I suppose it depends on who you're trying to sell to. I'm still not clear on why the romance aspect needed more than cursory focus to begin with. Sure, it excites the vocal folks on your boards here, but you have to know they're a miniscule drop in the bucket compared to the numbers you guys are clearly chasing with this game, and that Bioware romances don't tend to be all that well spoken-of off Bioware boards.
We announced the companions for the most part. I mean, how much of our official marketing includes an actual focus on the romance content, specifically? How much of it is the "drop in the bucket" fans carrying the conversation around?
And I'm not so sure you can chalk finding posts about the game being a romance simulator up to the Streisand Effect. The only real solid info you're handing out has to do with the romances. You've got employees going to cons to discuss the romances. You've got your writers devoting their Tumblrs to discussing the romances. Meanwhile, I can't find any basic information on character statistics.
We have employees going to GaymerX to have a PANEL that talks about LGBT content in video games. It's not a huge marketing beat.... it's a conference and we'd attend it regardless. If the choice is "don't go at all" to placate you, then I wouldn't choose what you want. If you want to voice a complaint for that, tell GaymerX to reschedule when they host their event.
You want to know why the writers are talking about romances on tumblr? It's because the "drop in the bucket" is asking David questions. How far reaching does the tumblr interactions go beyond tumblr and this message board? David is also a writer. He fields questions about the stuff he does, which is writing. Of which the bulk of it is companions (which many people DO love about our games, romances or no) and plot. Look at what Mark talks about. Look at what Mike talks about. Though a quick look at David's Tumblr and most of the questions he deals with are not about romances. Some are about voice acting, he's got two about The Keep!
We don't go to GaymerX to advertise the game in any significant manner. We go to GaymerX because as a studio, we think that recognizing LGBT content is a decent thing to do and our game happens to include it. For the people of that audience, it's no real surprise that they talk about LGBT content since that's a significant part of the focus of the event.
Intended or not, you guys are giving the impression that romance is a huge, important component of the game.
Because I think your impressions are incorrect. You want to know what *most* people have been exposed to about our game? Do a search for things that include "E3." Look at how much romance content was discussed during E3. Look at how much romance content was shown during the gameplay footage. I mean jeez, look at the article linked in the OP of this post. Tell me how much romance comes up in that, and it's a focused event with a major games publication for the purposes of specifically promoting the game. The answer to the question is none. But I bet your sampling bias has overlooked that, because you are so focused on romances.
We have blurbs and writer interviews talking about our characters. Most of which don't even touch on romance (e.g. David simply mentioned that Dorian was gay, and the world jumped up on that as the talking point. Sounds like the mere existence of a gay character is newsworthy). The romance information goes out to the hardest of the hardcore that have their eyes glued to the forums or other more direct forms of communication with fans, like Twitter.
To be perfectly frank, at this point you come across as trying to coerce us into releasing Information You Want™ by making suppositions that we're undermining our game because several months before release, we're announcing the companions the Inquisitor will hang out with. So no, at this point I don't agree with your perspective. I think it's biased because you want other stuff and you really hate other stuff, so you frame it in a way in the hopes of encouraging us to give you the information you care about. If you'd like to prove me wrong, do a wide scale intersectional analysis of our fanbase and run some panels and talk with the fans face to face and find out what it is that they are so excited about for the game. Yes, a LOT of people LOVE our games for the story and the characters. My favourite parts of BioWare games have always been the companions (Minsc, Jaheira, Viconia, Imoen, Irenicus, Edwin, Max, Aribeth, Jolee Bindo, HK-47, Juhani, Bastila, Garrus, Tali, Mordin, Leliana, Shale, Alistair, Morrigan, Thane, Varric, Isabela, Aveline), even though I probably care less about romance content being included than even you do.
So I'm telling you: the content you're looking for is coming. Hopefully enough of it comes out for you to be satisfied, but at this point we're just going to start arguing in circles since it's your impressions versus mine. I answered your question with what I feel is the right answer. You don't seem to actually care what my answer is and seem more inclined on pointing out that I'm wrong, so I guess we'll see if the course of marketing this changes much. But I'm not seeing a discussion here at this point, nor am I particularly interested in continuing this one.
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