BioWare’s Handling Of A ‘Gay Planet’ In The Old Republic Isn’t All That Surprising - Polidicks

[quote]Months back, when Bioware came out with the news that finally, finally, a gay-romance option would be included in Mass Effect 3, something stood out to me. It was the way they explained why it was becoming an option: not as a political statement, but as a business decision of sorts. Players asked for it, and we give players what they want sort of deal. To quote an earlier interview with Kotaku, where they explained that inclusion wasn't a political statement: [quote]"We respond to that feedback and try to make our games better based on what our players are asking for." "We're neutral," Muzyka says. " It's the player's choice. It's a role-playing game." We're not pushing any particular direction with most of our stuff."[/quote] For comparison's sake, how the writers at both Mass Effect and Dragon Age talk about same-sex romance: [quote]Nevertheless, I'm a straight white male – pretty much the living embodiment of the Patriarchy – and I really wanted to avoid writing something that people saw and went, "That's a straight guy writing lesbians for other straight guys to look at." (Patrick Weekes) The romances in the game are not for "the straight male gamer". (David Gaider)[/quote] The writers use language that sounds political. Words that make it sound like the decision to be inclusive is coming from a progressive place. Words like "patriarchal," "privilege," "political correctness" and so on. Words that the ex head-honchos at Bioware shied away from using, instead opting for "neutral." Anyone that doesn't perceive there might be a schism between Bioware as a whole and smaller teams at Bioware isn't paying attention. But even the folks using those words don't pose inclusion as a completely ideological thing. Above all, it's a smart-move sort of thing: metrics say this is wanted, and it doesn't cost much to include, so hey, let's do it. It's a business; decisions have to be practical. We can't talk about things like inclusion without justification that spans beyond the ideological to come up. It's not uncommon to talk about, say, gay characters, and have someone chime in that they hope it's not needlessly put in the game, that they hope there's a good reason for it—both narrative-wise, and development-wise. I think we lose sight of this. I think we don't realize there might not politics where we assume there are politics. As an example that I think is representative of how many people feel, we here at Kotaku have gotten a number of impassioned emails from fans wondering why, at first, Bioware seemed to be ignoring them with same-sex romance options in Star Wars: The Old Republic. To quote one: [quote]Bioware claim to be an LGBT friendly organisation and producer, but their handling of same-sex content in Star Wars: The Old Republic seems to very much put that in doubt. [/quote] Emphasis mine. The call for same-sex romances is no longer being ignored: as we reported before, Bioware plans to bring same-sex romances into the game. The controversy that has bizarrely popped up now, over a week after the announcement, is that the same sex romance will take place on a specific planet for now—Makeb—and you have to pay money to go there. Some have jokingly dubbed it 'pay-to-gay.' Most are confused as to why Bioware would do this: aren't they, like, progressive or something? Why are they stumbling? This reaction puzzles me, for it asserts that the actions of one studio will predict the successes or predilections at other studios. Kotaku's Tina Amini points out that if, for Bioware, inclusion is a business thing, then having to pay to access Makeb should not be surprising. In order to supply fans' desire for the extra content, BioWare would take on the development and resource costs in exchange for a price. Ultimately I think we focus too much on the outcome of some of Bioware's actions: they have, on occasion, allowed players to pursue same-sex romances, so clearly they're making a statement and clearly they want to be progressive, and since they've done it before, they're always going to get it right. That's hopeful thinking though. That's what we hope Bioware is saying and doing, what we hope they're taking a stance for. And somehow we've let a small part of the development team—the writers—speak not only for entire games, but for entire studios. That's crazy. When the Bioware brand has extended to include not only Mass Effect and Dragon Age, assuming that all of the rest of their studios will take a stand in some way, or assuming that what one studio has done should be used as a metric for the other studios is a mistake. It's especially a mistake now that Bioware has become a 'brand' which may not reflect a unification in ethos across all eight of the studios that are now considered "Bioware." We've tried reaching out to Bioware for comment a couple of times on the fan-perception and Bioware's ideologies—should they exist—but we've not heard back. For now it seems clear that, even if The Old Republic fixes their mistakes, even if they give fans what they want, we should be cautious about assuming politics at Bioware.[/quote] [url]http://kotaku.com/5975904/biowares-handling-of-a-gay-planet-in-the-old-republic-isnt-all-that-surprising[/url] Grade A journalism (opps, blogging) from Kotaku.

How about we just not have romance

i need a husbando in between maxing out my gear score

[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;39222180]i need a husbando in between maxing out my gear score[/QUOTE] my big gear score lightsaber is going to beat your average gear score lightsaber get rekted nerd

Pay-to-gay. Haha, clever. Subscription based buggery has always been a thing of mine, being a large gay bear-man born in the 60s. While I would hardly consider it "romantic," my first homoerotic science fiction novella was "Bugger Boy," a recurring England and US based published paper that received a lot of attention. They also released several books. Nowadays with the internet, my access to gay porn/ gay romance is nigh unlimited even though I sit in a particular niche. It's fantastic that Bioware is pursuing this as a business option and personally I won't mind pay-to-gay, as long as I have access to a sufficiently hairy and muscular wookie boi-slave to do my bidding lest he gets the hose again.

[quote]I'm a straight white male – pretty much the living embodiment of the Patriarchy[/quote] this reminds me of that article where someone thought that saying "we're getting raped" in an FPS is homophobic, and went on to say that he went looking specifically for things that could have imaginary interpretations because he was a straight white guy

[QUOTE=cccritical;39222325]this reminds me of that article where someone thought that saying "we're getting raped" in an FPS is homophobic, and went on to say that he went looking specifically for things that could have imaginary interpretations because he was a straight white guy[/QUOTE] Link for that?

[QUOTE=tier56;39222372]Link for that?[/QUOTE] articles [url=http://kotaku.com/5876445/the-unquestioned-homophobia-in-battlefield-3]one[/url] and [url=http://kotaku.com/5877647/a-response-to-my-critics-about-the-homophobic-language-in-battlefield-3]two[/url] what amazes me is how he either doesn't realize that you don't have to be homophobic to be anti-rape, or he sees rape as a totally normal homosexual action

[QUOTE=Deadman;39222222]Pay-to-gay. Haha, clever. Subscription based buggery has always been a thing of mine, being a large gay bear-man born in the 60s. While I would hardly consider it "romantic," my first homoerotic science fiction novella was "Bugger Boy," a recurring England and US based published paper that received a lot of attention. They also released several books. Nowadays with the internet, my access to gay porn/ gay romance is nigh unlimited even though I sit in a particular niche. It's fantastic that Bioware is pursuing this as a business option and personally I won't mind pay-to-gay, as long as I have access to a sufficiently hairy and muscular wookie boi-slave to do my bidding lest he gets the hose again.[/QUOTE] 8 year old account. 54 posts. Are all this guy's posts made of WTF like this?

[QUOTE=cccritical;39222436]articles [url=http://kotaku.com/5876445/the-unquestioned-homophobia-in-battlefield-3]one[/url] and [url=http://kotaku.com/5877647/a-response-to-my-critics-about-the-homophobic-language-in-battlefield-3]two[/url] what amazes me is how he either doesn't realize that you don't have to be homophobic to be anti-rape, or he sees rape as a totally normal homosexual action[/QUOTE] kotaku to me is the pinnacle of shit games journalism. They constantly insist that they are a blog yet demand to be treated as a news outlet, then post hypocritical stuff like having a piece of sexism in games and how kotaku is the shining example of equality whilst a day before having barely dressed cosplayers on the front of their site in order to gain ad revenue from clicks. It's bizzare that they got so popular.

[QUOTE=Madman_Andre;39222659]8 year old account. 54 posts. Are all this guy's posts made of WTF like this?[/QUOTE] Don't worry, once I reach post #69 I will disappear for another eight years only to return when my people need me once again.

[QUOTE=Madman_Andre;39222659]8 year old account. 54 posts. Are all this guy's posts made of WTF like this?[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Deadman;38796669]30 minutes later a lone body is retrieved from the Philippine sea, wearing a bubble wrap suit decorated with DPRK flags and grasping a Walkman.[/QUOTE] Yes.

[QUOTE=Deadman;39222222]Pay-to-gay. Haha, clever. Subscription based buggery has always been a thing of mine, being a large gay bear-man born in the 60s. While I would hardly consider it "romantic," my first homoerotic science fiction novella was "Bugger Boy," a recurring England and US based published paper that received a lot of attention. They also released several books. Nowadays with the internet, my access to gay porn/ gay romance is nigh unlimited even though I sit in a particular niche. It's fantastic that Bioware is pursuing this as a business option and personally I won't mind pay-to-gay, as long as I have access to a sufficiently hairy and muscular wookie boi-slave to do my bidding lest he gets the hose again.[/QUOTE] lmao what the fuck mate

Honestly, I laughed my ass off when I read "Gay Planet".

Why couldnt they just.... remove all the gender limits and let the characters choose who to romance out of all their crew members?, instead of preventing the romantic dialouge for same sex companions. why make a gay planet? this makes absoulutely no sence.

[QUOTE=Deadman;39222222]Pay-to-gay. Haha, clever. Subscription based buggery has always been a thing of mine, being a large gay bear-man born in the 60s. While I would hardly consider it "romantic," my first homoerotic science fiction novella was "Bugger Boy," a recurring England and US based published paper that received a lot of attention. They also released several books. Nowadays with the internet, my access to gay porn/ gay romance is nigh unlimited even though I sit in a particular niche. It's fantastic that Bioware is pursuing this as a business option and personally I won't mind pay-to-gay, as long as I have access to a sufficiently hairy and muscular wookie boi-slave to do my bidding lest he gets the hose again.[/QUOTE] this makes less sense the more i read it

[QUOTE=TheSporeGA;39222138]Why not just not having romance[/QUOTE] Because this is about as close as a lot of Bioware's audience gets to having a romance of their own.

[QUOTE=Deadman;39222222]Pay-to-gay. Haha, clever. Subscription based buggery has always been a thing of mine, being a large gay bear-man born in the 60s. While I would hardly consider it "romantic," my first homoerotic science fiction novella was "Bugger Boy," a recurring England and US based published paper that received a lot of attention. They also released several books. Nowadays with the internet, my access to gay porn/ gay romance is nigh unlimited even though I sit in a particular niche. It's fantastic that Bioware is pursuing this as a business option and personally I won't mind pay-to-gay, as long as I have access to a sufficiently hairy and muscular wookie boi-slave to do my bidding lest he gets the hose again.[/QUOTE] what the fuck is this

Just make it so you have the same relationship-building options with men as you do women. How fucking hard is that? Jesus everything has to be a fucking issue when it comes to homosexuality.

[QUOTE=Madman_Andre;39222659]8 year old account. 54 posts. Are all this guy's posts made of WTF like this?[/QUOTE] Just realized 2005 was EIGHT years ago.

[QUOTE=Deadman;39222720]Don't worry, once I reach post #69 I will disappear for another eight years only to return when my people need me once again.[/QUOTE] "I must go now my people need me." He died on the way back to his planet.

lmao a planet of the gays oh bioware you're so cute when you fuck up horrendously

It's like they don't even have to focus on story or game mechanics anymore, now that everyone just plays video games to vicariously fuck two dimensional bitches.

yes now we have moved all the gays to one planet onto stage 2 of the plan, build a death star

[QUOTE=Ereunity;39224696]"I must go now my people need me." He died on the way back to his planet.[/QUOTE] Makeb lost a great hero on that faithful day.

[QUOTE=AJisAwesome15;39223158]this makes less sense the more i read it[/QUOTE] Somehow it made a lot of sense to me and I don't think that's a particularly good sign.

[QUOTE=Deadman;39222222]Pay-to-gay. Haha, clever. Subscription based buggery has always been a thing of mine, being a large gay bear-man born in the 60s. While I would hardly consider it "romantic," my first homoerotic science fiction novella was "Bugger Boy," a recurring England and US based published paper that received a lot of attention. They also released several books. Nowadays with the internet, my access to gay porn/ gay romance is nigh unlimited even though I sit in a particular niche. It's fantastic that Bioware is pursuing this as a business option and personally I won't mind pay-to-gay, as long as I have access to a sufficiently hairy and muscular wookie boi-slave to do my bidding lest he gets the hose again.[/QUOTE] i'm fucking dying right now

Why the fuck does Patricia still make Kotaku articles?

[QUOTE=Deadman;39222222]Pay-to-gay. Haha, clever. Subscription based buggery has always been a thing of mine, being a large gay bear-man born in the 60s. While I would hardly consider it "romantic," my first homoerotic science fiction novella was "Bugger Boy," a recurring England and US based published paper that received a lot of attention. They also released several books. Nowadays with the internet, my access to gay porn/ gay romance is nigh unlimited even though I sit in a particular niche. It's fantastic that Bioware is pursuing this as a business option and personally I won't mind pay-to-gay, as long as I have access to a sufficiently hairy and muscular wookie boi-slave to do my bidding lest he gets the hose again.[/QUOTE] Looks like I have a back-catalog of 57 posts to read

What are they even trying to turn MMO's into If I wanted goddamn romance I wouldn't be playing a game where you need to kill 5 giant space spiders and collect their space fur to make an expensive space coat from