BioWare Explains Why There's No Homosexuality in Mass Effect 2

[jamesworkshop]

I think you are all being very silly both reasons are perfectly fine Bioware isn't obligated to make a character gay which you can in all the others which makes this one in the minority.
even if you consider femshep/asari to be a lesbian relationship I completly disagree and even if you feel it was then again having a different sexuality between the defined fem and male shep is a perfectly acceptable maleshep does not need to have a gay option just because femshep does.

fem/bisexual potential
male/hetro only

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[Cody211282]

It's their game and their character so they can do what they want. I don't see why they have to come out and state why they didn't put it in.

 

[CK76]

If you're going to go the route of "character is who you decide they are" then these options should be there is relationships and all are present in the title. Part of why I didn't care for Mass Effect as much as Dragon Age was in Dragon Age I was whoever I wanted to be, in Mass Effect it feels like I'm always Shepard with different coats of paint. Honestly, don't even bother with the options if it is only an illusion of individuality.

 

[Internet Kraken]

No, you're not. But the problem is she goes in the face of science fiction's long standing optimism. Most scientifically minded people regard "god" as an "of the gaps" idea. The idea that with so few gaps left, and rational explanations for closed to damned anything, someone (anyone!) still believes is idiotic. Then shes xenophobic to boot? Most likely because she still believes god chose humanity to lead the universe? Please get the fuck out of my future you stupid racist ****.

I don't see why religion being absent in science fiction is a good thing. So long as someone isn't shoving their religion down your throat, I don't see it as a problem. Also Ashely is xenophobic because of her family's role in the first contact war, not because god says all aliens are bad. She says that she didn't want to genocide the Rachni because of her religion.

The idea they toned her down after the initial dialog is just inconsistent. Anyone that defensive about their (moronic) beliefs would only ever ramp them up later.

Maybe it's because she isn't as big a xenophobe as you think?

I just don't get why Ashely being religious bothers so many people. Tons of other characters in Mass Effect are religious and nobody seems to be bothered by that.

 

[Kross]

Even if you're playing your Shephard as a gay character, that doesn't mean all the other characters in your party will change their sexual preferences. They may change their view of you over the game, but it's not likely they will switch teams.

 

[Mirrored Jigsaw]

"We still view it as... if you're picturing a PG-13 action movie," he said. "That's how we're trying to design it. So that's why the love interest is relatively light."

That is not true and they know it. The romances in Mass Effect 2 specifically are very heavy and emotional, not immature PG-13 bullshit. Bioware has the ability to create a very compelling male/male romance in the story, and they refuse to do so because everyone would get their panties in a bunch over it.

 

[maninahat]

I kind of buy the first excuse if it had been applied to Mass Effect 1. I think it was for the sake of technology that they didn't bother. If you look at the sex scenes in the first game, you'll notice the characters all perform the same motion; one character lies still on a bed whilst the partner (always the female) crawls over the top of them. If they made a man on man scene, they would have to go to the trouble of re-modelling the scene so that the male partner that crawls across does not end up clipping through the other model or something stupid. It works in the female on female scene because all they had to do was simply change the crawling model's skin. Cut-scenes are extremely complicated, time consuming, and difficult to do well, so developers have to cut corners where-ever possible.

Tali and the other aliens having more unusual physiologies so they couldn't create sex scenes as well for the same reason. Saying that, they have less of an excuse in the sequel, wherein they do have alien sex scenes - ruling out the technological formalities.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

The only way it could have hurt sales were if the game was aimed at fundamentalist religious groups, but then sales would be hurt more by the fact that the Universe is more than 6000 years old and the existance of sapient life outside of our world.

 

[maninahat]

Even if you're playing your Shephard as a gay character, that doesn't mean all the other characters in your party will change their sexual preferences. They may change their view of you over the game, but it's not likely they will switch teams.

That's true. There is only one (superifically) female character in the first game that will actually have a lesbian relationship with the protagonist - the rest stay heterosexual whatever your character's sexual preferance. Though it's not as if they could have made a bisexual/outright gay character to have a relationship with.

 

[squid5580]

Well it is no wonder why most devs stay away from the homosexual issue when it comes to thier games. Why would anyone want to get boxed into having to include homosexuality in all their games. Or have to face the internet conspiracy theories as to why they didn't. I figured interspecies relationships would be enough.

 

[Actual]

"There seems to some subtext there that no one is saying, namely that the inclusion of actual homosexual relationships might hurt sales,"

But:

a) They had no problems with that with Dragon Age

b) Really? Couldn't you then say that about there being a black character (let's face it, racism and homophobia generally seem to go in hand)?

Yes but Dragon Age was marketed as soaked in gore, very dark and bleak, while Mass Effect 2 was space adventure for all the family. So why not make the love options a little more mature for Dragon Age too.

I also don't understand why every game has to include same-sex relationships. Or even relationships at all. I enjoy a good love story as much as the next questionably macho guy, but we don't get good love stories in these types of games. Hell even linear RPGs like Final Fantasy struggle sometimes to make a compelling love interest.

 

[jamesworkshop]

I distinctly remember Bioware claiming that they never actually had a homosexual relationship in the original Mass Effect simply because the Asari are mono-gendered *cough* bullshit *cough*. Funny enough though, apparently there are files in the original Mass Effect that would have let you have a Ashley/femshep and Alenko/maleshep relationship. I haven't done any digging towards the latter simply because I DESPISE Alenko but I did stumble across this youtube video for the Ashley/femshep relationship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mwiqq-Y5r4&playnext_from=TL&videos=I_b5YFBKwHM

The author has also put in some links to download save game files for the original mass effect and apparently see the femshep/Ashley romance from beginning to end. I have yet to verify this myself simply because it is a step back from the gameplay in mass effect 2 (why eat a glazed donut when you can eat a glazed donut with sprinkles) though I suppose I could burn through it quickly without most of the side missions and such. Regardless, the fact that there is so much evidence of possible homosexual relationships in the original Mass Effect tells me that Bioware is taking the easy road out of this situation. Guess they lost their courage after the media had a damn aneurysm after seeing a second of bare blue ass.

I don't agree with that logic

Same developer same publisher from a game released well after ME1 and about 4 months before ME2 do you really think they are scared of any media controversy after putting that in a game


Or a Fatal fourway below decks on a pirate ship

 

[Sparrow]

Honestly, I think it's about keeping Shepard as a strong, dominant character. I'm not saying gay people aren't strong or dominant (NOT IN THAT WAY), but the stigma attached to a gay character in any kind of media nowadays seems to denote weekness.

Yet, when FemShep is a lesbian there's still a certain amount of dominance to that. Although, that's likely because the cannon Shepard is most likely male. It sort of gives off this feeling that FemShep is only there to appease the female market. Well, it does to me anyway.

All kidding aside, BioWare's female characters are usually more interesting than their male characters (in my opinion, anyway) and therefore ones I'm more interested in growing close to. I mean, Mordin is amusing and Grunt is cool, but Jacob is meh at best. Thane and Garrus...ok, I'll definitely give you those two.

(Not that I was kidding about the perfection that is Miranda's backside.)

I always thought Thane was poorly written. Within like twenty seconds of meeting him, he says: "I'm dying", all seriously-like. Come on. Half the people in the RP section can do better than that.

 

[Sonofadiddly]

I believe those answers translate to "Bioware is full of pussies and bullshit."