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]
