Okay, this one should be short and fairly sweet...
In the early days, it was generally argued that video games were nothing more than a means of entertainment and one could generally be hard-pressed to argue it to the contrary.
Now, as games continue to evolve and mature as a medium, we see aspects of social commentary beginning to seep into them. One that we find is that of sexual orientation and human rights.
BioWare is one of the leading companies in the field that strive to break conventions, not only in the history of video games, but social mainstream media.
BioWare's latest title, Dragon Age II features a variety of playable races, genders and a large variety of NPCs that are available to include in the player's team. A few of these characters are options for romance-paths of the main story, and that includes same-sex relationships.
Rather surprisingly, this caused problems in some areas of the gaming community who felt that their gaming experience was being thrown off by the inclusion of a possible (but not mandatory) homosexual relationship between their player character and an NPC.
There was an article (found here), about one such person, calling himself "Straight Male Gamer", postedon the BioWare blog for the game complaining about this issue... and royaly making a fool of himself in the process.
The lead writer for Dragon Age 2, David Gaider posted a personal response to the less than intelligent rant put forward by Straight Male Gamer on the forum in response, calmly and intelligently not only the choice of including the possibility of same-sex romances for the player, but the need to cater to all of the gaming community, regardless of gender, sex or sexual preference.
I cheered, I'll admit, when I read about it, and despite the fact that I'm not a fan of the Dragon Age series ( I find I dislike the turn-based combat... it's too slow), I readily applaud both BioWare's ability to defend their medium as an artform capable of real-world commentary, and their willingness to do so in within the scope of a major AAA title.
This gives me hope that video games are able to support the kind of life-changing capability I hope to achieve through them myself as a would-be developer. It's too much to hope that I could change the world with a game, but perhaps, if the game development community continues to produce titles that incorporate and explore as many assets of humanity, society and culture as they can, perhaps that can help in making the world a little better, one save game at a time...
In the early days, it was generally argued that video games were nothing more than a means of entertainment and one could generally be hard-pressed to argue it to the contrary.
Now, as games continue to evolve and mature as a medium, we see aspects of social commentary beginning to seep into them. One that we find is that of sexual orientation and human rights.
BioWare is one of the leading companies in the field that strive to break conventions, not only in the history of video games, but social mainstream media.
BioWare's latest title, Dragon Age II features a variety of playable races, genders and a large variety of NPCs that are available to include in the player's team. A few of these characters are options for romance-paths of the main story, and that includes same-sex relationships.
Rather surprisingly, this caused problems in some areas of the gaming community who felt that their gaming experience was being thrown off by the inclusion of a possible (but not mandatory) homosexual relationship between their player character and an NPC.
There was an article (found here), about one such person, calling himself "Straight Male Gamer", postedon the BioWare blog for the game complaining about this issue... and royaly making a fool of himself in the process.
The lead writer for Dragon Age 2, David Gaider posted a personal response to the less than intelligent rant put forward by Straight Male Gamer on the forum in response, calmly and intelligently not only the choice of including the possibility of same-sex romances for the player, but the need to cater to all of the gaming community, regardless of gender, sex or sexual preference.
I cheered, I'll admit, when I read about it, and despite the fact that I'm not a fan of the Dragon Age series ( I find I dislike the turn-based combat... it's too slow), I readily applaud both BioWare's ability to defend their medium as an artform capable of real-world commentary, and their willingness to do so in within the scope of a major AAA title.
This gives me hope that video games are able to support the kind of life-changing capability I hope to achieve through them myself as a would-be developer. It's too much to hope that I could change the world with a game, but perhaps, if the game development community continues to produce titles that incorporate and explore as many assets of humanity, society and culture as they can, perhaps that can help in making the world a little better, one save game at a time...
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