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Posted By Austin Yorski about 2 months, 1 week ago
Acceptance doesn’t have always-online requirements.
As you may recall, Electronic Arts is perhaps the most outspoken advocate for equality in the gaming industry. First they stood against the Defense of Marriage Act. Then they joined the Human Rights Campaign. As early as last week, they began planning a private Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender gaming conference.
Then this happened.
In honor of the “Hate Is Not A Game” symposium going on in New York right now, EA released the above video to showcase the LGBT characters in their releases. Considering the fact that this is a bit of a touchy subject, I’ll keep the editorializing to a minimum. However, I will say that I appreciate the thought.
While I should be pleased that more companies are supporting for the LGBT community,it’s coming from EA meaning they are as trustworthy as a conman promising me that s/he will not steal anymore money from more innocent victims. I don’t trust them to not use this as means to fix their terrible reputation.
I found Mass Effect and Dragon Age series both lack character with any gender identity, I remember one character in these games which was not ether bisexual or heterosexual and had it be a part of his character.
But I’m not going to swear by it but I only remember one.
It was mentioned a couple of times but the only definitive fleshing out of a gender came from the Krogan since their race had a clear distinction in the role of the female due to their exposure to the genophage. It was touched on very lightly with the Asari mainly in ME1 with the relationship between Liara’s mother and “father” as she saw the other Asari or at least as it could be communicated to a non Asari. But yea for the most part we got touchings of gender meaning but nothing really deep. Same with Dragon Age though while its changed a little from 1 to 2 in that the PC had a voice and a clear gender it had very little bearing on the dialog at it went along with 2 being even worse since it was very sterilized in having almost no multi race interactions on the level of Origins so very little in understandings the genders of the races we worked with. Part of that could be linked to the way its written for the PC interactions who is largely a blank slate so the dialog is very homogeneous and lacking any inflection towards either gender.
Okay, this is going to sound really terrible and feel free to downvote, but I’m honestly thinking that the only reason EA are advocating LGBT rights and support is because they have have some REALLY bad PR lately, with being voted the worst company in America a while back, the while Simcity fiasco, and firing the team behind Army of Two amongst other things.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m GLAD they are standing up for the LGBT community and even if this is the case good will doubtless come of it, but at the same to me it also reeks of “Hey look at us, we support eqality when noone else in the gaming world bothers to do so! We are the good guys!”
That is an opinion that is popular on the Youtube channel for the vid. No comments are mean and snide toward the vid or anything it pertains to other than a very small number of the usual troll post. Many just see is as a shoddy sympathy ploy regardless of stated user orientation since it gives nothing informative or overall positive. I rather agree with that sentiment especially since it falls right on the heels of a disastrous release and the vid does little to bolster their claims at how great their writing has been pertaining to LGBT relationships and comes off rather crude than insightful into the community.
That’s 100% how I feel about this, and I feel like this video proves it in how badly-done it is. Really? About 1 scene from Dragon Age and Mass Effect each and then just pad it out with Sims (which as a simulation of people’s lives honestly shouldn’t be considered much of an achievement towards LGBT acceptance, it’s merely doing its job as a simulation). Added onto that, it’s all footage of gay people flirting or in love, and not doing anything that would be considered important in their respective games.
If EA branched out of their box and treated it more like the gaming culture or industry celebrating their LGBT community, they should have taken some footage from other sources too, especially Obsidian games, with how well their gay characters are written, and maybe bits of Persona 4; but NOT FREAKING SHADOW KANJI, THAT’D BE TOO STEROTYPICA- What am I saying? EA would do stereotypical because they just don’t understand people, only money.
I just find it really sad how far you can miss the mark from your intention and start being condescending instead of accepting. I’m not gay, but if I was, I’d see this as EA saying: ‘You guys are so quirking with your constant flirting and your making out with the same sex. Did we tell you we love you guys? Do you wanna make out with us, with your money? We’d really appreciate your money. Money!’ and just devolve into incoherent babble regarding how much they love money until someone wheels them offstage for their dementia meds.
err, I think they didn’t use Obsidian characters due to the video being about EA’s efforts (title of the video is “EA full spectrum – Hate is not a game”) not that of the gaming community at large.
Also the constant making out in the video? I think its just a simple way to establish orientation. I mean forgive me If I’m wrong (not exactly master of the social skills myself), but its a clear indicator of feelings for the pair in each shot that is clearly romantic without needing to be censored.
Still it seems a shame that their only representation seems to be entirely Bioware productions. Might wanna prod some of the other developers you own EA.
But therein lies the problem and how it’s obviously just an EA promotional vehicle. They’re only showing EA games, and they released it on the internet. They’re clearly not just trying to show appreciation to their LGBT workers, they are just trying to gain a strong LGBT community following from consumers like Disney does. Which is fine with me, it’s their prerogative as a business to promote, as long as you openly express it.
It’s just that this and the fact that EA are a horrible company to their consumer base, especially recently, is highly suspect. It feels more like grasping at straws than legitimacy.
Its an interesting theory, but I’m doubtful. Mostly because Gay Marriage and other LGBT issues are extremely controversial.
Seems to me if they wanted easy PR for joining the political landscape they could have found something they would be less likely to turn people off, like making a puppy orphanage or something.
Then again, videogames have a younger audience which I’ve seen surveys and polls say are generally more likely to be accepting of LGBT people.
On the other hand, the various stereotypes of the average person on Xbox live etc.
If nothing else, this video seems to be more a statement of intention, as a bunch of sims and bioware characters aren’t really a enormous effort on their writing staff.
I think they picked this issue due to the flack coming from the lack of same sex relationships in SWTOR and then the paywall/DLC that added them to the game. Again its my opinion just by looking at series of events.
Agreed, oh so very much agreed.
While this does seem all-too plausible, I think a key factor here is also that someone in EA is actually very homosexual. I mean Mass Effect and Dragon Age getting all those options and to the point where it raised controversy and they defended their decision to add it there.
Same person probably pitched the idea to the PR department and got the go-ahead.
I do need to ask, did any of you guys read the notes regarding the conference?
I am currently compiling them to write an editorial, but considering the information gleamed from the conference, I would say EA is not doing this for good PR at all. If anything it is too forward thinking and not as ham-handed as you think.
I have read nothing about the conference besides what’s been on BT. I have intelligent, better educated folk to do that for me.
So get cracking on that editorial, I could use a some summarized insight.
BT is the only place I’ve heard of it, so no I have no idea what’s on there.
And “not for good PR at all”? I am so curious to hear how that goes. Are they making a “Add more lesbians for all the straight players” move or “how to attract the pink dollar and not piss-off the conservatives” workshop?
Shows how little they have to pad it with Sims stuff. Though why not Cortez instead of Kadian as he was a lot more awesome. Also boo not letting Justice be a choice in DA:2.
It’s kind of nice, but gay people do more than make out all the time.
Well, I suppose the other option was… what exactly? How do you accurately display the difference between two same sex friends and two same sex lovers? I think it would’ve been far more offensive to blatantly stereotype. I know when my boyfriend and I are out and about no one would see our activities as anything but two friends hanging out. I didn’t take that video as representative that gay couples just sit around snogging every minute of the day.
huh. well okay then.
I feel EA might turn this into a sales pitch and a giant advertisement… Expect controversy.
And I guess this’ll add more lesbians to games.
They have good intentions but they way they showed their support was somewhat flawed in that video. I’m pretty sure that gay people don’t act that way all the time and understand what’s appropriate in any given situation.
I am confused as to what was so offensive in that video. To me it showed gay couples acting how many hetero couples act in the same given situations. It’s almost as if people are uncomfortable with the idea of a gay couple showing adulation in a public area. While I think such actions are distasteful; hetero couples quite often share kisses in the public eye.