6 réponses à ce sujet

[TeachingFellow]

It's one thing if there is a voiceless PC.  However, EA is going to hype the hell out of Hawke (and only the male Hawke, mind you, even if the actress is just as good or even better than the actor) and God forbid that a heterosexual male in the year 2010 even has to think that us gays exist, led alone be presented the option to play as a homosexual.  There will be a lesbian romance option, because straight men fetishize lesbianism, and the absence of the gay male option will draw attention to that fact and detract from the feeling of open-minded inclusion for some lesbian players. 

We will--at best--be "treated" to a few effiminate stereotypes.  We will certainly not see a Zevran.  Or, at worst, we will see someone who is exactly like Zevran, but without the depth of character to rise a little above the stereotypes.

Prove me wrong, Bioware.  Make a game that is respectful towards all of your fanbase.  You don't have to pander to us, but at least include us.  You did it once before, now let's try for two out of two. 

But I hope nobody holds their breath.

P.S.--I know that Bioware representatives are really good about reading and responding to the forums, but please, don't give me any of that "wait and see" crap; just "you are wrong" or "you are right" or keep your mouths shut.  I know full well that the reality is that I will probably be long dead before the stigma of homosexuality is eased to the point that a mass-appeal commercial product can truly include us, and your corporate masters absolutely have the right to dictate your design process to maximize profit.  Just don't try to hand-wave it away now, because that's only going to underline the bitter realities of our society when or if I play the final product and see them play out clear as day.

[David Gaider]

TeachingFellow wrote...
P.S.--I know that Bioware representatives are really good about reading and responding to the forums, but please, don't give me any of that "wait and see" crap; just "you are wrong" or "you are right" or keep your mouths shut.

Wow.

So it's "tell us right now that it's in or it's clearly not and you're a bunch of bastards"? 

Well, alrighty then. Since we're not talking about many features yet, romances of any sort included, I guess bastards it is. Sorry to disappoint you.

[David Gaider]

TeachingFellow wrote...
I really do hope that Dragon Age continues to be a high-point for gays in video games.  However, I don't want to be one of those who champions something as a given only to be betrayed in the end.  I'd rather sheepishly apologize later for--unintentionally--inflammatory comments than come on after the game is out and say "I was sure they wouldn't forget us in this game."  I don't know what DA2 will be like, and I do hope that I'm wrong, but yelling at me to wait until I hear more won't change the truth of what I said if I happen to be right.

Well, how about this then: we're very aware of the desires of our fans when it comes to romances, whether they be homosexual or otherwise. Being able to include any kind of content that's really only useable by a relatively small percentage of the player base is often problematic-- it's not an issue of "want to" but rather "able to". There's also the issue of where you put the resources you have-- adding content for extra player options is great, but if they're options that many players will not use or event want to use it's not necessarily the best use of those resources. I can't really fault a decision to provide more options for a greater amount of players as opposed to less options for everyone.

There's a fallacy at work among people who come to these forums that romances, once they're included in a game, become a right-- that if we have romances they must be allocated "fairly" or it's disciminatory. But you don't have a right to romances in a game-- any more than you have a right to free worship or to be an elf. It's a difficult issue to discuss, because we don't look on it as an issue of fairness. It's content, like any other sort of content, and we'll only ever be able to include a limited amount of it so we have to make the best of it we can, and we're always going to try and be inclusive of as many of our players' desires are we can.

That said, the Mass Effect team will make its choices and we'll make ours. We'll be happy to let you know what we have in store for you-- when we're ready to even discuss followers in general, never mind romances and the distributions thereof. It's a little early to get upset about this, but I'd like to think that the Dragon Age team has displayed enough willingness in the past to include this kind of content that we'd get a pass-- at least for the moment. But maybe I'm wrong.

Modifié par David Gaider, 16 juillet 2010 - 07:58 .

[David Gaider]

Bugzehat wrote...
But is providing same-sex romance options really including a lot more content? My impression was that this is why Leliana and Zevran had been made bi rather than gay -- so that they were still 'accessible' as romance options to the greater gaming population. That way, you weren't including a great deal of content that only a few people were going to access -- other than a few pronoun changes in dialogue.

Except that we didn't change more than just "a few pronouns". The same-sex romance paths for both Leliana and Zevran did, in fact, have dialogue that was unique to them. More importantly it requires more than a trivial amount of work to accomodate the option in the romance cutscenes-- and this at a time when we were cutting many other things because of the limited amount of cinematics time we had available.

It's very easy to look at such things in isolation and say "well it couldn't take that long to do!" except that when you have the massive number of things we need to include in an RPG, from the large to the small, it always adds up to more than we can possibly include. So where do you cut? We didn't cut the same-sex romances because we thought they were worth including and added value. Yet even then there were some comments on these forums about Zevran (for example) -- that he was either "too gay", "the wrong kind of gay" or that the fact that Alistair wasn't also included as an option was discriminatory... at which point you start to wonder why you bothered. I'm glad that there were a great many people who expressed that they did value having these options, because I'm afraid that if one's stance is "all or nothing" on something like this the answer nine times out of ten is thus "nothing".

Secondly, I don't think it's fair to say that only gay players are going to use these options -- like we've seen in this thread, a lot of straight people are going to go "eww eww get the gay away from me" but others are slightly more open-minded, and might be interested for roleplay purposes.

I did not say that. I said that a minority of players want the option-- and that for many player's it's not an option they want, so its existence as an option-- to them-- has no value. The fact that it has value to that minority of players isn't lost on us, of course, but all I said was that we need to balance accordingly.

WilliamShatner wrote...
I guess that means "No" then.

And this is why I shouldn't be discussing this, I suppose. I've already said we can't talk about what's in the game, and I'm not trying to imply the existence of any romances or the lack thereof. I'm only talking about the assumptions that people seem to be making about why they're included/not included-- but perhaps I should just leave it at that. As I said before, we'll be revealing more in time. At that point I'm certain there will be plenty more opinions to be expressed at length.

Modifié par David Gaider, 16 juillet 2010 - 08:34 .

[David Gaider]

Bugzehat wrote...
Maybe it would help to explain where I'm coming from. Right now I'm trying to balance the "video game fan who realises I can't demand anything I like from developers" part of me with the "activist and member of the LGBT community who feels I should be demanding gay inclusion in all media, not just DA2 or videogames". Because the thing is, media, including video games, do have a HUGE role to play in combatting homophobia. I'd argue that it's not until homosexuality can be completely brought out of the shadows even in entertainment like TV and games that homosexuality is ever really going to be accepted. I realise the onus to mix things up shouldn't be on BioWare and BioWare alone, it's just that you have a lot of potential to do good and I hope that isn't squandered.

Oh, I get it. Trust me. Straight privilege can be just as frustrating as white privilege-- it's very easy for someone to say that it's not an issue when they're not on the receiving end of discrimination. And it's very frustrating to be thoughtlessly exluded when, all things being equal, you could be included. All I was suggesting is that, from a game development standpoint, things aren't generally equal. It's very easy for me to include gay characters in a book I write, for instance, because words are relatively cheap-- it's the same reason I can throw in horses and cloaks and not blink twice. It would be nice, too, if wearing the Developer Hat didn't interfere with the Gaming Enthusiast Hat or any one of the other hats I wear... but a developer simply doesn't have that luxury.

That doesn't mean, of course, that we couldn't always do better. Just because we're a game doesn't mean we're devoid of social responsibility-- but there's only so much we can do. As I've said many times before, games aren't really a good platform for social change. Discussion doesn't hurt, however-- unlike what the OP insinuated, my experience with fellow developers is that we're a pretty educated, open-minded bunch. We're not out to get you (beyond clubbing you over the head and taking your money, that is-- but hey, it's a capitalist world).

Modifié par David Gaider, 16 juillet 2010 - 09:11 .

[David Gaider]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...
Thing is some aren't asking for it. Some people are demanding it (at least by the tone of some of the previous posts). I'm all for "representation of minorities", but I find it to be an issue when some people demand this representation. The more someone wants to be represented or demand it the less I want to see it represented. Not even the straight people got any right to demand anything from BioWare.
Just like the straight got their over-zealous "no gay in MY game!" the homosexual got their own over-zealous types, its both types i despise.

I get what you're saying, but some empathy might not be out of order. Consider the matter of privilege-- a straight person sees romances they like and can identify with in the media all the time. It's ubiquitous and perhaps even taken a little for granted. Having a romance in a video game might be an appreciated extra, but it goes without question that if there is a romance it'll be something targeted at them. A gay person is not so fortunate, and so maybe could be cut some slack for getting a bit upset at the response of "what's your problem?" when they ask if they could maybe be represented as well.

To demand it and be overzealous, or suggest that they have the right to be represented... well, you are perhaps right that this goes too far. All I'm suggesting is that it's easy to say it's not an issue when it's not even remotely an issue for you. I think in an ideal world we'd all like to have something in the game that every player could call their own.

Modifié par David Gaider, 20 juillet 2010 - 07:17 .

[Stanley Woo]

No longer on topic, and getting very political and potentially offensive.



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