2001 réponses à ce sujet

[SnowHeart1]

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.
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.

This pretty much summed it up for me with respect to how the issue was communicated with ME.  Maybe that was a PR bungle and not truly representative of the design/development considerations, but it is certainly how the statement was interpreted by the community and it was kind of offensive on a variety of levels.  That said...

...at the risk of turning this into a Gaider love-fest, I agree with the support being sent his way from previous posters.  I was actually quite tickled by the Zevran romance and all the complaints about him treating romances poorly and thus feeding into some sort of homophobic stereotype either  didn't dig deeper into his backstory or, in my opinion, seem to have a chip on their shoulder and are looking for a convenient target.

Anyway, back to the original topic, I wandered into this forum specifically looking for information on the possibility of a M/M romance in DA2 and was delighted to see the news in the first post.  Reading the speculation has been interesting.  I would be just as delighted with Fenris as I was with Zevran (so I've got a thing for elves... at least they're not Turians) but I agree that seems unlikely as "it has been done", so... it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Modifié par SnowHeart1, 03 janvier 2011 - 08:57 .

[Wittand25]

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.
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.

Honestly I think that marketing or whoever else is responsible for briefing the developers before an interview did not expect the question to come up in the first place and did not prepare answers. And when they questions came up the interviewed just tried to come up with anything that sounds better than "We did not want to do it", and failed. Because the answers given were frankly insulting to the intelligence of the players and can only be excused if they were made up on the fly.

[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.

[Wittand25]

Stanley Woo wrote...

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?

Well maybe because this contradicts every other piece of marketing for the game ? Constantly hearing your Shepard as you shape him, your universe ...  and then being supposed tho swallow this explanation would require us to suffer from selective amnesia or ADS. I think that I and others would be far more forgiving for the lack of m/m-romances in the ME franchise so far (hope does die last) if someone would simply have said sorry but we did not have time to do it right and did not want do do it in an half-hearted way (though that would raise the question why there were resources for six mutually exclusive straight romances in ME2)

[Blacklash93]

I think what's bothering people the most is that Bioware stated a male Shepard can't be gay no matter what the player thinks, even though a female Shepard can be gay (and already has content for it).

It's the (flawed) argument itself.

Modifié par Blacklash93, 03 janvier 2011 - 10:42 .

[Ziggeh]

Wittand25 wrote...

Well maybe because this contradicts every other piece of marketing for the game ? Constantly hearing your Shepard as you shape him, your universe ...  and then being supposed tho swallow this explanation would require us to suffer from selective amnesia or ADS.

You can only "shape" the character within the confines of the games structure. This, like anything else that isn't one of the predefined elements, falls outside of the shape it will allow you.

Wittand25 wrote...
(though that would raise the question why there were resources for six mutually exclusive straight romances in ME2)

Which has a fairly straightforward answer, if somewhat unfortunate for those it excludes.

[Jimmy Fury]

Stanley Woo wrote...

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?

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.

Now back to x-files. The first episode!

[Jademoon121]

RosaAquafire wrote...

David, let me just say -- please, please do not get deflated. Like you yourself say so many times, the angry people are ALWAYS the more vocal, because they have something to complain about. I can't even describe how thankful I am for the fact that Bioware does include homosexual content, ESPECIALLY male/male content. For every person who's offended at what a "flambouyant stereotype" Zevran was, there's five people who fell in love with him and felt included and accepted by their favourite form of art for the first time ever.
Seriously, the fact that Bioware -- and you in particular -- have gone to the mat to provide homosexual content is one of the things that makes me recommend your games to everyone I can. There's a lot of other factors, of course, but I respect you sticking to your guns and doing something that could get you a lot of detractors.
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.
But it's not just for him that I love what you've done with homosexual content in DA:O. It's just an issue that's very important to me, personally, for my own reasons separate from him. Not only am I impressed that the content is THERE, I was amazed in my own gay Wardens' romances with Leliana and Zevran just how much same sex specific dialogue there was.
Please don't feel demoralized by people who are offended by anything. Of course, having more would be wonderful, we always want more, but most of us accept time and money constraints, and are just so happy that you're one of the only game companies who even try.
Thanks for fighting for us, David.
In before "AW YOU BROWN NOSER."

I'm Commander Shepherd and this is my favorite quote on the forums.

[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.

[AlexXIV]

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?

[David Gaider]

AlexXIV wrote...
But who is limiting you?

Reality.

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

[Jimmy Fury]

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?

The finite universe we unfortunately live in? The human life span? The sad yet indisputable fact that discs are not time-lord technology thus incapable of accessing extradimensional storage space...

[Collider]

I remember a dev saying that the Kaidan M/M and Ashley F/F romances were possibly cut due to resource limitations.

[Super_Cat]

I don't really care for the issues involving Mass Effect's cut m/m content, or for the social implications of the m/m romantic option in a fantasy game. I mean Zevran, for example, is a fantasy character, not some role model. I don't care if he kills people and sleeps around.



All I care is that he is interesting and that he had a little optional romantic plotline option with the male player character. And that's all I want out of DAII's m/m romance.



"Not every follower is interested romantically in Hawke, though there are options for players of all genders and orientations."



That's all I needed to hear, every other detail I can wait until I play the game.

[JrayM16]

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.

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.

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.

[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!

[AlexXIV]

David Gaider wrote...

AlexXIV wrote...
But who is limiting you?

Reality.

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

Well but in essence it is gaming companies themselves. I mean, how are we as fans or customers supposed to change ressources for you? We can buy the games, that's all we can do. If more people need to buy the game so you have more ressources then you need to appeal to more people, right?

[Collider]

AlexXIV wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

AlexXIV wrote...
But who is limiting you?

Reality.

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

Well but in essence it is gaming companies themselves. I mean, how are we as fans or customers supposed to change ressources for you? We can buy the games, that's all we can do. If more people need to buy the game so you have more ressources then you need to appeal to more people, right?

You could spend more money to appeal to more people, but that wouldn't guarantee that the money spent for that would return a profit.

[Ziggeh]

JrayM16 wrote...

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.

Have to admit that is something of a concern, but there presumably is a certain amount of quota filling in character creation to begin with. You need X amount of each class, for example, they have, in order to include a decent amount of the different perspectives on the narrative and world, to include a variety of demographics, so it's probably not as limiting as it might be in isolation.

[Ziggeh]

AlexXIV wrote...

Well but in essence it is gaming companies themselves. I mean, how are we as fans or customers supposed to change ressources for you? We can buy the games, that's all we can do. If more people need to buy the game so you have more ressources then you need to appeal to more people, right?

They don't use the money they get from people buying the game to make the game. It's all about investment and projection, a fiddly business best.

[JrayM16]

Ziggeh wrote...

JrayM16 wrote...

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.

Have to admit that is something of a concern, but there presumably is a certain amount of quota filling in character creation to begin with. You need X amount of each class, for example, they have, in order to include a decent amount of the different perspectives on the narrative and world, to include a variety of demographics, so it's probably not as limiting as it might be in isolation.

I think there are exceptions to the idea I wrote, such as classes.  A variety of classes is needed to create a balanced party.  A writer should also create a variety of perspectives but I believe that falls into creating interesting characters.  If a writer creates a cast who are kinda same-ish with no diversity then that writer has failed in their character creation.

[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?

[pallascedar]

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.
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.
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.