Dragon Age’s lead writer David Gaider has said he’d like the industry to get to a point where same-sex relationships in games don’t need to be discussed, but are just accepted as perfectly normal.
Speaking on his blog, and re-posted by Polygon, Gaider said there’s still corners in the gaming community in which a plot dealing with gay subject matter is considered “a personal insult.”
“There are people out there for whom the presence of any gay content will automatically render it “the gay game.” The presence of two bisexual male followers in Dragon Age 2, only one of whom made advances on a male player without first being flirted with, means ‘every man in Thedas is gay and wants my man-meat,’” he said.
“These are the same people for whom the mere existence of a gay character, or a plot that deals with gay subject matter, really anything that forces them to acknowledge that homosexuality so much as exists, is going to be a personal insult. I remind myself that it’s not that much to include, and really it’s very little in comparison to the entire rest of the game … and thus, considering what it means to those fans who receive that validation almost nowhere else, it’s not too much to demand a bit of tolerance and compassion from the portion of the audience for whom this content is not even intended.”
Gaider said he hopes someday the topic no longer needs to be discussed and it’s just simply expected.
“It seems like the presence of a discussion at all leads some to moan about how it’s all everyone even talks about, and how it dominates the videogame industry … as if it could, as if that’s a thing that’s even remotely happening, or as if the issue’s already settled and couldn’t everyone just talk about something more relevant to me now,” he continued.
“The more that gets said, the more it reinforces my belief that there’s a place for such discussion right now, that it’s needed. That’s how attitudes change, after all. I’m not going to pretend we already live in tomorrow, but acknowledging the criticism and striving to do better is — as an industry — how I think we’ll eventually get there.”
The latest entry in the franchise, Dragon Age: Inquisition, is slated for release on PC, PlayStation 3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One in the third quarter.
