Bastal wrote...
The whole point of the argument relies on the central point that straight male gamers make up a overwhelming majority of players. As I said before, I estimate that the number is around 80% (this includes straight males gamers who plays a females). Now if my numbers are at all wrong (that in reality the split is 60-40-10 (male, female, gay), then consider this post to be null and void, I've wasted your time (No doubt some of you already feel that way).
"And if there is any doubt why such an opinion might be met with hostility, it has to do with privilege. You can write it off as "political correctness" if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They're so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance. They don't see anything wrong with having things set up to suit them, what's everyone's fuss all about? That's the way it should be, any everyone else should be used to not getting what they want."
The idea of privilege is ridiculous. The "privilege" always lies with the majority because if your goal is to make a game that will be liked by as many fans possible, then it makes sense to focus on that largest group. Why should one fan's enjoyment be more important than five others? It'd more accurate to call "privilege" the idea that some minority group gets special preference for political points. If you really want to be all-inclusive, then I don't see why homosexuals should get special preference while leaving other minority groups out.
Here's the thing. You and I (and many others), we belong to the same demographic - straight and male. You talk about how the 'privilege' always lies with the majority, and you are correct. That doesn't make it a good thing. We're used to having the vast majority of popular entertainment catered to us. Films, television shows, video games - if the percentage of these that feature either a female or a non-heterosexual (or heck, both) protagonist is above 25%, I'll eat my hat. We don't have to ask for inclusiveness because we've got it. It's better than it was ten or fifteen years ago, sure, but even then, we've still got the lion's share of protagonists that we can empathize with.
This is what privilege is about. We are so used to being on top, so used to having entertainment designed for us that when we see something that goes against that status quo we go 'hey! That's not fair - you can't just cater to a particular audience!' What we don't realize, of course, is that the majority of entertainment already caters to us. We're just so used to it being the reality that we don't see it as anything other than the natural order of things. But if you're not part of our demographic, it can be incredibly difficult to find a protagonist you can sympathize and connect to in the same way, which is why you see the desire for more options and more inclusivity.
This isn't a complaint about how I didn't get everything I wanted. This is a complaint about how this is the first BioWare game I've played that I did not enjoy. I've seen many complaints about weak characters and weak story. That is also my complaint and I believe it stems entirely from trying to be "all-inclusive". By trying to appeal to so broad of audience, you've left a game in which many people cannot connect. You'll win praises and 10/10's from gay activists and feminists for your great strides in promoting "equality" and eliminating "straight male privilege", but you'll have loss fans like me.
If your complaint is 'I wasn't able to connect to the characters and I feel that was a result of the definition of their sexuality', then that's one thing. But the tone of your post, the topic you chose and the fact that you are essentially saying 'straight male gamers need to be catered to' suggests otherwise. In the end, the writers will make the decisions they make, but I wouldn't hold your breath that we're going to suddenly and drastically overhaul how we handle sexuality because it makes some people uncomfortable. That sucks, and it's too bad you won't be able to enjoy our games anymore, but that's the decision we've made.
If your goal is not to make as many fans as possible happy but to enact some form of social crusade then please, market and advertise the game as such. If you believe there are a substantial number of players who would appreciate those features, then advertise it and create trailers for it, don't lead me to believe that this game was crafted for the straight male. If you truly believe that the straight male gamers are not important enough that more focus is not warranted, then I would like to see your marketing reflect that.
It's possible to do both. Many people are quite comfortable playing a game with same-sex romance options without themselves being of that particular sexual orientation. And we're never going to make everyone happy - if we could create a game that pleased every single person who played video games, I'd be typing this post from my third mansion in the Bahamas. But what we can do is allow as many people of different sexual orientations as we can to enjoy our games. What we can do is make sure that we're promoting a message of equality, that we believe everyone's entitled to live and love in the same way. And what we can do is recognize that even as we're making video games, what we choose to include and not include is in itself a social message, whether we intend for it to be or not.
As a side note, I'd like to say that I'm not at all surprised by all the pro-homosexuality comments and that I expected even more. 1% of a million is still 10000. No doubt you'd have a many of them trying to protect their "privilege" in Dragon Age 2.
Or, it could be that many people (both heterosexual and of other sexual orientation) truly believe that inclusivity is a better way to go than exclusivity. Suggesting that it's only the '1%' that is vociferously against your post is doing both yourself and everyone else a great disservice, as you seem to be suggesting that if you're part of the 'straight, male demographic' then you aren't going to be posting in support of equality. Which was another of the points that David was making - you don't speak for the entire demographic, and I'd wager that you don't even speak for the majority of the demographic. So let's call a spade a spade.
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