Same sex romance boycott discussion

Dunno, but they seam to take it serious enough to put in the timeline for their upcoming patches... separate from facial animation fixes.

Yes, well, they were vague enough about the m/m romances in the first place that I'm not giving them latitude until I see what they offer.

Also, I don't think that people who whine in every thread they post in should complain about the whining of others.

If there aren't any references to fisting then I'm uninstalling.

Plus, let's be real, the f/f romances are largely for male players to enjoy, much like "lesbian" porn (for men) vs actual lesbian porn targeted at IRL lesbians.

I don't quite agree. From my experience female players tend to play different characters in terms of gender and sexuality more often.

Seems to me you've missed most of the discussion. Its not just some romances 'got a lot more attention than others' although its very true m/m romances got next to nothing. There are multiple issues and they have been detailed. Extensively btw...

Also this entire line of argument that because bioware 'dudebro' montreal added some very poor content we should just be complacent is one I don't ascribe to. We got treated like second class citizens by this dev team and just because other teams have been actually inclusive and shown us effort doesn't mean these pandering suckers get a pass.

Also I hope you realize bringing attention to a bad product so people dont waste their time or money is not extreme. I applaud the op for being a bro and doing this, even though he got flamed to high heaven

Okay, so I took you at your word and read back through the thread.  Here is what I saw, if I missed anything feel free to point it out to me.

A calling for a boycott followed by a bunch of people saying what a bad idea that is.  A bit of trolling back and forth, an accusation of homophobia followed by some discussion of what is homophobia.  Some discussion of the moderation of moderators.  One very good point that most seemed to miss "My concern with a boycott is that it will send the message that games that care about social issues at all don't sell,", a concern I deeply share as well.  Accusations that BW wasn't honest, still not clear about what.  Then some delving into f/f romances being more popular, and that's about it.

The only point I saw any specific listing of grievances was a single line in the very first post. "gay male romance options being limited to only two non-party characters, as well as heavily censored romance scenes compared to other romance options".  If there is more to it than that I'd love to hear it.  Seriously.   From the looks of it, if I have accurately recorded the thread, I don't see much discussion about what is actually being boycotted that I missed.

I'll refrain from saying anything else till then.

Well, you have a whole thread here about a boycott without ever telling anyone what the boycott is about.  Getting mad people don't know what your boycott is about seems a little childish to me.  Maybe OP should have linked that article instead of it taking 6 pages before anyone even knew what we were arguing over.  Lots of people are going to be either new to this forum (like me) or don't peruse outside game sites much (like me again).

Having read the linked article I understand better at least what the complaints are, though it is still very much a biting the hand that feeds you situation.  I know not having as many choices and even the ones you do have might not be great is terribly disappointing, but it is only because BW has set such a high standard for this content already.  I can't think of any other developer that even tries to come close.

As for me "not undestanding"  Hah.  I tell you what, if you think a 10 second sex scene in a video game is something worth boycotting over, boy things sure have changed.  In the long list of things that have disappointed, embarrassed,  threatened, and marginalized me over the course of my life I could only wish that a video game was at that top of that list. :smh:

I love BW for including any content that I can identify with.  That's not to say you or anyone else needs to just sit down shut and be happy with scraps.  I haven't seen them yet so I'm not sure how the f/f romance scenes were handled but if someone told me they were just side characters with fade to black moments would I be angry? Yep sure hell would be. Would I complain loudly about it on the forum so BW hears the feedback (which they clearly have it seems in this case according to their recent announcement)? Yes I certainly would but I'm not going to 'bite the hand that feeds me' trying to organize boycotts of one of the few game developers that actually goes out of their way to pander to me.

So complain, raise a ruckus, flip some tables over if you have to, but at least tell people what all the noise is about, and do try and keep it in perspective.  Of all the game developers out there Bioware above all others takes the concerns of LGBT community seriously and I have no doubt they will act on the feedback given.  Trying to actively punish BW or organize boycotts of their products though, yeah that seems pretty extreme to me.

In fact I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the first story DLC ends up giving us one of the best m/m romances we've ever seen in a BW game exactly in response to the feedback much the same way the Shadow Broker DLC came out after so many Liara-mancers practically burned down the old BW boards after ME2 released.  Wouldn't surprise me one bit. 

So tell them exactly what the problems are and how you want to see it resolved (the male romance improvement thread looks like a great one to try and get some support behind and a place to tell them exactly what you want and don't want to see in a m/m romance from BW).  Maybe have a little faith in Bioware to fix it too.

There's nothing wrong in theory with non-squad romances.

The problem is not QUANTITY, but QUALITY.

Reyes is a very well received character, but the fact is the amount and depth of romantic content you get with him pales in comparison to the straight male options.

Particularly, the animations.

Moreover, both Gil and Reyes are made with the ugly character creator assets instead of being unique art assets. What happens is that I can see NPC clones of these characters all across the game. In Addison's office I see a Reyes Vidal clone with different hairstyle.

Cora and Peebee have different body types. All the males in ME:A have the exact same body type. ME1 &2 suffered from this malady until ME3 introduced James Vega, but then James Vega was cruelly withheld from gay players while they gave them a butt ugly character creator mess that was Steve Cortez, who looked like some random NPC off the Citadel.

So I hope their "fix" isn't to give us shitty ass alien romance with Jaal and call it a day. Because alien romances are a joke.

Clean up the appearances of our romance option, give Reyes a couple more distinctive features or at least a unique attire much like Sloane is actually a unique looking character. Gil is hard to salvage being a character who is dark skinned yet has orange rust hair in the most unnatural way possible and a bald spot on his chin where stubble apparently doesn't grow.

Clean up the animations with Scott/Reyes so you aren't just a female copy paste animation. Give Reyes an actual post-game dialogue in Kadara and make him visit the ship for romance scenes during the game.

Quality, not quantity.

I also speak from personal experience. Therefore, since this is all subjective, we'll have to wait for someone to do a study, I suppose.