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[Hanako Ikezawa]

Hello Bioware, 

 

I am writing this thread to bring up a concern and desire I have for the Bioware franchises that I would appreciate being seen to. That is the ability to marry your Love Interests in the games. I think it would be a positive thing to include, both as just a feature but also as a way to represent those players who do get married and even wait to get married before having the kinds of relationships your games have. But before I get into that, let me describe the previous games and how they lacked this feature. I'll stick to just the Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises for this thread. 

 

In Dragon Age: Origins, the only people we can even discuss getting married with and seeing it through are Alistair and Anora. Leliana, Morrigan, and Zevran never even bring the subject up or have the player bring the subject up. Of Alistair and Anora, only one is a love interest and thus can be considered more than just a political marriage. Even then, the game does not have it occur until the Epilogue slides of the game. So for those who want marriage represented at best get 1 of 4 love interests if they are a straight/bi female and straight/bi males get 0 of 4 love but an NPC representing that, but only as a "This happens afterwords" concept. That is better than the homosexual community who get no options for that part of a relationship. 

 

In Dragon Age 2, it ironically gets better and worse. The only people we can discuss it with and pursue it with is Sebastian, who is a DLC character. In the vanilla game, there are zero options for everybody. With the DLC, the only ones who get it are straight/bi females. Straight/bi/gay men and gay women as I said have no options to even discuss it with. It also gets worse since those who want no sex until marriage also have no representation because to pursue a relationship, the sex scene is required unlike DAO where you can turn down the offer and continue it. 

 

The Mass Effect franchise is the worst at this, since it is like the vanilla version of Dragon Age 2 but a trilogy instead of just one game. All 3 games both require the player to sleep with the love interest and yet none of them bring up the prospect of marriage. Which unlike the Dragon Age franchise, which has you adopt a new role each game, the Mass Effect trilogy follows the same protagonist so for the cross game love interests it could have come up since they have more content than the love interest of a single game. 

 

So now with the games out of the way, I can now discuss why I think the prospect of marriage and even the prospect of a 'no sex until marriage' character is important. For marriage, the statistics I have found, which admittedly are a few years old, show that approximately 70% of people on Earth get married at some point in their lives, and yet throughout the entirety of the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises, including Inquisition, we have only about 7% of achievement-unlocking love interests do this, both of whom are male so only the straight and bi women even get an option for it while gay women and all men do not. And of these two, Alistair as I said you don't even have it happen until after the game as an Epilogue Slide and Sebastian who is a chaste romance. And as for the no sex until marriage characters, we get at best 3.5% with only Alistair, and that is only if you turn his offer down, since Sebastian was a playboy before becoming a Brother. So we have 0% of the love interests represent that group of people, who worldwide estimates have in at least the tens of millions. 

 

So there are two huge groups of people who do not get something that they would like to have, and I would wish that in future installments of the current franchises thus why I am making this thread. For marriage in general, I think the option for the love interests to have it would be great, so those who want it have it and those who don't want don't have to have it. There can be exceptions of course, since if there was a love interest who wanted to wait until they are married to have intimate relationships with the protagonist would require the marriage occur and likewise there could be characters who have a negative opinion on the subject of marriage and want no part of it so it is turned down or never comes up. 

 

For whoever is reading this, I appreciate the time you took to do so. Please feel free to add any input you wish. Thank you. 

[Allan Schumacher]

Just so I'm clear, do you think that thus far BioWare has been unfair/discriminatory towards people that value marriage, and that we should consider this position because marriage is widely valued?  In essence, making sure the content of our game is fair representation towards those with this particular value?

[Allan Schumacher]

The romance system interferes with the story?  Interesting when its optional....going to assume you know this. EDIT: Also, that marriage stuff would just be as optional as romance and not interfere just like romance wouldn't if someone doesn't want to go that path.

 

At least its not centered into the story like many other games have.

 

My concern would be more along the lines: Would it's optional nature frustrate people?  Because by virtue of it being optional, it runs the risk of not being satisfying.

 

Would people be okay with it if it was "yes lets get married" but there was no real wedding scene, for example?

 

What things would people expect that they are just sort of taking for granted now, but when playing the content they would suddenly notice and it'd be seen as subpar as a result?

[Allan Schumacher]

That does seem to be the case.  So many opinions/views/orientations are amply catered for, why not marriage minded people?

 

Opportunity costs.  Time spent doing this is time not spent doing something else.  Which is why I want to comment on a few things.

 

 

Based on this discussion, there's a couple of thoughts I want to share.

 

Utilizing the term "representation" is tricky because, in the context of many discussions in this forum, it isn't about simply "having some group that isn't in our games now shown in our games."  It's a statement about the types of content that is systemically avoided/misrepresented through all works, not just video games.  This content is typically looked down upon because of large sects of society's perspectives.  So when people talk about representation of something like LGBT content they aren't just asking for the existence (although it does hardly exist in our society), they're also asking for the depiction to be accurate and respectful (which is often even less common).

 

Comparing people asking for representation for LGBT or other marginalized groups is not the same as asking for representation for people that value marriage for a few reasons.  Married people are not erased from art/media, they aren't typically victimized because they are married, and as such I feel a resistance with respect to being unfair because it isn't something we typically do in our games.

 

 

This goes back up to the top point of my response: opportunity costs.  Making content costs money, what's the best way we want to make content.  Deciding to not go into marriage content is a cost thing.  Deciding to not go into LGBT content (or female representation) is also a cost thing.  But to me (and presumably more of BioWare), I feel there's a greater problem with saying "We don't do LGBT/women because we spent our money elsewhere" compared to "we don't go into marriage content because we spent our money elsewhere."  That's not to say that people don't value marriage.  But saying "we don't want to include marriage in our game because we want to focus on something else" has a minimal cost on the overall representation of marriage in many societies.  I mean, I'm over 30 and unmarried, which typically sees me fielding questions as to why that must be.  So my own experiences don't align with the idea that marriage is disrespected.

 

Saying, however, that we don't want to include women in our game because we wanted to spend our money elsewhere reinforces the notion in media as well as gaming that women often don't exist, and are much less often in positions of power or significant contributors with a respectful depiction and variety of representation.  Within the greater societal image, we feel that's the wrong thing to do.

 

 

Having said that, I don't consider the ideal to be "all games have male/female and LGBT content."  The ideal is "gaming/entertainment is so diverse with positive male, female, and sexualized content that it's no longer a topic."  Consider LGBT content important criteria for buying a game?  Sure there's lots to choose from.  This game only features a female protagonist?  Sure.  This game only features a male protagonist?  That's cool too.  If gaming/entertainment, in aggregate (i.e. not individual games) is diverse enough, the individual differences between games become less of an issue in terms of asking for representation.

 

And yes, I have no problems saying I see a greater moral imperative to include LGBT, racial, or gender representation than that of marriage representation, at this time.  If someone feels marginalized or outraged because of our lack of marriage content in the game, they have the benefit of dipping into an ocean of other content that includes positive and healthy depictions of married people.  Not all groups have that choice, however.

 

I'm of the opinion that framing something like lack of marriage content as being "unfair" weakens the use of the term when applied to situations I consider to be more genuinely unfair.  If you want marriage content in your game, I think it's fine to say "I think this would be awesome."  I think it's even valid to say "Lots of people value marriage so I think this would be nice for a lot of people."  But I also think if it means we don't do it, it's not an injustice.  Utilizing the term "unfair" in this context means that someone could also claim it's unfair that there's no accountants in our game, or a host of anything else.  In the infinite possibilities of options, there's always going to be a lot more stuff NOT in our game than is in our game.  I don't think it's unfair that we don't include most of those things.

 

 

 

As for "we should seek to benefit all equally" since it's come up a few times now.  This is an obfuscating position and if the alleged majority is getting upset because some wish to focus on a particular group and not them, they need to understand that requiring communication to avoid resentment among the alleged majority often does an excellent job of reinforcing the status quo.  And focusing on "improving things for everybody equally" means moving from this to http://i.imgur.com/PDwpuBe.png

 

Resevations about this topic aren't "this is what the majority wants, so who cares we can ignore them."  Reservations come from co-opting terms used by groups that are disadvantaged on a widespread, systemic (and often institutional) level for something like this is where things got derailed.  This includes stating "gay people also benefit from this" because if we remove all content related to marriage from the game, we're no longer discriminating against gay people on the basis of their preference for gay marriage.  We are, in fact, being completely equal on the basis of who does and does not get to experience marriage content.

 

 

As for asking for "equal attention" on the basis of something like this, keep in mind that if the split of attention was 80/20, going to 50/50 is literally going to be receiving less attention, and that simply receiving less attention than was received in the past does not mean that you are now receiving inequitable treatment.  The only way to make it equal otherwise would be to make it 80/80, which would mean *a lot* of focus on that group that only had 20.  Which, to the original 80, is still going to seem unfair.

 

 

I've been debating closing the thread, but the thread seems to be course correcting?  (assuming my post doesn't derail it again)

 

 

If you think marriage would be an interesting topic and would like to see it in the game, please continue.  Understand that some may be resistant to the idea, because the opportunity cost of implementing something like this could come at the cost of another area they'd prefer us to focus on in writing (my bias: I'd like to see more companion interaction that is not tied to romance content, for example).

[Allan Schumacher]

So I think perhaps I wasn't particularly clear with my previous posts.

 

 

If you want to call us unfair for not having marriage in the game then fine, that's your prerogative.  Someone can call us unfair for not having a particular weapon in the game and focusing so much on swords and maces or whatever.

 

But I am not going to tolerate making this issue equivalent towards underprivileged groups being marginalized in all aspects of life, including video games.  Suggesting that us making LGBT content is somehow "catering" and "focusing on them" is wrong.  It's us (finally) treating them the same.

 

 

I do not believe that not having marriage in game serves as another reminder to married people (or people that value marriage) that they have less worth in our society and do not deserve attention.

 

I do not consider the lack of marriage in our game to be a social justice issue (and by extension, that it's absence reflects a social injustice).

 

I consider a request like this to be a "nice to have" not an "ought to have."  That is, if it isn't included the level of offense levied is minimal, despite large amounts of people valuing marriage.

 

I consider equating this to asking for LGBT/women content disrespectful as it misrepresents that LGBT/women content are asking to be treated the same.  If you feel that we're somehow "catering" towards people that don't value marriage, you're going to need to convince me that this is a wide scale, prevalent issue among people that value marriage and that they perceive themselves as being reinforced of the reality that they are victimized as a consequence of being married.  I haven't seen that.

 

 

With respect to "no sex until marriage" I can understand that that may be a perspective that actually has more merit.  Although I do not have any information beyond anecdotal accounts, which are conflicting.  I do know that men are more often encouraged to be promiscuous and women typically are not.  But given that the idea of abstinence only education is still commonly taught and encouraged, I consider the perspective unclear.  I think that BioWare can address this by not making sex a focal point of a romance, and even include the lack of sexual content in some romances.  Though I do acknowledge that people can, and do, get pressured into sex before they want to and that that is a bad thing.

 

 

Given that I already had asked people to not continue down the avenue of injustice, and several posters insisted on continuing to do so, the thread is now closed.