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It's Not Gay If It's A Turian
Feb. 8th, 2010 03:30 pmSo, there’s a new interview up at IGN with BioWare’s CEO, where he explains that there’s never going to be a gay male relationship option in the Mass Effect series, claiming that ‘you have a pre-defined character who is who he is’.
Can I just say, as a hetrosexual male gamer who would probably never pursue the gay male option* – that’s just so much bullshit. For starters, Commander Shepard isn’t a ‘pre-defined character’ – you chose Shepard’s appearance, gender, background, skills, and then throughout the game you choose their moral position on various issues. A female engineer Shepard who saw her entire platoon die on Akuze and firmly believes that the ends never justify the means is not easily confused with a male soldier Shepard who sacrificed his own troops to stop Batarian slavers and would do it again to ensure human supremacy – unless, of course, you define characters purely by ‘are they a gay man or not?’.
(To be fair, this is a slightly better explanation than a while back when some BioWare spokesperson was trying to claim there was some sort of technical limitation or additional expense involved in opening up the existing romances to characters of any gender. Shepard does to some degree have a fairly consistent personality no matter how you play – though I think that’s really got more do to with the quality of the voice acting than anything else.)
The annoying thing is that BioWare’s one of the few major gaming companies that does make an effort to include LGBT content in their games** so it’s a real disappointment that they’re apparently so determined not to include any icky gay content into the Mass Effect series.
And from a purely commercial point of view, I think BioWare’s marketing department is taking the wrong approach entirely in trying to portray Commander Shepard as purely a macho manly red-blooded space marine. Let’s face it – the Mass Effect games aren’t great shooters – their main strength is in their story and characterisation. The marketing actively turns away RPG fans – I know a couple of people who initially ignored the game assuming it was just a generic shooter based on the game art and advertising. And RPG fans are – as BioWare presumably knows well based on their approach in Dragon Age – not going to be automatically turned off by a gay or female protagonist. Reducing your game to thing that won’t offend the lowest common denominator is just weakening your strengths in pursuit of an audience that’s probably not interested in what you’re selling anyway.
(And the fact that IGN actually raised the issue in an interview illustrates, I think, that the gaming community isn’t anywhere near as conservative as BioWare seems to be assuming.)
* Because I never play as a male Commander Shepard...
**Oddly, the only other one that springs to mind is Rockstar Games – not generally who you’d think of when you’re looking for progressive content in gaming…
Can I just say, as a hetrosexual male gamer who would probably never pursue the gay male option* – that’s just so much bullshit. For starters, Commander Shepard isn’t a ‘pre-defined character’ – you chose Shepard’s appearance, gender, background, skills, and then throughout the game you choose their moral position on various issues. A female engineer Shepard who saw her entire platoon die on Akuze and firmly believes that the ends never justify the means is not easily confused with a male soldier Shepard who sacrificed his own troops to stop Batarian slavers and would do it again to ensure human supremacy – unless, of course, you define characters purely by ‘are they a gay man or not?’.
(To be fair, this is a slightly better explanation than a while back when some BioWare spokesperson was trying to claim there was some sort of technical limitation or additional expense involved in opening up the existing romances to characters of any gender. Shepard does to some degree have a fairly consistent personality no matter how you play – though I think that’s really got more do to with the quality of the voice acting than anything else.)
The annoying thing is that BioWare’s one of the few major gaming companies that does make an effort to include LGBT content in their games** so it’s a real disappointment that they’re apparently so determined not to include any icky gay content into the Mass Effect series.
And from a purely commercial point of view, I think BioWare’s marketing department is taking the wrong approach entirely in trying to portray Commander Shepard as purely a macho manly red-blooded space marine. Let’s face it – the Mass Effect games aren’t great shooters – their main strength is in their story and characterisation. The marketing actively turns away RPG fans – I know a couple of people who initially ignored the game assuming it was just a generic shooter based on the game art and advertising. And RPG fans are – as BioWare presumably knows well based on their approach in Dragon Age – not going to be automatically turned off by a gay or female protagonist. Reducing your game to thing that won’t offend the lowest common denominator is just weakening your strengths in pursuit of an audience that’s probably not interested in what you’re selling anyway.
(And the fact that IGN actually raised the issue in an interview illustrates, I think, that the gaming community isn’t anywhere near as conservative as BioWare seems to be assuming.)
* Because I never play as a male Commander Shepard...
**Oddly, the only other one that springs to mind is Rockstar Games – not generally who you’d think of when you’re looking for progressive content in gaming…
