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

[Russian_Assassin]

Forget homosexuality, why didn't you make Samara bangable? Morinth I understand, but why not Samara? Ok, on topic, the only crew member I believe would go for a gay relationship is Jack and the asaris. Let me analyze it for you:

Thane and Garus? They are alien lizards and too manly. Plus Thane has a family.
Mordin? He doesn't even want a relationship with female Shepard.
Legion? Ugh...
Zaeed? Not really a loving kind...
Grunt? He would rather crush your skull.
Jacob? Well, you got me there. I guess he could potentially be a homosexual love interest.
Miranda? Too cold. And not the prettiest thing around (her face does not fit her body)
Tali? I'm not sure they have that sort of thing in their species...
Kasumi? I don't know her. She is not out yet.

So I guess they made the game in a way that it doesn't really encourage that sort of thing. Too bad, I wanted my fem Shepard to bone Jack.

 

[dochmbi]

There are probably statistical tendencies for homosexual people to display certain character traits more often and other traits less often than heterosexual people, but that doesn't mean that any one individual would automatically have to behave a certain way because of their homosexuality.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

There seems to some subtext there that no one is saying, namely that the inclusion of actual homosexual relationships might hurt sales, but that is a very different issue and one that will take more than one science-fiction videogame to tackle.

If no-one is saying it, then how do you prove its existence? That's supposition.

At the risk of sounding glib, when something gets said out loud, it stops being 'subtext' and just becomes 'text'.

When it is assumed rather than implied though, it may come under the context of libelous activity.
Of course, Bioware may just think that homosexual activity within game may prove to be purely titillation, and not want to waste their time putting out a game that will solidify Faux News's position that all games are ungodly.

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.

Merci Kross. Maybe there's just no man that finds Male Shephard that cute?

AND THERE ARE ALIENS THERE. WHY ARE YOU GENDER-DIFFERENTIATING ALIENS???????

Oh man, I need a lie down now.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Hmmmm interesting. Personally this leaves me wondering two things:

1) What OTHER games could you apply this question to?
2) What games would probably be improved by the inclusion of homosexual relationships, but weren't because of "political" reasons?

Personally I want to know why there weren't any homosexual relationships in Pac-Man. I mean, the guy is a walking ecstasy symbol who gobbles fruits and takes "power pills" in order to be able to swallow ghosts whole. There's necrophilia, drug use and homosexual innuendo right there. Why didn't the developers have the courage of their convictions to go the whole hog?

Also, in a blatant betrayal of his gay fanbase, PacMan gets married. Sellout.

 

[That's Funny]

I'm not too sure about their reasoning, how does a homosexual character change the vision that they had for the game, a homosexual character can be no different to hetrosexual character in terms of motivations and personality, it's just their sex life that is different, but I can not see how this would change the vision of the character? The way I see it, is that Bioware just got lazy and didn't want to anger Fox news again.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

What's that I'm feeling? It hurts...Oh. The fact that I have to put up with the male voice acting in order to have Tali. Why?! *weeps*

 

[The Unskilled78]

If we're going to go down the route of "Why doesn't my RPG character reflect me?", can I RP a biotic technophile who wears huge glasses and has acne like the surface of Io?

 

[Paksenarrion]

Not good enough, Bioware. You could be a lesbian before! And then CARRY OVER YOUR LESBIAN!

This is now my permanent twitter status.


...if I had a twitter.

 

[Orange Monkey]

You'd think in the future with all the aliens and interspecies sex and communication going on, no one would really bat an eye at two girls or two guys going at it hot and heavy. Or even an LGBT person being in a position of power like commander shepard. In fact, including it would of shown Biowares acceptance of these things, and seeing as racism and bigotry is a big part of the Mass Effect universe it would of made sense in the context.

This is the same universe in which resides a space republican. The theist, xenophobic, closed minded, ashley williams.

I killed ashley in the first game XD

 

[Tharwen]

a) They had no problems with that with Dragon Age

No-one cared about the sex in Dragon Age.

 

[Kojiro ftt]

Muzyka's excuse doesn't hack it for the Female Shepard. She could totally be gay. I know mine was

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

For god's sake, so what if homosexuality wasn't put in? It did not need to be put in, and BioWare doesn't owe anyone an explanation.

Quite frankly, I find the gay community a lot more offensive than the things they react to when it comes to crap like this. And I'm gay.

[sub]But since this has probably already been posted a lot by now, postcount +1[/sub]

You aren't alone. I'm bi, and my sole problem with the lack of homosexuality is in my last post.

 

[Lucane]

Bioware should simply say that the characters you can have sex with are not gay. Hence no gay relationships.

Tsk. Mind reader... Kidding.

Yeah that's what I was thinking they could have done or said that none of them were bi-sexual,but if they said that people could request for a at least one bi-sexual (or at least bi-curious with some extra flurting) male and female crew member for Mass Effect 3... or as a new DLC pack for 2.

 

[Woodsey]

a) They had no problems with that with Dragon Age

No-one cared about the sex in Dragon Age.

And the difference between the relationships in Dragon Age and the relationships in Mass Effect 1 & 2 is what exactly?

 

[BeardMk2]

I really can't see why this is being taken as such a big deal. Bioware were brave enough to put full homosexual relationships into a game they knew would sell extremely well (DA:O), proving themselves braver than any other developer I know of. Now, it's being expected of them in every game to come afterwards? A little harsh, don't you think??

I think people getting upset over this is a touch silly. Most of you seem to forget that homosexuality is still not regarded as being completely "socially acceptable" in every corner of the globe yet. That's a sociatal problem, not a problem with Bioware. I could understand the frustration if every other top game out there had gay sex included, but it doesn't.

As mentioned elsewhere, Dragon Age was more of a "blank slate" character. Note the lack of player dialog. That character was free to be whatever you wanted, because that's how it was written from the start. Shephard is different. With him/her, Bioware have tried to create a (partially flexible) character which, although leaves decisions up to you, has been written with particular outcomes in mind and those outcomes were the direction they thought would fit the story best. They didn't want Shepard to be gay? So what? As someone said before, you don't read a book and complain afterwards that the character should've been gay, do you? (I hope for your sake you don't)

I don't understand why you can't just be happy that one of the biggest name developers in the business have proven themselves to be far from homophobic (See DA:O for proof) and be happy with that. It's my understanding that people of a homosexual persuasion are big on "choice", right? Can't you just acccept the fact that Bioware "chose" to make Shepard straight and enjoy the fact that they just happened to make a damed fine game in doing so?

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

For god's sake, so what if homosexuality wasn't put in? It did not need to be put in, and BioWare doesn't owe anyone an explanation.

Quite frankly, I find the gay community a lot more offensive than the things they react to when it comes to crap like this. And I'm gay.

[sub]But since this has probably already been posted a lot by now, postcount +1[/sub]

You aren't alone. I'm bi, and my sole problem with the lack of homosexuality is in my last post.

Haha, nice.
I've honestly never played Mass Effect (it's on my to-do list, right after KotOR >.>), but I really hate being told I should find something offensive just because a lot of other people with whom I have something superficial in common do.

I mean, my dad--who is 100% straight--once chewed me out for using the word "fag". I couldn't stop laughing at the sheer irony of it, but it was still kind of annoying.

But don't you know? Everything should have a gay option. Oh, and an interracial option. Wouldn't want to offend those of other races.

 

[quiet_samurai]

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.

Probably because it's a direct pipeline to some of these people's real life prejudices. And I liked Ashley, she had conviction and wasn't nearly as xenophobic or religious as everyone makes her out to be.