March 2011
78 posts
All is well.
- Dad: Bad storm. Much hail. No power. Sipping brandy. All is well.
My mom said she'd really stop smoking if I could get more than 1,000 notes on this post
Please re-blog! I care about my mom
“Straight Male Gamer” told to ‘get over it’ by BioWare →
nomorelost.org
BioWare, the development firm responsible for Dragon Age Online, recently received feedback from a “straight male gamer” (his words). He was upset that relationships in the MMORPG could be (a) non-heterosexual and (b) non-monogamous. He claimed that this situation was not meeting his needs as a consumer and that as the majority demographic (or what he perceived to be the majority demographic) he should have a greater say in the structure of the game.
BioWare’s response was to call him out on his privilege and tell him everyone had the right to play the game and enjoy in-game relationships, not just straight males. Below is an excerpt, click the link to read the rest.
The romances in the game are not for “the straight male gamer”. They’re for everyone. We have a lot of fans, many of whom are neither straight nor male, and they deserve no less attention. We have good numbers, after all, on the number of people who actually used similar sorts of content in DAO and thus don’t need to resort to anecdotal evidence to support our idea that their numbers are not insignificant… and that’s ignoring the idea that they don’t have just as much right to play the kind of game they wish as anyone else. The “rights” of anyone with regards to a game are murky at best, but anyone who takes that stance must apply it equally to both the minority as well as the majority. The majority has no inherent “right” to get more options than anyone else.
More than that, I would question anyone deciding they speak for “the straight male gamer” just as much as someone claiming they speak for “all RPG fans”, “all female fans” or even “all gay fans”. You don’t. If you wish to express your personal desires, then do so. I have no doubt that any opinion expressed on these forums is shared by many others, but since none of them have elected a spokesperson you’re better off not trying to be one. If your attempt is to convince BioWare developers, I can tell you that you do in fact make your opinion less convincing by doing so.
And if there is any doubt why such an opinion might be met with hostility, it has to do with privilege. You can write it off as “political correctness” if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They’re so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance. They don’t see anything wrong with having things set up to suit them, what’s everyone’s fuss all about? That’s the way it should be, any everyone else should be used to not getting what they want.
David Gaider at Bioware is my hero for today.
The Sims make me barf
When I was pregnant with my son, I asked for and received the original Sims game for some holiday. I’ve been playing Sim City since its first DOS version, so I was pretty excited for a new look at an old game.
But oh man, I hated that game. SO BORING. Get up, take a shower, go to work, clean the house, etc., etc. Why do I want to play a game that is just like life? Boring.
I had morning sickness pretty bad at the time, and was always sick to my stomach. It got to the point where I just had to hear the theme music and I would start to retch.
But, I thought I’d give Sims Medieval a chance. It looked like the gameplay would be different enough that I wouldn’t find it as boring as The Sims. But you know what - just seeing that little spinning green diamond made me about lose my dinner.
Pavlov’s dogs got nothin’ on me.
