With the recent discovery of male-on-male sexual encounters in Dragon Age: Origins, talk about the portrayal of homosexuality in games and the general attitudes toward LGBT people within the industry has been enjoyed all over the Internet. However, there is one place you can't discuss such subjects -- the BioWare forums.
BioWare is locking and hiding any topic related to homosexuality on its message board, especially those asking why you can have female-on-female sex in Mass Effect, but can't have male-on-male. Rather than discuss the double standard, BioWare is keen to bury any and all questions.
This isn't the first time BioWare has censored LGBT discussion on its boards, but it's frustrating certain fans of the studio who are feeling more than a little constrained. Of course, it's totally BioWare's right to lock away any discussion it deems unsavory, but is it wise to sweep aside a considerable portion of your audience, especially after making somewhat half-hearted gestures of inclusion in your videogames?
I respect BioWare for at least attempting to inject some form of gay appeal in its games, but these uncommitted, stumbling attempts at inclusion full of half-measures are confusing some fans, and the unwillingness to discuss it in an open forum doesn't exactly help. It's almost as if BioWare likes having a little bit of gay content in its software just to say it has it, but doesn't want to touch the subject any further than that.
With that in mind, it's hard to commend BioWare on this issue when it looks so cynical.
Bioware locking down LGBT-related forum topics... again [Ars Technica]
Contest:
9:00 PM on 02.01.2010
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It still isn't female on female only because Asari aren't actually female at all.
Cop-out answer.
Why does every single display of sexuality have to be an equal right opportunity? God forbid they represent lesbians and not gays, or the other way around. It's not like they're showing overdone lesbian sex with a notice that says 'homosexual males are ignorant and immoral' or something along those lines. Nothing offensive is being presented here.
Christ, calm these f*kers down already.
Bioware hates gay people confirmed.
You can bang Kelly in Mass Effect 2.
Now, how shall I say, fuck you Bioware?
This isn't the only issue Bioware stonewalls people on.
If somebody suggest that on the forum if they didn't get permanently banned and hopefully executed you'd lose all hope for Bioware.
Some people are very twisted they don't see at what is being done they prefer to critisize for what isn't being done.
Bioware are making a game without regard for political BS their not there to play the equality police.
"Asari have tits. They are female."
John Travolta has tits. He is female.
it is offensive because lesbian sex is generally deemed as acceptable and desirable by straight males while gay male sex is very undesirable. the inclusion of lesbian sex as an optional game mechanic isn't doing anything for LBGT representation other than giving the dominant group in our society (straight males) some eye candy to salivate over.
No it's not like that at all. I don't even know why you think it is.
I can definetly see why Bioware, as a company, would make such a (business sound) decision. They have gay characters in their games. You can have sex other than male to female in those games. I think it's ridiculous to paint the company as a villain. As far as I can tell, they're not doing anything detrimental to the gender choices as far as they're willing to represent them. It's up to the company to determine how far they choose to go, and it seems they reached their current line.
If they didn't close such topics, Bioware, at best, stands to have the topics be relatively insightful and not attract any unwarranted attention. At worse, they invite (another) controversy similar to the Mass Effect sex scene they already have to endure and to be labelled as either bigots or perverts.
"I thought the Kelly sex was implied and didn't have a cutscene."
I'm not even sure it's implied. *MINOR SPOILER*
I invited her to my cabin.. we mentioned briefly having a good time hanging out and then nothing was mentioned ever again.. hell, the flirting even seemed to stop after that. Maybe Shepherd wasn't up to the task.
@ runtheplacered : Same thing happened to me.
I would agree but the lesbian sex, and the sex in general in ME isn't anything to salavate over. It's a brief side boob at best, it's not meant to arouse anyone, it's just a story. It seems like they're taking this completely out of context, especially when TV and movies push the 'anti-gay' agenda more than games could even try to. They're attacking the wrong medium, from what I see.
I don't know if that's true or not (the lesbian love interest suck) but even still. According to the Mass Effect Wiki you fuck so I'm assuming you do so. I know it says if you're unfaithful to your lov interest in ME1 the picture of that love interest on your desk is turned over and if you take Kelly into your cabin the picture is upside down.
@GodofWar86
You're fucking kidding right?
Absolutely agreed. The romance stuff is pretty thin and only serves as a story modifier.
@runtheplacered,
Kelly will do dance around in a latex suit for you if you abstain from dry-humping anyone during the course of the game. Call it a consolation prize, but I've seen better dance moves from zombies.
i'm just saying, man -- dudes like LazyEyelids up there are who makeup a large portion of Bioware's audience. they're not putting the lesbian roleplay in there for LBGT's... it's in there for idiots who find the idea of lesbians exotic and appealing.
Really, it's the hot topics that you have to worry about on the Internet, where people, whether for srs or lulz, will bring out the loudest and stupidest in regards to the issue, and assuredly in higher quantity than any sense of "managed".
Still fucked up. If you have a fucked up rule you fix it.
But even still it's a legit question. Especially since there were scenes for gay sex and human lesbian sex in ME1 that were cut.
(Would this get deleted on the Bioware forums?)
Yup. It was found in the PC version.
Jim, I generally disagree with your points but if you look at the forums that have been made on the subject you should see within minutes that these are not legitimate attempts at discussing a gay love interest but instead a 20 page flame war on anyone, whether they're pro or anti gay love in ME and real life.
Bioware has a policy against people getting into discussions on their forums about real world politics. These threads are allowed to exist to show the support for the idea but the debate gets down to a theological level and they are shut down for that reason because there's no real right answer. The same thing would happen in a "Abortions still exist in the future?" thread or anything of the sort.
If you follow the link and read the article you find this quote which is representative of the people who are "offended" by Bioware:
"There are a bunch of gay and gay-friendly gamers who are posting topics about why male/male romances (because, of course, they have female/female) were deliberately left absent from [Mass Effect 2] who are finding that moderators are taking a tad too much liberty with their ability to close topics. Nearly every thread about the issue has been closed for the most minute reasons, even so far as going to say that the discussion of same-sex romances in the general forums is considered spoiler material."
Does that sound like "fuckers" who need to "calm down". They seem pretty calm to me. There just talking about stuff. Why do you freak out about it? What's so scary about pissed off homos?
I can't shake the feeling that ME is being pretty ham fisted with its sexual themes. I'd spoken to... err.. whatshername.. Ashley? I'd spoken to her maybe twice and she already brings up her sister's boyfriend wanting to have sex "too soon". The sexual themes in ME is like a big, masturbating elephant in the room.
So I'm wondering why it's handled so coarsely. When that Asari parlor lady spies on you and walks off, there's an awkward butt cam following her, having a "sexy moment" out of nowhere. It's like it's being all juvenile, then goes "oh but we're really grown up about it, listen to this female person talk about how you shouldn't have sex too soon!"
I dunno. I think if it's to feel genuine it has to stop being so self conscious about it. Things like Bayonetta get a lot of flak for being overly sexualised, but frankly, that game is being far more honest and way less awkward.
So, at the end of the day, the fact that you can have "sexy lesbo action!" and not "gross men kissing!" is instinctively chalked up to it ultimately being a fairly conservative and apprehensive boy fantasy. Even the aforementioned cautionary tale dialogue makes more sense if you imagine that you're a 16 year old boy recieving it. Unless you already are, I guess.
It's all rather unfortunate because the rest of the game doesn't struggle as visibly with its themes.
I know this is a serious discussion. I just said that because it would the typical response of someone who buy bioware games just for the titties to add some humor that idiots will agree with.
The lesbian choice was added in to pander to heterosexual males, not to satisfy homosexual players.
My feelings exactly.
It's what really creates the divide in their reasoning too. They keep going on about how they're pushing the envelope on games "maturing" as a medium, but it just feels like they're acting on the dreams of the guy pausing SF2 to see Chun Li's knickers. Which I guess at some point was all of us... But that's beside the point!
And Bioware, if you're going to touch upon the topic of homosexuality in your video games, you have no right to censor people talking about it. Especially given the fact that because your game is M rated, presumably everyone playing it is at the age where they're mature enough to handle it. Maybe restrict talk about an M rated game to forum members over 17/18? If people are going to continue to lie about their age, it's not like you're liable for anything.
If it happens to be locked because of one flame war, fine, but if it is a site-wide policy, you need to stop censoring people.
Also, all sex in Bioware games is awkward and poorly animated, so they really shouldn't have it anyway. Remember Baldur's Gate 2? When I boned Aerie, all I got was some innuendo followed by a black screen followed by her moaning that I boned her and she wasn't ready for it.
Kindgan's take on this is right. Bioware's forums have been getting get off the topic of the actual gameplay and turn into a flamewar about orientation between bigoted assholes and everyone else. The fact that Bioware have pushed the envelope a bit does not make them responsible for ushering in a new more tolerant age through the playing of their videogames.