Jimquisition: Tomodachi Strife

[irmasterlol]

Maybe Nintendo just looks way too harmless to me, but to me, this looks like honest, old fashioned incompetence. Not malice.

 

[maximara]

What is a really a head scratcher is that back in the 1990s Nintendo licensed Sailor moon games and NO effort in the original versions was made to hide Sailor Neptune's and Sailor Uranus' lesbian relationship in the few games they appeared in and one of those was an RPG--Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon: Another Story (Angel). So what happened that Nintendo who didn't have a problem with Sailor Neptune's and Sailor Uranus' lesbian relationship some 30 years ago so botch the job now?

 

[Pebkio]

As he does when he can't write episode based on facts he reinterprets someone's words and then writes about that.

Nintendo didn't make social commentary. Just because they didn't include it does not it make it social commentary. They just didn't program it in.

You don't know much about programming, do you? You have to code the process of marriage in it's most basic form or you're going to take up a lot of space recoding marriage after marriage after marriage. First you program just one marriage function and then then extra code is written to block the event triggers in situations or settings that you don't want. The event triggers have to be present in each human character because the player could be any gender. Either they wrote code to deactivate the triggers depending on which player character gender is chosen OR they wrote code to deny access to same-gender trigger options (or wrote the inverse as a code that only allows access to opposite-gender trigger options).

So they didn't just "not program [homosexuality] in"... they had to actively program homosexuality out.

At best your solution would result in every character being bisexual which fixes nothing as my gay characters could still marry the opposite gender and my strait characters could marry the same gender. Also adding in homosexuality would require additional checks for not just for gender but orientation in partners.

Yeah, every character would be bisexual in practice. As in, you could any gender you want. The role-playing would then be up to you. The checks would be added for exclusionary reasons.

...and then it suddenly occurred to me to wonder if this game is interactive...
*some checking later*
Well, it's not, it's entirely just... a... um... screensaver? A screensaver with adjustable initial parameters. Okay, I see it now. I was under the assumption that this was a game we were talking about.

Okay... so the designers had two choices:

Add an entirely new input choice and data set that controls which gender your Mii would try to couple with
...or...
Add a hidden value that restricted trigger events between all couplings except for one

Yeah, with those two choices I can see which one was the easier one.

 

[DrOswald]

This assumes that marriage in this game is completely shallow and gender a non issue. If you take game design into account then including same sex marriage is much harder. They most certainly would have had to program in homosexuality and design around that possibility. Not to mention that increasing the romance possibilities from 1(M-F) to 3(M-M,F-F,M-F) will exponentially increase the difficulty of creating content and AI programming.

Frankly, your extreme oversimplification of this issue makes me think you know next to nothing about software development and game design.

No, you're wrong about that. Writing code specifically for gender would be harder to write code without taking gender into consideration. The difficulty rising in proportion to the complexity of the interactions.

You write a very long stream of interactive code that determines how one character models can interact with each other. It saves a hell of a lot of space to just write one string that can then apply to everyone and then just control the variations though smaller lines of code.

To have a separation in terms of activities across gender (which is what would be required to have the need to program homosexuality in)... first you have to write specifically for the purposes of separation (which is automatically more work than the first option). Then, you have to have to have multiple lines of code that are doing the same thing as each other (thus taking up the twice as much space) with only slight variations in each.

I'm not saying they couldn't have done that... I would just point out the sloppiness mess of that code...

...for the reason of, what appears to be, keeping certain same gender people from participating in all activities.

Once again, you are completely ignoring the larger game design. Yes, you write that big block of code for how two characters interact. And then you write many hundreds of times that amount of code for all the other things in the game, many of which touch in one way or another on the characters gender.

And even then you STILL have to include a flags to prevent certain types of relationships because if you don't you are going to have strait characters in same sex relationships and gay characters in hetero relationships.

Your solution is possibly the worst way to approach this problem. It barely solves the initial problem and breaks tons of other stuff in the game. It doesn't work.

And you know what is even worse? Because you know that you are going to be making a game in which you need to differentiate between sexual orientations you would still make it the second way with that stuff built in from the start. The game design already calls for distinction based on gender, you would build it to do so from the ground up. As for rewriting the code multiple times with slight variation, there is a solution to that: Helper methods! A technique that is so basic it is taught to student programmers in week two of the first programming class offered at any university.

This is what I am talking about when I say you know nothing about software development and game design. You don't even know the most basic techniques.

 

[direkiller]

bull, Nintendo had always planed a localisation of Tomodachi Life,

No they didn't. They only planned on doing it this year. By this time Tomodachi Life was still an entire year old. If you seriously think that a large company with multiple projects to work on would still have the dev team of a one year old game intact then your sorely mistaken.

I never said anything about Dev teams. I said they were planing on selling the game globally, not just a game for Japan like you stated. They did not suddenly decide to translate the game, that is something that starts in development.


"So it's okay to "exclude gays" as some people have claimed Nintendo did in this instance, but it's not okay in other instances?
You gotta set guidelines somewhere. It's not apples to oranges. They still promote a feature where you can romance other players. However you are only able to romance male/female relationships. You can't do homosexual relationships. That means that Nintendo is excluding gay relationships. Which also means people should be pissed off about it. But so far nobody has given two fucks."
The answer is rather easy if you bothered to pay attention
A game with a tight nit story where I make a charter is not the same as open world romp that is meant to be a simulation of me. Is it genuinely that hard to see why in a game about simulating you and your relationships, they leave out a good number of publicly accepted relationships and people get mad about it?
Virtual Families 2 fell under fire for the same reason(the 10 people who played that game anyway), I don't see why Nintendo should be any different.

 

[JoJo]

Did Jim just admit to being Bisexual? Explains his love for Commander Shepard now doesn't it...

Yeah, he's mentioned his sexuality before in some of his written articles, usually he just makes light of it in these videos.

Got a link? I'm now curious as to his writings.

Here's one, from his old home on Destructoid:

http://www.destructoid.com/the-importance-of-a-gay-gamer-convention-232467.phtml

 

[Pebkio]

Once again, you are completely ignoring the larger game design. Yes, you write that big block of code for how two characters interact. And then you write many hundreds of times that amount of code for all the other things in the game, many of which touch in one way or another on the characters gender.

And even then you STILL have to include a flags to prevent certain types of relationships because if you don't you are going to have strait characters in same sex relationships and gay characters in hetero relationships.

Your solution is possibly the worst way to approach this problem. It barely solves the initial problem and breaks tons of other stuff in the game. It doesn't work.

And you know what is even worse? Because you know that you are going to be making a game in which you need to differentiate between sexual orientations you would still make it the second way with that stuff built in from the start. The game design already calls for distinction based on gender, you would build it to do so from the ground up. As for rewriting the code multiple times with slight variation, there is a solution to that: Helper methods! A technique that is so basic it is taught to student programmers in week two of the first programming class offered at any university.

This is what I am talking about when I say you know nothing about software development and game design. You don't even know the most basic techniques.

You know what, you are absolutely right. I was under the assumption that this was an interactive game. Sorry, yeah, in terms of what type of screensaver this is... the designers had two real choices:

Add in a new input and a controlling value just for different types of relationships
...or...
Put in a gender-based restrictive block on trigger events.

And in that light, yeah, I can see how it's easier to go with the simpler option. I was flat-out wrong.

 

[Dragonbums]

I never said anything about Dev teams. I said they were planing on selling the game gloabaly, not just a game for Japan like you stated. They did not suddenly decide to translate the game, that is something that starts in development.

During the initial creation and release of Tomodachi Life Nintendo had zero plans to release this game to any sort of market outside of Japan. It was only until this year during Nintendo's recent financial reports that they decided to port over games they consider "Too Japanese" to a global audience.

The anser is rather easy if you bothered to pay attention
A game with a tight nit story where I make a charter is not the same as open world romp that is ment to be a simulation of me.

So what? In that game and in this game they still promote relationships and marriage. Whether it's a simulation of "your life" is irrelevant. In Fire Emblem Awakening they promoted relationships and marriage. Plot be damned. But you couldn't have gay couples in the game. So again, where is the outrage there?

Is it genuinely that hard to see why in a game about simulating you and your relationships, they leave out a good number of publicly accepted relationships and people get mad about it?

Considering how it was only released in Japan, and considering (which most people here haven't) that in Japan it is illegal to marry gay couples Japan it would make sense they didn't put it in . And in terms of social perception someone in one of the other threads relating to this issue stated that only a little more than half of the population agrees on this issue. As opposed to here where it was like 70%.

Virtual Families 2 fell under fire for the same reason(the 10 people who played that game anyway), I don't see why Nintendo should be any different.

Virtual Families 2 by the looks of it is also a game that isn't based in Japan where gay marriage is illegal.

 

[Demonchaser27]

So, pretty much what this is saying is that Gay relationships should be in any game with relationships by default now?

I agree. And I feel it should be the standard by now too. Even if I'm not gay myself or even if I am, I might get a bit of enjoyment seeing the main character of a game swing both ways. Really, it only helps make everyone happy, unless they're homophobic, which at that point, they can go shove it.

Inclusion of every party cannot hurt if it's a party that does no harm.

Hell I can't wait to see what happens when dating horses, dogs, etc. get into games. *I'm not one of those "What's gonna be next?" guys by the way.*
All I'm saying is that we might as well include everybody. It would be about time as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Irridium]

People surprised by Jim's sexuality. Never listened to Podtoid/Dismal Jesters, eh? I'd laugh and act all smug but to be honest I recommend you stay this course. For once you go down that hole (listeners will know exactly what hole)... there's no coming back. But I digress...

Yeah, not-straight people exist. They are real. They deserve as much representation in games/movies/ect. as straight white males. And not as the butt of some joke.

 

[CloudAtlas]

You pointed out about how there's an issue in a state in the US about turning away customers due to the owner having a religuous belief against homosexuality. Well, that's their own fucking right. Owners should have the right to turn away whoever the hell they want. It may not cause their business to do well, but that's the point. America is supposed to be a place where people can say, do, or believe whatever they want and not get attacked for it.

Freedom of speech is not equal to freedom from response. If bigots have the right to say whatever they want, so does everyone else. Or do you believe that bigotted statements and action are more worthy of protection than critizicing said statements actions?

 

[Demonchaser27]

Well this topic doesn't really concern me as I'm not/won't be playing the game. But yes more games should include all forms of sexual/marriage relationships. I mean, why not. If the religious nuts wanna go nuts, let em'. Its not ACTUALLY hurting anyone.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Dear Jim, maybe you should inform yourself before making such a video and calling out Nintendo on something that they didn't do.

Just checked again and, yeah, unless I'm missing or misunderstanding something, this is how the whole thing went:

- Nintendo releases the game with the gay marriage thing
- The devs patch it away because it wasn't intentional
- The press starts going on about Nintendo being against homosexuality
- Nintendo responds, saying "this isn't what we were trying to say. We were just fixing a glitch"

Basically, the fault lies with whoever moron thought that patching gay relationship out of the game was necessary

No, this is what actually happened.
-Nintendo releases the game without gay marriage at all
-A bug was found when you transferring your Mii and the bug could prevent you from any progress in the game and it could literally damage your 3DS
-the bug was fixed
-a Japanese article about people crossdressing their Mii's as the opposite gender to "emulate" same sex marriage was written
-some incompetent western site mistranslated the bug report and the crossdressing article into one article making it seem like the bug was same sex marriage and Nintendo patched it out (not true, you can still crossdress)
-every other western gaming news site takes that article as 100% true and without any fact checking repost it
-people which actually understanding of Japanese and people who like to check for facts point that out, but obviously people would rather hate Nintendo than read real facts

 

[HalfTangible]

I think you meant 'epilogue' at the start there

 

[carnex]

Dear Jim, maybe you should inform yourself before making such a video and calling out Nintendo on something that they didn't do.

He had to make episode about something and to make it into something that would attract attention. That's all "game press" today is. Clickbaiting...

 

[Norix596]

Great episode

 

[Nixou]

Given that in many countries gay marriage isn't legal it's no surprise that Nintendo didn't want to include it in a game that they wanted to sell all over the world.

Indeed, they thought that it was smart business to avoid taunting the homophobic bigots.
...
Which is fucking spineless. This is basically saying "You know what, we're going to do something wrong because we don't want to antagonize these bloodthirsty, psychosexualy unbalanced stake fetichistic bullies in the corner".

 

[AdagioBoognish]

As he does when he can't write episode based on facts he reinterprets someone's words and then writes about that.

Nintendo didn't make social commentary. Just because they didn't include it does not it make it social commentary. They just didn't program it in.

You don't know much about programming, do you? You have to code the process of marriage in it's most basic form or you're going to take up a lot of space recoding marriage after marriage after marriage. First you program just one marriage function and then then extra code is written to block the event triggers in situations or settings that you don't want. The event triggers have to be present in each human character because the player could be any gender. Either they wrote code to deactivate the triggers depending on which player character gender is chosen OR they wrote code to deny access to same-gender trigger options (or wrote the inverse as a code that only allows access to opposite-gender trigger options).

So they didn't just "not program [homosexuality] in"... they had to actively program homosexuality out.

At best your solution would result in every character being bisexual which fixes nothing as my gay characters could still marry the opposite gender and my strait characters could marry the same gender. Also adding in homosexuality would require additional checks for not just for gender but orientation in partners.

Yeah, every character would be bisexual in practice. As in, you could any gender you want. The role-playing would then be up to you. The checks would be added for exclusionary reasons.

...and then it suddenly occurred to me to wonder if this game is interactive...
*some checking later*
Well, it's not, it's entirely just... a... um... screensaver? A screensaver with adjustable initial parameters. Okay, I see it now. I was under the assumption that this was a game we were talking about.

Okay... so the designers had two choices:

Add an entirely new input choice and data set that controls which gender your Mii would try to couple with
...or...
Add a hidden value that restricted trigger events between all couplings except for one

Yeah, with those two choices I can see which one was the easier one.

So AI is controlling who your Mii is trying to hook up with? I assumed you were controlling your little avatar, so the whole idea of having checks for orientation didn't make any sense at all. If you're not controlling your character, then does having your sprite get married actually matter to the gamer? This style of game doesn't appeal to me in general, so I don't get it. Are there any Nintendo fans out there that can tell us if having in game relationships is something that would make or break Tomodachi Life for you?

 

[Demonchaser27]

What some people don't understand is that the reason it's wrong for Tomadachi to not have gay marriages while it being okay for other games to not have it is the fact that you're inserting yourself into Tomadachi as your Mii. It's not a designed character you're playing, it's literally yourself. The Sims would get the same kind of beef for excluding same sex couples.

Especially since there's no direct narrative in Tomadachi; the ease of which it would be to include same sex marriage would be paltry compared to most other games. That's what makes this damning for Nintendo.

And that's partly the problem, NoA doesn't have the authority to make even the slightest changes to the games they localize I would bet. I'm sure they would have loved to have made the change, but they lack the approval and manpower to do so, which is a real shame.

I've always hear this about development in NoA. If it's true then that must suck ass to work for Nintendo here. Never get any input into anything.

 

[Weaver]

I think to actually understand this you have to understand how homosexuality is viewed in Japanese society.
Is it a political issue in the west? Not really, at least anymore. Is it in Japan? Yes.

In Germany you can have a TV commercial with breasts on it that airs any time of the day, even when kids are watching because it just doesn't matter there. But we can't do that in North America. Christ, the movie "rabbit without ears" was originally cleared for FSK 6 (6 year olds can view it) and features full frontal nudity and is essentially a rom com about a guy who has sex with every woman he meets. Conversely, it's illegal in Germany to be able to move dead bodies in video games.

In Japan, homosexuality is still a very repressed thing. They obviously know people are gay, but it's not something you talk about publicly and a lot of homosexuals there are still conforming to their "assigned" gender role and even marrying someone of the opposite sex because that's what they're expected to do.

I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that different countries are at different levels on issues. if you look at the country Tomadachi Life came from it kind of makes a lot of sense.