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[DarthLaxian]

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. 

 

Marriage?

 

Please don't (or at the very least: don't force it - meaning: give us the option to bring it up (or turn the LI down gently - without breaking the relationship or having them react hostile/offended))!

 

It may just be me - after all I am a child (well, not anymore, mid-twenties and all that ^^) of divorced parents (and have seen a lot of other marriages - amongst friends, relatives and close family - go to hell) - who is dead set against marriage (I will never marry - It's a stupid custom IMHO and it traps people...it has no real advantage either (well, discounting tax breaks)...all the other things can be done by having other legal documents drawn up like giving someone power of attorney and setting someone up as a health care proxy etc.).

 

It's just my oppinion - I don't want to offend (if you like marriage: go for it - I will not hold anyone back (yes, I might tell close friends what I think about it, but that's it - if they still want to, it's their business and I will attend the wedding and be happy for them, too)...I just don't want to have it forced on me!

 

greetings LAX

ps: I would like the option (might watch the YT-Vids of weddings - because my characters will not have them!)

[Chernaya]

This! More options for everyone, why not? Though, for me it comes down to the time span of the romance, I'm not sure I would want my character to marry someone after their third date

 

Yeah, that's a thing too, lol. In Origins the time-span was only a year. To me that's cutting it a bit short, but I suppose it does happen sometimes. Alistair made sense, since he was becoming king, so I could see that one. DA2 was a much, much longer time, so a wedding would have actually been understandable, imo, further along in the story. For some characters at least... I don't think I could ever see it for Isabela. xD

[Iakus]

Yeah, with the world possibly ending any day, I can see them skipping the long preparation stage until it the crisis is dealt with, yet at the same time have the desire to do it so have a quick, small ceremony. 

 

 

I'm reminded of the Throne of Bhaal expansion in BG2.

 

In one of the last romance dialogues with Aerie, you can "get married" though it's not an official ceremony (you are in the middle of a last-ditch effort to prevent a dark god from being resurrected, after all).  The two of you just say traditional elven wedding vows to the rising sun.  The actual wedding takes place in the epilogue slides.

[Ynqve]

Yeah, that's a thing too, lol. In Origins the time-span was only a year. To me that's cutting it a bit short, but I suppose it does happen sometimes. Alistair made sense, since he was becoming king, so I could see that one. DA2 was a much, much longer time, so a wedding would have actually been understandable, imo, further along in the story. For some characters at least... I don't think I could ever see it for Isabela. xD

 

It's not hard to headcanon that Hawke and Anders/Merrill are married in act 3. It would make sense, they lived together for years. But no, I can't see it for Isabela. xD

[SirGladiator]

I think it's a fantastic idea.  Certainly it easily works for characters like Leliana and Merrill, but I can't even see a reason why it wouldn't work for characters like Morrigan and Isabella either, since obviously they had changed a lot by the end in regard to their attitude toward love and commitment (if the player romanced them, that is) .  I don't think actually 'seeing' the Wedding would be absolutely necessary (though of course it would be nice) , but making it clear that the characters were now married, that would be awesome, even if it was at the very end of the game (and again, of course it would be even nicer if it happened 'during' the game instead of at the very end) .  So I guess for me, yes I'd love to see the whole nine yards, the engagement, then the wedding ceremony, everything.  But so long as there was at least an option to get engaged during the game and then at the end it acknowledges that they were married, that would still be a huge and very meaningful improvement, and I'd be happy with that.

[Vereesa]

If marriage is to exist in the game I hope they at least include cultural variations of the ceremony. I dont want my Dalish inquisitor getting married in a Chantry.

[AresKeith]

Personally I feel marriage should be something that's done as headcanon or fanfiction, but the option to bring up marriage in dialogue during a romance could be a thing

[Rel Fexive]

I don't think this has already been said explicitly, but I apologize if someone else brought it up and I missed it.

 

I managed to squeeze this suggestion into the romance thread 30 seconds before it was closed, but I don't know if anyone actually saw it so I'm mentioning it here again because I feel it's relevant.

 

Regardless of whether a significant percentage of players specifically want a marriage option, I think it's important and valuable to immersion and creating a believable and relatable fantasy world to include a variety of different relationship viewpoints and types in addition to different sexualities, both for the player and for the LIs. Meaning that I'd like to see not only the ability to turn down sex while remaining in the relationship, or to get married, but characters that persistently refuse a committed relationship, characters that have romantic or sexual connections with multiple people, open relationships, committed polyamorous relationships.

 

I realize that the more of these that you try to add exclusively to a limited cast, the more people wind up being alienated, but it's possible to at least acknowledge these options in dialogue and implement some cross-section of them. (For example, their could be characters that are open to marriage, but won't pursue it unless your Inquisitior brings it up, versus characters who WILL propose to you at some point and may or may not be okay not eventually getting married, versus characters who are just not interested in marriage at all who may or may not have investment in some other form of relationship.)

In short, it would be nice if our relationship status was something we discussed and decided and had options for, rather than simply assumed; whether the assumption is a non-married, sexually-active relationship as seen in DA and ME or the assumption that all relationships end in marriage a la TOR.

 

Even a few dialogue scenes allowing some definition of the nature of a given relationship would be nice, I think, as you say.  So there are enough pointers or implied possibilities that, with some characters, you could see them planning for a more permanent bond of some kind or other at a late date, whether that be marriage or a straightforward commitment to the other person.

 

I think we're all well aware of how the level of complexity will ramp up the more kinds of relationships are possible, though.  I guess it isn't much more complicated than characters gated by gender or race though, in the end.  I don't know, really, I'm speculating wildly.

 

Marriage?

 

Please don't (or at the very least: don't force it - meaning: give us the option to bring it up (or turn the LI down gently - without breaking the relationship or having them react hostile/offended))!

 

It may just be me - after all I am a child (well, not anymore, mid-twenties and all that ^^) of divorced parents (and have seen a lot of other marriages - amongst friends, relatives and close family - go to hell) - who is dead set against marriage (I will never marry - It's a stupid custom IMHO and it traps people...it has no real advantage either (well, discounting tax breaks)...all the other things can be done by having other legal documents drawn up like giving someone power of attorney and setting someone up as a health care proxy etc.).

 

It's just my oppinion - I don't want to offend (if you like marriage: go for it - I will not hold anyone back (yes, I might tell close friends what I think about it, but that's it - if they still want to, it's their business and I will attend the wedding and be happy for them, too)...I just don't want to have it forced on me!

 

greetings LAX

ps: I would like the option (might watch the YT-Vids of weddings - because my characters will not have them!)

 

I don't think anyone is advocating forcing anyone into anything!  Marriages (as we seem to be contemplating here) would be as optional as the romances themselves, though it's not impossible that some would end in marriage or break-up, like real relationships can, if that was how the hypothetical romance arc was written.  In that respect it is not really any different from characters who won't commit to anything, or characters who refuse intimacy, or those who can't do that for biological reasons (just to catch the examples I can think of off hand from other BW games).

[Hanako Ikezawa]

While I loathe the idea of framing bisexuality as a game mechanic, if the love interest was bisexual then no PC who wished to enjoy that storyline would be alienated for their actual orientation. If the game had the same/similar number of romance options as this game has, then having one that you can choose which culminates in a marriage seems fairly acceptable to me? Its not like we are lacking for choices this time around, and given how unique this story and relationship could potentially be, I think that if it was done well I would have no problem with that being the only ending to that subplot.

I can see this as a possible way for Bioware to test the waters on the idea. Like for example if we have 8 LIs in a future game with a 2/4/2 split of straight/bi/gay, then have one of the bisexual men and one of the bisexual women be characters who are interested in getting married(not as a mechanic but as part of their character) and thus one of their scenes is that small wedding service. If it is well liked, then it can be considered looking into more ways for it in future games. And if it is not liked, they still have plenty of options in that game for people to romance. 

[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).

[Chron0id]

I think marriage would just be a superfluous addition and would make the games delve too much into The Sims territory.  I am a firm believer that romance is fine by itself without stamping a government (or in this case, the Chantry) seal of approval on it.  But that's just me. 

[Felya87]

I must admit I'm interested in marriages a cultural way too. How would be handled a Dalish/Barbarian marriage? differently from the Chantry, I think. but what rituals would be involved? I would be interested in seeing how is celebrated a marriage in the differents cultures of Thedras.

so, not necessary the protagonist being married, but seeing how differente cultures have differents rituals is always interesting for me.

 

And for my characters...I would like some dialogue with the chance to talk about marriage with the LI. I don't need to see the wedding, but the chance to talk about a possible future together, is something I'd really like. and if in some epilogue slides I can read about a marriage in the future, depending on how was played out the dialogue, well, that would be very sweet.

[aTigerslunch]

On page 3 trying to catch up.

 

Their have been marriages, quick ones, with couples wanting to seal their fates together in times of duress. Cause they may believe if they died in battle the next day or died cause of the oncoming armies, they wanted to be sure they was together even in afterlife. Honestly, there are a lot of people that does believe this. I met quite a few while in the armed forces.  It actually does fit story arc between two lovers in a warzone. It doesn't fit if they ignored it, tons of lovers do it, knowing if their death is tomorrow.

[Dagr88]

If it's 10-30 sec cutsceen without words in the epilogue... ok or even great. (Idea is a bit undermined by fact that it was mentioned that it's possible to continue game after the main campaign, if I'm not mistaken)

 

Mid or late game event with possible after dialogues... developer's budget not well spent (in my opinion).

[Rel Fexive]

 

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

 

Spoiler

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 thread, 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).

 

Thanks Allan!

 

Yeah, I think we've moved past the argumentative stage... hopefully.

 

I think marriage would just be a superfluous addition and would make the games delve too much into The Sims territory.  I am a firm believer that romance is fine by itself without stamping a government (or in this case, the Chantry) seal of approval on it.  But that's just me. 

 

I think it's more about the opportunity to make a public statement of commitment than getting paperwork from the authorities, personally.  That and people wanting their characters to only have sex after marriage (i.e. sex scene after) because that's what they believe themselves.  Oddly, considering my part in this discussion, that's not really important to me personally either.  But a marriage, possibly complete with ceremony, could be a nice thing for our characters to have, if it was something that happened to appeal in a given playthrough.

 

 

(bed, then work - back tomorrow evening UKT! don't break things in the meantime... )

[Andersfels-one]

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.

you know what ,i think you grasped a good point ! because am one of those guys who isnt really a big of a gamer , BUT is ready to pay the price and buy  for a game where the protagonist can be only gay or at least bi and have the choice to romance another male !!

Its something very dear to me because am seeing all those great plots in games but sadly with a very typica dark straight hero who through the game, either flirt or drool over anything with breasts, or fight the bad guys to save his girlfriend or lost wife . 

 

So yes do please focus on correcting this big mistake that is much more important than marriage (something you can find everywhere weither in movies, series, games and mediatic stuff ) its not like i wouldnt like to see gay marriage in games ,but i rather prefere the staff to consentrate on the LGBT writtting and give us a beautiful story for a gay male or female hero than something so common as marriage . Right now even the medias focus on introducing gay characters and their stories in series because its something that cannot be avoided anymore.

 

and being one of the very rare games that offer a total opportunity of playing a gay protagonist with a true gay party is what will make this game stand out you'll see. .

[Chron0id]

Thanks Allan!

 

Yeah, I think we've moved past the argumentative stage... hopefully.

 

 

I think it's more about the opportunity to make a public statement of commitment than getting paperwork from the authorities, personally.  That and people wanting their characters to only have sex after marriage (i.e. sex scene after) because that's what they believe themselves.  Oddly, considering my part in this discussion, that's not really important to me personally either.  But a marriage, possibly complete with ceremony, could be a nice thing for our characters to have, if it was something that happened to appeal in a given playthrough.

 

 

(bed, then work - back tomorrow evening UKT! don't break things in the meantime... )

You make a good point.  I never thought of it that way.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

 

Thanks Allan!

 

Yeah, I think we've moved past the argumentative stage... hopefully.

 

 

I think it's more about the opportunity to make a public statement of commitment than getting paperwork from the authorities, personally.  That and people wanting their characters to only have sex after marriage (i.e. sex scene after) because that's what they believe themselves.  Oddly, considering my part in this discussion, that's not really important to me personally either.  But a marriage, possibly complete with ceremony, could be a nice thing for our characters to have, if it was something that happened to appeal in a given playthrough.

 

 

(bed, then work - back tomorrow evening UKT! don't break things in the meantime...    )

Pretty much. There is a lot more to people wanting to get married than a piece of paper, and people like to see people like themselves in games. 

[Hanako Ikezawa]

 

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).

Well, thank you for keeping it open.

[Lukas Trevelyan]

 

*snip*

We're pretty much passed all the arguments once derailment was starting to get a bit out of hand. 

Anyway here are a couple of things I want to point out on how I view this issue:

1- I don't want to force the issue, I understand that there are other aspects that are under-represented (generally speaking). But recently everyone has been getting these choices and there is a clear intention from Bioware to let everyone have their own choice and it feels like an appropriate time to bring up the possibility of marriage.

2- The reason one might find it unfair is because in the video game they find nothing that matches their beliefs (relationships should forward into marriage, sex should come after marriage) and this shouldn't be compared to how in real life they are already privileged and such thus making their presence or representation in the game unimportant. A video game's life isn't supposed to make up for the lack of certain aspects in life at the cost of removing other aspects that are considered to be 'unimportant' simply because of their privileges. Instead a certain balance should be created. 
 
3- To continue on my previous point, of course you should spend your costs on other more integral parts of the game or on the 'un-represented' aspects (LGBT and women) to be included in the game, but now that such aspects have begun to find a fair place in the game, the previously dismissed aspect (marriage) should start to make it's way into the game as well,  instead of continuously giving the unprivileged at the cost of the privileged to a point where their positions are reversed. Now that is what makes it unfair, and that is what was debated previously.

4- Additionally the problem is, if it were plotted on a graph, when looking at the game those who want an actual marriage (not mechanically, I mean a marriage based on the romance arc -not political or arranged) receive nothing, again that's what also may seem unfair. So continuing to ignore the matter will still lead to the graph that you posted except what's presumably a privileged partition are the ones who have nothing. 


I'm sorry my English is currently thick, I'm just really tired at the moment, but I hope I do get my point across.

[aTigerslunch]

Marriage can be worded into conversations. I loved Shep and Liara's words together, comments of Sebastion and Carver, those fit well, and did satisfy the fact they are marrying within a timeframe.

 

This way, it is fact those two may of gotten married after all, instead of.... did they, I think they did type deal. So, Isabela would of been married to Hawke as definite cause it was worded and traded in their dialogue.

[Nayawk]

The more I think about it the more I see a big old can of worms.  

 

Characterisation of companions should be consistent and plenty of the characters we have seen in the past and will likely see in the future are very much the types to not get married. So suddenly you have a situation where you have to have the characters act out of character or be 'marriage gated' and unavailable... the howling and gnashing of teeth if only some LI are open for marriage would be very loud indeed.

[Nimlowyn]

I think it could be nice if it fit the narrative and made for a good story to have the PC get married. (I did like how Aveline remarried in Dragon Age 2). As a married person myself however, I don't consider it a necessary inclusion for me to enjoy the game.

 

It's always irritating when people (apparently, unmarried ones) erroneously refer to marriage as "just a piece of paper" (if you *must* simplify a complex human relationship like marriage it would be a ritual); if the devs do decide to include it down the road, I'm confident that Bioware would do it well and to the benefit of the stories they are famous for. This means a rich story arc examining loyalty, duty and commitment in an uncertain world, not a side quest down to the Denerim Clerk's office for a marriage license (-20 gold, +150 exp). 

[aTigerslunch]

If they was to go more elaborate as you would say Nimlowyn, then yeah I agree. I know my post was to simplify the costs on development. It isn't something to take lightly, that I do know.

[Neon Rising Winter]

DAO I think covered marriage quite nicely within the scope of its plot, and introduces how the concept is treated differently within the different societies. I think it also makes it obvious that the race and social background of a character will influence their attitude to marriage. In fact if you become embroiled in the whole palaver with Alastair at the end it - not unreasonably - hits you over the head with that fact. I'd say that illustrates why, when you have racial choice on protagonist, the costs of implementing it would be increased because the race/social position of the progtagonist will affect the options.

 

DA2 is the game probably most comfortably open to it. There was a set race protagonist, the characters involved were all cut adrift from their own cultures and more plausibly open to the marriage for love concept most of us are used to. Not to mention the timescales involved in the game make it bit less, wham, bam, quick let's move in and get married.

 

DAI I don't really know enough about. What I've read sounds more like DAO, which brings us back to culturally policed ideas of marriage. But then again in story terms those would be the ones with the most interesting potential. It's a good way to show a clash of cultures, and maybe even give the player a bit of a mental jolt by showing them what their character thinks of as marriage might not gel with their own ideas.

 

Sorry, that's a bit rambly. In summary - hrmm, marriage, interesting, could lead to culture clash and all sorts of complications. Like it.