Why was there no uproar about same sex relations in Skyrim, or the Fable series?

[chiggerwood]

Men who love the cock and women who enjoy a nice rack is a bit of a decisive issue in gaming culture nowadays. Between the gay Shepard controversy and the spectacular debacle going on in 'The Old Republic' it seems like whenever someone says "Maybe we should allow people the choice to enjoy the genitalia of their preference." Someone else must raise a flag in opposition, because of reasons, BUT we're not here to discuss that. You see a curious realization came upon me not too long ago that despite both the 'Fable' series and 'Skyrim' offering up genitalia enjoyment of your choosing and despite both being extremely popular I can't remember any huge controversy blowing through the culture like a tornado made of homophobia. With gay Shepard there were people acting as if we were to allow homosexuality in a game then in no time our children would be running around in gimp masks and assless chaps leading one another around on leashes and spanking each other for pleasure before lunch. With 'The Old Republic' homosexuality apparently only exist on one planet in the entire galaxy (which I'll assume offers the best in game ship interiors, fashion, and haircuts) which is clearly meant to appease the homosexual fans, but only serves to foster a feeling of segregation and patronization, because they want to pussyfoot around the concept of homosexuality with flimsy, inadequate corporate bullshit excuses so they don't offend right-wing shitheads, or lose right-wing shithead investors (please note: I'm not calling every right winger a shit head, just the shit heads there's plenty of left wing shit heads out there too but they're irrelevant to the conversation at this point), So the question I'm posing is how did 'Skyrim and 'Fable' slip by with little to no controversy, or uproars? Because honestly I can't really remember any.

CAPTCHA: toe the line

NEVER! Also you spelled tow wrong

Edit: Apparently the phrase is "Toe the line" you win this time captcha, but don't get cocky.

 

[Cavan]

Because they are breathtakingly shallow in their implementation and subsequently entirely pointless?

You have virtually no way to interact with them or actually have a relationship..I haven't played fable 3 so this could of course be very different..but somehow I doubt it.

The phrase actually is "toe the line", as in to 'not physically cross a line(representing authority/rules) with one's feet'.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

I'm guessing because they weren't advertised. In The Old Republic, they came out and said same sex relationships were going to be in the game, then a massive controversy started up about it and the Devs backed down on putting them in until just recently. I get the feeling that if they hadn't drawn attention to it, they would have caught much less shit.

But I also it was a huge publicity stunt from the start. Controversy is free publicity after all.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Because people weren't as aware of it being in those games. They can't get angry if they don't know it happened.

...That was actually a really short post, I have time to add something else if i want... ugh, ugh... BACON IS DELICIOUS!

 

[Zantos]

Yeah, certainly for Fable it was completely overlooked as something it was not at all necessary to do while you swagger about with the power of a God. When it was there, it was more an amusing aside than actually to do with anything. It's like the whole Tomb Raider rape thing, it wasn't the first to do it, it won't be the last, but people likely won't notice if you don't make a deal out of it.

The same sex relationships are one of those curious issues where the people complaining about it are mostly people with no intention to play it.

 

[xefaros]

I believe that it didnt cause an uproar because when you have a huge game like skyrim you wont focus on the point that 2 danglers and lydia live in the same place.Dont know about fable because after the first one it went downhill.
Also marketing is a tricky thing and if i am correct both games games were published by EA so that gotta mean something

 

[Sixcess]

There was no uproar about Skyrim or Fable because noone outwith of gaming and gaming media really cares about them. On the other hand everyone knows Star Wars. It's the same reason that when the a producer started talking about attempted rape in Tomb Raider it became a big deal, because Lara Croft is a high profile video game icon with a recognition factor far higher than most characters, and so while TR gets the headlines noone cares about the actual attempted rape of some random nobody in Mafia II.

With 'The Old Republic' they've basically segregated gays to a single planet (which I'll assume offers the best in game ship interiors, fashion, and haircuts) because they want to pussyfoot around the concept of homosexuality with flimsy, inadequate corporate bullshit excuses so they don't offend right-wing shitheads, or lose right-wing shithead investors (please note: I'm not calling every right winger a shit head, just the shit heads there's plenty of left wing shit heads out there too but they're irrelevant to the conversation at this point)

This is... very wrong. As much as we all love to hate EA (and sometimes Bioware) they have a better than average record of inclusivity as far as homosexuality is concerned. Makeb is NOT a gay planet - it's merely the first planet in which they are introducing optional same gender flirt/romance options.

I repeat OPTIONAL.

They always intended to add same gender romance options to the rest of the game but it will be extremely expensive in terms of new voice acting and animation to do so, hence why they start with Makeb - because TOR hasn't done so great so they can't really afford it right now. That's the fact of it - it has zero to do with some fictional cabal of evil right wing investors.

 

[Sixcess]

Rape in Mafia 2? Say what? I remember you fighting off rapists, not actually getting raped though.

I haven't played it so I may be wrong. I just recall Mafia II was one of the titles that kept getting thrown up as an example of 'double standards' when the Tomb Raider debate was at its height.

Edit: After doing some checking I've edited the original post slightly in the interest of greater accuracy.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Last time I remember with Fable (I haven't played the sequels) it was just a thing to do if you want. I mean all you get out of it was just a still short wedding scene and your loved one saying hello and etc, hardly much of an interaction compared to other games the OP mention well it was minor compared to those.

 

[Batou667]

Well, hopefully it's a sign of videogames' developing maturity as an artform and gamers becoming more tolerant of diversity.

Because they are breathtakingly shallow in their implementation and subsequently entirely pointless?

Or maybe this.

 

[Muspelheim]

Well, firstly, the marriage feature in Skyrim wasn't much more than an afterthought, and sadly ridiculously shallow. Second, they never really used same-sex relations as part of the marketing blurb, it was just there. You could marry someone of your own gender and no one seemed to mind. It's rather refreshing, really, since it isn't nearly as big of a deal as some delightful people make it out to be.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Because they are breathtakingly shallow in their implementation and subsequently entirely pointless?

You have virtually no way to interact with them or actually have a relationship..I haven't played fable 3 so this could of course be very different..but somehow I doubt it.

You are totally wrong about Fable. Relationships are very important in the third game. I care deeply for Child 1, and my love for Wife is eternal.

Well, it was eternal. Then I tried demonstrating the way the game handles freedom to a non-gamer mate by turning off safe mode and swinging a hammer around the market square.

Fun fact - when you crush your wife's head with a warhammer, the game autosaves, and your child is taken away to an orphanage.

 

[AD-Stu]

I'm guessing the answer is just that it all just flew under the radar... because maybe there should have been. Particularly in Fable's case:

I never actually played Fable, but I had to sit through hours of watching my brothers-in-law play it. I remember the romance and marriage aspect being pretty superficial, but I thought I also remembered seeing that you got lesser benefits if you married someone of the same sex. I wanted to check if I remembered that right so I checked <a href=http://fable.wikia.com/wiki/Marriage>here and it turns out that's not even close to the worst bit. Try this on for size:

In Fable II the only safe way for lesbians to have sex is to have a male villager either following you or participating in a three-way encounter. Otherwise the game forces you to have unprotected sex. This can result in a high number of STDs on your tracked statistics.

Seriously. What. The. Fuck?!?

 

[SonicWaffle]

Also marketing is a tricky thing and if i am correct both games games were published by EA so that gotta mean something

Fable was published by Microsoft & Skyrim was Bethesda Softworks. Nothing to do with EA at all.

Also, "danglers"?!

 

[Nieroshai]

If anything, I think EA drummed up the controversy to get into headlines. They've done it before, mostly with Visceral's Dead Space 2 and Dante's Inferno. For the most part, otherwise only people who had played the games would've known about it. Honestly who talks about Skyrim (where apparently everyone on the continent is bisexual and just can't resist dem amulets) unless they're talking about awesomeness or glitches? Who talks about Fable except to argue whether it really sucks or not?

 

[Glasgow]

Nobody who cares enough to stir up a controversy noticed. That's all. Pretty simple stuff.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

With 'The Old Republic' they've basically segregated gays to a single planet (which I'll assume offers the best in game ship interiors, fashion, and haircuts)

Christ, why is this so persistent? I can't even tell if it's serious anymore.

I got no issue with the rest of your post, but gay NPCs are not segregated to Makeb. That's ridiculous. They're just bundling the same-sex relationships into the Makeb content patch. That means all of the new content is on Makeb, because Makeb is where people will be playing, and it makes zero sense to put new content somewhere people won't encounter it.

I mean, if they put all the gay NPCs on Coruscant or one of the other low-level areas, you could just as easily say that they're hiding their gays on rarely-visited planets so that nobody sees them. But some idiot journalist thought "SWTOR expansion introduces gay planet!" was an attention-grabbing headline, and suddenly Bioware are fans of gay apartheid. What the hell, games journalism? What the actual hell?

 

[xShredd]

Because there is very little of sign of relationships being presented in both of those games, and sex was presented the same way sleeping was in Fable. I mean seriously, the most erotic thing you can do to your partner is slightly smooching them. Again, because those kinds of relationships are a little more behind the curtain than it was in ME -and shown as much cuter and innocent- it is natural that it went unnoticed by the major crowd.

It is much more subtle in Skyrim, in which your partner does nothing more than calling you 'honey' and giving you money and food because you're married, while having similar reactions against you with being in a relationship with an android.

However, I think this would piss people off if more people knew about this, because I still remember the sex thing in Mass Effect was presented in many news channels, especially in the US causing many people who know nothing about the game thinking it was a game that was about 'demon orgy with evil aliens'.