Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Tip of the Hat to Bioware

It's rare to see so clear an example of "not getting it" in the wild as this complaint by a straight male gamer about Dragon Age 2. It seems to boil down to "a male character flirted with me and it made me feel icky."

Bioware, however, gets it, which is why the link. They're now a company that says, flat-out:
"The romances in the game are not for 'the straight male gamer.' They’re for everyone. We have a lot of fans, many of whom are neither straight nor male, and they deserve no less attention."
That's pretty okay by me, and I hope they do well because of it.
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7 comments:

  1. I was really happy to read their response. White males really don't understand the concept of privilege.

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  2. @orion

    Wow. You just said "white males don't understand the concept of privilege".

    Yeah and Chinese people are good at math and gay people all like Lady Gaga.

    Way to fight bigotry there, Orion.




    @Oddysey

    Thansk for that--it's nice to hear some good news on the equality front from the video game world.

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  3. I will praise Bioware for their romance options. Dragon Age 1 was superb, it had both gay, straight and transgender relationships.

    I refuse to praise them for anything in regards to Dragon Age II however as they took dragon age I (which was a throwback to a type of game they no longer make for the mass market) and made dragon age II into the very type of game that made me stop playing CRPGs, very much in the vein of Penny-Arcades Witchaloks:

    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/28/

    Thats not to say it isn't a good game in its own right..but its removed all the elements that made me Dragon Age, and replaced them with all of the elements that drove me away from CRPGs. I understand that the reason for that change is MOST people prefer it that way, but sometimes I like to take my stupidly high levels of disposable income and buy an overpriced niche product that appeals to a smaller market.

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  4. Sorry for the nerd rage, lest I be misquoted: Good on bioware, the fact that they take such a stand in all of their games is admirable, but I cannot stand to make myself endorse dragon age II should it do anything short of actually cure some disease for unrelated reasons.

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  5. HAHAHA...

    I know I'm chiming in late, but I have to agree with Zzarchov on all points here. I'm happy to see Bioware take a positive stance on this issue -- but Dragon Age II pretty much took everything good about Dragon Age: Origins and chucked it in the bin. I can't stand DAII. And DA I was one of the games I've been most excited about, pretty much, ever as a video game player...

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  6. This makes me really, really happy. Tip of the hat indeed!

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  7. This is why, when I had to pawn all my video games to pay for food, the one I kept was Mass Effect 2.

    Bioware, despite a few niggling flaws, remains the most progressive and outspokenly open video game developing company around.

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