Bioware's no-homosexuality rule in RPGs

[PennyAnte]

Heh, I convinced you it wasn't so bad by calling it one of the main design flaws?

I just now realized that my reading of your post was entirely wrong. :shock:
I thought you were talking about some hypothetical version of the game that would have three females "doing it."
Not an actual version where three NPCs are doing "it," where the "it" is something annoying.

So I guess I go back to my original statement about it being a lousy mechanic. Forgive me for having my mind in the gutter there for a while last night. I've had some sleep and finished a shift at work, so I'll be in better form today, I hope.

Avernum did a gay relationship pretty well...there are a couple of women that were thrown down there for being lesbians, though they don't talk about it directly. Just hint here an there, and otherwise they're normal characters – which is how I think homosexuality should be portrayed.

I forgot about that, but I agree. Not that I'm saying all games need gay characters (@ EvoG), mainly just that existing romance plots need their dialogue options open.

Also @ EvoG - I've got some errands to run for a bit, but we'll be back in touch.

 

[EvoG]

Not that I'm saying all games need gay characters (@ EvoG), mainly just that existing romance plots need their dialogue options open.

Err, I believe I agreed with this in my last reply.


Cheers

 

[AlanC9]

I must have missed something. Exactly what no-homosexuality policy is there at Bio?

Looks like Juhani didn't get that memo.

 

[Fez]

A lot of games will have very little in the way of homosexual (especially male-male) relationships simply because the target audience, and the developers themselves sometimes, are often sexually insecure, juvenile and scared or intimidated by the idea of gay relationships. A bit pathetic and immature, but that's how it is.

There are a few games where gay relationships have been mentioned, I can add DX2 to that list as I remember male characters could flirt with one of the NPCs for a quest. What made that part good was that the NPC was the gay character, the player could be perfectly straight but flirting simply to aid the quest, which to me seems very simple and believable for a secret agent type to do and at no point forced anything onto the player, the NPC would flirt and you could react. I am sure BG2 had gay NPCs as well, I can't remember specifics.

Obviously gay males are going to be fairly unlikely in most games simply because of insecure men - who hypocritically see nothing wrong with gay females, which does make them look a bit pathetic to women. Of course most of those types will never get to touch a real women they aren't related to in their life so it isn't going to be a problem for them. Not all women are gay or bi, but lesbians in games are considered a bonus by most guys, but gay men = HORROR. There are plenty of women uncomfortable with the female on female relationships, but no one gives a shit about how uncomfortable it makes them feel, as long as some twelve year old (or thirty year old living in his parent's basement) can beat off to some pixels on screen. A bit hypocritical and selfish when you are so outraged about a male character making the avatar strip or feeling compelled to murder someone for touching your rear but are happy for your lesbo fantasies.

I'd like to see someone make an RPG in ancient Sparta, a society where gay relationships were the norm. I'd bet good money they'd gloss over it all, just like the USA movie industry does with every ancient history story or legend, notably the greek ones.

 

[dojoteef]

A lot of games will have very little in the way of homosexual (especially male-male) relationships simply because the target audience, and the developers themselves sometimes, are often sexually insecure, juvenile and scared or intimidated by the idea of gay relationships. A bit pathetic and immature, but that's how it is.

I think you are highly misinformed on the subject here. You assume way to much, especially about developers. The actual people who work on games come in all shapes and sizes, not just "insecure geeky white guys" as you seem to believe. There are plenty of women, very suave men, gay guys, etc that work to make the games you enjoy. I don't think it's right to make the assumptions that the reason gay relationships aren't in games more often has anything to do with developer demographics. I think it has more to do with soceity in general. Gays are a minority and thus recieve minority treatment in forms of entertainment.

I'd like to see someone make an RPG in ancient Sparta, a society where gay relationships were the norm. I'd bet good money they'd gloss over it all, just like the USA movie industry does with every ancient history story or legend, notably the greek ones.

If I'm not mistaken, the recent movie Alexander had plenty of "taboo" ancient Greek subjects, such as men having sex with boys (homosexuality on this one if you haven't noticed), incest, etc; though admittedly they don't show the scenes explicitly (I'm guessing people don't enjoy watching two men having sex as much as they enjoy a sex scene between a guy and some chick with her boobs showing). So I'm not entirely certain about your claims. Also, if I am remembering correctly the movie Gladiator with Russel Crowe also had the mention of incest, so I don't think the movie industry is as sterile as you would like to think.

 

[PennyAnte]

Wow, there are several replies I want to post, but this one should come first.

I need to make another concession, and it's important. Volourn wrote that the firm had discussed this topic in the past, so I looked for some of the material. I'm sure I haven't read everything. But, like I said I would, I made the effort, in good faith, to read what the company had said.

I found a long thread where one employee, David Gaider, discusses these issues in an extremely reasonable way. We also seem to basically see eye-to-eye on the issue. It's clearly not accurate or fair of me to say the company has a blanket policy of excluding homosexual options in its romance quests. At the very least, one of its designers has thought long and hard on the topic and also discusses it publicly with customers. So kudos to Bioware.

But more importantly:

I'M SORRY BIOWARE.

I jumped to a conclusion too hastily. Things are always more gray than black and white. I should have known better.

OK. That said, check out this post. I'm clearly not the only one who, for several reasons, has come to the conclusion that homosexual dialogues are excluded.

For example, one poster wrote:

"The slaves in Davik's mansion won't even talk to a female character. The *slaves* won't talk to my femal Revan. What the hell?! In a real life scenario if a female slave were told to massage a female person, they'd frickin do it. ... It's not even KOTOR, in NWN there are thousands of little NPCs to talk to, not one of them is any less then 100% straight. There are even whores who won't talk to someone the same gender as them."

This person jumped to the same conclusion I did:

"We have homophobic programmers."

The issue is apparently not one of corporate philosophy, but is instead is one of bugs or game design. For example, Bioware has approached the homosexuality issue differently in different games.

I didn't know there was a female-female romance with Juhani in KOTOR. It's apparently buggy (at least maybe it still was in the version I had) or oddly difficult to trigger. I actually tried to strike one up, and it didn't work. I also tried with Bastila. (Though I would have preferred Mission to either. She had her feet on the ground.)

The Davik mansion issue, though still remains. The homosexual dialogues were clearly excluded. The slaves actually told you to go to an opposite gender slave. They did the same thing in NWN.

So I have new questions for Bioware, and maybe, as one poster suggested, the company may be discussing this even more in other Dragon Age material (beyond the post I cited above). I'll try to look that up.

But in the meantime: Why is the implimentation so different in so many places, even within a single game (Davik's slaves vs. Juhani)? Why the inconsistency, and what will the approach be going forward, at least in the next title or two?

Also, how is Bioware doing relative to other companies and games (like Fallout 2), given what we now know about where Bio is coming from? I'd love to hear some more opinions on that.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

I personally don't think they have gay relationships in video games because the gravitational pull of the sun isn't strong enough to allow for things like that.

 

[EvoG]

Hmmm, I feel strangely left out of your last post Penny.


Cheers

 

[Ap_Jolly]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes gay romance is just one of those features no one even thought about, let alone considered.

Or we could always have a token black NPC, and a token gay romance situation.

 

[jiujitsu]

Do Bioware devs ever visit or have they ever visited the Codex?

 

[Ap_Jolly]

I think you are highly misinformed on the subject here. You assume way to much, especially about developers. The actual people who work on games come in all shapes and sizes, not just "insecure geeky white guys" as you seem to believe.

Case in point - late Dani Bunten, the transsexual.

So yes, Fez is a moron who proclaims his ignorant misconceptions as "bitter facts".

 

[Lomer]

Do Bioware devs ever visit or have they ever visited the Codex?

Just check up Dave Gaider's post count here.

 

[chaedwards]

Case in point - late Dani Bunten, the transsexual.

So yes, Fez is a moron who proclaims his ignorant misconceptions as "bitter facts".

Even if we accept that Fez was wrong about the developers, I still reckon he has a point when it comes to the target audience, and its willingness to accept female-female relationships in a game but not male-male ones. And I also reckon it's because the majority are juvenile and insecure about their sexuality.

Anyone want to tackle that part of his post, or shall we all go after the straw man of the developers?

 

[dojoteef]

Well I can't make a direct correlation to dispute Fez's second argument, but I can make an indirect one. Namely check out the demographics of gamers. 39% of gamers are women. Only 30% of gamers are under the age of 18, while the largest group of gamers are over 35 years of age at 41%. 50% of all Americans play games.

By looking that these sort of numbers you can see that the "juvenile" and "sexually insecure" arguments probably doesn't hold that well. I say that because of the percentage of gamers that are out of their twenties. Those gamers have a high likelihood of being married and having children. I wouldn't normally think of such individuals as being juvenile or sexually insecure. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are some that exhibit those qualities, but usually as people age and gain more life experience they lose certain tendencies they had as youngsters. Those tendencies when you are young are typically attributed to limited exposure and the need to belong which explains juvenile and sexually insecure behavior fairly well.

So I believe that part of Fez's argument falls flat on it's face as well, though I am open to other positions on the matter.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

I'm telling you, it's the gravitational pull of the sun...

 

[chaedwards]

Damn you Dojoteef, you're not meant to come up with some sort of statistics to back up your point {grin}.

Actually, that's pretty interesting reading, although I would be interested to see a breakdown by genre type before accepting it wholeheartedly - what games do older gamers and female gamers play?

Also, if we do accept the statistics, then how come most mainstream games seem to be aimed at the under-25 male demographic? Is this is a case of the industry not knowing its audience? If so, that may also explain why the industry is less willing to tackle these themes, because they believe they're dealing with an audience who would react very badly to homosexual themes in pc games.

 

[suibhne]

Actually, that's pretty interesting reading, although I would be interested to see a breakdown by genre type before accepting it wholeheartedly - what games do older gamers and female gamers play?

And therein lies the rub. I'm guessing Dojoteef's stats (like others I've seen) include usage of online poker, Yahoo! and MSN games, etc. - which are far more popular than anything we've ever discussed here, but which are also, arguably, an entirely distinct market sector.

 

[PennyAnte]

One not interested in tit for tat arguments, quoting each and every line …

EvoG, the quotes are mainly there just for reference in the response. I also want you to know that I’m doing you the courtesy of really reading what you write. It’s not about taking you on “tit for tat” in a vindictive manner, although, any contentious discussion will to some extent be “tit for tat.”

I need to stress you used words and implied that the developers were/are consciously exluding gays and/or other minorities.

I think you were generally right here, and I conceded that given David Gaider’s willingness to approach the issue, BioWare as a company can’t be considered to be discriminatory or exclusionary. But I don’t think you’re entirely right. At least two of their games (KOTOR and NWN) have dialogues that explicitly prohibit same-sex “romances” when heterosexual ones are allowed. So there are some cases where BioWare has decided to include a deliberate limit on homosexual interaction by cutting the option off. Apparently, this has even been done in games when there have been other options with other characters that allow it (such as KOTOR).

So I still don’t understand why the company has been so inconsistent. Maybe there’s a game design factor I’m not aware of, such as needing an incredibly high charisma statistic to have same-sex options in certain romances.

I'm not creating gay characters in some of my game designs. Am I discriminating or is it merely that there is no place for the character.

I have tried to be very clear that I support the idea of artistic integrity. I agree that the example you’ve used here is not discriminatory.

Fair enough that you stated its mere(soley) RPG's that are "guilty" of this as they of course allow for that expressive freedom of creating any kind of character you want, including(excluding) homosexuality. Fine. The agreement stands that if you have implied romance as an option in an "RPG", then there should be the same for gays. No argument.

I think we basically see eye-to-eye then.

You statements and words are bold and baseless; conjecture based purely on your perspective; you're projecting. You're seeing this happening very specifically because you want to.

I think I dealt with this well enough above.

As for my gay friends,

It’s just that I think the comment “I have [fill in the blank minority] friends” is not a good argument tactic and tends to backfire in conversation for the people who use it. Like I said, it was just my advice. But OK, I was being snappy there, so I withdraw the remark.

My comment about overtly gay characters is far from a misunderstanding, but rather a simple observation that thoughout gaming, defined romantic sexuality has NOT been a focus and if anything, when it was, it HAS been heterosexual, primarily due to(consicously or unconciously) the demographic of both the developers and the customers.

I thought I had been very clear that I was talking only about RPGs and RPing, not the entire game industry, and not every novel or movie ever made. Let me just stress again that I’m talking about one subclass of games. You are arguing with me about a position I didn’t even advance. You've done it a couple of times now. That’s why I wrote that you misunderstood my position.

Can't call foul unless there was a bad play.

Well, I do think BioWare has still “got some ‘splaining to do,” so to speak. But I’m happy to know that there isn’t a blanket, exclusionary policy. I’m encouraged by David Gaider’s comments.

EDIT: Fixed a typo.

 

[PennyAnte]

So every party member should be bi-sexual to give equal options to everyone?

If they have a romance plot and doing so doesn’t compromise artistic integrity, yes. It’s not any different from having the freedom to kill NPCs in Morrowind if you want to. You get warned that killing some will close off the main quest, but you still can do it. Player freedom is the overarching issue.

You should have the freedom in-game to hit on some guy in a bar but 99.9% chance you are going to get rejected.

You seem to be describing a situation where an RPG player could have a “romance” interaction with every NPC. I’m not saying developers need to write a romance dialogue for every NPC they create. It would be a ridiculous amount of work if each dialogue was unique and a lousy feature if the dialogues were all the same (cut and pasted or otherwise recycled). But if a developer did write hundreds of unique “romance” dialogues, then yes, I think they should allow players to experience the kinds of romances they want to experience.

On the other hand, if there was such a huge selection of “romances” in this hypothetical game, it’s probably trying to provide a “real world” range of interaction with NPCs. In that particular case, it probably would be fine to have the “romances” reflect real life, with most heterosexual, a few bisexual and a few homosexual. Today, most RPGs just have a couple of “romances” at most, if they have any at all. So it's important that each one is flexible in that context.

Of course, in an ideal rpg, you should be able to play any sort of character you like - including a homophobe, a racist, a misogynist or any other sort of unpleasant character type as well.

I think the industry is getting there. You can be a thug in KOTOR. In Fable, you can seduce a village female or male, and (if I’m not mistaken) then kill them. In the Sims, you can “love ‘em,” have a baby, then “leave ‘em.”

However, the game world should also react in a believable way to the players actions. In a fantasy setting based on medieval Europe, it's unlikely that a character could be openly gay without getting into big trouble ...

I think this is a case-by-case thing. We’d have to take a look at how historically realistic this hypothetical game was really trying to be.

When you read a book or see a Hollywood film, and none of the characters are gay, do you get offended?

I think I have already dealt with the artistic integrity issue, as well as the issue of RPGs being a different form of entertainment from a film or novel.

Besides, you don't have the right/ability to fondle Hutts in KOTOR - if the designers are supposed to cater to the gay audience then what about the Hutt fanciers?

Well, I wouldn’t hold it against BioWare if a future KOTOR had a Hutt antagonist who tried to take a female player and put her in a skimpy bikini, chain her up, and make her dance, along the lines of what happened to Leia in Return of the Jedi, especially if there was a way to turn the tables on that Hutt and strangle it the way Leia did. I wouldn’t hold it against BioWare if there was some kind of similar plot involving a male player character. I’d applaud Bioware for those plots.

But partly this has to do with one of the issues above. A developer shouldn't have to write a "romance" for every NPC. Also, I should note that I’ve never seen a female Hutt. What do they look like anyway? Is it even possible for there to be a “romance” between humans and Hutts? Is the Star Wars canon fleshed out in this area?

If we're talking about a situation where the player and a Hutt have an intellectual connection and a lot of affection for each other, and pine away about not being able to "live out" their true feelings, well, then sure it should be included. For one thing, there's definitely lots of humor potential there. I think that would be a great romance to have in a game.

 

[Old Scratch]

Star Wars has always been a sorta Idealized version of a space epic. You don't have people being blown or cut apart by lasers, you don't have the gruesume effects of sudden decompression, heroes and villians are clearly defined and their place in the world is just as clearly defined. It doesn't delve into the sociology implications of homosexuality or of racial tensions within spiecies. Star Wars focuses on the higher issues, such battles between good and evil and freedom versus tyranny.

Going back a bit here, but I wanted to respond to this.

Star Wars, at least the original trilogy, did give the nod to a lot of realistic social situations. The way droids who aren't owned by a master are treated as second class citizens. For example, I recall a line where C-3PO and R2D2 are told by some guy, "We don't serve droids here."

Seems innocent enough, but I think that was Lucas' attempt at portraying racial discrimination as a throwback to the way black people were treated during the period of World War 2, which is really the basis for those movies, and most of his movies actually.

It's really only the recent movies that have solidified the setting as a kind of campy, black & white, space opera. Which may be part of the reason they suck; they no longer really have a soul.

As for gay people in RPGs, I agree that's it about the target audience first and foremost. You just can't expect homosexuality to come to the forefront in those games, because really, how many straight white males are gonna want to play as a gay hero? It's also noteworthy what kind of people are writing those games in the first place; mainly straight males, and people tend to write best what they know. I doubt homosexual situations and characters generally get excluded just because developers hate teh gays.

Still, there's no reason they can't throw a few homosexual romance options in there, but I think at least a few RPGs have done that already, and will continue to do so. Fallout 2, TOEE, KOTOR, Morrowind. You could get it on with that redneck brahmin farmers son with a male character in Fallout 2 right? I didn't try it, but I seem to remember there being an option.

 

[AlanC9]

Since the number of romanceable NPCs is always very low in a Bio game, or any game, it's hardly surprising that none of them have turned out to be gay. Even if a character was bisexual, you'd have to have an awful lot of alternative dialogs.

Take BG2. I can see Viconia as bi -- I imagine that's quite common in Drow society -- but something like 3/4 of the dialogs would have to be thrown out. I can't see any of the others as anything but straight. (Of the non-romanceable NPCs, I hear that Valygar was written as being gay, but that isn't explicit in the dialogs. And WotC says Imoen's a lesbian; not sure I buy that, but she doesn't strike me as someone who'd be too hung up on gender.)

This wouldn't preclude making Davik's slaves go both ways -- maybe that was LucasArts' call? Anyone know what the ESRB guidelines have to say?

I'll clarify the Juhani situation. She is gay, and it looks like she had something going with Belaya on Dantooine (take the DS path there to see this confirmed later in the game). But Juhani doesn't have a romance track the way Carth and Bastila do. She reveals her feelings for your PC only near the very end of the game, and it's left as something you'll work out later, assuming you both survive.

 

[almondblight]

And therein lies the rub. I'm guessing Dojoteef's stats (like others I've seen) include usage of online poker, Yahoo! and MSN games, etc. - which are far more popular than anything we've ever discussed here, but which are also, arguably, an entirely distinct market sector.

Well, I would assume. Although that's not to say that more females and more older people aren't getting into games. But let's say the demographics represent RPG players – I thought the argument at the beginning of the thread was that these themes were kept out because they didn't fit the young white straight insecure male demographic? Perhaps (as I've always thought) there's a large untapped market out there that wants games that go beyond "go slay the dragon and make out with the thong wearing warrior woman (with a twist ending – the dragon is your brother!)". Hopefully we will see some creativity in games, but I doubt it's going to come from the larger companies.

 

[EvoG]

One not interested in tit for tat arguments, quoting each and every line …

EvoG, the quotes are mainly there just for reference in the response. I also want you to know that I’m doing you the courtesy of really reading what you write. It’s not about taking you on “tit for tat” in a vindictive manner, although, any contentious discussion will to some extent be “tit for tat.”

Hehe, I think you misunderstood me now...I merely meant that I "personally" wasn't going to do what most people do here, which is hit each and evey point and rebut, mainly because I'm too lazy to do all that editing to my reply. I didn't intend it for you to take it personally, just that I dont care much for it. This isn't a dig against people that do it either...its all me, not you guys.

Just to note to most of your responses, you have to realise that I wrote all of what you replied to BEFORE you wrote your concession reply...so, yea I gathered as much when I read that.

Time for us to find a new topic to discuss...I haven't had a good debate in a long while.

Cheers

 

[dirk]

It's a bit silly to say 'oh minorities are minorities in the real world so they are in rpgs bla bla bla' because you come across spooky dragons and ancient evils and other cliche shit that is usually rare. Perhaps a gay man could exist. The only gay in the village.

Personally I'd like to see some kind of gay mafia and in one segment of the game you're kidnapped and raped. You then get addicted to heroin and have to give sexual favours for your next fix. Since it sometimes happens in the real world I can't wait to do it in Elderscrolls 4 ^-^

I hear there are some gay and black people in Fallout, but I'm not sure. There are probably more midgets and asians than there are gays and tranvestites. There needs to be a game where you're a special investigator who also is a gimp. And you investigate the 'shocking' criminal sex blackmarket and shit. Like there'd be gay stylists, child prostitutes and people having sex changes LOL

 

[Shinan]

Also, I should note that I’ve never seen a female Hutt. What do they look like anyway?

In Episode one when Jabba walks out to start the Pod Race there's another Hutt beside him. I think it's meant to be his wife if my memory serves me right. I'm not 100% sure though.

(I know this had nothing to do with the topic but.. uhm...