BioWare Launches "Gay Planet" For the Old Republic 333
DavidGilbert99 writes "Labelled as an 'oddly regressive move,' developers of Star Wars: the Old Republic have decided that all gay characters will be stuck on a single planet called Makeb. The move comes with the release of the Rise of the Hutt Cartel pack and the Makeb planet will be the only place in the game where players can select 'flirtatious' dialogue options with characters of the same gender. From the article: 'BioWare executive producer Jeff Hickman apologised for same sex relationships taking so long to be added to the game, referring to the company's most famous title Mass Effect, where homosexual relationships are available by default:
"First of all, I want to apologize that this is taking so long to get in the game," wrote Hickman in a blog post. "I realise that we promised SGR (same gender relationships) to you guys and that many of you believed that this would be with a companion character. Unfortunately, this will take a lot more work than we realised at the time and it (like some other pieces of content we talked about earlier in the year) has been delayed as we focused on the changes required to take the game Free-to-Play. '"
Please... (Score:3, Interesting)
...don't make RTFA, but where's Disney in all of this?
Re:Srsly? (Score:5, Interesting)
You have the desert planet, the ice planet, the forest moon, the city planet...
Every planet has one damn definable feature. What's so absurd about it when Star Wars is nothing BUT a Planet of Hats [tvtropes.org] type setting?
Re:"Regressive"? (Score:5, Interesting)
This.
Going back and changing scripting and bringing back all the original voice actors to voice new dialog for same-gender/same-sex dialogue is costly and a pain in the ass. So for new content moving forward, they're planning for it.
Bioware is trying to be inclusive by adding the content in the first place. They aren't trying to segregate players.
Re:Why is there flirtatious behavior? (Score:4, Interesting)
So.. Still was against the code in SWTOR's time frame.
Re:"Regressive"? (Score:5, Interesting)
In Dragon Age and Mass Effect, Bioware owned the properties. They could do what they wanted without asking permission.
Adding homosexual content to Star Wars requires the permission of Lucas and LucasArts. Karen Traviss added a gay character/couple in one novel I believe, and it turned into a huge controversy even though it was a minor background character. The debate as to whether or not homosexuality even exists in the Star Wars universe had never been determined. George Lucas is a self-described "hippie" living in Marin County, so it is quite possible he had no problem with it personally, but the Lucas-empire had to decide how it would financially affect the brand.
Amazingly enough, they eventually signed off on it, and homosexuality does apparently exist in Star Wars.
Re:Acceptable (Score:4, Interesting)
5 - 12%, depending on which survey you read
Although the AC troll brings up an interesting point. I theorize that the rate of homosexuality among the geeks n' gamers crowd is probably higher than in the general population, if only because of the outsider appeal of the subculture. In my experience, us nerds are generally less judgmental about inconsequential things like sexual orientation and focus on things that really matter, like Who Shot First, or whether SSDs have finally solved the cost/performance ratio problem. Additionally, gamers skew younger (even with us Gen Xers bumping up the numbers), and young people tend to be more tolerant of gay folk too, in their way.
In any case, I'm growing a few throat oysters for Bioware the next time I see them walking down the street. They totally caved on their commitment to GLBT, which was a major reason I bought the game to begin with. At first it was "we'll definitely have gay stuff", and then around release they said "we'll have it in a content patch", and later they shoved queers back into the closet with "it will be a companion relationship only, so other people don't have to be grossed out by your gayness". Now they're backing away from that too? Just goes to show, a few Jesus nuts can really fuck it up for the rest of us when corporate interests are involved.
Support indie devs! Invest in crowdsource projects! Freedom is cheaper and better made.
Re:Go be gay over there... (Score:5, Interesting)
"If you dont approve of my behavior youre a bigot", is that how it is?
No, disapproving of people because they are gay makes you a bigot. Being gay is not a choice someone made, just like being black or a woman isn't.
Would I be a bigot for example if I disapproved of seeing someone else commit adultery?
Depends. You can disapprove of adulterous behaviour because when it is a choice and it is harming that person's partner. On the other hand there are situations where it is usually deemed acceptable by society and the law at large, such as when a couple is separated but not yet finally divorced or when both parties agree to have other sexual partners.
The main point is that adultery is a chosen behaviour, where as homosexuality is not. Additionally, there mere fact that two people of the same sex are married does not harm anyone else.