Jimquisition: Mass Effect 3: A Gay Erotic Love Story

[Therumancer]

The problem with Jim's rant, is that I think he's characterizing the majority of the opposition entirely wrong, which kind of ruins what otherwise might have been a pretty impressive way of making a counter arguement about it's ridiculousness. But then again one of the problems with the left wing and those defending left wing issues is that they tend to create an image of the enemy in their own mind, and beat up straw men, without ever dealing with the actual issues.. and that's one of the reasons the US at least remains so polarized despite the left wing blowing it's own horn and trying to act like it represents a massive, clear majority when it doesn't (which is an issue well beyond this)

There is an irony in you accusing me of being left wing, and thus inventing an enemy in my head.

Because I am not left wing. I am a centrist.

So ... maybe not rely on that strawman too heavily!

Despite what you might think I do have a decent amount of respect for you. I will however say that you can only judge someone by the positions they espouse. While you DO have some centrist views, as I do, such as in regard to the game industry getting too greedy and corrupt, without being anti-capitalism in a general sense, when it comes to social policy and a lot of other things you seem to have been saying you are definatly at least a social liberal. Your entire point and humor in this column relies largely on the belief and projection of the people who don't want male homosexuality being inherantly flawed, before exagerrating that to the extremes that you do for Jimquisition for humor value.

I'm perfectly willing to say that I'm right wing, but accross my span of beliefs, or those that can be verified, I am closer to being a centrist than what you've actually presented in these forums, given your limited participation on subjects that can be given an outright political affiliation. You've pretty much espoused one centrist point of view on the gaming industry, and one left wing point of view (here), which has you definatly leading into the leftward camp. I do not ever seeing a single right wing point of view espoused on any subject you've covered, but perhaps you can remind me?

I myself (and I've actually taken some of those polls for it) wind up being moderate right wing a Republican almost on the line with Libertarian on graphs (to put it into US parties). Overall my social politics are pretty much dead center, my international political views are far, far right, and I'm mid-leftward on the subject of civil liberties. In recent trends I'm a guy that say opposes most goverment electronic surveillance, but feels that once the goverment has already met the requirements to seize property and data (which are pretty high on their own) they have the right to force the owner to decrypt it, because largely once they have gotten that far a ridiculous number of hoops have been jumped through and requirements met to begin with. Social policy simply seems to be a hot topic of debate on these forums so comes up fairly often, but I've sounded off on enough subjects where people should have a pretty good idea where I stand accross the board. Admittedly in your case there is far less data availible, at least through this site.

I'll also go so far to say that when it comes to politics, this site does lean so heavily left in most cases that people don't recognize a centrist when they see one, and I confess that could be the case here, if you are simply on the left for this paticular issue. As I pointed out, and people seemed to miss, on this paticular kind of issue I am really in the central area, with both the extremes finding me an anathema with the left wing settling for nothing but complete acceptance and assimilation, and treating anyone who doesn't embrace that as a moronic enemy, and those equally to the right saying the same thing from a differant perspective. Basically I'm one of those people who believe in tolerance, but is against forced acceptance, and that applies to a lot of things accross a large spectrum even if I've become more personally invested in this specific issue due to a large body of experience. A kind of experience that creates what science fiction fans would call an out of context problem, because someone without actual experience is incapable of really understanding the other point of view. In general (not directly focused on this) it's one of the reasons why I believe that police/civil enforcement experience should be a requirement to hold public office and set policies, especially social policies. An idea I've taken from guys like Robert Heinlan (and no, not specifically from Starship Troopers, while not directly stated I think Gulf and it's sequel/apocolyptic ending Friday sort of made the point as to why fairly well).

Now granted you might dislike me right now, and especially on this issue, but I hope that won't last for the long term, and lead to enemity. I do apologize if I mislabel you, but at the same time, I can only call it as I see it.

So in short, if you've read this far, I do apologize if I offended you.

 

[mike1921]

, once you remove the lesbians you wind up with gays being twice as likely to attack children as straight guys which kind of destroys a lot of the point..

Alright, I'll just pretend take your word for everything, I really don't believe it but even if I don't: What do you say to someone who thinks that it would be wrong to target someone even if they're a pedophile? (pedophile defined as someone attracted to children, they don't have to do anything or plan to do anything) That it is wrong to specifically target people based on higher odds of them doing something that are based on them doing absolutely nothing? That the true problem with rapists and pedophiles is the moral failings and lack of willpower moreso than the desire to do things like that. Quite frankly I'd rather trust kids with a pedophile with willpower than someone who is not a pedophile but would molest them given the desire.


Also, I hear a lot of otherwise straight men pedophiles go for young boys.

 

[Erttheking]

I can't help but feel like he took a little too long to make his punchline.

 

[jovack22]

That's rape, not homosexuality. Homosexuality is simply being attracted to another of the same sex, how one acts based on that has nothing to do with homosexuality itself, but rather the individuals past experiences.

And why not, what's wrong with a phallus?

You made a sweeping generalization that homosexuality has never hurt anybody, I called bs because it has(i.e. people have committed crimes because of it). Now I'm not saying that all homosexuals are bad people(because their not) just that it is ignorant of you to say that no homosexual has ever hurt anybody because their homosexual.

I hope you understand that sexual crimes are largely committed by straight people.

Not because straight people are more likely to be deviants, but because the percentage of straight is larger than gay, where I'm willing to wager the percentage of sex criminals is probably roughly similar.

I do realize that, which is why I would never say that heterosexuality has never harmed anybody, because obviously it has. Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean I'm saying that heterosexuality/homosexuality=sexual crimes, it just means that a persons sexual desire/lust/preference has hurt a few people.

right on then. I wasn't sure if you were arguing that "homosexuals do harm lots of people more than straights" so instead of searching for the original thread i just replied to your thread.

yes people who say that "gays are hurting society" just make me angry

cheers

 

[Therumancer]

-snip-

You are wrong!
And I don?t think it really matters that you are wrong because the way were are going soon just like being black is now, being gay will be just another normal thing. And people like you will be remembered long side racists and bigots .
But I really hope you are 100% sure you are right because the suicide rates among LGBT youth is at 40% and I hope you can deal with the blood in your own hands for contributing to that .

Because you are wrong and history will show that , but for now I hope you are ok with making kids feel like hell because you can?t deal with reality .

So fuck you

I caught this largely because I happened to notice Jim Sterling's response, and I figured I'd respond to it, to make a somewhat unrelated point about why I don't answer posts after a while on certain subjects.

For one, I'm polite, even with people I strongly disagree with. I don't think you'll find one case where I've sworn at, or directly insulted another person, even if I didn't like what they were saying.

But more importantly you'll notice a trend towards "opposition at any cost". Right here we have a post where we're looking at claims of being pro-gay being so prevelant that in 30 years it will be fully accepted. At the same time it's however claimed that there is so much anti-gay pressure that there is a 40% suicide rate among gays and lesbians? (this is also not the only post saying something like that either) 40%... with all that acceptance, and this huge amount of agreement with all of these positions, making me the aberrant minority hate monger apparently, when really I'm right in the middle on this issue and generally wind up dealing with extremists on both sides at one time or another.

Things are a bit "hot" right now, but at some point I might play Devil's advocate on a case like this and show you some actual angles of attack on what I've been saying. The kind of stuff that actually leads to a debate rather than "your ignorant", propaganda statements, or trying to deny the function of the human chemical-sexual system because it bexcomes inconveinent, people suddenly becoming unable to remember neutering or spaying pets or the castration of sex offenders, how the sexual systems work, and why such procedures work.

I'm not going to write much more on the subject (I keep saying that, and need to stick with it). To be honest I'm more concerned with getting Jim's goat, than these responses. While I was here I just though I'd point this out.

-

Oh and Spider, I like the comic you took your name from. Simply because you chose a cool handle, I'll say your correct about religious oppositions being bunk. You'll notice that despite being a Christian (if not a deeply spiritual one) I have not invoked faith or "because god says so" even once in any debate. You are however incorrect that science doesn't support me, at least so far as that part of the arguement goes, because science DOES tie sexuality and attraction to chemical reactions. The bottom line is that unless you receive those signals and generate the responses, you pretty much don't have sex. You can't just "do it on your own" magically which is why spaying or neutering a pet, or castrating a harem eunach works. It's all well documented. Homosexuals are those who react to the signals put out by their own gender... they aren't magical compared to other living things, operating under a totally differant set of rules. That's pretty much the only real scientific statement I've made, and yes it holds up.

In general, a lot of my information comes from actual experience, sort of like your namesake, it means I've actually gone out and done things and seen them. I've received the training, talked and dealt with the people, and even walked a relevent beat for a while. Unlike your namesake I actually had people under legal surveillance at times, I can probably tell you more about people, and groups of people, than most people your likely to meet because I'm the guy who was watching them when they thought they weren't being observed. I spent a long time in casino security, and while a boring dog and pony show for the most part, over a period of time I have to say there really isn't much I haven't dealt with or come into contact with in one way or another. There is some bad blood between me and my employers for reasons I won't go into, and while I am willing to say a lot of things, I'm responsible enough where I skimp on specific details (like specific names, locations, or the minutae of procedure when I worked there even if it likely changed by now) out of responsibility as I did like the job itself when you get down to it. Nice, easy, work for the most part.

Really, the big counter to a lot of what I say is to pretty much call me a liar, and yes this is The Internet, for all you know I'm an 11 year old girl or something. That pretty much resets everything to neutral, and what I politely term as having to "agree to disagree" like on most big issues. In absolute terms someone with the right connections could verify my employment and perhaps even pull incident reports and such, or get me to start rattling off specifics of incidents, but that's unlikely and meaningless to an internet discussion.

While it has happened most people have not "pulled that trigger" because of the cases where they do agree with me, and have seemed to value my input which relies on the same body of experience (such as it is), especially when it reinforces what they happen to want to hear. I've been here for a while.

Likewise, the basic accusation that I somehow set out to hate on gay men for no good reason, and have spent years consistantly portraying myself on these forums for the sole reason of sounding off on this subject when it recurs.. is kind of pushing it.

In the end if all comes down to whether someone who has read what I've said not only here, but accross a large group of posts, trusts me. Or to be fair, like most humans, just doesn't want to trust me here given their own beliefs. People do tend to waffle based on what happens to favor them at the moment.

You and others apparently do not, and as a result, we (and others here) have very little to discuss as our disagreements on this subject are not small. One of the reasons why I see little reason to continue once I've given my opinion (on request, despite not wanting to rehash it originally).

Spamming me with messages screaming about how wrong I am, hoe much you hate me, or how ignorant I am, really is kind of pointless. Especially seeing as somehow it seems people do it while desperatly hoping I'll give them a response.

As I said, at some point I might put up a Devil's advocate post (without refuting the points I make) to demonstrate how someone who takes me, and the subjet matter, both seriously, would approach it.

One minor example of a point you'll notice everyone seems to miss in favor of rage, albiet one that I can counter, is simply to point out that my job was to identify freaks and weirdos, how many normal looking people who went into the arcade to watch or check on children or something might have been gay and were just never noticed because they did absolutly nothing?

I'm not going to tear that down right now, and I might have missed it, but see that's a sensible question without screaming "OMG, your an ignorant moron, all your facts are wrong, you couldn't have possibly seen or experienced those things!!!!!" or the equivilent. In a case like this you work within the facts presented, rather than trying to basically insist the sky is a differant color, and I assure you from experience coming from a lot of debates, there is a lot of room for the left wing side without trying to recolor the sky so to speak.





I

 

[Jzolr0708]

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo, lemme get this straight, Jim and Yahtzee can cus like sailors and the thing is fine with that, but an the mere mention of homosexuality it age gates the fucking thing?

Real mature, seems that this world still has a long way to go.

As for the actual episode...what the flying fuck was that?

No, the mere mention of a man pleasuring himself does. And by mere mention I mean graphic detail. It would be the same if it were heterosexual fanfiction

 

[Zoe Castillo]

--

 

[Lawlhat]

At first I was sort of disturbed by this episode. Then I realized the genius behind it.

 

[secretsantaone]

The answer with the fewest extraneous steps is the most probable. I'm not sure how you fail to see the connection here, but whatever.

Pray tell, where is the extraneous step in 'they may have been able to create more content if they hadn't spent time developing a gay romance'?

Nor did I claim it was. After all, we all know invoking Godwin's Law is the end all to arguments. Not particularly in a positive way, but....

Well rather than argue against my statement, you stated an irrelevant argument that would not have proved me wrong anyway.

Stop inferring things based on your inadequacies and attributing them to me.

Stop blathering.

 

[mxfox408]

Mas puto!!!!!

 

[Therumancer]

Spoiler: open me

-snip-

You are wrong!
And I don?t think it really matters that you are wrong because the way were are going soon just like being black is now, being gay will be just another normal thing. And people like you will be remembered long side racists and bigots .
But I really hope you are 100% sure you are right because the suicide rates among LGBT youth is at 40% and I hope you can deal with the blood in your own hands for contributing to that .

Because you are wrong and history will show that , but for now I hope you are ok with making kids feel like hell because you can?t deal with reality .

So fuck you

I caught this largely because I happened to notice Jim Sterling's response, and I figured I'd respond to it, to make a somewhat unrelated point about why I don't answer posts after a while on certain subjects.

For one, I'm polite, even with people I strongly disagree with. I don't think you'll find one case where I've sworn at, or directly insulted another person, even if I didn't like what they were saying.

But more importantly you'll notice a trend towards "opposition at any cost". Right here we have a post where we're looking at claims of being pro-gay being so prevelant that in 30 years it will be fully accepted. At the same time it's however claimed that there is so much anti-gay pressure that there is a 40% suicide rate among gays and lesbians? (this is also not the only post saying something like that either) 40%... with all that acceptance, and this huge amount of agreement with all of these positions, making me the aberrant minority hate monger apparently, when really I'm right in the middle on this issue and generally wind up dealing with extremists on both sides at one time or another.

Things are a bit "hot" right now, but at some point I might play Devil's advocate on a case like this and show you some actual angles of attack on what I've been saying. The kind of stuff that actually leads to a debate rather than "your ignorant", propaganda statements, or trying to deny the function of the human chemical-sexual system because it bexcomes inconveinent, people suddenly becoming unable to remember neutering or spaying pets or the castration of sex offenders, how the sexual systems work, and why such procedures work.

I'm not going to write much more on the subject (I keep saying that, and need to stick with it). To be honest I'm more concerned with getting Jim's goat, than these responses. While I was here I just though I'd point this out.

-

Oh and Spider, I like the comic you took your name from. Simply because you chose a cool handle, I'll say your correct about religious oppositions being bunk. You'll notice that despite being a Christian (if not a deeply spiritual one) I have not invoked faith or "because god says so" even once in any debate. You are however incorrect that science doesn't support me, at least so far as that part of the arguement goes, because science DOES tie sexuality and attraction to chemical reactions. The bottom line is that unless you receive those signals and generate the responses, you pretty much don't have sex. You can't just "do it on your own" magically which is why spaying or neutering a pet, or castrating a harem eunach works. It's all well documented. Homosexuals are those who react to the signals put out by their own gender... they aren't magical compared to other living things, operating under a totally differant set of rules. That's pretty much the only real scientific statement I've made, and yes it holds up.

In general, a lot of my information comes from actual experience, sort of like your namesake, it means I've actually gone out and done things and seen them. I've received the training, talked and dealt with the people, and even walked a relevent beat for a while. Unlike your namesake I actually had people under legal surveillance at times, I can probably tell you more about people, and groups of people, than most people your likely to meet because I'm the guy who was watching them when they thought they weren't being observed. I spent a long time in casino security, and while a boring dog and pony show for the most part, over a period of time I have to say there really isn't much I haven't dealt with or come into contact with in one way or another. There is some bad blood between me and my employers for reasons I won't go into, and while I am willing to say a lot of things, I'm responsible enough where I skimp on specific details (like specific names, locations, or the minutae of procedure when I worked there even if it likely changed by now) out of responsibility as I did like the job itself when you get down to it. Nice, easy, work for the most part.

Really, the big counter to a lot of what I say is to pretty much call me a liar, and yes this is The Internet, for all you know I'm an 11 year old girl or something. That pretty much resets everything to neutral, and what I politely term as having to "agree to disagree" like on most big issues. In absolute terms someone with the right connections could verify my employment and perhaps even pull incident reports and such, or get me to start rattling off specifics of incidents, but that's unlikely and meaningless to an internet discussion.

While it has happened most people have not "pulled that trigger" because of the cases where they do agree with me, and have seemed to value my input which relies on the same body of experience (such as it is), especially when it reinforces what they happen to want to hear. I've been here for a while.

Likewise, the basic accusation that I somehow set out to hate on gay men for no good reason, and have spent years consistantly portraying myself on these forums for the sole reason of sounding off on this subject when it recurs.. is kind of pushing it.

In the end if all comes down to whether someone who has read what I've said not only here, but accross a large group of posts, trusts me. Or to be fair, like most humans, just doesn't want to trust me here given their own beliefs. People do tend to waffle based on what happens to favor them at the moment.

You and others apparently do not, and as a result, we (and others here) have very little to discuss as our disagreements on this subject are not small. One of the reasons why I see little reason to continue once I've given my opinion (on request, despite not wanting to rehash it originally).

Spamming me with messages screaming about how wrong I am, hoe much you hate me, or how ignorant I am, really is kind of pointless. Especially seeing as somehow it seems people do it while desperatly hoping I'll give them a response.

As I said, at some point I might put up a Devil's advocate post (without refuting the points I make) to demonstrate how someone who takes me, and the subjet matter, both seriously, would approach it.

One minor example of a point you'll notice everyone seems to miss in favor of rage, albiet one that I can counter, is simply to point out that my job was to identify freaks and weirdos, how many normal looking people who went into the arcade to watch or check on children or something might have been gay and were just never noticed because they did absolutly nothing?

I'm not going to tear that down right now, and I might have missed it, but see that's a sensible question without screaming "OMG, your an ignorant moron, all your facts are wrong, you couldn't have possibly seen or experienced those things!!!!!" or the equivilent. In a case like this you work within the facts presented, rather than trying to basically insist the sky is a differant color, and I assure you from experience coming from a lot of debates, there is a lot of room for the left wing side without trying to recolor the sky so to speak.





I

Wow this is just Impressive , you wrote of this without addressing a single point or argument ? just WOW . Did you consider going into politics?

By the way im still waiting on the source on your main argument that being gay is somehow correlated to being a pedophile , and when it comes to mattes like this there really isn?t a middle ground for you to stand on because science is not a democracy

Because you really don't have any points that were worth addressing, since mostly they amounted to you trying to talk around established facts or insist they weren't true. When a point about the sky someone is trying to raise starts with "it's not blue" I'm not going bother at that point. We're already so out of context to each other that there is no point to even holding a conversation.

An example right in your post above would be "I am still waiting on your source that being gay is somehow correlated to being a pedophille". See right there your very request is both confrontational and out of context what I've actually said. I never said that all gays were pedophilles or anything of the sort, despite the insistance of you and others that this is what I've been saying, because that's the enemy you want to fight, so are trying to create it. Your basic straw man arguement.

What I actually said was that there was a tendency for gay men to be more likely to be pedophilles and attack children. I even specified myself that this does not mean all, or even the majority of them. Indeed the point I made was originally in relation to statistics, and one of the reasons why I seperate lesbians and gay men into differant groups. A typical technique being to prove that gay men are not pedophilles by using statistics compiled using homosexuals in general. One thing you'll notice is that when it comes to pedophilles or homosexual assault you'll have a VERY hard time finding a case where lesbians have attacked children, or anyone for that matter. That is not to say it doesn't happen, just that it's nearly unheard of. In comparison you'll have a relatively easy time with some searches finding documentation of gay men attacking kids, to the point where it's *almost* exclusively the only sort of homosexual pedophillia just by paying attention. If you remove the lesbians from the equasion due to their tendency to not be involved in this at all, statistics saying "no more likely than anyone else" actually come up with gay men being twice as likely.

Of course that point on it's own is kind of meaningless, you just seem to miss the original context it was being pointed out in, and I'm not going to rehash the entire thing. It was about statistics in general, and their nature. Not to mention the simple fact that people on both sides of any major conflict compile data but tend to only release the data that supports what their message is. If a group like say ABIGAYLES decides to do studies on gay men attacking children they simply aren't going to release data saying the opposite of what they want, and with the guys compiling the data working for them it's their desician. Rather they simply release the information that supports what they say when they get it, with as much authority as possible. Basically "this study conducted here with this representitive sample has shown that gays are no more likely to attack children than homosexuals" if they did 9 other studies that had opposite results they will just sit on them. The other side of course does the same thing, rendering any statistics on an issue like this meaningless since the very issue makes neutrality impossible.

Overall though a lot of my data comes down to personal observation, based on the fact that I've had to deal with stuff like this professionally... as I've explained. There is no need to play ignorant here. Fine, you don't believe me, you think I'm a liar, but don't sit there and start playing stupid "how do you get this information" games, since the answer is that I had to do the Code Adam sessions, I went out to patrol Arcades and such, I've dealt with the pervs, and I've had people under surveillance and see what they do and how they act when nobody thinks they are being watched. I've referred to such experience in a number of contexts, with mixed responses based on whether it reinforces what they want to believe. Here it plays havoc with your gay rights message, and like many people you want to believe this is some elaborate multi-year concoction to reinforce arbitrary and unjustified dislike I pulled out of a vaccuum specifically so I could annoy people on the internet. I imagine given time you'll feel differantly if I mention this in reinforcement of a point you disagree with. This is one of the reasons why I just don't stick around and fight this out after a while, I say my piece, and people either accept it, or they don't. In the end opinions aren't going to change, mine since it's based on experience, I usually leave it as having to agree to disagree to move on to end it on a polite note. Of course this doesn't stop 20 tons of nonsense, insults, and bile being thrown at me, some of really low quality. I mean seriously... I'm not stupid enough to think someone who with apparent conviction insists that both there is an overwhelming support for gays that will change the world in 30 years when the small minority of ignorant people like me are silenced, while at the same time saying overwhelming majority pressure has the homosexual suicide rate at 40% (yes, 40% think about this) is going to engage in a reasonable debate. That kind of inherantly contridictory "in the same breath" rant doesn't lead to reasoned debate, and when that kind of thing is in the crowd there really isn't much point.

Well that, and I get tired of being treated like an anti-gay extremist. I get that from both major sides of the debate.... which seem to be largely ignorant of each other to a great degree. I'm middle of the road. In making the point that I'm kind of a representitive of reasoned compromise, by pointing out the ACTUAL opposite numbers of the guys I'm argueing with (using a recent attempt to legalize an anti-gay purge in another country I won't mention again but is linked here), and getting scorn for that, including people who missed the point of the referance to the point of saying that I was using it to reinforce what I was saying (in one of this thread's greater "WTF" moments).

 

[secretsantaone]

Is it really worth it if it's cheapened? Surely it would be better to finish off this franchise and start a new one with a homosexual character, rather than shoe-horning it in so late. To me it just seems patronising, like 'here's your token gay relationship, now leave us alone.'.

On the issue of resources spent, let's have a look different at what different elements go into a videogame.


Writing - Someone has to write the romance, which characters, how it progresses, how it ends up etc.

Dialogue writing - After that, the dialogue between the characters needs to be written including multiple speech trees and paths for different conversation choices

Voice acting - Then they need to get the voice actors in to record the lines and the sound editors to get it into a fit state

Animation - Someone needs to animate the romance scenes, including a presumably unique sex scene which uses no stock animations

Coding - After that, someone needs to actually put all the different elements into the game and not have it clash with everything else

Quality control - The romance needs to be played through multiple times under different conditions to make sure there are no bugs or errors

So probably quite a bit of time I'd imagine.

This argument is so board it's pointless to even list this. I could take everything you just said and use for any argument from "Here's why they shouldn't allow any romance options" to "Here's why they shouldn't allow moral choices".

In order to have this in, it had to be planned. Back when the game was first starting, and since its elements were planned in the first one it's been in the planning since at least 2006. Nothing about Shepard beyond the actual romance dialogue trees ever seemed to say out loud what his sexual preference was, because it was always left up to the player's choice. Saying that they cheapened it and made it token seems belittling to said choice.

Except moral choices have been a hallmark of the series and it's something all players will experience, while the heterosexual relationships already exist.

Does it matter if they originally wanted to put it in? They didn't and the series has moved on, meaning that a lot of the planned writing from the first game won't make sense. Why bring in something that only a minority of people will see this late?

Because they wanted to? Yes it matters that they originally wanted to put it in, they're the ones making it. And your argument seems to be the equivalent of saying if the relationship isn't firmly established and fulfilled by the first 2/3s of a novel series then it's shallow, cheap, and shoe-horned in. Have you ever done a male Shepard that didn't choose anyone in the first two games? Your argument of "heterosexual relationships" already exist vanishes in an instant because, as I stated, Shepard's sexual preference is not established at all outside the romance options. For anyone who's made such a Shepard (or planning to make such a Shep for the third) the romance choice they make in the third game, straight or gay, will be all the sweeter for their wait.

This is game 3, not game 1. What they originally intended to do isn't relevant, they have already created 2 games. If they had originally intended to give Shepard the option to speak with a lisp it would be just as jarring to put it in now.

Ok, the relationship OPTIONS are already established if it makes you feel any better. The point is, the last game should be about resolving the issues, not creating more.

Let me ask you a question. Do you think that Bioware are adding in the option to make Shepard gay in the last game in the series either because they genuinely believe it would add to the story, or because they want to try and appeal to the gay audience for a quick buck?

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Ya I kept waiting for you to stop the stupid slash fest and get to the point. Never happened, at all a shame Jim you missed the point and over used the 'joke'.

Look up what satire is and then come back. Well... this might be closer to the literary definition of burlesque.
The point is that it appears to be something that agrees with someone's beliefs, in this case the belief that ME3 might turn people gay. But what it actually does is expose those beliefs as being utterly stupid. I'll let you work out how.

Do you think that Bioware are adding in the option to make Shepard gay in the last game in the series either because they genuinely believe it would add to the story, or because they want to try and appeal to the gay audience for a quick buck?

I agree. The gay alien fetishist video gamer market is huge.
Making a divisive decision that the established fanbase might not like in order to target that market is clearly the best way to make as much money as possible...

 

[secretsantaone]

Do you think that Bioware are adding in the option to make Shepard gay in the last game in the series either because they genuinely believe it would add to the story, or because they want to try and appeal to the gay audience for a quick buck?

I agree. The gay alien fetishist video gamer market is huge.
Making a divisive decision that the established fanbase might not like in order to target that market is clearly the best way to make as much money as possible...

Do you seriously believe anyone is going to boycott the game over this? Seriously?

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Do you think that Bioware are adding in the option to make Shepard gay in the last game in the series either because they genuinely believe it would add to the story, or because they want to try and appeal to the gay audience for a quick buck?

I agree. The gay alien fetishist video gamer market is huge.
Making a divisive decision that the established fanbase might not like in order to target that market is clearly the best way to make as much money as possible...

Do you seriously believe anyone is going to boycott the game over this? Seriously?

Yes.
There are plenty of homophobes out there. I can pretty much guarantee that some people who played 1 and 2 are homophobic enough to boycott the game completely.
At the same time, I'd seriously doubt that many gay people who havn't previously found the series appealing will do so now.

 

[acosn]

I already wasn't going to buy ME3 because of Origin, but the fact that they're taking even more time finding ways of completely failing to do anything but shovel the exact same game back to you for the umpteenth time just sweetens the deal.


After I finally cave (more like wait for the game to drop to the 10-20$ I'm willing to fork over for it) and buy it, I'll probably have a more concise criticism of how they portray homosexuality. Knowing Bioware they're probably not exactly getting it.

 

[Dr Snakeman]

O_O

Eeeewwww...

I get the satire, all right, but I'm still pretty grossed out.

 

[Zoe Castillo]

--

 

[Murmillos]

Pure genus Jim. Thanks for calling out all the morons who are against the 100% optional "you have to want it" gay Sheperd.

I can't wait to get my Kaidan bro-loven train back on track. We didn't have a good meet up on Horizon. Poor boy, he just needs a good hug. From behind.. while..