46 réponses à ce sujet

[David Gaider]

Poaches wrote...
I guess that implies dev's commitment to marketing demographics is greater than the commitment to the story? eh. Too bad.

If by "commitment to marketing demographics" you mean "our resources are limited, especially for content that only a segment of the player base will use and which is not related to the main story" then sure. That's exactly how it is. Trying to read more into it than that is an exercise in deliberate obtuseness and not much more.

[David Gaider]

Eromenos wrote...
He never said that it's too expensive to make all of them accessible without resorting to heteronormative gender roles.

In fact, our resources for romances in general are limited because they're purely optional content to begin with. They're not the main point of the game. Turning them into the equivalent of some kind of right that someone has to access, or accusing us of "resorting to heteronormative gender roles" is just you grinding an axe on your personal issue --that has nothing to do with why we did so.

If he says that this would be too taxing then he'd still be trying to dodge the issue as to why he and his employers deem it perfectly fine to draw us as being lesser and self-hating on the basis of queer sexuality. Is that for us somehow? For our benefit? Herren and Wade are steps in the right direction, but Zevran and Leiliana were not. After the Sky headache Zevran should have been an improvement upon. Because Sky was a leading male Zevran should not have been offered as the sole choice for M/M.

I'm not dodging anything, and this "lesser and self-hating" business is ridiculous. Those were the characters we chose to make bisexual. It was not dictated to us, nor were they chosen because they filled some kind of lesser role in the story, and we did not choose them to punish anyone. I was glad to be given the opportunity by my employers to include two such romances to begin with, and I'm pleased with how they turned out-- as were the majority of people, many of whom I've received thankful emails regarding (some very moving and heartfelt).

Sorry, but I'm not going to allow a handful of militant nay-sayers drag down what I think was an excellent achievement, one I hope to build upon in the future.

[David Gaider]

Eromenos wrote...
Oh yes, the scenes which include lines that refer specifically to the Warden's biological sex would include such things as the lip-synching for dialogue and kiss-synching? Those are the only elements that come right to mind for me, but if there are more I'd love to know what they are. Bet I'm not the only one.

I already told you. There are alternate lines which are specific to one gender or the other, which go beyond a mere pronoun switch in how they address the PC. There also needs to be work done for the variant sex scenes, and that's work that was done at a time when we were already cutting entire plots due to the lack of time available for cinematics. More importantly, every variant requires testing, which itself is a great bottleneck.

But we put the work in here because we really wanted to include something. Personally, I'm glad we did.

I'm not a coder. I take it you're not either.

This has nothing to do with coding, and everything to do with not being able to give everyone what they want just because they want it.

That's just one avenue of approach for ensuring that no one is needlessly left out. Another way would cut down on one area of tweaking that I mentioned; fewer gender pronouns. These games tend to avoid them a lot of the time. The romances we've seen are often written in such way so that the lines are economically and viscerally serviceable for a protagonist of any gender. This too would be an exercise of using what's already there. That methodology is something BioWare is familiar with; weighting the majority of dialogue in such way that it is appealing and believable no matter what sex we're playing as.

We're not "needlessly" leaving anyone out. Seriously, to listen to you talk it's like BioWare is homophobic for including this content for gay players-- but not applying that to every romanceable character, simply because you think it's easy. I'm really glad that we know better, because this sort of response would make most reasonable people not want to attempt it at all. Why do the work if we're going to be accused of homophobia either way? It's more than a little insulting.

[David Gaider]

makenzieshepard wrote...
David I'd just like to thank you and the Dragon Age crew for all the work they've done on bringing us romances of all stripes. Like pretty much everyone I always want MOAR, but realize why it isn't always feasible. Some of us will continue to push for MOAR in a (mostly) gentile and look forward to what we have in store in the upcoming romances. Please keep up the good work!

You're quite welcome. I hope to give you MOAR-- but if need be, I'll settle for giving you what I can and try to make it as good as I can. Not everyone may appreciate our choices, but the idea that we could be accused of homophobia for making the effort is a little... deflating, to be perfectly honest.

[David Gaider]

Eromenos wrote...
So you would also claim that no one has any right to demand M/F content in these games?

Correct. We didn't include romances in Awakening, for instance, even though people wanted them.

And if we do include them, heterosexual romances get first priority. Why? Because they are, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the majority of our audience. The amount of work we can justify doing for any content is directly related to the size of the audience that has the potential to see it. Nobody has a right to content, and while there is a certain amount of responsibility we willingly take on when we cross the line and include content which requires sensitiivity in our portrayal that does not mean the only criteria we then approach it with are vague issues of "fairness". The economics of the situation do not vanish simply because they are inconvenient for anyone with a social issue they think needs addressing.

As for Zevran. My reading of Sky has a lot to do with why Zevran was a subsequent failure. Yet another M/M LI who is saddled with homophobic-respective qualities. Immense difficulty in treating M/M relationships as being meaningful and equal at the same level as "normal" M/F. Add to that making him the sole M/M LI, someone who bears no consequence at all on the proceedings of the bigger picture, conveniently excusing the other male LI who doesn't bear a fraction of Zevran's negative stereotypes.

Zevran treated all relationships as casual and lacking in meaning, not just M/M relationships. You had to dig much deeper before you discovered that this was due to his background, and that getting him to actually care about you put him on what he considered uncomfortable ground. Beyond that, however, his romance was equally accessible to both male and female players.

The fact that you see him as serving a lesser role in the overall story has nothing to do with why I chose him as the bisexual romance. It does, however, evidently provide you a convenient excuse to make accusations because we didn't go as far as you think we should have.

Really, I think I've responded to you far more than I should have. You're clearly determined to read what you want into our actions, and won't accept explanations as being anything other than excuses or oppression. As someone else above said, it's embarassing. I don't doubt we could do better, as we always can, but you seem rather determined to turn an ally into an enemy. I hope, for your sake, that you manage to take some pleasure amidst all the inevitable disappointment.

[David Gaider]

RosaAquafire wrote...
My gay brother cried playing DA:O. I know, that makes HIM sound like a feminine stereotype, too, but he was so overcome by feeling included by this industry for the first time ever, it was like, a life-changing moment for him.

I received an email from a young man who said DA:O helped him come out to his gamer brother-- and this was someone who, he told me, had never come out to anyone. It was so emotionally raw it was difficult to read, but I was glad to receive it nonetheless. Sometimes it's easier to pay attention to the loud, obnoxious folks because it seems like they're the ones most demanding a response... but it's also nice to hear sometimes that you've had an effect on someone.

So thanks. And cheers to your brother.

[David Gaider]

FitScotGaymer wrote...
I totally agree. But fortunately the DA team is not the ME team (thankfully) and we have DG fighting for us there. ME doesnt have an analogue of him so we just got the middle finger from the ME team.
I remember someone saying once that the ME wasnt even in the same building as the DA team - but I dont know if thats true or not; but it would certainly explain a lot.

The ME team is in the same building as the DA team-- on a different floor, perhaps, but the same building. I don't know that I would go so far as to characterize them as "giving you the middle finger", though. I've said before that it's a trade off with regards to where you put your effort: either more choices for a larger portion of your audience or less choices for everyone (DAO had, after all, just one "choice" for gay players and two for straight players... while ME2 had three choices for straight players). While this allocation of resources isn't to the benefit of gay players, certainly, I don't think you can characterize such a decision as deliberately insulting when its advantages on the whole are considered (from a development perspective, I mean).

Not that I would suggest you'd like it, of course, but even I can see why a team might make such a decision even if I have no special insight into their exact process. Considering that the benefit of adding such content is dubious when you evidently still receive flak if you don't go far enough to please some, I don't know that I can personally fault a team for simply not going there... and in the end it would still take someone on the team who's interested in adding such content. There's no corporate mandate to add in same-sex romances or not add them in-- as with any kind of content, there needs to be someone on the team who advocates adding something into a game, and in this instance that's just not always going to be there.

[Stanley Woo]

RosaAquafire wrote...

The thing about ME's team that rubbed me wrong is that, when asked for an explanation for the lack of gay romances, they responded than Shepard was their character and he wasn't gay. Which would sit fine with me ... if not for the fact that FemShip CAN be gay.

The question I have is: how is that explanation "wrong?" What, precisely, is "wrong" with having only one gender PC who can be gay? We'd still be dealing with limited resources and determining where those resources can be applied. Were there more gay romances written that had to be cut? Were these other gay romances of the same quality as the one that made it into the game? Doesn't Dave Gaider's discussion of "content that will be seen by the biggest audience being worth the effort" still apply?

That's just a super uncomfortable double standard. People can say what they want about time and content and great portion of the userbase, but those romances just being there so guys can fetishize lesbians is really offensive to real life women Worse than anything else the gaming industry does to chicks, in fact, imo.

But this is still the same "since you're not doing everything equally, you're obviously hating on me or my preferences" argument that we've been trying to avoid, isn't it? And what people do with our content is their own business, isn't it, just like how other people play our games shouldn't have an effect on you. Will some small section of our audience "fetishize lesbians" because we have lesbian romance in our game? Sure they will!

But don't some people romanticize and idealize love and relationships based on the portrayal of such in the media? don't people think it's funny when guys get kicked in the crotch but not when women do? I don't think being "fair" is a great way to tell stories and have idealized and exaggerated characters in a fictional world overcoming obstacles in an awesome way. Or shall I start bemoaning how good "you homosexuals" have it in videogames with your gay romances, while Asian characters in western games are underrepresented. isn't that just as "unfair"?

Lest you think I'm berating you or dismissing your argument, I'm trying not to, but the more "fair" you try to make things, the more you're thinking about how your product might be seen by some people rather than what product you want to create and sell. Gender equality is an awesome thing, but we still enjoy "damsel in distress" stories. Multiculturalism has allowed me to experience many different cultures and peoples and belief systems, but we still have distinct cultures, some of which are seldom represented ("fairly") in western media. I'm just saying that it's okay to want certain content in your games because you want something that represents you, especially in an RPG. As a longtime RPG gamer, I understand that. But it's another thing entirely to "demand" it, even if that demand takes the form of "they didn't have an adequate reason to not include it".

I apologize if my sarcasm got the better of me, and this post is read more harshly than was intended.

[David Gaider]

Jimmy Fury wrote...
I think the figurative finger came in the form of the "reasons" given by the ME team when they were asked why the content wasn't there in an interview.

Well, fair enough. Like I said, I'm really not privy to their reasoning either way.

[Stanley Woo]

Jimmy Fury wrote...

Well it's down to logic mostly. The excuse is an invalid argument. The premise being "the character is not gay" and the conclusion being "so there is no m/m option."
The problem being that the premise is false. The character, a variant of the character that is, can be gay. Female shepard can be gay thus invalidating the entire argument.
If a m/m option was present or if FemShep could only be gay then a logical argument could be made. The latter being that the character is only attracted to women.
However, the discrepency is impossible to ignore. Thus making that excuse literally questionable. Why say that? Why is it that female shepard can be gay but male shepard can't?
If it was because of resources or time or any of the reason you provided, why not say so? Everyone understands, or should understand, that content will have to be cut to make room. That's a perfectly acceptable reason.
If memory serves that's what we were originally told when the m/m recorded dialogue was first uncovered. It was a leftover from a planned romance that was scrapped for the sake of disc space.

To instead give an illogical excuse raises eyebrows. If f/f was included and m/m was not and we were not given a logical reason why, it's not unreasonable to wonder if there's something the company doesn't want us to know. Thus leading to the inevitable assumption that f/f is present to satisfy a heterosexual male fantasy.
Not saying that's the case but it's not too much of a stretch oin that context.

Ah, i see now. Okay, fair argument.

And to answer one of your questions above, the reason we don't always tell you why things are cut or mentioning the lack of time and resources is because it is always the answer for "why didn't you put this in?" or "why didn't you do this feature a different way?" Eventually, you just kind of take it for granted, and eventually, that reasoning is stops being acceptable to those who feel we should be doing things a different way, even though they have no idea how we're doing things int he first place!

*sigh* Game development would be so much simpler if it weren't for the players!

[David Gaider]

Stanley Woo wrote...
*sigh* Game development would be so much simpler if it weren't for the players!

It would also be simpler if it weren't for limited time and resources.

Considering that most people haven't a clue what limitations we operate under, I don't begrudge them discounting such limitations when it comes to something they want. I would hope, however, that they maintain the self-awareness they lack such knowledge to begin with.

[David Gaider]

AlexXIV wrote...
But who is limiting you?

Reality.

Who is, all thing's considered, a total ****.

[Stanley Woo]

AlexXIV wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Stanley Woo wrote...
*sigh* Game development would be so much simpler if it weren't for the players!

It would also be simpler if it weren't for limited time and resources.

Considering that most people haven't a clue what limitations we operate under, I don't begrudge them discounting such limitations when it comes to something they want. I would hope, however, that they maintain the self-awareness they lack such knowledge to begin with.

But who is limiting you?

Lots of numbers crunched by people whose job it is to crunch numbers. Headcount, release dates, studio budgets, marketing budgets, sales forecasts, employee productivity, hours in a work day, viable crunch hours, other departments, divisions and companies relying on certain deadlines being met--lots of things, and that's just a small number of what bean counters, project managers, and business analysts do. You really don't know what the business side of things is like until you're actually within the machine. sometimes, it's quite overwhelming, and sometimes, you feel like it's a miracle that games get made at all!

[David Gaider]

JrayM16 wrote...
What I mean is that David or someone(forgive me if you already determine things like this) should write up a cast of characters that they think would be interesting characters with a bunch of backstory and personality. Then, they should look at said characters and determine their sexuality based on that.

Is there a reason you believe we don't do this?

[Stanley Woo]

JrayM16 wrote...

I am personally in favor of determining a character's sexuality based on the character, and not as a pre-defined choice by devs.
What I mean is that David or someone(forgive me if you already determine things like this) should write up a cast of characters that they think would be interesting characters with a bunch of backstory and personality. Then, they should look at said characters and determine their sexuality based on that. It should not be a "Well, we want to have a bisexual character, so let's write that character." Writing characters around traits to shoehorn something in is bad writing, pure and simple.

I'm not sure how you create characters, but wouldn't it make more sense to have a sense of who the character is before you start writing him? Otherwise, how would you know how to write him? And this is excluding any "shoehorning," just plain old, basic character conception. i woudln't be able to write even myself as a character without certain traits being developed first: Asian, short, theatre guy, sarcastic. And my role is usually "plucky sidekick" or "vocal objector."

And if a creator does have to "shoehorn" a characterin, what's to say that he doesn't take just as much care in creating that "suddenly-required bisexual character" as he would as if that character was conceived of as necessary right from the get-go? Characters can fill a role all on their own, serve only to highlight the PC's character, or anything from Campbellian epic figure to Mary Sue.

THere should not be a policy to not have homosexual or bisezual characters, nor should there be a homosexual/bisexual quota that must be filled, both would be equally threatening to creativity and quality, which is really the most important consideration in videogames.

There isn't such a quota and never has been, no matter what some people seem to think every time the phrase "gay romance" is mentioned. We've had this same discussion since Neverwinter Nights, I think.

It is also worth noting that setting should be reflected when determing how characters express their sexuality. For instance, in a setting where homosexuality is frowned upon, then it would be logical to have homosexual characters who feel nervous about revealing their homosexuality.
When things pan out, there probably should be some ******/bisexual characters in these games because there are ******/bisexual people in real life. However, they should be in the game because they are strong characters whose sexuality fits that character and not to fill some arbitrary obligation set by the fans or anybody.

Again, despite a lot of people thinking otherwise, we already write characters as characters first and foremost. Their personality traits, preferences, and biases are pretty well-defined, and audiences seem to really like (or really hate) them, which indicates they're working. Our forums are filled with character-specific threads, character-specific romance threads, and inter-character threads, and I'm sure thre is much fanfic (elsewhere online) involving such characters.

If all that is true, why do some people still feel like we're doing something wrong?

[Stanley Woo]

Oh, don't back down on account of l'il ol' me, RosaAquafire. Or David Gaider. We're okay with disagreements, and like I always say, when it comes to our preferences in games, "different strokes for different folks."



If the double standard bothers you, it bothers you. I don't know if we can resolve anything, since you seem pretty passionate about it and the ME team isn't here in this thread to clarify anything. but I am, as always, okay with agreeing to disagree. the world would be a boring place indeed if everything thought the same way about stuff. i do like arguing, though.

[David Gaider]

RosaAquafire wrote...
Who wants to buttkiss David Gaider for giving us S/S in DA2 some more??

No need. I happen to enjoy writing them, when I get the chance.

[David Gaider]

AlexXIV wrote...
I said I am wondering why DA2 seems to have less ressources than DA:O.

Because taking 5 years to make a game is a luxury few can reasonably afford.

[David Gaider]

magicwins wrote...
Did DAO not do well, critically and commercially? If resources are a constraint in this context, can you not plead, 'With time comes awesomeness'?

I don't think that's really on topic for this thread. Suffice it to say that if it were up to the developers we would have all the time in the world-- and the game would likely grow in direct relation to the time allotted, like a goldfish. Someone, somewhere, has to be the party pooper.

[Stanley Woo]

So we're down to debating just "how bi" Zevran is? Is this how gay and bi people in real life determine whether a person is "bi enough" to call themselves bisexual? Because, if so, i'm rather against it and i'd rather you take the discussion elsewhere.

And Eromenos, if you wish to continue with the name-calling of our development teams, you and I are going to have words. it's one thing to disagree with us, even vehemently. it's another thing entirely to keep accusing us of things as though we haven't already responded to your concerns. And if your concerns are so strong that nothing short of an extreme paradigm shift will mollify you, then we actually have nothing more to discuss. Thank you.

EDIT: Ninja Mage: the "no name-calling" thing applies to you too. Cut it out, please.

Modifié par Stanley Woo, 04 janvier 2011 - 01:45 .

[Stanley Woo]

It becomes far more complex when dealing with larger numbers (such as the tens of millions in a potential market) and when preferences and tolerances intersect in any number of ways. That said, I do like Upsettingshorts' explanation.



And yeah, we might be able to get some of that info, and we can and do sometimes generate it ourselves with focus testing, surveys and stuff, but we also guesstimate since doing so is fast, free, and allows us to implement ideas right away. Doesn't always work, but we do try. We also take into account what we think is awesome, since BioWare has long been a company that makes games that its developers would love to play.



So unless someone wants to accuse all of us developers of being homophobic, even (statistically) the non-straight ones, then I have this here short pier I would invite such name-callers to take a particularly enthusiastic and long walk off of. Be excellent to each other.

[David Gaider]

I'm just as guilty of participating in the derailing of this thread, I'll admit. But it looks like it's pretty much hopelessly off topic-- and delving far too much into real life politics and people getting up on soap boxes to make anyone involved very comfortable.

I'm putting an end to it, with the warning that if the topic shoudl resurface it keep inflammatory commentary out and stick to something DA2 related. Failing that, the Off Topic forum is your friend-- or forums outside of BSN.

Thanks.