One of the few developers that has been ahead of the curve in terms of both gender equality and sexual orientation options is Bioware. The developer of Mass Effect and Dragon Age has always put an emphasis on romance in its games and since Jade Empire’s release, the company has been trying to include a variety of romantic interests for its characters that more accurately represents the diversity of the real world.
In a recent interview with The Edge VGS, Bioware writer David Gaider spoke about his early involvement with including gay romance options in Bioware’s RPGs and what it was like to work for one of the first AAA developers taking that major step forward.
The writer explained that early on there was a lot of concern about how the public and the mass market of gamers would react. The team definitely acknowledged the concerns, but felt that what they were doing was important and “needed to happen.” Years later, now that gay romances are a regular staple of Bioware games, Gaider says the change never really hurt the bottom line.
The backlash that Gaider mentions definitely still exists in some parts of the gaming world, but it certainly hasn’t held Mass Effect or Dragon Age back from becoming best-selling franchises. The romance systems in Bioware games are far from perfect and there are still lots of valid criticisms of the games’ branching decision tree formulas in general, but there’s no denying that the writers are making a serious effort to engage gamers from all walks of life. In a gaming landscape when almost every protagonist looks and acts exactly the same, it is definitely refreshing to take control of a character that feels unique and stands out from the crowd.
“We’re putting out something that appeals to players who don’t traditionally get represented in games, so maybe more of them come to play the games… Maybe it’s just enough to make up for the ones that are turned off by that. But, ultimately, it hasn’t really affected our sales insofar as we can tell. So, the idea of how commercial a consideration it is kind of goes out the window and we can focus on just doing the right thing.”
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Source: The Edge VGS
