Not just the people who think they are better than others because the choices they make are more popular.

[Theyellowflash30]

They are forcing it. Kaiden from Mass Effect 1 was straight, by Mass Effect 3, all of a sudden Kaiden could be gay.

They just use it as a marketing tool.

[RedDeadLB]

Never understood the need for it or the problem with it. It's just not important.

[Ogygian]

Why don't they just take anonymous metrics to see how many people want to experience them, and allocate future resources based on this data? I imagine very few people play through gay romances, but if I'm totally wrong and 90% of players do, they should allocate 90% of romance-creation time towards them.

And this article gets it wrong: the vocal minority today are the people who call for over-representation of homosexual characters in media. We have to remember that homosexual people only make up around 5% of the population, and there are twice as many bisexual women as there are lesbian (lesbians make up less 1% of the population). Of course, 5% is larger than 0%, and it's important that games DO contain serious gay characters, but giving 5% of people 50% of the development time isn't fair by any measure.

It just seems to me like the scientific approach is best for all of us as consumers, and also Bioware as a business.

[Elda]

Who really cares as long as that character (gay or straight) can kick a ss then it really doesn't matter.

[xX1NORM1Xx]

Good I am of the opinion that people should do what they want as long as it doesn't hurt someone else I don't think it's fair that people should suffer in silence because they are afraid of what people will think I know it's hard to overcome, the fear of what people may think effects is all at some point unfortunately and there seems to be people out there who will drag u down for being able to overcome it but u have to rise above it all because in the end we won't all get what we want out of life but at least we will have no regrets and be happy

[applepie_svk]

That´s not an issue here, in the last installment of DA and ME series u had lot of the characters just bisexuals and with that I have the issue. Not to mentioned to quality of writing behind a writing of those romance, don´t know how it will be in DA:I but ME3 and DA2 were more like a fanservice filled with clichés instead of some meaningful...