News BioWare dismisses homosexuality in Star Wars

[CardJoe]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/...-in-star-war/1

BioWare has dismissed the idea of homosexuality in Star Wars, as well as preventing discussion of the topic on their official forums.

[p3n]

C3P0 was a giant queen? hahaha

[M4RTIN]

this is the same bioware that made mass effect right? i can kind of see how they dont want loads of controversy about their game again. Howevr if you can make gay/lesbian characters in bioware games then surely it's relevant, just like how you can make black and asian characters too, they wouldnt stop people discussing black characters would they. probably too many stupid kids saying "lol fag" to everything

[Turbotab]

@ 1:49 says it all really

[Paradigm Shifter]

Originally Posted by M4RTIN

probably too many stupid kids saying "lol fag" to everything

Quite likely.

Let's face it, this is the internet.

[pimlicosound]

I actually quite respect BioWare's response to this. They're not letting contemporary norms and political correctness affect the fictional world they're creating. It's important that they're able to do that.

Fable 2 became absurd because of the creators' obsession with modern fads: vegetarianism = healthy eating, omnipresent homosexual orgies, etc. These things seemed totally out of place in the medieval fantasy setting.

We shouldn't condemn BioWare for isolating their world from the spirit of the age.

[Jenny_Y8S]

Well done bioware, censoring an entire topic is going to close the issue without any fall out. Suppressing free speech is always the best approach if you don't like what people are speaking about.

FAIL!

[CardJoe]

Originally Posted by pimlicosound

I actually quite respect BioWare's response to this. They're not letting contemporary norms and political correctness affect the fictional world they're creating. It's important that they're able to do that.

Fable 2 became absurd because of the creators' obsession with modern fads: vegetarianism = healthy eating, omnipresent homosexual orgies, etc. These things seemed totally out of place in the medieval fantasy setting.

We shouldn't condemn BioWare for isolating their world from the spirit of the age.

You could make the adverse argument though; that they are limiting themselves and the scope of their game in a way which is out-of-touch with modern audiences and potentially limiting for the player experience. If the games are going to openly deal with the idea of romance and sex anyway then it stands to reason that the topic of sexuality should also be broached...

[Whalemeister]

Surely they are going to cut off a large part oof their target audience with this move

[pimlicosound]

Originally Posted by CardJoe

You could make the adverse argument though; that they are limiting themselves and the scope of their game in a way which is out-of-touch with modern audiences and potentially limiting for the player experience. If the games are going to openly deal with the idea of romance and sex anyway then it stands to reason that the topic of sexuality should also be broached...

Joe, nearly every game portrays an extremely limited universe, with a narrow interpretation of the people and events in it.

War games tend not to explore WW2 from a Nazi perspective, or the war on terror from a Taliban perspective.

Metal Gear Solid never gives a realistic account of the military industrial complex.

Games that broach political subjects don't observe the niceties of balancing left and right wing perspectives in a democratic environment.

The highly-opinionated undertones of many games could potentially offend a lot of people, but we respect the right of game developers to craft a specific experience, which must by definition exclude certain aspects of reality or interpretations of reality. So why kick up a fuss at this one incident? Is observing the realities of sexual and romantic relationships in games a more important priority than observing the realities of political balance?

[azrael-]

Gay means happy, right? I'm not happy...

[DaMightyMouse]

I thought the whole point of MMORPGs is to let the player create a tailored experience within whatever universe the game is set in. So this move to censorship is definitely a FAIL.

[logan'srun]

According to Sean the idea and terms of homosexuality do not exist in the Star Wars universe and are therefore being dealt with as irrelevant.

That is about the most absurd thing I have ever heard. Does this mean that all homosexuality disappears in teh future? Like it gets gene-coded out? What a prejudiced thing to say, especially in this day and age. I don't care about conforming to 'today's fads', homosexuality is not a fad like veganism, it's life.

Besides, did you ever stop to think that grown men running around in tights waving brightly covered phallic devices making whooshing noises wasn't gay???

[pizan]

People have to stop bitching about everything. They want their game to be about the game. NO matter what they do there is going to be controversy. If they block the discussions they are discriminating. If they let it go and it ends up in the game the American church groups will be all crazed. Its a no-win situation.

[UrbanMarine]

Originally Posted by pimlicosound

I actually quite respect BioWare's response to this. They're not letting contemporary norms and political correctness affect the fictional world they're creating. It's important that they're able to do that.

Fable 2 became absurd because of the creators' obsession with modern fads: vegetarianism = healthy eating, omnipresent homosexual orgies, etc. These things seemed totally out of place in the medieval fantasy setting.

We shouldn't condemn BioWare for isolating their world from the spirit of the age.

Peter Molyneux wanted to create a free world. He gave the players the ability to create or live in their fantasy world. If you don't condemn BioWare, then you can't judge Fable 2. Its Lionhead’s world and they can do what they want. Healthy diets, orgies, homosexual etc were not just modern day occurrences.

Topic: It's BioWares forums and they can do what they want. Their PR team has to now deal with the backlash.

[pimlicosound]

Originally Posted by UrbanMarine

Peter Molyneux wanted to create a free world. He gave the players the ability to create or live in their fantasy world. If you don't condemn BioWare, then you can't judge Fable 2. Its Lionhead’s world and they can do what they want. Healthy diets, orgies, homosexual etc were not just modern day occurrences.

Don't get me wrong, I totally respect Lionhead's right to insert those aspects of real life into Fable 2. But I think there's something to be said for excluding some aspects of real life for the sake of preserving a focused and controlled game experience. Game developers do this with every other aspect of life, so why object so much more strongly on this one topic of homosexuality?

[WildThing]

Originally Posted by logan'srun

That is about the most absurd thing I have ever heard. Does this mean that all homosexuality disappears in teh future?

Don't you mean in the past? It happened a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Sorry couldn't resist

[MajorTom]

@WildThing: It was waiting to be said

[Fod]

Originally Posted by CardJoe

You could make the adverse argument though; that they are limiting themselves and the scope of their game in a way which is out-of-touch with modern audiences and potentially limiting for the player experience. If the games are going to openly deal with the idea of romance and sex anyway then it stands to reason that the topic of sexuality should also be broached...

you mean inverse argument
anyway. my opinion is that freedom of speech and artistic expression works both ways.

[SMIFFYDUDE]

Damn you WildThing, I wanted to point that out. Anyway, I suspect Bioware probably wanted to avoid the forum getting filled up with homophobia and used that crappy excuse as a way of avoiding implying all its users are homophobes.