No Need to Hide

23 Jan

So today Gameranx is apparently feeling like messing with my (perhaps excessive) emotional attachment to the Dragon Age series. First, they post that

I have a small, private freakout because that’s one of my favorite components of BioWare games, click on the link, and discover that the story was clearly the result of misinformation, as Gameranx had already updated it with a tweet from Mike Laidlaw assuring fans that romances would still be included (and optional) in the game.

The next tweet from Gameranx reads as follows:

I go to this link with a good deal more annoyance than fear, not at BioWare, but at the idea that this is even somehow remotely newsworthy. The article begins, “Dragon Age: Inquisition lead writer David Gaider won’t hide the game’s homosexual options behind some sort of sexuality toggle.” Yes, sexuality toggle. Because players shouldn’t have to be subjected – apparently – to unwanted advances from a person of the same/opposite gender. Because that never happens in real life.

Of course, what the request really means is “Please create a toggle so that I can continue to live my privileged straight male existence without ever having to be hit on by a man.” Gaider responded with this:

“when it comes to content options like the so-called ‘gay toggle’ …my question would be ‘why?’ We don’t allow the player to de-select other sorts of content. A ‘violence’ toggle? A ‘mention of slavery’ toggle? A ‘sexual situations’ toggle? Why would we have a ‘gay’ toggle? Even if that was just to set the player’s personal preference, and we didn’t think that was incredibly on-the-nose to put up front, would de-selecting the ‘gay’ toggle mean a player should expect to encounter no gay characters? Ever? You don’t think there are those who would interpret it as exactly that?”

The point of including certain experiences in the game is to allow players choice, not privilege. In fact, the whole of the Dragon Age experience is largely about confronting privilege and persecution, teaching players how to negotiate persecution of either themselves or their family/friends (especially in Dragon Age II, where the player must either play as a mage or have a sibling who is a mage, an oppressed class in Kirkwall). The game forces its player to confront these things, so why would Gaider’s team allow players to deliberately avoid something that might make them uncomfortable and force them to broaden their perspective?

And that’s not even addressing the bigotry that a demand to “un-gay” a game actually demonstrates.

Good on BioWare for taking the high road here and supporting diversity in games and the gaming community, despite the fussing of certain privileged fans. Good on them for being willing to take the risk of alienating their supposed demographic of the 20-30something straight white male by forcing “him” to experience the possibly unwanted advances of male digital characters. Good on them for being unwilling to compromise their ethic just to cater to the supposed image of what a videogame should be – and good on them for creating a precedent that future games will hopefully follow.