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Misc => Gaming => Topic started by: sylar on May 08, 2014, 02:14

Title: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: sylar on May 08, 2014, 02:14
bunch of sources for this but heres one i have on hand (http://www.avclub.com/article/nintendo-says-theres-no-place-gay-marriage-its-pla-204343)

isnt it just dandy that this is said and done on the same day they announce hoenn remakes? im not saying they used hoenn as a cover up for this tripe, but you gotta admit its a pretty nice save on their part :^)
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Richard and Blaziken on May 08, 2014, 02:22
Really bad move on their part, imo. There's no reason for this in 2014.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Delicious_Scout on May 08, 2014, 05:24
This is not new. They did the same fo the DS version in Japan, although the first patches did allow us to marry whoever we wanted.

*EDIT* My Body will not be ready for my cutie Reggie D,:
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: SaRo|Rapidash on May 08, 2014, 07:32
I don't really care much, tbh, I mean it's not like they've said they don't agree with it, but this is a virtual world where such a thing might be unthinkable or whatever. I think it's a little off, but nothing huge because Nintendo have to balance their workload with the gain they'll get. Roughly 1% of the population is gay, whereas many countries are inherently against gay marriage, so they'd have to balance out whether the gain they'd get from adding such a feature is worth both their time and the possible drop in sales.

Edit: noticed a really inappropriately placed exclamation mark autocorrect had snuck in
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Lord Raven on May 08, 2014, 17:54
Really bad move on their part, imo. There's no reason for this in 2014.
Yes there is because gay marriage is still not backed 100%.  Not many states in the US have legalized gay marriage, and then you have some more of the middle east which believes it to be heathenous.  And last I checked, multimillion dollar companies exist to make money.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: sylar on May 08, 2014, 21:25
idk its mostly their wording that bothers me
i get gay marriage is An Issue but saying "this is a lighthearted fantasy world, there wouldnt be gays here" doesnt make much sense and is a bit of a piss poor excuse

if they did straight up say theyre not ready to do it/theyd release a patch allowing it if there was enough demand, itd probably help their case a little more, but saying gay marriage wouldnt be allowed in a lighthearted game thats really a life sim is sort of flimsy imo
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 09, 2014, 02:03
It doesn't surprise me really. Given how Nintendo have been doing financially they will want to play it as safe as possible because sadly in 2014 being 'pro gay' isn't the safe choice. Same applies to a lot of companies who do the same by keeping games heterosexual by default, I don't think they are homophobic in doing so; probably the total opposite, but they probably just want to make games and never have to think about social controversy.

The reality actually is though, the change in attitudes to homosexuality in videogames will have to be driven by these companies at least in part, so they can't just bury their heads in the sand until it becomes socially acceptable and then suddenly change videogames as appropriate. They will have to face this issue sooner or later. I think that's just how society is going.

But yeah, the 'quirky' comment is badly phrased and not really relevant at all. It sounds like they're trying to distance themselves from the issue as much as possible. In their defense though, I'm pretty sure the marriage mechanic of Tomodachi Life really isn't supposed to be taken as seriously as games like The Sims or even Harvest Moon. Seems to me like the tumblr crowd is making a lot of noise over this because they were hyped over the trailers but don't quite understand the bigger picture, it's not as though it's Nintendo's responsibility to be social crusaders anyway.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Lord Raven on May 09, 2014, 07:31
Article hit the nail on the head.  It's clumsy PR.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Richard and Blaziken on May 10, 2014, 03:56
From Nintendo's official Facebook:

"We apologize for disappointing many people by failing to include same-sex relationships in Tomodachi Life. Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to change this game’s design, and such a significant development change can’t be accomplished with a post-ship patch. At Nintendo, dedication has always meant going beyond the games to promote a sense of community, and to share a spirit of fun and joy. We are committed to advancing our longtime company values of fun and entertainment for everyone. We pledge that if we create a next installment in the Tomodachi series, we will strive to design a game-play experience from the ground up that is more inclusive, and better represents all players."

I think this is pretty cool, whether or not it's true that it can't be patched. They're not ignoring the issue, and that's something.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: SaRo|Rapidash on May 10, 2014, 07:24
Yeah,I saw that post, but what's annoying me is all the people in the comments saying stuff like "Nintendo, you don't need to apologise to such extremists".

....how is wanting gay mii's extremism? Like, they're not bombing Nintendo or even encouraging a boycott or something >_>
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes on May 10, 2014, 10:23
unfortunetly this could also be because japan is still terribly cagey about gays, despite the tomes of yaoi suggesting otherwise

hence the "eh, in the next game we'll uh, wider audience, whatever" attitude  where they've still not explicitly said "yes gay marriage will be in the next game"
a possibility for the whole "sorry the localisers can't do 'owt" is probably cos that'd be messing w/ core code and then you have to send it through the debugging process and they probably dont view gay marriage on the same level as literal shipment-stopping bugs unfortunetly

on a cultural level, they haven't legalised or wholly recognise gay marriage and just over half the people polled in japan said they dont support gay marriage 1 (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/03/18/national/52-4-of-japanese-say-they-oppose-same-sex-marriage/) and the country as a whole struggles a bit w/ lgbt, feminism, race issues etc, in general (groping of females on the mixed gender carriages, no sexual harassment laws ,xenophobia to the point where to the point where the UN is all 'uh' (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2010/02/26/national/japan-faces-u-n-racism-criticism/))
not to mention they're still in the "ha ha look at that gay, they're so wacky and funny to laugh at" stage with these things which is why you have stuff like "Hard Gay", but still no nationwide civil rights against discrimination for lgbt status

which is surprising cos, just like the west, in the ancient times they were gay as all hell i.e. sleeping w/ young boys (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=a6q-PqPDAmIC&pg=PA26&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false) and such, (cf. roman/greek times where we'd all bugger each other senselessly) but suddenly the modern age makes a heterosexual prude out of everyone, who knew

you probably gotta go into longwinded reasons about pre- and post-meiji restoration or some other thing to find out the reasons for this, no "bliggghhgh crhistianity forbids the gays!!!!" cos christianity didn't really make a big hit there (its a literal minority religion)

like its not a wasteland and there is lgbt movements and stuff ofc??? they're not north korea about it,  but its still a bit of a Cultural Problem atm




well this was an embarassingly long carepost about japans attitudes to gays,
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Delicious_Scout on May 10, 2014, 10:25
Many would say: «Create two different versions; one for non-gay communities and another one for PKMN.NET the ones who accept homosexuality». The problem is that this game is totally on-line; hence, that would mean that the two games should work using separated servers, and this is a pain to create AND creates a feeling of discordance (not to be confused with disco-r-dance).

«Why do not you tell the "non-straight" haters not to buy the game?». Because this is even more exclusive. Although I heavily disagree with their point of view with respect to this issue, they as well have the right to have fun with Nintendo products. In fact, I am pretty sure most of Nintendo Asia shareholders (but younger generations, if they happen to invest in the stock market, and they are pretty little ocmpared to most of adult population) have a sense of dignity and honour that do not allow them to accept love between people of the same gender. I hope I am wrong.

«Why did you make a game similar to "The Sims"?». Because VANANA, that's why!
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Wolstenholme on May 10, 2014, 10:38
I don't know if this would even work but I think they could have just not mentioned it at all and made it like the sims where it's a little crazy and anyone can marry anyone because surely the anti-gay people wouldn't make two male or two female characters get married anyway? So they might not even notice it because by including it Nintendo wouldn't be forcing them to marry two males together. By making a big deal about it they just inflamed the argument and made both anti-homosexuals and pro-homosexuals angry. They remind me of 12 year olds on social networking sites who post their own views and then let everyone else argue over the issue.


I hate moral arguments :(
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 10, 2014, 16:42
unfortunetly this could also be because japan is still terribly cagey about gays, despite the tomes of yaoi suggesting otherwise

hence the "eh, in the next game we'll uh, wider audience, whatever" attitude  where they've still not explicitly said "yes gay marriage will be in the next game"
a possibility for the whole "sorry the localisers can't do 'owt" is probably cos that'd be messing w/ core code and then you have to send it through the debugging process and they probably dont view gay marriage on the same level as literal shipment-stopping bugs unfortunetly

on a cultural level, they haven't legalised or wholly recognise gay marriage and just over half the people polled in japan said they dont support gay marriage 1 (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/03/18/national/52-4-of-japanese-say-they-oppose-same-sex-marriage/) and the country as a whole struggles a bit w/ lgbt, feminism, race issues etc, in general (groping of females on the mixed gender carriages, no sexual harassment laws ,xenophobia to the point where to the point where the UN is all 'uh' (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2010/02/26/national/japan-faces-u-n-racism-criticism/))
not to mention they're still in the "ha ha look at that gay, they're so wacky and funny to laugh at" stage with these things which is why you have stuff like "Hard Gay", but still no nationwide civil rights against discrimination for lgbt status

which is surprising cos, just like the west, in the ancient times they were gay as all hell i.e. sleeping w/ young boys (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=a6q-PqPDAmIC&pg=PA26&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false) and such, (cf. roman/greek times where we'd all bugger each other senselessly) but suddenly the modern age makes a heterosexual prude out of everyone, who knew

you probably gotta go into longwinded reasons about pre- and post-meiji restoration or some other thing to find out the reasons for this, no "bliggghhgh crhistianity forbids the gays!!!!" cos christianity didn't really make a big hit there (its a literal minority religion)

like its not a wasteland and there is lgbt movements and stuff ofc??? they're not north korea about it,  but its still a bit of a Cultural Problem atm




well this was an embarassingly long carepost about japans attitudes to gays,

Japan isn't cagey about gays at all, the general attitude you will get from even the most traditional rural folk is that it's fine to be gay so long as you have children, it sounds (and is) a strange mentality to have but there you go. Japan's problem is that they are traditionalists as opposed to strictly defined homophobes or xenophobes and there is in fact a very large portion of Christians in Japan who are very uptight about their standards. You will find lots of people in Japan who have no problem with gays but are against gay marriage because it goes against the traditions of marriage.

It's part of the same mindset that dictates that the oldest person in a company will take over from a CEO before a younger, more skilled person. There is very much a grandfather complex.

Also, Japan Times = not a great source. I wouldn't go for asahi either.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes on May 10, 2014, 22:33
it's fine to be gay so long as you have children, it sounds (and is) a strange mentality to have but there you go.

i thought the general opinion was "well its ok if you're gay but keep it indoors" in that kind of reserved "we dont want any gay stuff in this house" sense

also re: having kids are you talking about gay adoption, how does that work out exactly for anyone but a usual traditional heterosexual japanese nuclear family

Quote
are against gay marriage because it goes against the traditions of marriage

how is this different from, say, the republican or tory backbencher view on gay marriage, both of which are lauded for being inherently homophobic

discounting the usual ITS A SIN reasons, of course

Quote
Japan's problem is that they are traditionalists as opposed to strictly defined homophobes or xenophobes

dont you think the latter stems from the former on the platform of ideological conservatism anyway, like the korea/ainu/burakkumin discrimination might be "traditional" but its still racism



p.s. i only brought up christianity since its the oft cited reason why we hate gays in the west, not sure why you've commented on japanese christians being uptight?
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 10, 2014, 23:17
Because many Japanese themselves are actually highly against marriage in Japan and the Japanese family registry system (戸籍 (koseki)) it entials. The majority of the LGBT community in Japan do not want the right to marriage either.

Most Western Journalists have a very skewed idea of homosexuality in Japan and believe that they are some way behind the west. This is not true at all. Read this if you want good background info rather than western journalists who rely upon hearsay and stereotypes: http://gimmeaqueereye.org/entry/173
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 10, 2014, 23:56
In the begining, I figured that Nintendo didn't want to raise a big fuss over a sim game and just wanted to go with a very conservative approach to the game. Most likely, they didn't want to potentially offend anyone homophobic, because usually they raise the biggest fuss right?

But now that I think about it, I can't help but feel that the LGBT movement has reached some sort of critical mass where both sides of the argument for and against homosexuality seem to be just as loud. The fact that Nintendo has issued an apology and has actually bothered to adress this part of the community is certainly a right step in the direction for equality in sexuality.

Even from a profit point of view, a game from a typically familly friendly company shipping with same sex marriage is bound to create attention and controversy. I feel that Nintendo would be even better off if the game; surely the game would practically advertise itself through controversy, à la GTA (although maybe that's not a totally apt comparison)? 

Still, I can see that Nintendo of America/Europe can't really do too much about a Japanese game. It seems that when it came out here, it was already finished and released in Japan so I can understand why they couldn't patch it immediately.
discounting the usual ITS A SIN reasons, of course

p.s. i only brought up christianity since its the oft cited reason why we hate gays in the west, not sure why you've commented on japanese christians being uptight?
As for the source of homophobia in the Bible, it seems that at the time the Bible was compiled/written (or even as far back as the Torah), homosexuality was always linked with rape and violence in many instances. I can't help but feel that this representation has caused all homosexuality to be condemmed by the church.
Then the other source comes from the Catholic Natural Law form of ethics, which is another thing entirely. I'd like to go in more detail but maybe another time.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 11, 2014, 00:46
The whole thing is overblown on both sides. Complaining about Nintendo not having gay marriage in their game is an unnecessary attack on Nintendo, there is literally no difference in complaining about it in Tomodachi Life compared to complaining about it in any other game that features marriage (The Sims, Harvest Moon, FE:A). People only choose to complain because they have this false idea that Japan falls behind the west in acceptance of homosexuals when nothing could be further from the truth (as mentioned above).

Quote
In the begining, I figured that Nintendo didn't want to raise a big fuss over a sim game and just wanted to go with a very conservative approach to the game. Most likely, they didn't want to potentially offend anyone homophobic, because usually they raise the biggest fuss right?

In the beginning, I doubt they really gave a crap either way. Tomodachi Life is not some kind of serious life simulator, it's just a surreal, comedic extension of Mii plaza that borrows heavily from Animal Crossing. Marriage is not as integral to the game as people seem to think, so they did not over-complicate the mechanics behind it; that's really as far as this goes. I don't know why people seem to think they are having their civil rights taken away from them or something.

Given how Nintendo is doing financially I have no idea why minority groups (or people who think it is their job to speak for them) would want to attack the most undoubtedly inclusive games company of the big 3 and give more reasons for the competitors to tear them down and throw mud at them, it's almost as though they WANT to be left with a market dominated by just Sony and Microsoft.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 11, 2014, 02:39
The article you linked definately raises one valid possibility; that of people wanting to believe that their movement has spread over to Japan to free them from their conservative ways. At the same time, I don't think that it's solely a Japanese thing. I think that if any of the major companies released some sort of comedic life sim without same-sex marriage but still straight marriage then people will still raise the same big fuss over it.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 11, 2014, 03:08
The article you linked definately raises one valid possibility; that of people wanting to believe that their movement has spread over to Japan to free them from their conservative ways. At the same time, I don't think that it's solely a Japanese thing. I think that if any of the major companies released some sort of comedic life sim without same-sex marriage but still straight marriage then people will still raise the same big fuss over it.

The article shows a lot more than that, much of which I think you may be conveniently ignoring.

I didn't see the same fuss being made over any of the Harvest Moon games of which marriage is a far more integral part of the game's mechanics. Was an apology ever forced out of Nintendo for those games? How about all of the other games from Nintendo which only allow players to take the 'straight route'? This ultimately comes down to a select, audible group of fans who had previously received the game with open arms suddenly demanding that all their wishes are met under the guise of the abuse of equal rights. It's a lot of fuss over nothing that has only served to fuel the media circus and given PR ammo other games developers and publishers with outright homophobic rhetoric. If this was an attempt to make the world a better place then the mission has well and truly failed.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Shaymin on May 11, 2014, 13:30
westerners like pushing their western views on japan even though their views on lgtba+ etc, aren't the same as ours. neither is their view of social justice don't get me started on westernised views of certain japanese characteres. gay marriage still isn't legal everywhere anyway, and if they included it there would be hundreds of bible bashers screaming about how nintendo is spreading the "homosexual agenda" and how they won't buy their kids the next cool nintendo game.

they might include it in an optional update later on, but again, western players forget japan is a very different place to where we live.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 11, 2014, 13:51
gay marriage still isn't legal everywhere anyway, and if they included it there would be hundreds of bible bashers screaming about how nintendo is spreading the "homosexual agenda" and how they won't buy their kids the next cool nintendo game.
You mean like what happened with Pokemon? Maybe there's more people against gays than there are against demon pokemon but ultimately, it seems similar enough in principle. 
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Shaymin on May 11, 2014, 14:01
You mean like what happened with Pokemon? Maybe there's more people against gays than there are against demon pokemon but ultimately, it seems similar enough in principle. 
unfortunately, the homophobic side is just as loud as the lgtba+ side, but both sides will demonise anything they don't like, so it's just a big pile of steaming cow leavings. like i said, maybe an optional patch will come out where you don't HAVE to download it that will put gay marriage in. besides it's a really weird game as it is anyway and you don't have to get married? idk
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 11, 2014, 16:02
I think people also mistake Nintendo's role in all of this. These people are fans of Nintendo's videogames, they began playing games and consoles made by Nintendo because they liked them. Nintendo has absolutely no obligation to meet their standards whatsoever. Videogames are still a creative work and it is entirely the discretion of the creator as to what is or is not included.

Would these people complain at and cause an international incident press statement over their favorite musician/band for not including enough songs about same-sex relationships or for not using enough gender neutral pronouns in their songs? I highly doubt it. Nintendo does not owe you any particular game mechanic.


Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 11, 2014, 21:45
I think people also mistake Nintendo's role in all of this. These people are fans of Nintendo's videogames, they began playing games and consoles made by Nintendo because they liked them. Nintendo has absolutely no obligation to meet their standards whatsoever. Videogames are still a creative work and it is entirely the discretion of the creator as to what is or is not included.

Would these people complain at and cause an international incident press statement over their favorite musician/band for not including enough songs about same-sex relationships or for not using enough gender neutral pronouns in their songs? I highly doubt it. Nintendo does not owe you any particular game mechanic.
But if said band made a song that included marriage and said something about how it could only between a man and a woman, that would be controversial, no?
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: SaRo|Rapidash on May 11, 2014, 21:59

Would these people complain at and cause an international incident press statement over their favorite musician/band for not including enough songs about same-sex relationships or for not using enough gender neutral pronouns in their songs? I highly doubt it. Nintendo does not owe you any particular game mechanic.

Most lyrics to love songs are based off of the writers experiences, so why would a straight singer be writing about that anyway? Like... They're hardly going to be able to write about their experiences, are they?

I'm not saying Nintendo was wrong in excluding it - they've just done the norm and have been slandered for it for some reason - but an apology doesn't hurt anyone so there's no reason for them not to?

unfortunately, the homophobic side is just as loud as the lgtba+ side

Louder, from what I've seen/heard, in most cases. They've got more weight, with entire countries at the threat of banning Nintendo, possibly even as a company, from their country.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Delicious_Scout on May 11, 2014, 22:06
I still find surprising people is discussing this theme with such intensity.

I just realised while playing "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" that one can wear any clothes the player wants. Any. This means men can wear dresses and skirts (just make sure the wind is not strong). This is an example of double standards, as I can grasp; another example is that Ancient Greeks did consider homosexuality as the superior sexuality, but found anal intercourses degrading.

Having said that, I will no longer discuss about whether this decision has been erroneous or not, unless there is a flagrant stupidity  in these replies.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Spriter on May 11, 2014, 22:13
I think it's just been made a big hash of when it really shouldn't have been tbh.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 11, 2014, 22:34
But if said band made a song that included marriage and said something about how it could only between a man and a woman, that would be controversial, no?

But that isn't at all what Nintendo are saying and you're completely misunderstanding the difference between someone talking about reality and an artistic work of fiction.

First of all, Tomodachi Life takes place in a surreal fantasy world - it is a work of fiction just as every videogame is, it does not take place in the real world. It does not claim to be a representation of real life or a representation of how real life should be, quite the opposite in fact. For all we know, the archipelago in which the numerous islands of Tomodachi Life reside may all collectively be governed by a law which does not permit same-sex marriage so it wouldn't make any sense for it to be an option

Secondly, we're talking about features here. Unless you personally believe that the right to same-sex marriage is more important than the right to identify as a certain gender, we would then be in a position where gender identity also has to be coded into the game. But then what about ableism? Isn't it offensive that this horrific Tomodachi Island game just assumes I'm not paraplegic and wheelchair bound? This sounds ableist to me and I want a Wheelchair also included in the game, otherwise it's not like real life.

Demanding features to meet the expectations of minorities is a slippery slope because you can split hairs to the nth degree. Of course it would be nice if we could have them; It would be nice if GameFreak brought back the VS seeker, but that doesn't mean that A) They have a personal responsibility to meet my individual expectations and B) It also doesn't mean that I don't want any more Pokemon games until they can give me that feature.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: SaRo|Rapidash on May 11, 2014, 22:39
Secondly, we're talking about features here. Unless you personally believe that the right to same-sex marriage is more important than the right to identify as a certain gender, we would then be in a position where gender identity also has to be coded into the game.

Surely if someone was biologically male but chose to be female identity, they'd just select female and vice versa? I'd argue that including a gender identity would almost be transphobic as it's implying they're not just a regular whatever gender they identify as, if you get what I mean?
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 11, 2014, 23:20
Surely if someone was biologically male but chose to be female identity, they'd just select female and vice versa? I'd argue that including a gender identity would almost be transphobic as it's implying they're not just a regular whatever gender they identify as, if you get what I mean?

Yes I get what you mean and you pretty much just answered the question as to why this is so ridiculous. You can argue either way that including gender selection is transphobic just as much as excluding them could be offensive to people who identify as a particular gender. You really can split hairs on this until every game that isn't a 100% accurate representation of real life is 'offensive' and requires some kind of apology.

I'd say a deeper rooted problem here is that people are expecting corporations and media companies to be an accurate guide to the public on what is acceptable in society and then complaining when they don't meet those expectations. If you are honestly looking toward multifaceted entertainment corporations like Nintendo to rewrite the book on what is socially acceptable to human society then you are the biggest problem in this equation.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: kindtocrows on May 11, 2014, 23:40
Surely if someone was biologically male but chose to be female identity, they'd just select female and vice versa? I'd argue that including a gender identity would almost be transphobic as it's implying they're not just a regular whatever gender they identify as, if you get what I mean?

There are people who identify as non-binary, which is neither male nor female. Not going to get involved in this discussion because I understand where all sides are coming from and I'm not sure what I think, I just wanted to point that out since non-binary people are often forgotten about.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 12, 2014, 01:28
But that isn't at all what Nintendo are saying and you're completely misunderstanding the difference between someone talking about reality and an artistic work of fiction.

First of all, Tomodachi Life takes place in a surreal fantasy world - it is a work of fiction just as every videogame is, it does not take place in the real world. It does not claim to be a representation of real life or a representation of how real life should be, quite the opposite in fact. For all we know, the archipelago in which the numerous islands of Tomodachi Life reside may all collectively be governed by a law which does not permit same-sex marriage so it wouldn't make any sense for it to be an option.

Whether or not same-sex marriage is legal in this fictional world isn't really the point here. In many countries where it is illegal, you will still find people protesting and rallying for its legality. And even though you claim it's not supposed to be a representation of the real world, it's still a game about the interaction between humans. These Miis make friends and rivals in similar ways to the way we do in reality; why should marriage and love be any different? Saying that the game is somehow totally different and wackier than our reality doesn't explain why this particular instance of peoples' lovelife aren't represented.

But then what about ableism? Isn't it offensive that this horrific Tomodachi Island game just assumes I'm not paraplegic and wheelchair bound? This sounds ableist to me and I want a Wheelchair also included in the game, otherwise it's not like real life.

The difference here is that homosexuality is a feature of someone's identity that they are proud of having, and feel that it is an attribute of their self which should not be removed. This is to the point where even to suggest a so called "cure" for it is offensive, as it implies that there is something wrong with them. On the other hand, I don't think there are as many people who can honestly say that they're happy about being stuck in a wheelchair. In fact, there's a chance that some may even play these sorts of games as a sort of "escape" from the reality they're in.

Demanding features to meet the expectations of minorities is a slippery slope because you can split hairs to the nth degree. Of course it would be nice if we could have them; It would be nice if GameFreak brought back the VS seeker, but that doesn't mean that A) They have a personal responsibility to meet my individual expectations and B) It also doesn't mean that I don't want any more Pokemon games until they can give me that feature.

I suppose this is one of my big points in my argument: this isn't the expectation of a minority any more. Of course, there's a minority of people who fall under the LGBT umbrella, but that's not to say that the majority of people don't have an opinion on same-sex marriage. Generally, people are either for homosexuality or against it. There are people who wish to stay out of it, naturally, but for the most part I believe that this is the case. It happens that in this instance, a sufficient amount of people have raised a big enough fuss over this issue that this matter has become one of controversy. An issue on the lack of representation for something such as non-binary gender or the like doesn't get complaints about it because that is a true minority, where there are significantly less people who have a strong opinion on the matter.

I'd say a deeper rooted problem here is that people are expecting corporations and media companies to be an accurate guide to the public on what is acceptable in society and then complaining when they don't meet those expectations. If you are honestly looking toward multifaceted entertainment corporations like Nintendo to rewrite the book on what is socially acceptable to human society then you are the biggest problem in this equation.

People aren't expecting corporations to change what's socially acceptable. Their opinions and beliefs are exactly what form what is socially acceptable. Other games, such as Sims, Skyrim and ME3, recognise this. The problem arises when corporations do not acknowledge these opinions. The deeper rooted problem isnt what people expect from Nintendo, it's what Nintendo expects (maybe not the entirely correct word, but I'll keep it for the sake of rhetoric) of the people. By never having planned to have same-sex marriage as part of the game, Nintendo are essentially saying that only the traditional, heterosexual marriage is 'normal', and that same-sex marriage is not significant enough to bother including in the game.

Ultimately, I agree with you to the point where it's unreasonable to patch the game over at this point to include same-sex marriage. But I don't agree that the protests and petitions themselves are unreasonable. Of course people aren't expecting a hyper-realistic representation of their lives, otherwise there's not much point in playing the game. The problem is that the people who support LGBT people have the objective of creating a world where there is no value-based distinction between same-sex and straight marriage. Tomodachi Life threatens this objective, since the lack of same-sex marriage implies that there is a difference between them.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 12, 2014, 03:15
Whether or not same-sex marriage is legal in this fictional world isn't really the point here. In many countries where it is illegal, you will still find people protesting and rallying for its legality. And even though you claim it's not supposed to be a representation of the real world, it's still a game about the interaction between humans. These Miis make friends and rivals in similar ways to the way we do in reality; why should marriage and love be any different? Saying that the game is somehow totally different and wackier than our reality doesn't explain why this particular instance of peoples' lovelife aren't represented.

Love and marriage are not the same thing (And in particular, marriage in Japan does not carry the same connotations as it does in the west). And yes, whether or not same-sex marriage is legal in a fictional world is exactly the point. This videogame takes place in a fictional world thought up by the creator of this work. If same-sex marriage was not on the agenda then it makes zero sense for it to be included. Would you complain if same-sex marriage was not included in Assassin's Creed or Empire Earth? I can only hope you would not.

The difference here is that homosexuality is a feature of someone's identity that they are proud of having, and feel that it is an attribute of their self which should not be removed.

Lots of people are proud to be disabled or suffer from various illnesses. To suggest that these people shouldn't be included in such a game because they all want to 'escape reality' is an insult.

Generally, people are either for homosexuality or against it. There are people who wish to stay out of it, naturally, but for the most part I believe that this is the case. It happens that in this instance, a sufficient amount of people have raised a big enough fuss over this issue that this matter has become one of controversy. An issue on the lack of representation for something such as non-binary gender or the like doesn't get complaints about it because that is a true minority, where there are significantly less people who have a strong opinion on the matter.

Your problem is that you are assuming this is some kind of homophobia issue when it is not, and your comments about a 'true minority' are frightful. Once again I revert back to the ableist issue, are you saying that the disabled are not a 'true minority'? Or simply that they do not matter because they haven't had enough media coverage to squeeze an apology out of Nintendo?

People aren't expecting corporations to change what's socially acceptable.

Yes they absolutely are. Videogames change with the times much like any form of media. Had Nintendo been making videogames in the 1800s there probably would have been no option to play as a black person as such people were not part of normal society and were in fact, shunned from it. The very fact that Nintendo allows you to create a black Mii today is because black people are openly accepted into society and videogames are a representation of that, you probably wouldn't be able to create female Mii were it not for the suffragettes. In 50 years time (depending on the strength of the movement) I do not doubt that videogames will represent change in our society and will allow same-sex marriage in their videogames where applicable.

The difference is that what people are doing now is the opposite. They are expecting Nintendo to influence society by adding this feature instead of changing society themselves and waiting for the feature to be adapted when it is considered normal.

You are literally acknowledging the power a video game company has over society's opinion of normality and asking them to add a feature in order to make that feature socially acceptable. If you cannot see what is wrong with this mentality then I can only pity you and as I said before - you get what you deserve. Progression of homosexual rights within society will crawl forward at a snail's pace if you expect a company that creates videogames to push the movement forward.

And let's not forget, it is Nintendo's discrecion to make what they want to make. They are fully allowed to make a completely homophobic game if they want, or even a heterophobic one. Our feelings and opinions should not control or censor a creative work, that is simply fascism no matter who's feelings are being hurt.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 12, 2014, 14:43
And yes, whether or not same-sex marriage is legal in a fictional world is exactly the point. This videogame takes place in a fictional world thought up by the creator of this work. If same-sex marriage was not on the agenda then it makes zero sense for it to be included. Would you complain if same-sex marriage was not included in Assassin's Creed or Empire Earth? I can only hope you would not.
But Assassin's Creed and Empire Earth don't have any representation of marriage in it at all, and even if they did, the lack of same-sex marriage for the most part is because it's a representation of human history for which the most part did not have same-sex marriage, and not because it's set in a fictional universe. Assassin's Creed in particular puts in the shoes of one particular character, whereas at least your own Mii in Tomodachi Life is based on yourself. Of course its unreasonable to expect every Assassin to have to option of being gay because they're a particular person. In the same way, a person's Mii also represents a particular person, who may or may not be gay. If Connor was gay, then he wouldn't be in a straight relationship, and in the same way, a Mii should not be forced into heterosexual marriages if it represents a gay person. Then there's the option of not getting married entirely, but then why is it fair that straight people should be able to have a representative marriage when gay people can't?

It's not so much a question of whether same-sex marriage is on the agenda, but rather why is it not?

Lots of people are proud to be disabled or suffer from various illnesses. To suggest that these people shouldn't be included in such a game because they all want to 'escape reality' is an insult.

I'd say that comparing homosexuality with an illness is also insulting. I never said that they all want to 'escape reality' but merely posited it as a possibility. I'm under the impression that if you gave a blind man the ability to see, or a disabled man the ability to walk, or a deaf man the ability to hear, then they would gladly accept? You can be proud of your disabilities and I assume the achievements that they make despite that, but I don't think they wouldn't hesitate to attain a cure for them. It is in this way that the two situations differ; gay people do not generally seem to be attached to the idea of a 'cure' for their homosexuality. Thus, it seems to me that disabilities are undesirable and that typically people do not want to be represented by a disabled avatar? I'm only talking from the perspective of a healthy teenager so if there are significant instances to the contrary, then I'd be interested in finding out more about them.

Your problem is that you are assuming this is some kind of homophobia issue when it is not, and your comments about a 'true minority' are frightful. Once again I revert back to the ableist issue, are you saying that the disabled are not a 'true minority'? Or simply that they do not matter because they haven't had enough media coverage to squeeze an apology out of Nintendo?
It's not a question of importance. Rather, it's a question of what a society expects and demands from a product for purchase. Is it unfair that the disabled don't have a strong enough voice? Perhaps. But the case is, there is a lot more demand for same-sex marriage.

Yes they absolutely are. Videogames change with the times much like any form of media. Had Nintendo been making videogames in the 1800s there probably would have been no option to play as a black person as such people were not part of normal society and were in fact, shunned from it. The very fact that Nintendo allows you to create a black Mii today is because black people are openly accepted into society and videogames are a representation of that, you probably wouldn't be able to create female Mii were it not for the suffragettes. In 50 years time (depending on the strength of the movement) I do not doubt that videogames will represent change in our society and will allow same-sex marriage in their videogames where applicable.
But then why do we have to wait 50 years? Same-sex marriage, or at the very least some sort of same-sex union, is allowed in most of Western Europe, Canada,  South America, South Africa etc. As you've mentioned, there's strong support for (and against) in America and Japan. People aren't renowned for being patient as whole, that's why it's supposed to be a virtue. People want their cake now.

The difference is that what people are doing now is the opposite. They are expecting Nintendo to influence society by adding this feature instead of changing society themselves and waiting for the feature to be adapted when it is considered normal.

You are literally acknowledging the power a video game company has over society's opinion of normality and asking them to add a feature in order to make that feature socially acceptable. If you cannot see what is wrong with this mentality then I can only pity you and as I said before - you get what you deserve. Progression of homosexual rights within society will crawl forward at a snail's pace if you expect a company that creates videogames to push the movement forward.
It's not as simple as people expecting Nintendo to lead the way for same-sex marriage. It's not as if people aren't rallying for the motion already and they haven't gotten anywhere with it. This is not separate from everything else, but rather in conjunction with it. They simply want Nintendo to acknowledge the progress they have made so far, and well, to be represented in a game like this. I don't expect Reggie to challenge Putin to a wrestling match because of the matter, or lead some sort of gay armed revolution. At the end of the day, though, the media do have a certain influence over how society works. It's a two-way channel though, media is created within and draws from a society and feeds back into it.

By saying that people are waiting for the feature to be implemented "when it is considered normal" is the exact attitude that they are against. For them, same-sex marriage is (or at least should?) considered normal, and banning it is abnormal/arbitrary. Can't you see that they are exactly being the change they want to see? The supporters of same-sex marriage don't just want a world where it is legal, but where it is considered totally normal. Even to the point where video games acknowledge it as an option.

And let's not forget, it is Nintendo's discrecion to make what they want to make. They are fully allowed to make a completely homophobic game if they want, or even a heterophobic one. Our feelings and opinions should not control or censor a creative work, that is simply fascism no matter who's feelings are being hurt.
Well we shouldn't get the wrong idea about the game. Yes it's a creative work but it's made with the primary purpose of being sold to a market, hopefully for a tidy profit. They're not entirely at liberty to create a homophobic or heterophobic game because at the end of the day, they're a company that's aiming to make profit, more so now than ever. If there's a missing feature that people want that they consider a 'deal-breaker', then they won't buy the game and Nintendo will miss out on the money that they could've gained. In this instance, Nintendo's apology may have actually encouraged sales, fortunately for them. Take a look at this, from the miiquality page. (http://24.media.tumblr.com/90282a86fb73a7989f3e507d7b2e6451/tumblr_n5e4caZHrE1tzk9k4o1_1280.png) (whether or not that will significantly affect sales is another thing entirely).

It's not facist to skip out on a product because you disagree with its underlying ideals or because it doesn't have a certain feature you want. At the end of the day, Nintendo could publish a lot of things, but if no one's buying them, then it would be better for them to not publish it at all. If anything, then it's democracy. The consumers of a free market decide what products they want and make "votes" for those products with their purchases.

What should be regarded as standard and normal in what we see is decided by the people. If people expect a product to have same-sex marriage as a feature, then by all means they have every right to let the company making the game that that's what they want to see. Heck, for years people have been asking for Hoenn remakes, and though in some ways it was probably inevitable, here we are, 6 months before it is released. If enough people want something, then someone somewhere is going to produce it. If people want to play a surreal Mii sim game with gay marriage, then they're going to let the video games industry know and if Nintendo considers them to be enough to make money off of, then they will make that game. Is it facist? Restricting? Unfair on video game companies? Maybe, but how loudly will they complain if they make a good chunk of money from it?
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Spriter on May 12, 2014, 17:44
Lots of people are proud to be disabled or suffer from various illnesses. To suggest that these people shouldn't be included in such a game because they all want to 'escape reality' is an insult.

Not trying to be offensive and I apologise if I do offend ANY of you, before I start:

But how? Putting it another way, no-one would be proud of suffering pain or of suffering from a disability, right? Sure some might be proud of surviving the suffering, but I doubt many would like to go through extreme suffering (being paralysed from the neck down certainly sounds unpleasant, for an extreme example). From my experience, whilst I certainly do not have a MAJOR disability, I am not too proud of what I have, as it still has some sort of effect on me.

 Also, not sure if people would want to be reminded of their own individual suffering when you're trying to play video games to supposedly "escape" from it. Video games are a form of escapism to most, similar to being sources of conversation too.

To be honest, you don't see gay couples in Pokémon (when you battle the partners in double battles), but no-one has made a deal of it. It might not be integral to the game, but it's something to draw comparison to. It's all blown a bit far out of proportion, whether Nintendo actually thought about it is unknown to us...but I don't think they left it out just to cause a stir.



Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: SaRo|Rapidash on May 12, 2014, 18:30

To be honest, you don't see gay couples in Pokémon (when you battle the partners in double battles), but no-one has made a deal of it. It might not be integral to the game, but it's something to draw comparison to. It's all blown a bit far out of proportion, whether Nintendo actually thought about it is unknown to us...but I don't think they left it out just to cause a stir.

I think with the example of Pokémon it's kind of ignored, wrongly or rightly, because they're NPC. Like, there's one thing saying "It just so happens that no one in this world is gay" and saying "No one in this world can be gay".

But I still agree that it's been blown way out of proportion
Yes I get what you mean and you pretty much just answered the question as to why this is so ridiculous. You can argue either way that including gender selection is transphobic just as much as excluding them could be offensive to people who identify as a particular gender. You really can split hairs on this until every game that isn't a 100% accurate representation of real life is 'offensive' and requires some kind of apology.

Yeah, but the gender identity thing can be offensive whether it is included or not, but I'm pretty sure including gay marriage isn't going to offend gays. Like, it can be argued including and excluding gender selection is transphobic, but in no way is including gay marriage homophobic.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Shaymin on May 12, 2014, 18:37
also i'm fairly sure miis can have any kind of hair - and female miis can have facial hair so it's literally just one will have a higher voice and longer shirt. i could put a moustache on my mii but it's still me. heck, i have 20+ miis on my 2ds that aren't me, obviously, and you don't have to play tomodachi life with YOUR mii, right? :y
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 12, 2014, 19:45
I think with the example of Pokémon it's kind of ignored, wrongly or rightly, because they're NPC. Like, there's one thing saying "It just so happens that no one in this world is gay" and saying "No one in this world can be gay".
also i'm fairly sure miis can have any kind of hair - and female miis can have facial hair so it's literally just one will have a higher voice and longer shirt. i could put a moustache on my mii but it's still me. heck, i have 20+ miis on my 2ds that aren't me, obviously, and you don't have to play tomodachi life with YOUR mii, right? :y
I think the thing is, people want to be able to put themselves in the game, and if they are in the game, they want a degree of likeness to themselves in real life. As you said, in pokemon every couple is just an NPC. That's fine, it wouldn't be reasonable to ask for a gay couple in every single game or something. But when it's personal, then that's where the tensions arise.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 12, 2014, 19:46
Let's lay down some facts here, shall we? Seeing as some people are clearly relying upon emotional-bias to justify why they think it's okay to demand an apology from a video games company for not including a feature.

1) Tomodachi Life is a game for EVERYONE. Therefore it must be accessible to children.

2) In Japan and the US, same-sex marriage is not legal, whether we like it or not.

3) To include gay marriage into this game would be sending the wrong message - that it is acceptable for same sex couples to marry. It is not. And no, not because of any homophobic reasons but because it is simply not permitted by law.

More facts:

4) The marriage feature of Tomodachi Life is tied in with a pregnancy and offspring feature.

5) Allowing same-sex couples to marry in Tomodachi Life is not as simple as checking a box, it would require the entire marriage mechanic to be re-written in order to either explain why males are pregnant or explain where this baby came from. This is on top of the other aspects of the game that would also have to be re-written in-turn to allow for these changes. If you allowed same-sex marriage in the games that were released in countries where same-sex marriage is legal, it would then raise a number of compatibility issues and hamper the communicative features of the game.

6) Same-sex marriage was never 'patched out', it never existed in the first place and was a serious, game breaking bug that led many westerners to believe that it was included in the first place.

7) Because Same-sex marriage is not legal in the US, including such a feature would likely remove the 'EVERYONE' rating of the game, eliminating the primary market for whom the game is aimed toward.

If you honestly believe Nintendo should spend additional time and money to code a feature into the game that isn't even legal in many of the countries it will be released in and would lose them significant amounts of money just because you personally are offended by the exclusion of the aforementioned feature, then please quote this post and state your reasoning below. Thank you.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: SaRo|Rapidash on May 12, 2014, 20:38
1) Tomodachi Life is a game for EVERYONE. Therefore it must be accessible to children.

I fail to see how this has any bearing on gay marriage being included? It's hardly something that needs to be hidden from kids, and the insinuation that it is is kind of offensive.

2) In Japan and the US, same-sex marriage is not legal, whether we like it or not.

I was under the impression the US was divided on the matter and some states had it legalised and others did not? Regardless, this is kinda muted by your own argument that it's a fantasy world, and so real law has no bearing.

3) To include gay marriage into this game would be sending the wrong message - that it is acceptable for same sex couples to marry. It is not. And no, not because of any homophobic reasons but because it is simply not permitted by law.

This is valid, just quoted it really to show I'm not ignoring it.


4) The marriage feature of Tomodachi Life is tied in with a pregnancy and offspring feature.

5) Allowing same-sex couples to marry in Tomodachi Life is not as simple as checking a box, it would require the entire marriage mechanic to be re-written in order to either explain why males are pregnant or explain where this baby came from. This is on top of the other aspects of the game that would also have to be re-written in-turn to allow for these changes. If you allowed same-sex marriage in the games that were released in countries where same-sex marriage is legal, it would then raise a number of compatibility issues and hamper the communicative features of the game.

6) Same-sex marriage was never 'patched out', it never existed in the first place and was a serious, game breaking bug that led many westerners to believe that it was included in the first place.

All these are to do with mechanics, and the thing is, whilst I agree that it is silly to ask for it to be patched in or whatever, that doesn't mean Nintendo can't apologise? They haven't included and provided justified reasoning and say "We apologise we can't listen to your complaint, as it would upset others" pretty much. That's not harming Nintendo, is it? Why is it so bad that people ask for something to be included in games? Would you say it was unjustified to ask for RS remakes if Nintendo had turned round and said "we're sorry, but due to <insert reason> we're not able to make it"?

7) Because Same-sex marriage is not legal in the US, including such a feature would likely remove the 'EVERYONE' rating of the game, eliminating the primary market for whom the game is aimed toward.

Aside from the fact that few people, in my experience, take note of age ratings, there is nothing on the ESRB website to suggest it would raise the age rating.

Just to make my view clear - I don't think Nintendo should have included the feature if they analysed it to be a bad thing for their company, but I don't see any harm in them apologising and I don't think it was unreasonable for people to ask it to be included. I DO think it's unreasonable if people keep persisting to have e feature added when Nintendo have said they can't include it and have apologised.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 12, 2014, 20:40
More facts:

4) The marriage feature of Tomodachi Life is tied in with a pregnancy and offspring feature.

5) Allowing same-sex couples to marry in Tomodachi Life is not as simple as checking a box, it would require the entire marriage mechanic to be re-written in order to either explain why males are pregnant or explain where this baby came from. This is on top of the other aspects of the game that would also have to be re-written in-turn to allow for these changes. If you allowed same-sex marriage in the games that were released in countries where same-sex marriage is legal, it would then raise a number of compatibility issues and hamper the communicative features of the game.

6) Same-sex marriage was never 'patched out', it never existed in the first place and was a serious, game breaking bug that led many westerners to believe that it was included in the first place.

7) Because Same-sex marriage is not legal in the US, including such a feature would likely remove the 'EVERYONE' rating of the game, eliminating the primary market for whom the game is aimed toward.

If you honestly believe Nintendo should spend additional time and money to code a feature into the game that isn't even legal in many of the countries it will be released in and would lose them significant amounts of money just because you personally are offended by the exclusion of the aforementioned feature, then please quote this post and state your reasoning below. Thank you.
All right, for a start I agree that it would be unreasonable to rework the game, after its been released for a while in Japan already, just for western audiences etc. etc. As you said, its not an easy process and even after coding it in, there's still a ton of bug testing, QA, possibly more translation that needs to be done.
Although, I don't agree that the current marriage mechanic would've taken any less time to create than a marriage mechanic allowing same-sex marriage if that was how it was planned from the beginning. It should just be a move for the gender check to happen at the baby-making stage, rather than the marriage stage, no?

I have to wonder, would the introduction of same-sex marriage really lead to an enhanced age rating? Other games that have been mentioned in this thread, such as The Sims, have had higher ratings, but is that not because of slightly more suggestive content aside from homosexual relationships? According to the ESRB website, sexuality technically comes under sexual content, which would give a game an M rating. But The Sims 3 was only rated a T despite this. And in Europe, the PEGI board makes no references to sexuality at all, only sexual content or themes. If that's a legitimate concern, then clearly the problem isn't with Nintendo, but with the ratings board. If not the rating board, then it comes full circle to the constitution itself.

Then there's the issue of whether the ratings really matter or not. There's the caricature that a proportion of players of the Call of Duty franchise are ironically below the age of 18.  They've simply gotten their parents to go and buy the game for them. In fact, I would imagine that most children, with no income of their own so to speak, would be getting their parents to buy for them. I dispute your point, then, on whether Nintendo would lose significant amounts of money from this move in this case. I also stand by my belief that Nintendo would make more money from putting same-sex marriage into a Tomodachi Life 2 than they would lose out from concerned, conservative parents.

Another thing is the way you infer that because a game is rated for everyone, it must the case that children are the primary audience of the game. That's not necessarily the case, the E rating only means that the game is suitable for everyone, including children. For example, the Kingdom Hearts has an E10+ rating and despite its cuddly Disney appearance, I'd say that the game is more geared towards a more teenage audience to the point where a T rating would not massively affect sales. Games don't necessarily have to be violent or explicitly sexual to be aimed towards adults or teenagers. I don't agree, then, that children must be the primary focus for the game.

To summarize:
a) The inclusion of same-sex marriage may not necessarily lead to a higher rating. The rating boards do not use the law as a criteria for their judgement.
b) Even if the rating was increased, there's not necessarily a "significant amount of money" lost for nintendo. The inclusion may actually have the opposite effect.
c) E rating does not imply that the game must be for children. Even though plenty of games that are rated E are made with children as a primary audience, that doesn't mean that has to be the case. 

EDIT: sniped by Dick, it seems. Raised a few similar points a lot more concisely than I did :P
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: kindtocrows on May 12, 2014, 20:40
I'd say that comparing homosexuality with an illness is also insulting. I never said that they all want to 'escape reality' but merely posited it as a possibility. I'm under the impression that if you gave a blind man the ability to see, or a disabled man the ability to walk, or a deaf man the ability to hear, then they would gladly accept? You can be proud of your disabilities and I assume the achievements that they make despite that, but I don't think they wouldn't hesitate to attain a cure for them. It is in this way that the two situations differ; gay people do not generally seem to be attached to the idea of a 'cure' for their homosexuality. Thus, it seems to me that disabilities are undesirable and that typically people do not want to be represented by a disabled avatar? I'm only talking from the perspective of a healthy teenager so if there are significant instances to the contrary, then I'd be interested in finding out more about them.

Apologies for making another post while not actually adding anything to the debate, but I felt the need to address this, as it hit a little close to home.

First of all, there actually is a way to allow deaf people to hear, it's a device called a cochlear implant. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant) It's a little extreme, needing brain surgery, but it apparently works really well. The problem is, even though they can hear sounds, they can't understand them. If you give a deaf person who's been deaf their entire life a cochlear implant, they will pretty much only understand your words at the same level as a newborn. It takes years of speech therapy to be able understand you, and many just don't want to bother with that, or simply just don't like the noise. Many deaf people are perfectly fine with being deaf, and are even proud of it. I'm sure some would jump at the chance to hear, but none that I've talked to.

I can't really say anything for blind people though, since I don't actually know any.

But here's a controversy that might be a little closer to the issue at hand, autismI mean similar in the sense that they feel similarly, not in the sense that they should add something to the game, sorry.. I only just skimmed these articles, (http://emmashopebook.com/2013/11/13/whats-wrong-with-autism-speaks/) but they seem to be good. (http://smallbutkindamighty.com/2013/04/02/why-i-dont-support-autism-speaks-which-is-why-i-dont-light-it-up-blue/) Sorry in advance if they're not. Anyway, point is, similarly to how homosexuals and others who are a sexual minority see their sexuality as a part of who they are and wouldn't change it, many autistic people see autism as a part of who they are, and wouldn't dare change it. This is coming from someone who knows and is good friends with a lot of autistic people, and may be autistic herself (still waiting for tests. waiting list is too long), and is part of a sexual minority (one that not many know of and is often told we don't exist, which is rather depressing).

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I think this is long enough, so I'll end here.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 12, 2014, 21:31
I fail to see how this has any bearing on gay marriage being included? It's hardly something that needs to be hidden from kids, and the insinuation that it is is kind of offensive.

You've taken that quote completely out of context of the rest of the thread despite agreeing with it below. 'EVERYONE' is a rating. Stop falling back on emotional bias to make a point. You are being hysterical instead of logical.

Regardless, this is kinda muted by your own argument that it's a fantasy world, and so real law has no bearing.

The fact it's a fantasy world also means that it makes no sense to include the feature. This argument works both ways, not just your way.

It should just be a move for the gender check to happen at the baby-making stage, rather than the marriage stage, no?

No, absolutely not. I'm not sure how easy you think making a videogame is, but an option like this is not as simple as including a 'If samesex then baby = null' line. Given how tightly the offspring mechanic works with the marriage feature there would have to be entire portions of the code rewritten, along with all the other parts of the game that interact with said code plus all the bug testing, QA etc. that comes with it.

I have to wonder, would the introduction of same-sex marriage really lead to an enhanced age rating? Other games that have been mentioned in this thread, such as The Sims, have had higher ratings, but is that not because of slightly more suggestive content aside from homosexual relationships?


It may do, it may not. But getting a game rated is time and money, time and money which Nintendo are in no position to be frugal with at the moment. 

Then there's the issue of whether the ratings really matter or not. There's the caricature that a proportion of players of the Call of Duty franchise are ironically below the age of 18.  They've simply gotten their parents to go and buy the game for them. In fact, I would imagine that most children, with no income of their own so to speak, would be getting their parents to buy for them. I dispute your point, then, on whether Nintendo would lose significant amounts of money from this move in this case. I also stand by my belief that Nintendo would make more money from putting same-sex marriage into a Tomodachi Life 2 than they would lose out from concerned, conservative parents.

This is a silly non-issue that bears no relevance to the subject at hand. Just because 10 year olds may be playing GTA in their spare time does not mean that Nintendo are going to suddenly throw caution to the wind and allow you to murder a prostitute in Donkey Kong. It doesn't have any bearing on their leniency at all, they play by the rules because it is the most financially secure option to them. If you are marketing a game to kids, it does not make sense to include a feature which could potentially offend their parents and prohibit them from playing the game and thus making a point of sale. I'm sure this scandal may outrage a few gay dads or lesbian mothers, but it's a numbers game and you don't appease the few if it means losing support of many.

b) Even if the rating was increased, there's not necessarily a "significant amount of money" lost for nintendo. The inclusion may actually have the opposite effect.

Citation very much needed for this.


At the end of the day, you really don't have a leg to stand on in this argument.

Financially it makes no sense to include the feature, not in terms of programming, the time wasted in doing so or the potential response from paying customers.

Morally it makes no sense to include the feature. Same-sex marriages are the minority, asking for a game to include the wants and desires of one minority group but not another is basically saying that minority x is more important than minority y which is not only stupid and unfair, it's completely unmeasurable. Last time I checked there was no option to make your Mii travel entirely by wheelchair either, but of course representing same-sex couples in a religious tradition that many people gay and straight don't even care about themselves is far more important, right?

The problem with this argument is that it consistently falls back on emotional-bias and presents the fallacy that only a homophobe could ever oppose such a viewpoint, and as though this wasn't bad enough on its own, when an equally footed emotional-bias argument in the form of able-ism comes into play suddenly those people do not matter?

As dragoncat quite adequately put it, there are lots of people who ARE proud of their disabilities. Acting as though all of them want some kind of escape is a massive insult and once again - you could literally put forward that exact same argument for homophobia ("Homosexuals have life hard enough, being able to play as a straight character is a form of escape for them"). Do you see how offensive THAT may sound? You're acting as though pride is some kind of coping mechanism, try going to a gay pride parade and telling everybody that they are secretly ashamed of themselves and see how far you get.

And finally people are still dodging the point that Nintendo has absolutely no obligation to include this feature anyway. Nintendo doesn't even have an obligation to be tolerant of any minority whatsoever. They make creative works and it is completely up to them how they make them and what beliefs they do or do not convey within such works.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: SaRo|Rapidash on May 12, 2014, 22:06
("Homosexuals have life hard enough, being able to play as a straight character is a form of escape for them"). Do you see how offensive THAT may sound?

As offensive as that sounds, I take that with a lot less offence than:

1) Tomodachi Life is a game for EVERYONE. Therefore it must be accessible to children.

Which paraphrased says "Tomodachi life can't include gay people because children can't see that." And I don't know about other gays, but I certainly take that with more offence than the other statement, which has basis with countries like Uganda (I think?) being so homophobic.

You've taken that quote completely out of context of the rest of the thread despite agreeing with it below. 'EVERYONE' is a rating.

Taken out your trash at the end about it being emotional - the point is that the audience being children has no bearing whatsoever on whether gays should be included. Are children with gay parents automatically scarred for life because the children can't see gayness? No.

The fact it's a fantasy world also means that it makes no sense to include the feature. This argument works both ways, not just your way.

If it works both ways, then you can't use it either, and given I was countering your argument that's kind of my point >_>

No, absolutely not. I'm not sure how easy you think making a videogame is, but an option like this is not as simple as including a 'If samesex then baby = null' line. Given how tightly the offspring mechanic works with the marriage feature there would have to be entire portions of the code rewritten, along with all the other parts of the game that interact with said code plus all the bug testing, QA etc. that comes with it.

Did Hahex not also say he didn't think it'd be reasonable to ask for it added in after release?
 

It may do, it may not. But getting a game rated is time and money, time and money which Nintendo are in no position to be frugal with at the moment. 

ESRB ratings (http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp) mention it nowhere! as I've pointed out to you once

This is a silly non-issue that bears no relevance to the subject at hand.
Pretty useless statement? It bears every relevance, Nintendo don't include it based on their belief it will drop sales, obviously if people ignore age ratings then an increase in age ratings will not effect their sales
 Just because 10 year olds may be playing GTA in their spare time does not mean that Nintendo are going to suddenly throw caution to the wind and allow you to murder a prostitute in Donkey Kong. It doesn't have any bearing on their leniency at all, they play by the rules because it is the most financially secure option to them. If you are marketing a game to kids, it does not make sense to include a feature which could potentially offend their parents and prohibit them from playing the game and thus making a point of sale. I'm sure this scandal may outrage a few gay dads or lesbian mothers, but it's a numbers game and you don't appease the few if it means losing support of many.
To use your own words, 'this is a silly non-issue' as the age rating would be very unlikely to rise

Citation very much needed for this.


At the end of the day, you really don't have a leg to stand on in this argument.

Financially it makes no sense to include the feature, not in terms of programming, the time wasted in doing so or the potential response from paying customers.

Not now, I would agree, but at the time of release I don't suppose it would make much difference either way

Morally it makes no sense to include the feature. Same-sex marriages are the minority, asking for a game to include the wants and desires of one minority group but not another is basically saying that minority x is more important than minority y which is not only stupid and unfair, it's completely unmeasurable. Last time I checked there was no option to make your Mii travel entirely by wheelchair either, but of course representing same-sex couples in a religious tradition that many people gay and straight don't even care about themselves is far more important, right?

But marriage is integral to the game, so if you can't marry the games screwed, but as disabilities wouldn't actually effect gameplay in anyway it's not really a comparable issue.

The problem with this argument is that it consistently falls back on emotional-bias and presents the fallacy that only a homophobe could ever oppose such a viewpoint, and as though this wasn't bad enough on its own, when an equally footed emotional-bias argument in the form of able-ism comes into play suddenly those people do not matter?

As dragoncat quite adequately put it, there are lots of people who ARE proud of their disabilities. Acting as though all of them want some kind of escape is a massive insult and once again - you could literally put forward that exact same argument for homophobia ("Homosexuals have life hard enough, being able to play as a straight character is a form of escape for them"). Do you see how offensive THAT may sound? You're acting as though pride is some kind of coping mechanism, try going to a gay pride parade and telling everybody that they are secretly ashamed of themselves and see how far you get.

And finally people are still dodging the point that Nintendo has absolutely no obligation to include this feature anyway. Nintendo doesn't even have an obligation to be tolerant of any minority whatsoever. They make creative works and it is completely up to them how they make them and what beliefs they do or do not convey within such works.

I don't have an obligation to say 'Sorry' if I accidentally slam a door in someone's face, I still do. Nintendo don't have an obligation to say 'Sorry' if they don't include gays in a game, they still do. Both Hahex and I said we don't think it should be included now, but think it's unreasonable to call it unreasonable to have asked

Quoting takes too long, so it's just bolted comments ^^
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes on May 12, 2014, 22:27
turner are you actually gay yourself or not, just curious
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 12, 2014, 23:04
You've taken that quote completely out of context of the rest of the thread despite agreeing with it below. 'EVERYONE' is a rating. Stop falling back on emotional bias to make a point. You are being hysterical instead of logical.

The fact it's a fantasy world also means that it makes no sense to include the feature. This argument works both ways, not just your way.
Then I suppose we'll have to leave that on a moot point.

No, absolutely not. I'm not sure how easy you think making a videogame is, but an option like this is not as simple as including a 'If samesex then baby = null' line. Given how tightly the offspring mechanic works with the marriage feature there would have to be entire portions of the code rewritten, along with all the other parts of the game that interact with said code plus all the bug testing, QA etc. that comes with it.
 
Only as much time as it would be to have that check at the marriage. You misunderstand my point. If the game originally intended to have same-sex marriage, then there doesn't seem to be much difference time-wise as doing that rather than the current mechanic. I'm not asking for rewritten coding, but I'm considering a Tomodachi Life 2.

It may do, it may not. But getting a game rated is time and money, time and money which Nintendo are in no position to be frugal with at the moment. 
That's still true. But even if the rating goes up, I still stand by my claim that the inclusion can still increase sales. Of course, both of us would need some sort of statistic to qualify that, but that's certainly beyond my vision, as well as, I assume, yours.

This is a silly non-issue that bears no relevance to the subject at hand. Just because 10 year olds may be playing GTA in their spare time does not mean that Nintendo are going to suddenly throw caution to the wind and allow you to murder a prostitute in Donkey Kong. It doesn't have any bearing on their leniency at all, they play by the rules because it is the most financially secure option to them. If you are marketing a game to kids, it does not make sense to include a feature which could potentially offend their parents and prohibit them from playing the game and thus making a point of sale. I'm sure this scandal may outrage a few gay dads or lesbian mothers, but it's a numbers game and you don't appease the few if it means losing support of many.
 
That's not so much my point. Rather, its more that parents are still willing to buy games that are 'higher' rated for their children. Thus, sales may not be affected by as much as you think. I don't think you could really compare same-sex marriage to murder. 

As you said, its a numbers game. I feel that the differences between those against same-sex marriage and those against are less and less great, as time goes on. Its not quite appeasing the few, but rather, choosing an almost equipotent side.

At the end of the day, you really don't have a leg to stand on in this argument.

Morally it makes no sense to include the feature. Same-sex marriages are the minority, asking for a game to include the wants and desires of one minority group but not another is basically saying that minority x is more important than minority y which is not only stupid and unfair, it's completely unmeasurable. Last time I checked there was no option to make your Mii travel entirely by wheelchair either, but of course representing same-sex couples in a religious tradition that many people gay and straight don't even care about themselves is far more important, right?   
It's completely quantifiable. You can see a petition for Miiquality, you don't see a petition for the disabled. And its hardly a question of minority vs. minority, either. As I've said before, even though only a few people may fall under the LGBT umbrella, everyone has an opinion on whether or not it is right for people to be homosexual. It wasn't just black slaves who fought in the American Civil War, it was men who supported liberty against men who supported slavery, roughly split in two halves.


The problem with this argument is that it consistently falls back on emotional-bias and presents the fallacy that only a homophobe could ever oppose such a viewpoint, and as though this wasn't bad enough on its own, when an equally footed emotional-bias argument in the form of able-ism comes into play suddenly those people do not matter?
Only a homophobe could have the view that the only form of legitimate marriage is same-sex marriage? That is what I'm saying, and I don't see where emotions come into it here. Now, it's not necessarily the ultra-conservative Bible-waving homophobe, but at the same time it's not exactly embracing or conforming to the LGBT movement either.


As dragoncat quite adequately put it, there are lots of people who ARE proud of their disabilities. Acting as though all of them want some kind of escape is a massive insult and once again - you could literally put forward that exact same argument for homophobia ("Homosexuals have life hard enough, being able to play as a straight character is a form of escape for them"). Do you see how offensive THAT may sound? You're acting as though pride is some kind of coping mechanism, try going to a gay pride parade and telling everybody that they are secretly ashamed of themselves and see how far you get.

All right, I'll acknowledge that there are people who are proud of their disabilities. Are they proud enough that they're offended when there's no option for them to be disabled in a video game? Is it a feature that people want? There's no evidence to suggest that that is the case. You're trying to represent a group of people, that is, those who want to be represented as a disabled person in a video game, who don't exist. Start a petition asking for wheelchairs to be included in Tomodachi Life. See how far that gets you.

Fine, that point might have came off a little more harshly than I intended. But like you said, it's a game of numbers. How many people are Nintendo likely to offend by not including gay marriage than they are by not including disabled miis?

And finally people are still dodging the point that Nintendo has absolutely no obligation to include this feature anyway. Nintendo doesn't even have an obligation to be tolerant of any minority whatsoever. They make creative works and it is completely up to them how they make them and what beliefs they do or do not convey within such works.
Nintendo aren't obligated to do anything (aside from abiding by the law, paying taxes etc.) They could collapse the entire company if they really wanted to. But for a company like them, it's a question of money. At the same time, we're not obligated to buy their products. We could simply say "You know what, we're never going to buy a Nintendo product ever again until they include same-sex marriage." Is that so unfair to Nintendo? I can't really say, but that's how it works when you're trying to sell stuff. Sure there's no moral obligation, but there's still this possibility. Now I doubt that it'll ever become that extreme in reality, but in principle, as a company that's just about holding on, these are things that they must consider.

People have every right to complain about a feature that's not being included in a game. If Blizzard make a sequel to a popular dungeon-crawling loot-grinding game that has been 'dumbed down' for consoles, people are going to complain. If Valve make Half Life 3 and its just short of being the best game the world has ever seen, then people are going to complain. If there's an overpowered champion on League of Legends, people are going to complain. It's unreasonable to take away people's right to complain about something.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 12, 2014, 23:07
Which paraphrased says "Tomodachi life can't include gay people because children can't see that."

No it does not, stop taking this out of context. ERSB works on a case-by-case basis. Tomodachi Life is a game for EVERYONE. If you need confirmation of this then check the box art. The point I am making is that this this game is for EVERYONE by ERSB standards and there is a possibility that Nintendo (or even the ERSB) could decide that including such a feature may well be outside of this rating therefore they do not include it under protection of that rating alone. Whether or not the rating IS affected by the feature is not important.

Stop being hysterical and relying on emotional bias. I will not ask you again.



Quote
If it works both ways, then you can't use it either, and given I was countering your argument that's kind of my point >_>

My argument was a counter to people who believe it should be included. You're countering a counterpoint that needs no counter.

Quote
Did Hahex not also say he didn't think it'd be reasonable to ask for it added in after release?

Then there is absolutely no reason for this to be such a fuss 2 years after the release of the game. It's not even reasonable to get angry about it full stop. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Don't wait years for the localization and then suddenly act as though this comes as some kind of surprise.

Quote
But marriage is integral to the game, so if you can't marry the games screwed, but as disabilities wouldn't actually effect gameplay in anyway it's not really a comparable issue.

Actually, it's not. There is no part of the game which forces you to marry or even implies you must do to get the most from the game.

Quote
I don't have an obligation to say 'Sorry' if I accidentally slam a door in someone's face, I still do.

Slamming the door on someone's face is an actively rude action to take on your behalf, failing to include a feature in a videogame just because a minority group may feel excluded is not. Terrible analogy. It does not warrant an outcry nor does it warrant an apology.

All this is is unnecessary public shaming pure and simple. And for what? An apology to make us feel powerful? Acceptance of the minority in question? Under what circumstance does bullying a neutral party into apologizing publicly for not including a same-sex marriage feature (in one single game) help the cause at large? All this does is instill a culture of fear and resentment and give the message that anyone who doesn't comply with these beliefs will find themselves and their company at risk in doing so. Shades of fascism come to mind. People wonder why companies like Microsoft can purport outright misogynistic and homophobic dogma and make so much money in doing so, this is why; because the alternative is a divided fanbase and bad PR.

. Only as much time as it would be to have that check at the marriage. You misunderstand my point. If the game originally intended to have same-sex marriage, then there doesn't seem to be much difference time-wise as doing that rather than the current mechanic. I'm not asking for rewritten coding, but I'm considering a Tomodachi Life 2.

Asking for Tomodachi Life 2 IS asking for rewritten coding. Do you think they just scrap the previous code and start over on every sequel? The mechanics WILL have to be rewritten to include this, it's not as easy as checking the magical 'include single sex marriage' box. Asking for the feature in Tomodachi Life 2 is fine, note asking, not acting like a spoiled child and causing a blight on the reputation of Nintendo at the worst possible time over something so stupidly trivial. This is the issue here, not the inclusion of the feature but the false mentality that Nintendo have a right or responsibility to include it.

That's still true. But even if the rating goes up, I still stand by my claim that the inclusion can still increase sales. Of course, both of us would need some sort of statistic to qualify that, but that's certainly beyond my vision, as well as, I assume, yours. As you said, its a numbers game. I feel that the differences between those against same-sex marriage and those against are less and less great, as time goes on. Its not quite appeasing the few, but rather, choosing an almost equipotent side.

Well given the fact that the minority in question is in fact a...you know, minority I think the figures (or at least potential figures, which is what Nintendo cares about here) by all predictions are not going to be weighted in favour of the minority. You may be right, the inclusion of sales may indeed sell more units but as far as market prediction goes it's a no-brainer, and that's all this is about.

It's completely quantifiable. You can see a petition for Miiquality, you don't see a petition for the disabled.

Are you serious? Every time a new console comes out there is a fresh partition to remap the controller buttons so disabled people are able to play the games. There is a market dedicated to peripherals for disabled people to play the games and this is just so they can play the games, let alone be represented in them. If you are honestly suggesting that disabled gamers form a smaller minority than homosexual players (that wish to marry in-game) then I have absolutely nothing to say, because that is insanity.

And its hardly a question of minority vs. minority, either. As I've said before, even though only a few people may fall under the LGBT umbrella, everyone has an opinion on whether or not it is right for people to be homosexual. It wasn't just black slaves who fought in the American Civil War, it was men who supported liberty against men who supported slavery, roughly split in two halves.

Ah yes but remember this is a risk/reward scenario. How many LGBT supporters will continue to play Tomodachi Life upon finding out at it will not include same-sex marriage? How many homosexuals played Harvest Moon? How many trans* people played AC before there was the freedom to express gender that New Leaf gave us? How many trans* people played Pokemon before there was an option to even choose gender? How many non-binary people continue to play Pokemon to this day?

The list goes on, but the long and the short of it is that these people will play videogames regardless as they have done so far, so as far as any video game developer is concerned, there is no potential drastic loss in sales in excluding them.

Compare that to the bashers, the right wing nutjobs, American soccer moms and bible bashers - many of which own Nintendo consoles because they believe that Nintendo has games which will not burst the bubble they force their child to live within. There was a movement to ban Pokemon by these people who didn't like that it contained concepts of evolution, they are extremists who absolutely will pull the purse strings if a game features something even slightly offensive to their beliefs and make no mistake, they will not allow their little Jimmy to play Tomodachi Life 2 if it means he can virtually marry little Tommy from across the street.

All right, I'll acknowledge that there are people who are proud of their disabilities.

How open minded of you.

Are they proud enough that they're offended when there's no option for them to be disabled in a video game? Is it a feature that people want? There's no evidence to suggest that that is the case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_accessibility
http://dagersystem.com/
http://www.ablegamers.com/
http://www.specialeffect.org.uk/
http://kotaku.com/5538163/quadriplegic-gamer-calls-for-custom-button-remapping-in-console-games

Fine, that point might have came off a little more harshly than I intended. But like you said, it's a game of numbers. How many people are Nintendo likely to offend by not including gay marriage than they are by not including disabled miis? Nintendo aren't obligated to do anything (aside from abiding by the law, paying taxes etc.)

Now you're getting it.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 12, 2014, 23:53
No it does not, stop taking this out of context. ERSB works on a case-by-case basis. Tomodachi Life is a game for EVERYONE. If you need confirmation of this then check the box art. The point I am making is that this this game is for EVERYONE by ERSB standards and there is a possibility that Nintendo (or even the ERSB) could decide that including such a feature may well be outside of this rating therefore they do not include it under protection of that rating alone. Whether or not the rating IS affected by the feature is not important.

Stop being hysterical and relying on emotional bias. I will not ask you again.
Whether or not the rating itself is important is, on the other hand, a lot more important.

My argument was a counter to people who believe it should be included. You're countering a counterpoint that needs no counter.
This line of thought is getting out of hand. Tomodachi Life is set in a fantasy world. It's solely up to the developers, whether or not to include same-sex marriage or not.
Then there is absolutely no reason for this to be such a fuss 2 years after the release of the game. It's not even reasonable to get angry about it full stop. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Don't wait years for the localization and then suddenly act as though this comes as some kind of surprise.
I haven't even heard of the game until recently, at what point would people be able to voice their complaints when it was an unknown game in Japan? I'm sorry I can't keep up with Japan only releases, and that I get surprised when this sort of stuff comes over (Well, honestly I'm not too surprised. It seems the stance on same-sex marriage is different in Japan than it is elsewhere. If I was in charge of making the game, I probably wouldn't have included same-sex marriage either, at least initially.) 

Actually, it's not. There is no part of the game which forces you to marry or even implies you must do to get the most from the game.
But wouldn't it be nice if everyone at least had an opportunity to experience the same thing from the same game? You keep saying that my arguments are emotionally biased, but then that's not necessarily fallacious. If you do something that makes other people feel bad, then that's not a good action.

All this is is unnecessary public shaming pure and simple. And for what? Acceptance of the minority in question?
Well, yeah.

Under what circumstance does bullying a neutral party into apologizing publicly for not including a same-sex marriage feature (in one single game) help the cause at large? All this does is instill a culture of fear and resentment and give the message that anyone who doesn't comply with these beliefs will find themselves and their company at risk in doing so. Shades of fascism come to mind. People wonder why companies like Microsoft can purport outright misogynistic and homophobic dogma and make so much money in doing so, this is why; because the alternative is a divided fanbase and bad PR.
It's not facism. It's people letting a company know that the product they're providing does not meet their expectations in several ways. Don't companies all across the world spend millions of dollars looking for feedback? Here we are giving it for free. Companies already live in a state of perpetual fear. Will our new product sell enough to make a profit? Is our country's political relationship going to remain stable enough to continue exporting across the world? Are our investors happy with the amount of money we've made this financial year? If someone's trying to sell you ice cream in the middle of winter, then you won't buy it. If Nintendo release a life sim without same-sex marriage, 'people' (some?) won't buy it.

This isn't an emotional argument at all. Nintendo release a product that people may not want because it doesn't have same-sex marriage. At the same time, if said game had same-sex marriage, then they would buy it. Since it doesn't have it, they won't buy it. If they don't let that be known, then maybe Nintendo will attribute the lack of sales to the wrong reasons: maybe the western market just don't 'get' it, maybe they didn't advertise enough, maybe they should've had more Reggie in the trailers. This is an expression of people who want to have their same-sex marriage in a life sim, and they're letting Nintendo know it.

Or is it really? Are you right when you say that people are expecting companies to lead the way in same-sex marriage reforms and don't actually care about the game itself? I can't say that I was particular interested in the game either way, and yet here I am spending hours debating about it on a Pokemon forum. My argument pivots on whether or not people would've boycotted the game when they would've initially considered buying it, before Nintendo issued their apologies.

Then the other good point that you made is that Nintendo is merely trying to somewhat express the general culture that the world is in right now, in its own weird way. The majority of the world still doesn't accept same-sex marriage, after you include the majority of Africa, Russia, China, half of America and Japan themselves. Is it too early to be then demanding that same-sex marriage should be allowed in their games?

I haven't totally convinced myself away from those two points, the first one more so than the latter. But as it stands, the fact that Nintendo has issued an apology after this controversy has certainly drawn attention to the game. I think the saying goes, "All news is good news," or something along those lines, and I don't feel that at the end of the day Nintendo came out worse after this.

Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 13, 2014, 01:19
Whether or not the rating itself is important is, on the other hand, a lot more important.
This line of thought is getting out of hand. Tomodachi Life is set in a fantasy world. It's solely up to the developers, whether or not to include same-sex marriage or not. I haven't even heard of the game until recently, at what point would people be able to voice their complaints when it was an unknown game in Japan? I'm sorry I can't keep up with Japan only releases, and that I get surprised when this sort of stuff comes over (Well, honestly I'm not too surprised. It seems the stance on same-sex marriage is different in Japan than it is elsewhere. If I was in charge of making the game, I probably wouldn't have included same-sex marriage either, at least initially.) 
But wouldn't it be nice if everyone at least had an opportunity to experience the same thing from the same game? You keep saying that my arguments are emotionally biased, but then that's not necessarily fallacious. If you do something that makes other people feel bad, then that's not a good action.
Well, yeah.
It's not facism. It's people letting a company know that the product they're providing does not meet their expectations in several ways. Don't companies all across the world spend millions of dollars looking for feedback? Here we are giving it for free. Companies already live in a state of perpetual fear. Will our new product sell enough to make a profit? Is our country's political relationship going to remain stable enough to continue exporting across the world? Are our investors happy with the amount of money we've made this financial year? If someone's trying to sell you ice cream in the middle of winter, then you won't buy it. If Nintendo release a life sim without same-sex marriage, 'people' (some?) won't buy it.

This isn't an emotional argument at all. Nintendo release a product that people may not want because it doesn't have same-sex marriage. At the same time, if said game had same-sex marriage, then they would buy it. Since it doesn't have it, they won't buy it. If they don't let that be known, then maybe Nintendo will attribute the lack of sales to the wrong reasons: maybe the western market just don't 'get' it, maybe they didn't advertise enough, maybe they should've had more Reggie in the trailers. This is an expression of people who want to have their same-sex marriage in a life sim, and they're letting Nintendo know it.

Or is it really? Are you right when you say that people are expecting companies to lead the way in same-sex marriage reforms and don't actually care about the game itself? I can't say that I was particular interested in the game either way, and yet here I am spending hours debating about it on a Pokemon forum. My argument pivots on whether or not people would've boycotted the game when they would've initially considered buying it, before Nintendo issued their apologies.

Then the other good point that you made is that Nintendo is merely trying to somewhat express the general culture that the world is in right now, in its own weird way. The majority of the world still doesn't accept same-sex marriage, after you include the majority of Africa, Russia, China, half of America and Japan themselves. Is it too early to be then demanding that same-sex marriage should be allowed in their games?

I haven't totally convinced myself away from those two points, the first one more so than the latter. But as it stands, the fact that Nintendo has issued an apology after this controversy has certainly drawn attention to the game. I think the saying goes, "All news is good news," or something along those lines, and I don't feel that at the end of the day Nintendo came out worse after this.

You are completely contrasting your two points here. On the one hand you are saying that Nintendo has the right to make whatever they want, then on the other you are saying that they should make what suits the people. I can quote and quote until I am blue in the fact so I'm just going to make a list instead:

1) Attitudes to same-sex marriage in Japan are no different to the western world. I have already been over this.

2) It would be nice if same-sex marriage were included. It would also be nice if we got a Vs. Seeker in Pokemon. But if it is not to be then it is not to be, for whatever reason. It's the developer's discretion.

3) Unless Nintendo actively does something homophobic or undeniably offensive then there is absolutely no reason for such an outcry. None at all. What we've seen here is an entitled chimp's tea party.

4) Censorship of art in the interest of personal belief is fascism. Complaining and expecting change when a creative work does not meet your ethical or political beliefs is the mindset of a tyrant.

5) You're referring to the phrase "All publicity is good publicity" and no that is certainly not true of this scenario and probably the point that irks me the most in all this:

Nintendo are a great company; they are far, far more inclusive than any other games publisher of a similar size that I can think of. There are games targeted towards girls, boys, men and women alike, and we're not talking about a few niche titles here and there, we're talking a consistent flow of games for everybody. Very rarely (if ever) have Nintendo resorted to outright misogyny or homophobia in order to build up a faux sense of kinship with their players like Sony and Microsoft have done unashamedly for years, knowingly creating and nurturing a poisonous culture of justified homophobia, racism and sexism amongst young people worldwide.

And yet people would rather take a mile when given several inches and complain about the lack of a trivial feature in a trivial game during one of the most financially decisive moments of Nintendo's fate. Does this not sound entitled to you? Any change this brings about will be nothing more than a hollow victory for the LGBT movement, anyone can point the metaphorical gun at another's head and force him to accept your way of life, but that doesn't mean it lays a healthy foundation for equal rights.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes on May 13, 2014, 04:11
turner why'd you go for the 20 quote post and not my simple question,
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Xagor on May 13, 2014, 04:42
To be honest, you don't see gay couples in Pokémon (when you battle the partners in double battles), but no-one has made a deal of it. It might not be integral to the game, but it's something to draw comparison to. It's all blown a bit far out of proportion, whether Nintendo actually thought about it is unknown to us...but I don't think they left it out just to cause a stir.

Well there's that male couple (the psychic and the blackbelt), that the internet decided was a couple. (No I'm not going to go grab details right now, maybe once at home later). On the other hand, I think the internet read too much into the throwaway comment made by a Beauty (I think?) in the Battle Chateau (Maison?) that they used to decide she was transgender.

It really looks like to me this discussion here is probably going to get out of hand at some point.

I think the internet as a whole overreacted to the Tomodachi Life situation, and the media (esp the gaming one) exacerbated the situation. Nintendo's original comment on the situation wasn't the best, because it didn't really explain anything, and in trying to be non-committal actually made the situation worse somehow.

Their 2nd comment struck me as basically saying that the commitment required to patch / change the year old game for the Western release would be too big an undertaking from a programming standpoint. It wasn't being approached from a moral standpoint, but a practical one.

I think we can all agree that games being more inclusive can only be for the better though.

Also, I saw comments about yaoi / yuri stuff earlier. No, most of that is not aimed at people who are actually gay. It's mostly meant to titillate straight audiences (whether guys or girls). The stuff that actually deals with the subject matter properly (i.e. Takako Shimura's work) is in the vast minority.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 13, 2014, 17:52
I'm distinguishing between what they can do and what they "should" do. I CAN go outside and open up a lemonade stand on the streets in the middle of a winter night in some dodgy place in London. It's not a financially safe thing to do, and its probably not good for my well being either. But as a company who, as you keep pointing out, are in deep financial troubles right now, they should be primarily concerned with trying to salvage whatever they can make. Now whether or not including same-sex marriage will be a good move or not is questionable, but we can't debate that. 

Yes, I totally agree with, Nintendo are a great company and are far more conclusive than the rest of the big three. Does that make them exempt from all criticism in the world? No, even the best of us 'make mistakes'. And honestly, I don't buy that Nintendo are filling up all of their eggs in the one basket that is Tomodachi Life. If it flops a little, then that's not going to look great for Nintendo, but it's not as if their entire hopes are riding on this one game. And if it somehow does, then Nintendo have grossly misrepresented and underestimated the market that their trying to sell to.

And this so called controversy will not ultimately "bite Nintendo in the back", so to speak. As I've mentioned, plenty of people had not heard about Tomodachi Life before this controversy. Maybe you have, maybe I'm slightly more ignorant than others in the Nintendo scene. But the game's now been covered in dozens of news sites all across the internet. So has their first apology, which didn't seem great, but also their second. I don't see how it could be anything other than free advertising. Maybe initially, Nintendo was painted as some demon, homophobic company, but now, they're a company that is committed to change. Your argument that this event is going to somehow lead to the death of Nintendo is completely and utterly overstated.

If people choosing to not buy products that they don't want is facism to you, then I'm afraid to say that you live in a facist world then. The principle of people buying things that they want is totally how our economy works. Let's assume that, you know what, people love everything that Nintendo ever makes from now on. These guys are in financial trouble, you know, we should help them out by buying every single game they ever make from now on. That's even more ridiculous than the situation we're in now.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 13, 2014, 19:41
I'm distinguishing between what they can do and what they "should" do. I CAN go outside and open up a lemonade stand on the streets in the middle of a winter night in some dodgy place in London. It's not a financially safe thing to do, and its probably not good for my well being either. But as a company who, as you keep pointing out, are in deep financial troubles right now, they should be primarily concerned with trying to salvage whatever they can make. Now whether or not including same-sex marriage will be a good move or not is questionable, but we can't debate that. 

Yes, I totally agree with, Nintendo are a great company and are far more conclusive than the rest of the big three. Does that make them exempt from all criticism in the world? No, even the best of us 'make mistakes'. And honestly, I don't buy that Nintendo are filling up all of their eggs in the one basket that is Tomodachi Life. If it flops a little, then that's not going to look great for Nintendo, but it's not as if their entire hopes are riding on this one game. And if it somehow does, then Nintendo have grossly misrepresented and underestimated the market that their trying to sell to.

And this so called controversy will not ultimately "bite Nintendo in the back", so to speak. As I've mentioned, plenty of people had not heard about Tomodachi Life before this controversy. Maybe you have, maybe I'm slightly more ignorant than others in the Nintendo scene. But the game's now been covered in dozens of news sites all across the internet. So has their first apology, which didn't seem great, but also their second. I don't see how it could be anything other than free advertising. Maybe initially, Nintendo was painted as some demon, homophobic company, but now, they're a company that is committed to change. Your argument that this event is going to somehow lead to the death of Nintendo is completely and utterly overstated.

If people choosing to not buy products that they don't want is facism to you, then I'm afraid to say that you live in a facist world then. The principle of people buying things that they want is totally how our economy works. Let's assume that, you know what, people love everything that Nintendo ever makes from now on. These guys are in financial trouble, you know, we should help them out by buying every single game they ever make from now on. That's even more ridiculous than the situation we're in now.

Are you seriously trying to paraphrase my points into something completely different because you can't argue the original ones?

How on earth did you get this:

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If people choosing to not buy products that they don't want is facism to you, then I'm afraid to say that you live in a facist world then.

Out of this:

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Censorship of art in the interest of personal belief is fascism.

You're acting as though this incident was handled in an adult manner. If only it was as calm and sensible as people saying 'Well then I'm not going to buy this'. But no, we got the "NOT INCLUDING MINORITY x IS xPHOBIC AND OFFENSIVE" crowd instead.

And what about this:

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Your argument that this event is going to somehow lead to the death of Nintendo is completely and utterly overstated

How did you get that from this:

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complain about the lack of a trivial feature in a trivial game during one of the most financially decisive moments of Nintendo's fate.

How are you in any position to say what is or isn't 'overstated' when you've just interpreted a post in this way? Or are you really arguing that Nintendo's financial situation is as good as it has ever been?

Maybe you're just having some trouble reading:

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I don't buy that Nintendo are filling up all of their eggs in the one basket that is Tomodachi Life.

Well I'm glad you don't buy into that idea, because I wasn't selling you it:

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a trivial feature in a trivial game
.

Talk about moving the goal posts, all you are doing now is falling back on strawman arguments, presumably because you haven't actually countered a single point in this thread, you've only shoehorned your opinion in as fact and expected everyone to swallow it.

For your information, Nintendo shouldn't do anything. There is absolutely nothing they 'should' do, regardless of your passive aggressive pressure. They CAN make videogames, but they don't have a right to do so and they certainly don't have a right or responsibility to include minority (or majority) groups. You are fans of them, not vice versa - it's not their responsibility to please and entertain them. You by being a fan are the one who buys the product and if you don't like the product then don't buy it just as you wouldn't buy any other videogame for not including a feature, but don't act like there is some kind of homophobia or discrimination going on, because there is not.

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turner why'd you go for the 20 quote post and not my simple question,

Treat dodgy posts like bombs in your back garden etc. I'm sure you've been here long enough to know that.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Lord Raven on May 13, 2014, 22:27
turner are you actually gay yourself or not, just curious
Don't spit this out.  I'm waiting on my Pakistani protagonist and it's a little bit of a drag being a white/asian person interacting with solely white/asian people.

Just to make my view clear - I don't think Nintendo should have included the feature if they analysed it to be a bad thing for their company, but I don't see any harm in them apologising and I don't think it was unreasonable for people to ask it to be included. I DO think it's unreasonable if people keep persisting to have e feature added when Nintendo have said they can't include it and have apologised.
Are these people the majority of fans though?

Also, the "E" rating is meant for everyone.  The idea is not that it's inappropriate for children to see homosexuality, it's that their parents may see it as inappropriate.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 13, 2014, 22:51
Good! Looks like we're making some progress here. Let's take this step by step, as always then.

You're acting as though this incident was handled in an adult manner. If only it was as calm and sensible as people saying 'Well then I'm not going to buy this'. But no, we got the "NOT INCLUDING MINORITY x IS xPHOBIC AND OFFENSIVE" crowd instead.
Now, it's possible that there could be an implied "NOT INCLUDING MINORITY x IS xPHOBIC AND OFFENSIVE" in the demands, but at face value, the miiquality movement started off with a group of people asking Nintendo to allow gay marriage in a video game. Whether Nintendo are a horrible homophobic company or not is not really on the agenda. You're the one who's creating a straw man fallacy here. There's nothing wrong with asking for a feature to be put in a game, then dropping it when Nintendo says to the effect of considering the issue a little more seriously for a potential sequel.

Actually, after looking over that the miiquality facebook page for a bit, there's no one accusing Nintendo of being homophobic. Only people accusing the supporters of the feature of accusing Nintendo of being homophobic. I mean, it's hardly thorough and I could just be tunnel visioning a little, so please feel free to have look and prove me wrong.

How are you in any position to say what is or isn't 'overstated' when you've just interpreted a post in this way? Or are you really arguing that Nintendo's financial situation is as good as it has ever been?
In which case, I don't see the big deal about all this supposed "bad PR" for Nintendo. It's an honest, forgivable, kind of a big deal apparently, oversight. Like you said, Nintendo are hardly a company with a reputation for any anti-X. If its a trivial feature in a trivial game (and I don't see how it can be that trivial if I've spent the past few days arguing about it), then it doesn't matter if it's now or whenever. I'm not saying Nintendo's financial position are as good as its ever been, but if its a trivial game, then I don't see how this game has any bearing on Nintendo's success as a company.

Talk about moving the goal posts, all you are doing now is falling back on strawman arguments, presumably because you haven't actually countered a single point in this thread, you've only shoehorned your opinion in as fact and expected everyone to swallow it.
I'll admit that I might not have understood all your points as thoroughly as I should have, but at the same time, I don't feel that you've countered a single point in this thread either. We can all talk about how our various dogmas blind us to what's written, but that's not going to lead us anywhere.
For your information, Nintendo shouldn't do anything. There is absolutely nothing they 'should' do, regardless of your passive aggressive pressure. They CAN make videogames, but they don't have a right to do so and they certainly don't have a right or responsibility to include minority (or majority) groups. You are fans of them, not vice versa - it's not their responsibility to please and entertain them. You by being a fan are the one who buys the product and if you don't like the product then don't buy it just as you wouldn't buy any other videogame for not including a feature, but don't act like there is some kind of homophobia or discrimination going on, because there is not.
You've lost me. Nintendo don't have a right to do so? If they didn't have a right, then how are they allowed to make video games? Unless you meant responsibility, of course.

But as long as Nintendo are determined to sell stuff, and they will strive for that goal until the bitter end, then it is their responsibility to entertain "them" (I assume you meant the fans?) If Nintendo want to make money, then they'll sell what the people want to see. There's no point putting a movie on a VHS if no one even owns a suitable player for it (right, that's a dumb analogy I just made up on the top of my head, leave it alone I know its trite).

Unless what you're trying to say is that Nintendo don't have to cater to me, as in personally? Well I suppose not, but then if there's a significant proportion of people who won't buy the game because it doesn't have same-sex marriage, then that changes things.

You're right though, I'm not in a position to say anything about whether or not there's homophobia in the Nintendo HQ. But then I don't need to, I'm only asserting that it's fine for people to petition for a feature to be added into a game. Maybe it's partly my fault because I made the same assumption, but there's not an overall, overt feeling that Nintendo are the devil, but rather, that they feel that there's a feature that should be in the game that isn't.

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Are you serious? Every time a new console comes out there is a fresh partition to remap the controller buttons so disabled people are able to play the games. There is a market dedicated to peripherals for disabled people to play the games and this is just so they can play the games, let alone be represented in them. If you are honestly suggesting that disabled gamers form a smaller minority than homosexual players (that wish to marry in-game) then I have absolutely nothing to say, because that is insanity.
Fine then. There's a significant number of people petitioning to be able to remap controllers. That's is completely are utterly justified. Here, we have some people who want a feature and are unfortunately totally unable to buy a product until that feature is introduced. When they start petitioning to be represented in the game, then companies should listen. Until then, they better focus on getting that button remapping in their consoles first.

Ah, here we go, there's a difference between wanting to play a game and, crudely put, wanting to be in a game. As I've said before, when people start asking to be able to be disabled in a video game, not a disabled person playing a video game, then I'll be on their side.

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Ah yes but remember this is a risk/reward scenario. How many LGBT supporters will continue to play Tomodachi Life upon finding out at it will not include same-sex marriage? How many homosexuals played Harvest Moon? How many trans* people played AC before there was the freedom to express gender that New Leaf gave us? How many trans* people played Pokemon before there was an option to even choose gender? How many non-binary people continue to play Pokemon to this day?

The list goes on, but the long and the short of it is that these people will play videogames regardless as they have done so far, so as far as any video game developer is concerned, there is no potential drastic loss in sales in excluding them.

Compare that to the bashers, the right wing nutjobs, American soccer moms and bible bashers - many of which own Nintendo consoles because they believe that Nintendo has games which will not burst the bubble they force their child to live within. There was a movement to ban Pokemon by these people who didn't like that it contained concepts of evolution, they are extremists who absolutely will pull the purse strings if a game features something even slightly offensive to their beliefs and make no mistake, they will not allow their little Jimmy to play Tomodachi Life 2 if it means he can virtually marry little Tommy from across the street.
How many LGBT supporters would've refused to buy the game until Nintendo's promise of same-sex marriage as a possibility in the sequel? At the same time, look at just how many prominent bannings of pokemon games around the world was and see how effectual it was in slowing its spread. We can't look at the sales of this game for guidance, because it's distorted by Nintendo's apologies.

Well, even though it seemed to be OK for Nintendo to release games that only had same-sex marriage in the past, today looks like it's a little different, and unprecedented. Honestly, after this fiasco, I wouldn't be surprised to see a petition for same-sex marriage in a future Harvest Moon game.


This has gotten a little messy it seems. Our initial point of contention is whether or not people are right to petition for the feature of same-sex marriage in a video game. I argue that it is fair, you argue that it is not. If I have this right (and well, if not, then here's my new straw man), you argue this because it would be:
a) unreasonable for Nintendo to change a feature for a game that has already been released for some time in Japan, and unreasonable to go through the effort of rewriting code that they would've otherwise carried over for the sequel.
b) not fair on Nintendo because they're in financial problems.
c) implies that Nintendo are a homophobic company, when in fact, they're extremely inclusive.
d) people should first strive to make same-sex marriage more widely accepted, before they expect a video games company to reflect that.
e) Nintendo have no responsibility, or motive, to comply to the wishes of a minority. Morally, they have no responsibility, and from motive, it is a large risk to take when they're in perilous waters. In fact, it could even stand to harm them, as it can possibly increase their ESRB rating and offend those on the right side of the fence.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 13, 2014, 22:52
((Hit the character limit, that's a first))
a) and b) have no bearing on the rightness of asking for a feature to be added to a game. Is it equally unreasonable for your disabled gamers to petition for controller remapping, if that controller happened to be a WiiU gamepad? That would surely require a large amount of programming, and I assume a lot longer play-testing for EVERY game, as they would now have to make sure there are no bugs with various different button mappings. That still costs money. It's unreasonable to expect it to be added in the short run, or immediately, but it's not a sin to hope.

c) Well, if I've accused Nintendo of being homophobic then I hereby retract that statement. Honestly, there's no hidden anti-gay agenda here, at least no conscious one. It's not about taking an evil corporation though, it's about getting a feature that people believe should be in a game into a game.

In the case of d), then why not both? Is it not possible to seek same-sex marriage in both reality and the virtual world at the same time? Are you going as far as to say that it is in fact WRONG to seek both at the same time? I was always taught to finish dinner before eating dessert, but I never would've thought it would apply here. If Nintendo reads that an acceptable way of representing a feature of human relationships is in one way, and people disagree with that interpretation of that, then they're entitled to their opinion. Then, in the case that Nintendo are trying to sell said representation of human relationships to people who don't think it is an accurate representation, then they're not obliged to buy it. In fact, they're totally right in saying, "Look, that's not how life works according to me. If you're really trying to sell this stuff to me, then go back and redo this."

e) Nintendo aren't responsible for making games that everyone will like. That's certainly something they strive for, but there's no pleasing everybody. In the same way, people don't have a responsibility to like every single thing they see. If people see something that they dislike a lot, then they'll try and change it.

Nintendo's financial situation or reputation doesn't make them invincible from criticism. I actually don't really care about the state of Nintendo: they'll still stay around as long as they make enough of the games that people want to buy. Of this I have no doubt. This petition is simply an indication to Nintendo of what a proportion of the people in their customer base want to buy. Therefore, it's totally justified.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 13, 2014, 23:47
Once again Hahex and Oshawott you are demonstrating a complete lack of reading comprehension.

It's fine to make a partition, it's fine to ask for a feature, it's fine to beg for a feature, but this is not newsworthy in of itself. You claim there are no accusational tones behind these demands, you claim that nobody is implying Nintendo is homophobic but you couldn't be more wrong. This would even be news if somebody was not offended by it. The very reason we are talking about this in the first place is because the feature is *gay marriage*, would there be articles on the BBC if this were about the exclusion of any other feature? No, there would not.

The very fact this is news relies on the fact that people are offended enough to cause a storm about it, what they don't realize is that there is absolutely no obligation on Nintendo's behalf to include this feature and to throw accusations of homophobia around based on its exclusion is childish entitlement that does absolutely no good for anybody.

It really is that simple yet it's a point you continue to miss/avoid time after time after time. You keep saying "Well Nintendo can do what they want to do, but here's how they should be doing do it". No. Wrong. Incorrect. There is no particular way Nintendo 'should' be doing anything and to expect otherwise is ridiculous. If you understand this so much, why do you insist on contradicting it every single time? Are you really so attached to your personal beliefs that you cannot accept people doing things differently? Isn't this very mentality the one that causes cultural hegemony against homosexuals in the first place?

The only people who think this is controversial are the people who want this to be controversial, they want it to be controversial because they believe that they have some right to see their minority groups represented in a video game. They come to this conclusion because they, (like everyone) are aware of the fact that we allow video games to shape what is culturally acceptable far more than we should. But instead of heading to the root of the problem and fixing that, it is of course far easier to complain that game x doesn't represent minority y.

The question really is where does it end? Upon what moral standards is demanding the inclusion of a same-sex marriage feature fine and demanding the inclusion of non-binary gender going 'too far'? Or do we just keep going until every possible minority group is accounted for and each game takes a year longer and several million more dollars to make?

I'd like to ask you personally, Hahex and Oshawott; Precisely where is the line drawn? Is it a particular ratio of minority:majority that needs to be met? Does the minority in question have to 'earn' their right to inclusion through decades of oppression and hate crimes? Or is this simply a matter of numbers? Do we need to get 10K signatures on a petition before we can register a minority as 'valid' and thus have them included into the game too?
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: OpalRhea on May 14, 2014, 00:05
...Would you guys please just stop already? You're both making extraordinarily good points. But this seems to be turning into a massive argument, and while I agree that something has to change, Nintendo's games have a social structure that reflects current reality.

It feels like you guys are desperate to have a debate, but slinging insults at someone's intelligence isn't the way to go about it. So would you both please just either take it to PM, or drop it? Or hell, take it to the debate board (but if you do please keep it clean).
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: sans the skeleton on May 14, 2014, 00:16
didn't read the topic b/c apparently there's been an argument but
wouldn't it have been easier for them to include it in the first place anyway? p sure it takes more to code exclusion rules for two people of the same sex (ingame) than it does just to leave it
sims is an example

anyway i wasn't planning on getting this game anyway. it sounds terrible in the first place? sims basically does what it does but way better so i've heard, so :/
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 14, 2014, 01:00
didn't read the topic b/c apparently there's been an argument but
wouldn't it have been easier for them to include it in the first place anyway? p sure it takes more to code exclusion rules for two people of the same sex (ingame) than it does just to leave it
sims is an example

No because in Tomodachi Life marriage = pregnancy = offspring. The entire marriage mechanic is really just a cutscene from the moment of proposal where the female is made to wear bridal clothes and the male dons a groom's suit. The whole scene is a presented in a humorous way and a parody of the typical wedding found Japanese dramas. Following this the female gets pregnant through implied intercourse (Yes the female Mii's stomach expands in a comedic fashion) and several cutscenes are shown of the father playing with the baby Mii.

It's not something that could be 'patched in' or could ever have been opted out of. It would probably considered more offensive if one of the same-sex couple was forced to wear a dress while the other was forced to wear a suit and downright strange for a male to become visibly pregnant.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes on May 14, 2014, 01:16
Treat dodgy posts like bombs in your back garden etc. I'm sure you've been here long enough to know that.

turner, how do you think lgbt representation should be handled in the current media??


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Don't spit this out.  I'm waiting on my Pakistani protagonist and it's a little bit of a drag being a white/asian person interacting with solely white/asian people.

haha lmao tell me about it


i got fed up of waiting for my disabled lgbt mixed race knightess in armour and started workin on my own story instead lmao, its gonna be crap as all hell but its something at least <----- edit: this sounds snarky @ u but it wasn't meant to be, apologies, i have been genuinely frustrated at misrepresentation and just upped and went "SOD IT" and started work on a literal mafia story where all the characters look like they've walked out of the downtown pride
 





tbh Being Serious For A Bit i feel that the Third Wave D.I.Y ethos is really important in social movements these days if one feels inclusivity is not being achieved but thats cos im smackbang in the middle of a latter day riot grrl/DIY community which thankfully has kept me grounded from the dreadful tumblr slactivist community and their second-wave radfem ways of achieving stuff





the hilarious consequence to this is if microsoft or sony release an avatar-based game where you can gay marry tbh tho, imagine the pages and pages of awful topics on gamefaqs and angry nintendo nerds


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It's not something that could be 'patched in' or could ever have been opted out of. It would probably considered more offensive if one of the same-sex couple was forced to wear a dress while the other was forced to wear a suit and downright strange for a male to become visibly pregnant.


see now i think this would be a great feature tbh
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 14, 2014, 02:07
turner, how do you think lgbt representation should be handled in the current media??

At the discretion of whoever makes said 'media'. I don't think it should be 'represented' at all, I don't think anything or anyone should be actively 'represented' for the sake of being represented. If you want to make a homophobic game/movie/book/album then fine, if you want to make a heterophobic game/movie/book/album then fine - it should be entirely up to the person who makes it.

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see now i think this would be a great feature tbh

It was a bug for a while in Tomodachi Collection

(http://images.gameskinny.com/gameskinny/b706c46e1137c16f42a6ce03f7001679.jpg)
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Lord Raven on May 14, 2014, 04:24
So would you both please just either take it to PM, or drop it? Or hell, take it to the debate board (but if you do please keep it clean).
The conversation seems relatively civil to me.  I'll show you examples of arguments-gone-wrong if you want a comparison.

Some people on this forum *cough cough* have had tendencies to take arguments a little personally.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 14, 2014, 19:05
Oh God I stayed up till 3 last night typing out a reply and it's not here any more whyyy. I'll just quickly blitz through those points again then.

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The question really is where does it end? Upon what moral standards is demanding the inclusion of a same-sex marriage feature fine and demanding the inclusion of non-binary gender going 'too far'? Or do we just keep going until every possible minority group is accounted for and each game takes a year longer and several million more dollars to make?

I'd like to ask you personally, Hahex and Oshawott; Precisely where is the line drawn? Is it a particular ratio of minority:majority that needs to be met? Does the minority in question have to 'earn' their right to inclusion through decades of oppression and hate crimes? Or is this simply a matter of numbers? Do we need to get 10K signatures on a petition before we can register a minority as 'valid' and thus have them included into the game too?
That's certainly a tough question, and most things that I would answer with will probably be problematic. Fortunately, it's not up to me to decide. It's down to Nintendo, or whoever any x group is petitioning for y action to, to decide when they want to start listening.

You also argue that petitioning for same-sex marriage in Tomodachi Life is also implying that Nintendo is in fact homophobic. But that's not entirely logical. When people start and sign a petition, it's because they believe that there's a chance that whatever they're signing for will be considered seriously. Obviously, the more signatures you collect, the more people who believe that. The fact that there's a few people who've signed it show that they believe it's something that can be realistically included in the game (although, as it turns out, it can't be put in. Not for any moral issue, but because of the pragmatic issue of coding and time etc.) Now you can't just stroll into North Korea and start a petition for democratic election because a) people will be terrified for their lives for signing it and b) it's incredibly unlikely that Mr Kim-Jon Un and his merry comrades are going to listen to it. From that perspective, it's impossible to accuse people of accusing Nintendo of being homophobic.

At the same time, had Microsoft or Sony done the same thing, there would probably still be petitions for same-sex marriage. As you've mentioned before, these companies are supposedly a lot less inclusive than Nintendo. But there are still petitions. In which case, what do the demands really say about the people's opinion of the company? One interpretation is that all companies would be accused of homophobia. The other is that people don't really care about whether a company is homophobic or not; if they are are, well that's not seen as a good thing but if they're not then it still doesn't matter. The supporters will still ask for same-sex marriage regardless.

And let's assume that you're right and that asking for same-sex marriage must necessarily imply that people are also accusing Nintendo of homophobia. Does that mean that we'll never be able to ask for same-sex marriage in a video game without any wild implications that are put onto it by opposition? That doesn't seem particularly fair either.

Quote
It really is that simple yet it's a point you continue to miss/avoid time after time after time. You keep saying "Well Nintendo can do what they want to do, but here's how they should be doing do it". No. Wrong. Incorrect. There is no particular way Nintendo 'should' be doing anything and to expect otherwise is ridiculous. If you understand this so much, why do you insist on contradicting it every single time? Are you really so attached to your personal beliefs that you cannot accept people doing things differently? Isn't this very mentality the one that causes cultural hegemony against homosexuals in the first place?
People talk about what Nintendo should do all the time. Some say they should develop for smartphones, some say they should stick to the franchises that they know and some say they should make consoles that can compete in terms of hardware with Sony and Microsoft. You're mistaking my "should" as "must". I'm making a heavy suggestion, not forcing a dictate onto them. If it appeared that way, then I apologize for not making that clearer. 

And on a much lighter note, I found this mildly amusing. (http://pokejungle.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/jungle-funnies-1.jpg)
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 14, 2014, 20:30
You also argue that petitioning for same-sex marriage in Tomodachi Life is also implying that Nintendo is in fact homophobic.

No I did not at all. You are acting as though the 'Miiquality' petition is the only facet of this entire debate when in fact it came AFTER the homophobia accusations of which there were plenty. Once again, this is not on BBC because some people wanted to make a petition. Even The Korea Times outright called Nintendo homophobic (http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/world/2014/05/182_156966.html). There are quite a few other links I could post here, but I'd be breaking the rules if I did, turns out the people who accuse Nintendo of homophobia aren't exactly very polite themselves.

And let's assume that you're right and that asking for same-sex marriage must necessarily imply that people are also accusing Nintendo of homophobia. Does that mean that we'll never be able to ask for same-sex marriage in a video game without any wild implications that are put onto it by opposition? That doesn't seem particularly fair either.

Once again, this is not a 'wild accusation'. These are solid facts. Video games developers should include same-sex marriage at their own discretion and when they do, that is fine. Complaining that the lack of feature is 'homophobic' is ridiculous however.

If you want to read something worthwhile about this then read the following article:

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/ChristianNutt/20140508/217351/Understanding_Nintendos_Tomodachi_Life_problem.php

This person has the clearest grasp of the situation. Make clear notes of 1) How much control you actually have over the game and its characters and 2) Animal Crossing and skin tones.

Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 14, 2014, 22:28
No I did not at all. You are acting as though the 'Miiquality' petition is the only facet of this entire debate when in fact it came AFTER the homophobia accusations of which there were plenty. Once again, this is not on BBC because some people wanted to make a petition. Even The Korea Times outright called Nintendo homophobic (http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/world/2014/05/182_156966.html). There are quite a few other links I could post here, but I'd be breaking the rules if I did, turns out the people who accuse Nintendo of homophobia aren't exactly very polite themselves.
Could you PM me some of those links in that case, please?

Either way, whether or not the news sites, or even individuals, accused Nintendo of homophobia or not, the act of requesting same-sex marriage in Tomodachi Life itself is not wrong. The one point that I have a problem with is this original assertion:
Quote
Complaining about Nintendo not having gay marriage in their game is an unnecessary attack on Nintendo,
Yes, it's an attack, but is it unnecessary? Well it depends on the definition, but for the most part, it seems fair enough that people are upset that a game doesn't have a feature they want. Do Nintendo have to listen, or comply? They don't. But it's still acceptable to make a point about it.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 14, 2014, 23:36
Either way, whether or not the news sites, or even individuals, accused Nintendo of homophobia or not

They did. I literally just gave you an example of a major tabloid doing so. There is no 'or not', stop trying to act like there is some king of ambiguity in what was said when there clearly wasn't. I'm also pretty sure PMs fall under the same rules as the rest of the site, but it's really not difficult to find with some google-fu.

the act of requesting same-sex marriage in Tomodachi Life itself is not wrong.

Exactly, which is why the petition is fine. But I didn't say 'requesting', I said complaining and accusing. There is a big difference, especially so on the scale we've seen.

Once again you're being awfully selective with your paraphrasing when it suits your argument, I get the impression you are doing this because you're aware that you are now fighting a losing battle. Do you honestly think people are too stupid to see you to twist the words of anybody who disagrees with you so that they appear more extreme whilst playing down your own words to make yourself sound more reasonable? That's the oldest trick in the book, maybe you should consider a career in spin doctoring. Or maybe you shouldn't, as this is the third time I've caught you at it now.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 15, 2014, 01:59
They did. I literally just gave you an example of a major tabloid doing so. There is no 'or not', stop trying to act like there is some king of ambiguity in what was said when there clearly wasn't. I'm also pretty sure PMs fall under the same rules as the rest of the site, but it's really not difficult to find with some google-fu.

Exactly, which is why the petition is fine. But I didn't say 'requesting', I said complaining and accusing. There is a big difference, especially so on the scale we've seen.
I'm not implying any ambiguity, I'm saying that it's irrelevant. I'll concede that I'm wrong about no-one accusing Nintendo of homophobia, but I still don't think that it's wrong to complain about the lack of a feature.
Once again you're being awfully selective with your paraphrasing when it suits your argument, I get the impression you are doing this because you're aware that you are now fighting a losing battle. Do you honestly think people are too stupid to see you to twist the words of anybody who disagrees with you so that they appear more extreme whilst playing down your own words to make yourself sound more reasonable? That's the oldest trick in the book, maybe you should consider a career in spin doctoring. Or maybe you shouldn't, as this is the third time I've caught you at it now.
I'm sorry that I gave you that impression. I'll try to be a little more strict with myself next time. But is it still unreasonable to complain about a missing feature? If you don't like something, then you should complain about it. I'll now link the request with complaint. A petition, which is essentially a mass request, implies dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. It's a forward, progressive take on an otherwise negative complaint.

For example, let's look at this one (http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/62894). The forward action is to protect Mildenhall Stadium from being shut down. But the complaint is that the court's ruling of 'coming to a nuisance' is used too freely and haphazardly in this instance. Likewise here, (http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/53523) although the forward motion is to get recognition for Eid and Diwali, essentially they're complaining that they're festivals are not recognized. They're not accusing the government of being corrupted or racist.

Now as you've mentioned, there are accusations of Nintendo being homophobic. But those accusations are not necessarily linked with the act of complaining. You can complain about Nintendo being homophobic, or Nintendo not including same-sex marriage, but one does not necessitate the other. For some people, they go hand in hand and for others they don't. Now, the first one requires a little more substance to be justified, but we can clearly see that the second one is based on a totally true observation; Tomodachi Life does not have same-sex marriage. Thus, the first one is unreasonable and unnecessary as it is not based on a true premise, but the second one is. Because of this, complaining that Nintendo is homophobic must also include an accusation, an unsubstantiated claim, that Nintendo is homophobic, since there is little to substantiate it. There requires further proof or evidence to justify the accusation, in order to justify the complaint.

The second complaint is fully justified. There is no same-sex marriage in the game. Thus, it is just to complain about it, if you deem that to be something that should be in the game. To return to this statement:
Quote
Complaining about Nintendo not having gay marriage in their game is an unnecessary attack on Nintendo,
If by attack, you mean an accusation of homophobia, then the two are not conflatable. It's entirely possible that some people are making both complaints at the same time, but then there are others who are only making the latter complaint. I agree that the "attack on Nintendo" is unnecessary, but the "Complaining about Nintendo not having gay marriage" is firstly not the same as an "attack on Nintendo", and, well I wouldn't go as far as to say necessary so, justified.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Pam-the-Lamb on May 15, 2014, 22:41
 I'm really looking forward to this game. It looks pretty quirky and fun but not something you could play for ages without stopping.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 15, 2014, 23:51
I'm not implying any ambiguity, I'm saying that it's irrelevant.
I'll concede that I'm wrong about no-one accusing Nintendo of homophobia

How can it NOT be relevant when it was the exact argument you used? Do you even know what you're arguing about anymore? Your entire point stood upon the fact that allegedly 'Nobody was calling Nintendo Homophobic'. I've literally shown you proof of that to be false and now you're saying it's irrelevant? Are you seriously saying that facts are only relevant when they support your argument?

But is it still unreasonable to complain about a missing feature? If you don't like something, then you should complain about it. I'll now link the request with complaint. A petition, which is essentially a mass request, implies dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. It's a forward, progressive take on an otherwise negative complaint.

This has been my point all along, complaining and petitioning is fine. Throwing words like 'Homophobia' around is not. It IS however completely unnecessary to complain as this is a product that will be willingly purchased by the customer. It makes no sense to complain about something that you will consensually pay £40 to enjoy with full knowledge that the thing you don't like is included in the game.

To make an analogy, it would be like writing an abusive letter to SEGA claiming that you bought the latest Sonic game and are absolutely outraged that it didn't include any black characters, despite already knowing full well beforehand that there would be no black characters whatsoever and still buying it anyway, then following this up by starting up a hate campaign calling SEGA a bunch of racists.

Likewise here, (http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/53523) although the forward motion is to get recognition for Eid and Diwali, essentially they're complaining that they're festivals are not recognized. They're not accusing the government of being corrupted or racist.

This petition may be well phrased and polite, but it definitely falls under 'completely unnecessary' and I have no idea why anyone would even consider putting it forward to government.

Now as you've mentioned, there are accusations of Nintendo being homophobic. But those accusations are not necessarily linked with the act of complaining.

An accusation like 'x is homophobic!!' IS a complaint no matter which way you slice it. People are not calling Nintendo homophobic as a compliment.

If by attack, you mean an accusation of homophobia, then the two are not conflatable.

Calling someone homophobic is an attack. If I was to call someone a racist it would absolutely be an attack on their personal character.

but the "Complaining about Nintendo not having gay marriage" is firstly not the same as an "attack on Nintendo",

You are literally agreeing with me. I have no idea why you are trying to present this as an argument as I said literally the same thing in the last post when you insisted the two were the same. You just keep chopping and changing your point constantly. It's getting difficult to take you seriously at all in this.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Joeno on May 16, 2014, 10:37
I'm going to interject here after a few reports and say that I have no clue what the discussion is about here.

People have called Nintendo homophobic - or at least their reaction to the issues. Whether or not this is a full attack is a matter of semantics and not really relevant to anything here and I don't really understand why large posts are needed to discuss this. Focus, instead, on the actual argument - is it homophobic, is it the right thing to do, and does it really take that much time to remove a line saying
Code: [Select]
if(person1.gender  != person2.gender) relationship.romantic_allowed = true;?

(On a personal level, this refusal is enough reason for me to no longer be interested in the game and not to purchase it, but that's a personal choice. I also do feel that, by not including it, Nintendo is making a clear statement that makes me feel uncomfortable, and I'm happy that they indicated willingness to change it in the future - I just need to see it happen first)

Anyway, my point is, I don't see why there is even a discussion on whether people are free to complain about this, create petitions and so on. Whether or not Nintendo acts on it, or should act on it, is a separate discussion, and perhaps the debate here could be more interesting and less fierce if the focus can be on the bigger picture instead of the semantics discussed here that seem to have led to nobody really knowing what's being discussed.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 16, 2014, 20:10
and does it really take that much time to remove a line saying
Code: [Select]
if(person1.gender  != person2.gender) relationship.romantic_allowed = true;?

Have you actually seen how this game handles the marriage mechanic? It's certainly not as easy as that. You don't even get to choose who your Mii has a romantic attraction to, let alone marry. Effectively the entire Relationship + Marriage + Pregnancy + Childbirth mechanic is one big cutscene that pairs a random male Mii with a random female Mii and generates a (horrific looking) child by mixing the visual features of both. This is why Nintendo referred to the game as a comedic fantasy world, not because they were making some kind of implication about same-sex relationships.

And this is also why being able to be in a relationship with a member of the same sex was a bug; because it allowed males to get pregnant (as pictured in this thread already). Effectively there could be a lot of incestuous Mii children made with these games. There's been far too much jumping on the 'I feel offended and alienated' bandwagon without people actually bothering to study why the game is the way it is in the first place.

I think people have really not done their research at all on this game, it's nothing like Animal Crossing. You are not playing as yourself, nor do you have the same level of control over yourself as you would on games like The Sims. It really is much more like having a Mii Tamagotchi than anything people are thinking of, I see absolutely nobody read the link I posted though. 
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 17, 2014, 00:52
You are literally agreeing with me. I have no idea why you are trying to present this as an argument as I said literally the same thing in the last post when you insisted the two were the same. You just keep chopping and changing your point constantly. It's getting difficult to take you seriously at all in this.
OK, my point is that complaining about the lack of same-sex marriage is not an attack on Nintendo. You can accuse/complain about Nintendo being homophobic, but it's not the same as complaining about same-sex marriage. I suppose I have been quite sloppy, and that last post doesn't seem to be as clear as it could be. Let me clarify:

How can it NOT be relevant when it was the exact argument you used? Do you even know what you're arguing about anymore? Your entire point stood upon the fact that allegedly 'Nobody was calling Nintendo Homophobic'. I've literally shown you proof of that to be false and now you're saying it's irrelevant? Are you seriously saying that facts are only relevant when they support your argument?
If the facts are wrong, then they can't support my argument. I don't think you'd like it if I tried to stand by that assertion, so I dropped it.

This has been my point all along, complaining and petitioning is fine. Throwing words like 'Homophobia' around is not. It IS however completely unnecessary to complain as this is a product that will be willingly purchased by the customer. It makes no sense to complain about something that you will consensually pay £40 to enjoy with full knowledge that the thing you don't like is included in the game.

To make an analogy, it would be like writing an abusive letter to SEGA claiming that you bought the latest Sonic game and are absolutely outraged that it didn't include any black characters, despite already knowing full well beforehand that there would be no black characters whatsoever and still buying it anyway, then following this up by starting up a hate campaign calling SEGA a bunch of racists.
Well hold up. The game's not even out yet, no one's paid anything, apart from maybe a deposit. So first, let's not assume that said person wrote the letter after they got the game, in order to tighten up the analogy. You can still complain about a lack of black characters, but then the hate campaign is wrong.

Leaving that point for just a moment, if the game lacked a feature that they would otherwise buy had the feature been included, then they would not have bought it. Otherwise, it would seem like an attractive game that would be worth your time buying. So the game will not be bought, but you will might also attempt to persuade the game company to add in said feature. That is a little more accurate representation of what's happening, rather than what you're describing.

An accusation like 'x is homophobic!!' IS a complaint no matter which way you slice it. People are not calling Nintendo homophobic as a compliment.

Calling someone homophobic is an attack. If I was to call someone a racist it would absolutely be an attack on their personal character.
I phrased this poorly. Calling Nintendo homophobic is a complaint/accusation, but it's not the same complaint about not having same-sex marriage.
You are literally agreeing with me. I have no idea why you are trying to present this as an argument as I said literally the same thing in the last post when you insisted the two were the same. You just keep chopping and changing your point constantly. It's getting difficult to take you seriously at all in this.
But you said the exact opposite at the beggining, which is why I'm assuming you're against that!
Quote
Complaining about Nintendo not having gay marriage in their game is an unnecessary attack on Nintendo,
This very sentance right here is what I have a problem with. If you can't tell what I'm trying to argue about, then that's totally my fault, but I am arguing against that one particular sentance. That "Complaining about Nintendo not having gay marriage in their game is not an unnecessary attack on Nintendo." The attack on Nintendo is, instead, the complaints that they are homophobic, not that they don't have gary marriage in their game. These are the two compaints that are not conflatable: the complaint against gay marriage and the complaint that Nintendo is homophobic.
When I said: 
Quote
And let's assume that you're right and that asking for same-sex marriage must necessarily imply that people are also accusing Nintendo of homophobia. Does that mean that we'll never be able to ask for same-sex marriage in a video game without any wild implications that are put onto it by opposition? That doesn't seem particularly fair either.
that was to show that this sentence cannot be true, or that it would be ridiculous if it were true, not that I was arguing that it was the case.
The key word is 'assume'. It's assuming that the initial statement is true, not that it is true.

Now that you've seemed to have backed down from the initial assertion, to:
Quote
Complaining that the lack of feature is 'homophobic' is ridiculous however.
I'd like to move on to something that might be a little more relevant to, as Joeno puts it, the bigger picture.


I think people have really not done their research at all on this game, it's nothing like Animal Crossing. You are not playing as yourself, nor do you have the same level of control over yourself as you would on games like The Sims. It really is much more like having a Mii Tamagotchi than anything people are thinking of, I see absolutely nobody read the link I posted though. 
Here, the way you put "Mii Tamagotchi" doesn't quite adress the problem. The difference is a question of identity. With a Tamagotchi, the Tamagotchi is an entirely different entity to the person playing with it. But a Mii, in every single respect, is an avatar of the person playing it. It is supposed to be the exact same person, adjusted aesthetically for game mechanics and cohesive game art style. The Mii is still a representation of a person. Even though the player has no control over it, the Mii should still retain some very fundamental characteristics of the player and one of them is whether or not the Mii is gay.

As you've pointed out, this leads to a absurdity, where the question is, "To what degree do we let the Mii represent the player?" It's ridiculous to make the Mii become a completely exact representation of the player, but at the same time, there are elements of a person which makes the person uncomfortable if it isn't carried over into a game. With a Mii, most heights, weights, ages, gender etc. generally have a potentiality to be represented. Things like hair style are trivial as they're not a necessary predicate of a person; it just so happens that their hair has grown in such a way, or if it was intentionally cut like that, then that was a choice and it might have just as likely been cut in any other way, had the person chosen differently. But people don't typically make a choice about being gay, they're either born gay or not. As an essential part of their character, it then becomes strange that other parts of a person are accurately (for a Mii anyhow) represented, but this particular feature is not.

Then this reduces to absurdity: does this mean that Nintendo will then have to "continue splitting hairs to the Nth degree" until they have a perfect representation of someone's personality, or even to go as far as their exact genetic pattern? And then there are further details that can be added to the Mii customizer, that a player can't easily change or influence, such as the exact size/height of each of their facial features.

I assume that the limitations of the Mii Maker is due to comedy effects. It's amusing to see a system create a likeness of a person from a preset collection of parts. Then the need for a representation of someone's personality is not included because it's not necessary for the majority of their games. It comes through through the actual player's behaviour within the game, for the most part. In a game like Tomodachi Life, watching an avatar of a gay man marrying a woman isn't comedic, it's slightly upsetting. The player has no chance to input this particular part of their personality into the game, either, because, as you said, the player lacks that much control of their avatar.

Sure, this will happen with other parts of a person's personality. For example, if my Mii were to start studying hard for an exam, then that wouldn't be very much like me at all. But someone's aptitude to work is a little different from someone's sexual orientation, in that it's a little more trivial. So, it's funny when something like that happens. This humour isn't quite as appreciated in other areas of life.

Then the other point is the case of the disabled. A person's disability is also a key feature of their personality. A car accident survivor's Mii playing football in the park is not in particularly good taste. Thus, where do we draw the line? Earlier on I gave the responsibility of deciding to Nintendo, and that ultimately I have no say in what they should do. Seeing as the previous line of inquiry led to a semantic train-wreck, then I'll return to this.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 17, 2014, 00:52
There are two "shoulds" about this. There's one, as a profit-seeking company and another, as a collection of moral-agents. The first Nintendo will only consider the amount of money that can be made from including same-sex marriage. It includes factors such as the age-rating, proportion of LGBT people who will buy the game regardless of whether it's included or not versus those who will not, the parents who will refuse to buy the game for their children due to their beliefs etc. It's a completely quantifiable amount, but I lack the insight to gather these figures up. Things like petitions can help quantify that amount, but at the end of the day, they're a little untrustworthy. This is because there's the likely possibility that some people will sign the petition but not follow up with an economic transaction.

Then the second question is whether or not the company is morally obliged to add the feature in. I argue that there's no intrinsic right or wrong answer to that question. Although I wouldn't go as far as to say we live in a total cultural hegemony, I think that our basis of morality still comes from the culture in which we're brought up, taught to us by teachers, parents and other role models. Then the question of where the idea that "being homosexual is not wrong" arises must then come from people who oppose the ideals of their parents, else there would be no changes in what we consider right or wrong. So we don't live in a total hegemony because there's still a real potential of people questioning the ideas of the "owners of the means of production", or whatever's the top of the Marxist chain of being. Alternatively, the change in social attitudes towards homosexuality can be put down to a dialetical "social" revolution. Either way, the degree to which an action is considered "right" to me, is based upon the culture of where that action is taking place.

The games which have included same-sex marriage that I have given before as examples, and have essentially created a precedent for the inclusion of same-sex marriage in video games, that is Skyrim, Mass Effect 3 and The Sims, have all come from American companies. Very broadly speaking, this has had postive reactions. We should be able to infer that, within the culture, the inclusion is deemed as a good act. Now you argue that Japan has a very similar attitude to the LGBT movement as in the West, in that they're not in any way "behind" on the attitudes to gay marriage. It would make sense that Nintendo not having same-sex marriage in their game would then still be seen as a wrong action. But it seems that it's only the Western audiences that have reacted negatively to it. There are a few possible explanations to this:
1) The attitudes towards same-sex marriage in Japan are different to that of the Western World.
2) The attitudes towards marriage, and other typical familly relations, are different in Japan than they are to the West.
3) The attitudes towards complaining about missing features is different in Japan than to the West.
4) Whether or not the Japanese people particularly care about the topic at hand or not, though this may tie back in to the 1, 2 or 3.
Where by "the attitude" means the general, common opinion on a topic. This isn't an exhaustive list, and I don't claim it is either.

Now, it would make sense to say that it's only fair that, assuming the circumstances which someone was born into, the only correct culture to conform to is the one they were born in, as they would not have a choice or an oppurtunity to be born into a different culture. Then, it seems that Nintendo aren't wrong in only including same-sex marriage in Tomodachi Life. But this is a dangerous line of reasoning which can result in Nazism, among other things. If someone was raised a Nazi, then how would they know that what they're doing is wrong, after all? Thus, the moral judgements of one "system" must be able to "critique" the laws of another. But that's also problematic, as one culture cannot account for other environmental or historical experiences of another culture, which have led them to create differences in moral opinion.

Then, based solely on the evidence of complaints, petitions and whatnot, it seems that the people of the West regard Nintendo's decision to be morally wrong. The lack of this type of evidence from the Japanese side, however, does not mean that they deem it to be acceptable, however, only that they have not complained about it. This can be attributed to many reasons, as I've pointed out. At the same time, the evidence from the western side is also inconclusive. There's plenty of backlash against the very act of complaining, and on a bigger scale, against the LGBT movement itself. Once again, I lack the sufficient insight to quantify this, so to even conclude that only the Western world, where the complaints have arisin from, deem Nintendo's actions to be wrong would be foolhardy.

The reason why I initially didn't go into this particular point, is that, as you can see, it results in some sort of Pyrrohnian Scepticism for me. It's not really possible to argue whether or not Nintendo are right or wrong about the action, and therefore it's difficult to assert whether or not they should include same-sex marriage in Tomodachi Life or not.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Lord Raven on May 17, 2014, 01:55
Quote
The games which have included same-sex marriage that I have given before as examples, and have essentially created a precedent for the inclusion of same-sex marriage in video games, that is Skyrim, Mass Effect 3 and The Sims, have all come from American companies.
Let me put it this way; when I was a kid, my parents would probably not allow me to buy those games same-sex marriage or not.  As an adult, I am able to buy those games.  Those games also don't have the same level of mass appeal that Mii Tomagatchi or whatever is supposed to have.

Mii tomagatchi's are meant to have mass appeal and kids are far more likely to use them than adults like me.  If the same-sex marriage part is allowed in these games, then Nintendo will lose quite a bit of money from the west due to many parents not wanting to influence their kids to this.

Companies have very little moral obligation to matters like this, and will go the route which will haul in the green.  If it has a huge chance of losing them money, then they have no reason to do it.  There's a substantial chance of them losing money given the number of states same-sex marriage is not legalized in, as well as the fact that half of this country is republican who will tend to vote against same-sex marriage.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 17, 2014, 03:19
You haven't said anything relevant in terms of semantics so I'll just raise this:

Here, the way you put "Mii Tamagotchi" doesn't quite adress the problem. The difference is a question of identity. With a Tamagotchi, the Tamagotchi is an entirely different entity to the person playing with it. But a Mii, in every single respect, is an avatar of the person playing it. It is supposed to be the exact same person, adjusted aesthetically for game mechanics and cohesive game art style. The Mii is still a representation of a person. Even though the player has no control over it, the Mii should still retain some very fundamental characteristics of the player and one of them is whether or not the Mii is gay.

I think you should actually research the game before you make comments like this, because you're judging it completely out of context. Considering how little you knew about this game I don't really think it's your place to say how the Mii is represented. In Tomodachi Life, you're essentially creating a Mii especially for the game, it's not actually *your* own Mii. It doesn't represent the same characteristics as you if you don't want it to. What you are saying might be correct if Tomodachi Life actually used Miis directly, but they do not.

Then the second question is whether or not the company is morally obliged to add the feature in. I argue that there's no intrinsic right or wrong answer to that question.

No. You are point blank 100% incorrect. They have absolutely no moral obligations to fulfill whatsoever. End of argument on that point. Regardless of how much you may or may not let videogames influence your life they have no obligation or responsibility to serve as your or society's moral compass. You cannot refute this.

The main reason Marriage is how it is in Tomodachi Life is because it is a direct parody of Japanese Drama (J-Drama) TV shows. The wooden response ("My pleasure.") of the female after proposing, the traditional White Wedding, the text effects and cliche effects...I could go on. This is what marriage represents and stands for in Tomodachi Life - a parody, a complete joke poking fun at fiction, it is not supposed to be a representation of your virtual self actually falling in love and getting married.

There are no grounds to be offended because nobody is being represented in the first place.

Think about it, why do you think Nintendo said what they said in the first place? If you actually knew the game, the response makes a lot more sense, there's no moral or political implications toward same-sex couples - only that people have completely misunderstood how marriage as a whole is depicted in the game.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Joeno on May 17, 2014, 12:57
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Effectively there could be a lot of incestuous Mii children made with these games.

I think equating incest with homosexuality is a big enough misunderstanding of the entire issue.

As a gay man, I feel slighted by the inability to have my Mii, my avatar and personification in the Wii system, actually be my avatar for relationships. Instead, this game tells me that my representation of myself in the Nintendo universe cannot be a gay man and pursue a relationship with another man. Instead, it says that even though in real life I'm gay, in their world I have to be straight, I have to like girls, and if there's any move in any other direction, that gets patched out.

Any words of 'Mii Tamagotchis' aside, Nintendo markets Miis as being you, as representing you. It's not an arbitrary separate character as you play in most RPGs, no, they encourage you to make a Mii that's recognisable, especially when face recognition comes in. That means that, whether you like it or not or whether it should be in this game or not, your Mii is not such an independent entity that it runs completely separate from you. It is still you.

As this is such a core part of who I am, Nintendo overruling me in what is a very personal thing offends me. It telling me that I (through my avatar) should only be in a straight relationship, offends me.

As for this not being a statement - not including same sex marriage is as much a statement about how much Nintendo values it as it would be if they did include it. By not including it, by not considering it, and by dismissing the concern initially, they make the statement that a same sex relationship is less, that it doesn't merit the same consideration and that it's not normal. That is, again, a message that troubles me. While I wouldn't call it homophobic - this seems to be more a case of forgetfulness - it certainly isn't the right thing to do.

There are no grounds to be offended because nobody is being represented in the first place.

No. No no no. If nobody was represented, there would be no marriage, no relationships, no nothing. Straight relationships ARE represented, it's only the same sex option that's removed. GROUPS are represented, and about 10% of the population is being ignored in faovur of the 90% that's the norm.

I don't care about "it doesnt fit in the game" or "this is not how it works". That, to me, shows how deeply ingrained the ignorance is. If they had thought about this earlier, instead of dismissing it, either through forgetfulness or "because it isn't normal", they could have build it in from the start. The fact that they didn't do that, that they from the start chose a direction that includes a part of the population, is what's troublesome in the first place.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 17, 2014, 13:47
I think equating incest with homosexuality is a big enough misunderstanding of the entire issue.

Wow, this actually might be the worst attempt at an appeal to emotional bias in the whole thread. Are you serious? Nobody equated incest with homosexuality. The point is that the game has such a poor, vague idea of relationships that you can effectively have an incestuous marriage. How on earth can you say that is equating homosexuality with incest? If anything it's the complete opposite.

As a gay man, I feel slighted by the inability to have my Mii, my avatar and personification in the Wii system, actually be my avatar for relationships. Instead, this game tells me that my representation of myself in the Nintendo universe cannot be a gay man and pursue a relationship with another man. Instead, it says that even though in real life I'm gay, in their world I have to be straight, I have to like girls, and if there's any move in any other direction, that gets patched out.

Nothing was ever patched out. Do you even know how the same-sex bug worked? There was no 'same sex' marriage in the first place, it was just simply making imported Miis look like the opposite sex. That's all.

Any words of 'Mii Tamagotchis' aside, Nintendo markets Miis as being you, as representing you.
It's not an arbitrary separate character as you play in most RPGs, no, they encourage you to make a Mii that's recognisable, especially when face recognition comes in. That means that, whether you like it or not or whether it should be in this game or not, your Mii is not such an independent entity that it runs completely separate from you. It is still you.

You're completely missing the point. Even if Nintendo WERE to allow you to marry another male Mii, it would completely miss the point of the entire feature. What sense would it make if a male suddenly got pregnant? You're ignoring the fact that the whole marriage mechanic is supposed to be a joke that pokes fun at J-Drama. If they included same-sex relationships it would make the joke fall flat on its face and would also cause a graphical glitch that makes no sense

As this is such a core part of who I am, Nintendo overruling me in what is a very personal thing offends me. It telling me that I (through my avatar) should only be in a straight relationship, offends me.

Tomodachi Life overrules EVERYTHING about EVERYONE. It overrules your decisions on relationships point blank, it overrules your decision on whether or not you want children, it overrules how you speak and how you act. It overrules your personality. Tomodachi Life is all about putting your Mii in completely ridiculous unrealistic scenarios, that's the whole point of the game.


As for this not being a statement - not including same sex marriage is as much a statement about how much Nintendo values it as it would be if they did include it. By not including it, by not considering it, and by dismissing the concern initially, they make the statement that a same sex relationship is less, that it doesn't merit the same consideration and that it's not normal. That is, again, a message that troubles me. While I wouldn't call it homophobic - this seems to be more a case of forgetfulness - it certainly isn't the right thing to do.

No. No no no. If nobody was represented, there would be no marriage, no relationships, no nothing. Straight relationships ARE represented, it's only the same sex option that's removed. GROUPS are represented, and about 10% of the population is being ignored in faovur of the 90% that's the norm.

I don't care about "it doesnt fit in the game" or "this is not how it works". That, to me, shows how deeply ingrained the ignorance is. If they had thought about this earlier, instead of dismissing it, either through forgetfulness or "because it isn't normal", they could have build it in from the start. The fact that they didn't do that, that they from the start chose a direction that includes a part of the population, is what's troublesome in the first place.

Now you're just being hysterical. In Tomodachi Life, relationship == marriage == pregnancy == childbirth. There's absolutely no way of separating these, they are all one complete package that plays out like a cutscene. There's no representation of any morals or ethics in this, the whole thing is done in complete parody.

I'm sorry but if you 'Don't care how it works' then you're completely missing a fundamental reason as to why this is being debated in the first place. Try playing Tomodachi Collection and then get back to me, because you clearly have no idea as to what you're even talking about and instead are appealing to a moral argument that bears no relevance to the game itself. And once again: Same-sex relationships were not 'removed', please stop throwing this fallacy around.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Wolstenholme on May 17, 2014, 14:05
This topic has been going around in circles for a long time. Everyone just keeps reiterating the same points...

Homosexuality is not part of the game at this moment.
Adding homosexuality may make some people happy and some people unhappy.
Nintendo are not willing to take the risk of losing business because of one feature.
This does not need a moral debate.
Please just accept that this is Nintendo's stance on the issue at this time.
This may change in the future once there is more wide spread homosexual marriage but for now, this is just how it is.

I don't think anything else really needs to be said on the subject.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 17, 2014, 14:17
This topic has been going around in circles for a long time. Everyone just keeps reiterating the same points...

Homosexuality is not part of the game at this moment.
Adding homosexuality may make some people happy and some people unhappy.
Nintendo are not willing to take the risk of losing business because of one feature.
This does not need a moral debate.
Please just accept that this is Nintendo's stance on the issue at this time.
This may change in the future once there is more wide spread homosexual marriage but for now, this is just how it is.

I don't think anything else really needs to be said on the subject.

It's hardly even a matter of business, it's just a complete misunderstanding of what the game is actually like and how this feature plays out. People are getting offended over something they have no idea about and this has now escalated to cries of homophobia left right and centre.

Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Joeno on May 17, 2014, 14:43
How on earth can you say that is equating homosexuality with incest?

To quote you again:

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And this is also why being able to be in a relationship with a member of the same sex was a bug; because it allowed males to get pregnant (as pictured in this thread already). Effectively there could be a lot of incestuous Mii children made with these games.

Because males can get pregnant, there could be incestuous children. That is what you are saying here.

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You're ignoring the fact that the whole marriage mechanic is supposed to be a joke that pokes fun at J-Drama.

"This genre can be ignorant, so don't call us out on it!

The developers made an intentional decision not to allow it. I don't care about some genre convention being just as ignorant, or it being 'for fun'. I still consider it ignorant and devaluing of my sexuality, of my relationships and of part of me as a person.

To bring out the racism card, to me this is about the same as saying a black and a white Mii can't have children together because JDrama only features Japanese characters. Same sort of wilfull ignorance of the real world.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: the bread dragon on May 17, 2014, 14:54
lmao at the fact this argument is still going on.
its not a part of the game, so just let it be.
if it offends you, then dont buy the game
simples
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 17, 2014, 15:09
Because males can get pregnant, there could be incestuous children. That is what you are saying here.

No, that is a complete jump to conclusions and you know it. You do realize that you could effectively marry your sister, mother, or father (if playing as a female) and get them pregnant on Tomodachi Life so long as you neglect to check the 'related to' option, right? I'm demonstrating how there has been very little thought put into the marriage mechanic of the game.

"This genre can be ignorant, so don't call us out on it!

The developers made an intentional decision not to allow it. I don't care about some genre convention being just as ignorant, or it being 'for fun'. I still consider it ignorant and devaluing of my sexuality, of my relationships and of part of me as a person.

This is absolute nonsense. You might as well say that Super Mario Bros is homophobic because it only portrays a heterosexual relationship, but we all know that isn't true because it's based upon atypical fairy tale lore. To stray from that would completely miss the point of the game. If you were to make the relationships same-sex, not only would massive parts of the game be re-written, the joke would completely fall on its face. Tomodachi Life is entirely made up of these sorts of jokes, it's like WarioWare meets Animal Crossing meets Tamagotchi. Not Mii Plaza meets The Sims.

I think you're putting far more weight on the marriage mechanic than is actually needed. It is a tiny, unimportant part of the game that is done completely in parody. The whole mechanic is basically summarized in about 4-5 different short cutscenes. You're forgetting that children are a target audience here, most of them are still in the 'girls are yucky!' stage of their lives, they wouldn't play it full stop if marriage was one of the dominating features. Tomodachi = Friend, the focus of the game is friends, not romantic relationships.

To bring out the racism card, to me this is about the same as saying a black and a white Mii can't have children together because JDrama only features Japanese characters. Same sort of wilfull ignorance of the real world.

But they don't only feature Japanese characters so that's completely irrelevant. Have you actually watched any J-Dramas?
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Delicious_Scout on May 17, 2014, 15:27
(http://www.court-records.net/rips/bubble-(ani)holdit.gif)

The title states Nintendo has not released gay marriage... but... what about Lesbian one! No one will able to emulate "Second Life"!
;~;
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Shaymin on May 17, 2014, 15:30
(http://www.court-records.net/rips/bubble-(ani)holdit.gif)

The title states Nintendo has not released gay marriage... but... what about Lesbian one! No one will able to emulate "Second Life"!
;~;
please do not. gay marriage is two people of the same gender, no matter what sexuality they are so please, do not.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Delicious_Scout on May 17, 2014, 15:39
please do not. gay marriage is two people of the same gender, no matter what sexuality they are so please, do not.

I had to look at Collins' and the "Diccionario de la Real Academia Española" to confirm my doubt: in Spanish, it only refers to males, whereas in English is to both, but specially to men.

Darn, I just wanted to throw a spark of lol in this sea of nothing to be see-n.



But they don't only feature Japanese characters so that's completely irrelevant. Have you actually watched any J-Dramas?


At first, I was scared, since I thought that, due to the fact that answer was adressed to Joeno, Turner meant Joeno-Drama. Terrified, I googled that term and I only found Japanese Dramas, something most of us neither have watched nor intend to "N-Joy". Nevertheless, I would like an explanation of what is the main difference between these, Soap Operas and "regular dramas". Perhaps then I/we will be able to grasp the grace of this argument.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Joeno on May 17, 2014, 15:45
No, that is a complete jump to conclusions and you know it.

If you're going to deny what you write when I quote it, there is no point in continuing any further discussion. I quoted it earlier:

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because it allowed males to get pregnant (as pictured in this thread already). Effectively there could be a lot of incestuous Mii children made with these games.

The only way to read the sentence is males pregnant => incestuous Mii children.

Just because it's not intended by the creators doesn't mean people can't get offended. We see this time and again with politicians and public figures apologizing for being ignorant about these issues.

This is absolute nonsense. You might as well say that Super Mario Bros is homophobic because it only portrays a heterosexual relationship,

There is a problem in videogame culture where same sex relationships are ignored or hated when they happen (see The Last Of Us for a recent example. That doesn't make it okay.

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If you were to make the relationships same-sex, not only would massive parts of the game be re-written,

Mario saves handsome prince? Easy to write, change a few names and sprites. Luigi's Mansion didn't have a princess to save.

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it's like WarioWare meets Animal Crossing meets Tamagotchi.

Animal Crossing was widely lauded for allowing your character to dress up in any clothes, none were gender specific, and some of the villagers in your town crushed on other villagers of the same sex (including the player character). If they can do it...

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I think you're putting far more weight on the marriage mechanic than is actually needed. It is a tiny, unimportant part of the game that is done completely in parody.

If it's so unimportant, either update it to be a bit more universal or just leave it out.

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But they don't only feature Japanese characters so that's completely irrelevant. Have you actually watched any J-Dramas?

That's not my point. My point is that if these restrictions were based on skin colour rather than sexuality, there would be far more of an outrage.

Just because other people do it doesn't make it right.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 17, 2014, 16:00
The only way to read the sentence is males pregnant => incestuous Mii children.


No. There is a full stop between these two statements. They are separate.

Just because it's not intended by the creators doesn't mean people can't get offended. We see this time and again with politicians and public figures apologizing for being ignorant about these issues.

There is a problem in videogame culture where same sex relationships are ignored or hated when they happen (see The Last Of Us for a recent example. That doesn't make it okay.

Mario saves handsome prince? Easy to write, change a few names and sprites. Luigi's Mansion didn't have a princess to save.

I'm not talking about rewriting mario, I'm talking about rewriting Tomodachi Life. How about if you think it's so easy to patch out then you write a patch actually including it? And above that, you've completely missed the point. If Mario saved a handsome prince it wouldn't make any sense in the fairytale world depicted because in traditional fairytales the male protagonist saves the princess.

Amusing you should use this as an example because 1) Animal Crossing does not allow any skin colour outside of white and 2) No, there are no villagers who 'crush' on other animals or even the player of the same sex. Not unless you count 'Being nice' as 'Crushing' (which is ridiculous) and 3) Actually all the female clothes are specifically for females as the NPCs mention themselves. Just because you can wear them does not make them not gender specific.

And let's not forget, it's not Nintendo's responsibility to represent hetero or homosexual relationships. What they do with their game is their business and it's not anybody's right to a different game. Once again we come back to the musician + album example.

And as I've ALREADY SAID, if you made it 'more universal' you would completely nullify the entire mechanic in the first place. Please DO SOME RESEARCH. You've obviously not played this game and have absolutely no idea as to what the marriage mechanic is like. Maybe you should actually buy the game before you judge it.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Joeno on May 17, 2014, 16:27
How about if you think it's so easy to patch out then you write a patch actually including it?

If you give me access to the source code I'll happily do so.

Quote
And let's not forget, it's not Nintendo's responsibility to represent hetero or homosexual relationships. What they do with their game is their business and it's not anybody's right to a different game. Once again we come back to the musician + album example.

And, in response, anyone has the right to give their opinion about Nintendo's decisions, call them out if they feel they have been handled inappropriately, make it clear they won't buy the game with the current design decisions (and take it into account for future purchase decisions) and otherwise discuss and state how they feel about the issue and whether they feel the right issue has been made.

At that point, bad PR and internal decision making may change their opinion (as it has in this case - as much as it's said to be core, Nintendo more or less said they'll do things differently in the future).
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 17, 2014, 16:51
You haven't said anything relevant in terms of semantics so I'll just raise this:

I think you should actually research the game before you make comments like this, because you're judging it completely out of context. Considering how little you knew about this game I don't really think it's your place to say how the Mii is represented. In Tomodachi Life, you're essentially creating a Mii especially for the game, it's not actually *your* own Mii. It doesn't represent the same characteristics as you if you don't want it to. What you are saying might be correct if Tomodachi Life actually used Miis directly, but they do not.
Man, I looked at some trailers and the Nintendo Direct for the game. They never said anything about it not using the Miis directly, so I assumed that they just used the same ones.
Except wait, I did a bit more as well. From the Wikipedia page:
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which the player can import from their 3DS, other devices, or QR codes, or create from scratch using the 3DS' camera or the in-game creation tools.
So, although some miis are going to be created in game, there's still a very high chance that players are going to put in their own avatars into the game.

Also, the problem with comparing the game with Mario is that the Mario games represent one particular relationship. In the same way, the Mii represents one particular person, who has a tendency to a particular type of relationship. It's strange to put Mario in a homosexual relationship, because he's a straight man. He's straight because the Mario games are a riff on the fairytale genre. In the same way, it's strange to put a homosexual person in a straight relationship, because that particular person is gay. So ultimately, any analogy trying to compare the two doesn't quite work, since Tomodahi Life should theoretically be applicable to the universal, rather than the particulars.

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How about if you think it's so easy to patch out then you write a patch actually including it?
That analogy doesn't really work either. For one, we don't even have accsess to the code of Tomodachi Life. If it was made on a DS game, then maybe it would be a little easier to put some magic gameshark code, but it's not.

Secondly, Nintendo's a pretty large company that's filled with programmers who are many times more skilled and apropriate to coding than, at the very least, I am. If Nintendo made the decision to include same-sex marriage in Tomodachi Life, then it'll only be at most a slight inconvinience for their programmers. There's also bug testing as well, but so what? If they were making a sequel, the game would need to be debugged anyway.

And then here:
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Amusing you should use this as an example because 1) Animal Crossing does not allow any skin colour outside of white
Joeno used the example of a "positive" feature in the game. You've highlighted a "negative" feature. A game's allowed to have both good and bad parts about it. Joeno's not saying that Animal Crossing is a perfect game, just that it was one particularly good feature. There was also some upset about the lack of other ethnicities in the game, like the article you linked pointed out. Still, contrary to Joeno's point, I recall there being less interest in the lack of diversity of skin colour than there is now about same-sex marriage. 

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Once again we come back to the musician + album example.
People buy music because it sounds good, and not necessarily for any political statement it's making. In order for the artists to make decent music, then there has to be some sort of artistic separation between fan and artist. The (good) musician doesn't also act purely out of the motive of money, but because of a genuine appreciation and enjoyment of the music-making process. If people buy the music, then that's a happy coincidence, but they need a relatively little amount to continue making music.
 
Then the other kind of musician is more interested in money than the music. The use of "artist" in the case of this person isn't entirely apropriate. I'd say Nintendo is a little more like this musician, in that they're in it for the money, primarily. If people don't like the music for the first musician, then not buying it is of little concern to him. But the second musician is concerned. He's not an artist, he just wants money. His music is purely a means to the end of money. Likewise, Tomodachi Life, in terms of Nintendo's overall motives rather than the individual coders artists etc., is made to be sold.

So to speak, Tomodachi Life isn't a work of art, unlike the music artist's album. Nintendo are also very concerned with what the consumers think of their products, because they have the primary intention of selling the product to them. That's what a responsible company would do, and where their responsibility lies.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Spriter on May 17, 2014, 18:17
And as I've ALREADY SAID, if you made it 'more universal' you would completely nullify the entire mechanic in the first place. Please DO SOME RESEARCH. You've obviously not played this game and have absolutely no idea as to what the marriage mechanic is like. Maybe you should actually buy the game before you judge it.

Hold on, the game isn't out in EU / America until June...so unless you got it from Japan, then you couldn't have played it...

The question is, have you played it either? If you have, fair enough, but as far as I know you haven't outright stated you have played it.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 17, 2014, 19:51
Nevertheless, I would like an explanation of what is the main difference between these, Soap Operas and "regular dramas". Perhaps then I/we will be able to grasp the grace of this argument.

It's the same as comparing anime to cartoons. There's just such a massive difference in culture and demographic that they're not at all the same. J-Dramas revel in cliches and over the top ham acting. They normally only go on for 1-2 cours and often feature the same tired actors over and over. Soap Operas and Dramas here would never consider breaking the 4th wall, that would just confuse the audience, but it happens a lot in J-Drama, also slapstick violence and sound effects are common. The whole genre is defined by its cliches and the audience probably wouldn't enjoy it were they not there.

The golden age for J-Drama was in the 80s, the sequence you see when you propose and marry in Tomodachi Life plays out in a very similar way to the cliches atypical at the time; the male makes a heartfelt proposal in a cliche environment and the female stares blankly and responds with a very wooden "My pleasure." ("喜んで。") followed by emotional orchestral music.

If you give me access to the source code I'll happily do so.

Well if you are ever able to do it then maybe you'll convince everyone (Nintendo included) just how great you are and how easy it was to include in the first place.

And, in response, anyone has the right to give their opinion about Nintendo's decisions, call them out if they feel they have been handled inappropriately, make it clear they won't buy the game with the current design decisions (and take it into account for future purchase decisions) and otherwise discuss and state how they feel about the issue and whether they feel the right issue has been made.

There is a big difference between the actual complaints being made though, is it wrong to complain about the lack of feature simply because you wanted it? No. No more than complaining about the lack of a feature in a Pokemon game.

Is it okay to complain about the lack of same-sex marriage because you believe it's Nintendo's job to represent a minority? No. It's not, yet this is the reason people are making such a fuss in the first place. It's not up to Nintendo to be some kind of beacon of light for raising awareness of minorities yet this is exactly what people are expecting of them when they try and act as though there is some kind of controversy in not including the feature.

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Also, the problem with comparing the game with Mario is that the Mario games represent one particular relationship. In the same way, the Mii represents one particular person, who has a tendency to a particular type of relationship. It's strange to put Mario in a homosexual relationship, because he's a straight man. He's straight because the Mario games are a riff on the fairytale genre. In the same way, it's strange to put a homosexual person in a straight relationship, because that particular person is gay. So ultimately, any analogy trying to compare the two doesn't quite work, since Tomodahi Life should theoretically be applicable to the universal, rather than the particulars.

They both take place in an entirely fictional scenario though, their job isn't to represent you in your entirety but rather insert a vague version of yourself in a fantasy world. The Miis also won't have most people's haircut, they won't have everyone's build or features or gender or wear the clothes that players will equally identify themselves with, but we don't complain about the lack of those features as being discriminatory because they aren't. Your Mii is no more you than Mario or even the protagonist of Pokemon, yet in B/W2 there is no option to go on a date with Curtis.

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And then here: Joeno used the example of a "positive" feature in the game. You've highlighted a "negative" feature. A game's allowed to have both good and bad parts about it. Joeno's not saying that Animal Crossing is a perfect game, just that it was one particularly good feature. There was also some upset about the lack of other ethnicities in the game, like the article you linked pointed out. Still, contrary to Joeno's point, I recall there being less interest in the lack of diversity of skin colour than there is now about same-sex marriage.

But the two aren't the same at all, Animal crossing uses the same models for both male and female, allowing the player to wear female clothes does not require any special programming as it fits the male exactly the same way as it fits the female. In that situation it really is a case of it being easier to leave the option on than explicitly turn it off.

In Tomodachi Life, it doesn't work like that. The whole marriage mechanic is an extended cutscene whereby the Male and Female Miis in question propose in a manner similar to atypical 80s J-Dramas, this is literally followed by a bed scene which results in a visibly pregnant female Mii and offspring that inherits features from both the mother and father..

Marriage in Tomodachi Life is literally a joke and there would be no way to accomodate same-sex marriages without the joke being completely lost, not to mention all the other features bolded that are also difficult to tweak to suit a same-sex marriage scene.

Hahex. I am asking you right now to explain to be how the above should be changed to accommodate same-sex marriage without conflict to the following:

1) Retaining the joke/reference to 80s J-Drama which predominantly features a female and male equivalent scene
2) Explains why the male is pregnant despite this not being biologically possible
3) Explains why a bed scene is shown followed by the sound of a baby crying to imply that a child was just conceived
4) Explains how the offspring Mii has obvious features of both parent despite this not actually being possible

I'm guessing you can't do this because it would be impossible. So please, do not talk about a feature you clearly haven't witnessed and don't understand.

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People buy music because it sounds good, and not necessarily for any political statement it's making. In order for the artists to make decent music, then there has to be some sort of artistic separation between fan and artist. The (good) musician doesn't also act purely out of the motive of money, but because of a genuine appreciation and enjoyment of the music-making process. If people buy the music, then that's a happy coincidence, but they need a relatively little amount to continue making music.

You can literally say the exact same thing about videogames. Seriously. I'm going to requote this with videogames and absolutely nothing changes.

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People play videogames because they are fun, and not necessarily for any political statement it's making. In order for the developers to make decent videogames, then there has to be some sort of artistic separation between fan and artist. The (good) developer doesn't also act purely out of the motive of money, but because of a genuine appreciation and enjoyment of the videogame development process. If people buy the videogame, then that's a happy coincidence, but they need a relatively little amount to continue making videogames.

Oh and both great videogames and great music have been made with bags and bags of cash (Making good music is certainly not a cheap process) and also with virtually no money (some of the best videogames have been made on virtually no budget).

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So to speak, Tomodachi Life isn't a work of art, unlike the music artist's album. Nintendo are also very concerned with what the consumers think of their products, because they have the primary intention of selling the product to them. That's what a responsible company would do, and where their responsibility lies.

Thank god this was the last paragraph, because I would have stopped reading here regardless. Are you honestly telling me that videogames are not art? Game development is an art, programming is an art - just because it is logical process does not make it devoid of creativity. On the contrary videogame development is absolutely an art.

If you call yourself a Pokemon fan, you should know this. R/B wasn't made with the intention of being some kind of hit seller because there really was no market for such a game. Read this book (http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%96%B0%E3%82%B2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0%E3%83%87%E3%82%B6%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3%E2%80%95TV%E3%82%B2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0%E5%88%B6%E4%BD%9C%E3%81%AE%E3%81%9F%E3%82%81%E3%81%AE%E7%99%BA%E6%83%B3%E6%B3%95-%E7%94%B0%E5%B0%BB-%E6%99%BA/dp/4870258587) by Satoshi Tajiri and then tell me that developing a videogame isn't an art.

Hold on, the game isn't out in EU / America until June...so unless you got it from Japan, then you couldn't have played it...

The question is, have you played it either? If you have, fair enough, but as far as I know you haven't outright stated you have played it.

Tomodachi Collection as it is called in Japan was released in 2009 and Tomodachi Life was released last year. I've already seen both games being played through in their entirety on a niconico stream. So no, I haven't played it but I know exactly what the marriage feature entails which is more than can be said to some of the biggest critics of it in this thread.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Lord Raven on May 17, 2014, 21:08
There is a problem in videogame culture where same sex relationships are ignored or hated when they happen (see The Last Of Us for a recent example. That doesn't make it okay.
Are you talking about Bill or the DLC?  Because Bill's homosexuality has very little to do with the story (and really anyone's sexuality has little to do with the story) and the DLC had incredible reviews in general, with the one moment being a talking point amongst people (and the creators of the DLC have basically acknowledged them as being gay).

I'm not saying you're wrong or anything but I don't quite think that's the example you want to use.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Pam-the-Lamb on May 17, 2014, 21:14
 Wouldn't Ellie be the one who drew the controversy? I had no idea about Bill until about a week after completing it.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 17, 2014, 21:18
Like in all forms of media, there's a distinction to be made between games that are made for art's sake and games that are made for money's sake. There's also degrees between them. Is Resident Evil 6 made with the same subtleties in the horror genre as Resident Evil 1 or 2? Does something like "Schindler's List" have the same artistic value as "Lesbian Vampire Killers"?
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They both take place in an entirely fictional scenario though, their job isn't to represent you in your entirety but rather insert a vague version of yourself in a fantasy world. The Miis also won't have most people's haircut, they won't have everyone's build or features or gender or wear the clothes that players will equally identify themselves with, but we don't complain about the lack of those features as being discriminatory because they aren't. Your Mii is no more you than Mario or even the protagonist of Pokemon, yet in B/W2 there is no option to go on a date with Curtis.
Isn't it entirety possible that people identify more with the fact that they're gay, rather than any accidental predicate of themselves? I don't think the importance of someone's haricut or clothes is equivalent to their sexual orientation. Or maybe some people are more senstive to their sexuality as a result of the changes in social attitude to them?

Mario is an entirely different character to the player and is never intended to have any say whatsoever about the person playing the game. Even if the Mii is only vaguely representing the player, then it's still an entirely different matter. You can keep going on about how the player has no real control over the Mii, or isn't meant to be really represented, but even the etymology of the word "Mii" is supposed to be related to the concept of the self.

The thing about Pokemon as well is that there isn't even an option for straight marriage, or any love sub-plot as well (aside from the one that's very barely hinted at in X/Y, which is dodgy enough as it is.) If there was, would there be a similar level of complaint? Hard to say.

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is it okay to complain about the lack of feature simply because you wanted it? No. No more than complaining about the lack of a feature in a Pokemon game.
What? Didn't you only just say that it was justified to complain about a missing feature? Isn't it OK to complain about a missing feature in Pokemon as well?

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Hahex. I am asking you right now to explain to be how the above should be changed to accommodate same-sex marriage without conflict to the following:

1) Retaining the joke/reference to 80s J-Drama which predominantly features a female and male equivalent scene
2) Explains why the male is pregnant despite this not being biologically possible
3) Explains why a bed scene is shown followed by the sound of a baby crying to imply that a child was just conceived
4) Explains how the offspring Mii has obvious features of both parent despite this not actually being possible
Even though it's predominantly a female-male scene, I don't see the problem with simply replacing the female with a male. Then, their clothes would probably have to match in the actual wedding. Everything else can be the same. Then, have the scene finish after the bed sequence, with no mention of a baby, so at about 1:20 in this video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHrG4hzWKuo) The J-drama stereotype doesn't necessitate that the couple have a child immediately in the next scene. In fact, "101st Marriage Proposal" finishes straight after the proposal. You can still keep the cheesy fireworks and music.

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Well if you are ever able to do it then maybe you'll convince everyone (Nintendo included) just how great you are and how easy it was to include in the first place.

But the two aren't the same at all, Animal crossing uses the same models for both male and female, allowing the player to wear female clothes does not require any special programming as it fits the male exactly the same way as it fits the female. In that situation it really is a case of it being easier to leave the option on than explicitly turn it off.
Of course it's going to be a little more mechanically difficult to add same-sex marriage than it is for allowing cross-dressing, but honestly, if Nintendo are going to make a sequel to the game, then they're hopefully adding new features anyway. Either way, the company is still going to be going over established mechanics and adding new ones. Otherwise, there's no point in making a sequel if it's exactly the same as the original.

So there's going to be another intensive bug testing process, as well as the inclusion of other features. I don't imagine that the people of the world are in a desperate rush for Tomodachi Life 2, so Nintendo have the time and resources to add it in. Whether or not Joeno, or any one individual here, can add same-sex marriage into Tomodachi Life isn't important; what's important is that Nintendo have the people who can put in same-sex marriage. It's a little more time-consuming and difficult than making the sequel would otherwise be, but the way you've presented the task makes it seem like it's impossible to do.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Lord Raven on May 17, 2014, 21:19
I have no idea.  Ellie drew controversy either because she represents a "butch" female (which makes no sense to me - everyone in the world of The Last Of Us is basically like Ellie, including Tommy's wife - out of necessity.  She's also a teenager and I knew a bunch of teenage girls that acted like Ellie) or because of that kiss - and there's little controversy because it wasn't really a platonic kiss according to the developers.

Now the only reason it was "hated" or not fully emraced, if anything, was because it came out of nowhere, and stuff like that is shocking.  I think it would've been way better received had it been alluded to in the original game.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 17, 2014, 22:05
Like in all forms of media, there's a distinction to be made between games that are made for art's sake and games that are made for money's sake.

Maybe so, but it's not your place to dictate that. You may sit there and say "This was made for the money" but for all you know this could have been something developers had been stewing on for years. There really is no distinction to be made as far as you are concerned.

You can keep going on about how the player has no real control over the Mii, or isn't meant to be really represented

"You can keep going on about the facts, but I'm choosing not to acknowledge them!"

Even though it's predominantly a female-male scene, I don't see the problem with simply replacing the female with a male.

Because that wouldn't match the cliche it is supposed to represent. Opinion discarded.

The J-drama stereotype doesn't necessitate that

Please list 5 of your favorite 1980s J-Dramas before you decide what the stereotype necessitates. No, watching the trailer for Tomodachi Life does not justify your opinion.

but the way you've presented the task makes it seem like it's impossible to do.

Because it is.

Tomodachi Life's Marriage Feature = A joke
The joke = explicitly making fun of a certain cliche from a certain aspect of Japanese popular culture
The cliche = exclusively heterosexual in nature

There. That's the reason why. If you can't understand this, then you are lacking braincells because it's really not  a difficult concept to grasp. It's the same logic as to why you wouldn't expect a movie set in 1800s America to depict a black president as being perfectly normal and acceptable.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes on May 17, 2014, 22:18
can someone explain the Last of Us thing cos its one of those games i wont be playin until a good year or so cos im ghetto as all hell and wasted my entire videogame budget on two xenon xbox360s (outside of like, two 3ds games) like a clown
which, well, you know what xenon 360s do best, might as well just threw my money up my own arse really






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And let's not forget, it's not Nintendo's responsibility to represent hetero or homosexual relationships. What they do with their game is their business and it's not anybody's right to a different game.

you realise "doing w/e we want without regard for whether this'll sell or not" is their current (losing) strategy i.e. the dreadful performance of the wii u



i mean they've got too much money in the bank after Profit Season to do a sega (rip god bless my sweet prince (︶︹︺)) but i'm hoping they won't do a Pharma Industry with that profit (sit on it and sod about for several years, collapse when they fail to do anything worthwhile because they expect the same anomalous profits they always did)


the 3ds xl is currently their only good console in the market atm, altho being less worse than the ps vita isn't hard and they haven't deservedly tanked as badly as say, the ouya , but still

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You might as well say that Super Mario Bros is homophobic because it only portrays a heterosexual relationship,

well its two grown men travelling everywhere and fighting to the death for each other, everythings phallic shaped (mushrooms, toads, goombas), you slide down a giant pole at the end of a level and fireworks happen, theres even a big tall one to spoon the little one, what do you think that means

like do you ever see the princess and mario canoodle or does mario ever show love outside of dutiful rescuing of the princess and "oh ur safe thats good i guess" or what



christ, mario even gets kissed on the cheek by bowser and a poundland version of wario at one point in mario history so i think you're just in denial really
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Joeno on May 17, 2014, 22:40
There is a big difference between the actual complaints being made though, is it okay to complain about the lack of feature simply because you wanted it? No. No more than complaining about the lack of a feature in a Pokemon game.

And this is the very point where we disagree. In my view, it is okay about complaining about a lack of a feature. That's what is done in game reviews, in comparisons between games, between consoles, in many other places.

People have complained about the lack of contests in Pokemon games. That's fine. People have complained about the lack of RNGing being possible in new games. That's fine.

If you can't complain about features missing or not being what you want, that's a big chunk of game criticism and review gone.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 17, 2014, 23:07
And this is the very point where we disagree. In my view, it is okay about complaining about a lack of a feature. That's what is done in game reviews, in comparisons between games, between consoles, in many other places.

People have complained about the lack of contests in Pokemon games. That's fine. People have complained about the lack of RNGing being possible in new games. That's fine.

If you can't complain about features missing or not being what you want, that's a big chunk of game criticism and review gone.

I'll be completely honest here, that is an absolute typo on my behalf. That was supposed to be "Is it wrong to complain about the lack of same-sex marriage because you believe it's Nintendo's job to represent a minority? No. It's not".
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 17, 2014, 23:32
Maybe so, but it's not your place to dictate that. You may sit there and say "This was made for the money" but for all you know this could have been something developers had been stewing on for years. There really is no distinction to be made as far as you are concerned.
If there's no distinction, then how can you assert that it is an artful masterpiece where the opinion of the buyers are totally irrelevant? Even so, it's ridiculous to say that the developers don't care about how well it sells either.
"You can keep going on about the facts, but I'm choosing not to acknowledge them!"
There are no facts about it. What people interpret their mii as in any game is their opinion at the end of the day. If people see themselves in their Mii, then they see themselves in their Mii. Just in the same way that I can interpret The Hunger Games as some deconstruction on the way reality TV and celebritiy culture is treated in today's society.
Because that wouldn't match the cliche it is supposed to represent. Opinion discarded.
Does it have to? The fairytale genre doesn't typically have plumbers saving princesses from turtles, it's supposed to be Prince Charming saving the princess from a dragon if anything. The fact that you still recognise Mario as a fairy tale shows that there's a degree of interpretation involved in whether or not something is a parody of something else.
Please list 5 of your favorite 1980s J-Dramas before you decide what the stereotype necessitates. No, watching the trailer for Tomodachi Life does not justify your opinion.
OK I'll bite, what J-drama do you reccomend to watch?
Because it is.

Tomodachi Life's Marriage Feature = A joke
The joke = explicitly making fun of a certain cliche from a certain aspect of Japanese popular culture
The cliche = exclusively heterosexual in nature

There. That's the reason why. If you can't understand this, then you are lacking braincells because it's really not  a difficult concept to grasp. It's the same logic as to why you wouldn't expect a movie set in 1800s America to depict a black president as being perfectly normal and acceptable.
1800s America is an actual historical location. Tomodachi Life takes place on some fictional island. Even though the marriage system may be based off of J-dramas, it's not set IN a J-drama. I don't expect a black president in 1800s America because there was no black president in 1800s America. But Nintendo don't have to abide by any historical accuracy, they can choose whether or not to include same-sex marriage.

Thus, they've chosen not in order to maintain the integrity of a genre of TV that they're attempting to parody. Now, to go back to your Mario analogy, if Mario rescued Wario from Bowser each time, and it was Wario who kissed Mario, then it's still identifiable as a fairy tale. We have a heroic man who braves countless dangers in order to save the love of his life. Although maybe I don't have perfect knowledge on how exactly the J-drama proposal is supposed to be different from any other proposal, with proposals and weddings in general, then traditionally they're seen as "exclusively" heterosexual.

Now what do I necessarily see in a proposal, and what represenents the way it's seen at least where I live? You have two people who love each other very much, the usually male party gets down on one knee and presents a ring to the other party, while asking, "Will you marry me?" Of course it's usually between a male and a female; I can't personally recount a gay proposal on TV. But the distinguishing features of the proposal is the kneeling down and the presentation of a ring. If two men or two women did the same action, then it's still immediately recognisable as a proposal. The kneel and ring is also cheesy and cliche, but it signifies the proposal nonetheless which is why it's still in practise. If it was a straight couple where the man merely asks the woman if they want to be married, without the kneel or the ring, then that doesn't really fall into the proposal cliche that I have. 

For the sake of illustration, let's take out J-drama and replace it with public proposals. Here's one. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeYmAvBREeM) It has all the clichés of a public proposal, it's in a big sports stadium, everyone cheers when the man says yes, there's lots of excitement etc. etc. I wasn't confused for a moment on whether or not it was a proposal. If that was altered for some comedy effect, then it's still recognisable as a parody of a proposal.

What seems to be the specific part of the J-drama parody that doesn't allow same-sex marriage is that it is supposedly specifically parodying 80s j-drama in particular. But even then, it's only a parody. So, seeing as I'm totally clueless on the matter and that you are much more of an expert with this sort of thing, can you explain to what degree the Tomodachi Life is parodying J-drama, why it only parodies J-drama in the 80s in particular and especially why a parody of the typical J-drama proposal/marriage scene loses it's funniness when it's between two people of the same sex, rather than those of opposite sexes?

There's also a case for localization as well. If a game like "Osu! Tatake! Ouendan" can be completely transformed into "Elite Beat Agents" for an American release, then adding in same-sex marriage certainly seems trivial in comparison, at least to my uneducated, programming illiterate mind. Speaking from personal experience, and what seems to be the case for everyone in this thread bar you, Western gamers don't typically "get" the whole 80s J-drama thing. Similarly, they wouldn't "get" the concept of a cheer squad. Thus, maintaining the integrity of the marriage 'joke' isn't as necessary for westerners, and many(?) people would prefer it if they sacraficed the joke that they don't get for same-sex marriage instead.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 18, 2014, 00:18
If there's no distinction, then how can you assert that it is an artful masterpiece where the opinion of the buyers are totally irrelevant? Even so, it's ridiculous to say that the developers don't care about how well it sells either. There are no facts about it. What people interpret their mii as in any game is their opinion at the end of the day. If people see themselves in their Mii, then they see themselves in their Mii. Just in the same way that I can interpret The Hunger Games as some deconstruction on the way reality TV and celebritiy culture is treated in today's society. Does it have to? The fairytale genre doesn't typically have plumbers saving princesses from turtles, it's supposed to be Prince Charming saving the princess from a dragon if anything. The fact that you still recognise Mario as a fairy tale shows that there's a degree of interpretation involved in whether or not something is a parody of something else. OK I'll bite, what J-drama do you reccomend to watch?1800s America is an actual historical location. Tomodachi Life takes place on some fictional island. Even though the marriage system may be based off of J-dramas, it's not set IN a J-drama. I don't expect a black president in 1800s America because there was no black president in 1800s America. But Nintendo don't have to abide by any historical accuracy, they can choose whether or not to include same-sex marriage.

Thus, they've chosen not in order to maintain the integrity of a genre of TV that they're attempting to parody. Now, to go back to your Mario analogy, if Mario rescued Wario from Bowser each time, and it was Wario who kissed Mario, then it's still identifiable as a fairy tale. We have a heroic man who braves countless dangers in order to save the love of his life. Although maybe I don't have perfect knowledge on how exactly the J-drama proposal is supposed to be different from any other proposal, with proposals and weddings in general, then traditionally they're seen as "exclusively" heterosexual.

Now what do I necessarily see in a proposal, and what represenents the way it's seen at least where I live? You have two people who love each other very much, the usually male party gets down on one knee and presents a ring to the other party, while asking, "Will you marry me?" Of course it's usually between a male and a female; I can't personally recount a gay proposal on TV. But the distinguishing features of the proposal is the kneeling down and the presentation of a ring. If two men or two women did the same action, then it's still immediately recognisable as a proposal. The kneel and ring is also cheesy and cliche, but it signifies the proposal nonetheless which is why it's still in practise. If it was a straight couple where the man merely asks the woman if they want to be married, without the kneel or the ring, then that doesn't really fall into the proposal cliche that I have. 

For the sake of illustration, let's take out J-drama and replace it with public proposals. Here's one. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeYmAvBREeM) It has all the clichés of a public proposal, it's in a big sports stadium, everyone cheers when the man says yes, there's lots of excitement etc. etc. I wasn't confused for a moment on whether or not it was a proposal. If that was altered for some comedy effect, then it's still recognisable as a parody of a proposal.

What seems to be the specific part of the J-drama parody that doesn't allow same-sex marriage is that it is supposedly specifically parodying 80s j-drama in particular. But even then, it's only a parody. So, seeing as I'm totally clueless on the matter and that you are much more of an expert with this sort of thing, can you explain to what degree the Tomodachi Life is parodying J-drama, why it only parodies J-drama in the 80s in particular and especially why a parody of the typical J-drama proposal/marriage scene loses it's funniness when it's between two people of the same sex, rather than those of opposite sexes?

There's also a case for localization as well. If a game like "Osu! Tatake! Ouendan" can be completely transformed into "Elite Beat Agents" for an American release, then adding in same-sex marriage certainly seems trivial in comparison, at least to my uneducated, programming illiterate mind. Speaking from personal experience, and what seems to be the case for everyone in this thread bar you, Western gamers don't typically "get" the whole 80s J-drama thing. Similarly, they wouldn't "get" the concept of a cheer squad. Thus, maintaining the integrity of the marriage 'joke' isn't as necessary for westerners, and many(?) people would prefer it if they sacraficed the joke that they don't get for same-sex marriage instead.

Everything you've said here is completely irrelevant and hasn't countered a single point I've made sensibly. You're purposely re-interpreting arguments to suit your own. Stop it. You are fighting a losing battle, either debate the facts or don't post at all. Pontificating about J-drama when you haven't even watched one is moronic and trying to derail the thread by getting me to recommend some when you're already neck deep in trying to spout opinions on them is not going to save you.

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There's also a case for localization as well. If a game like "Osu! Tatake! Ouendan" can be completely transformed into "Elite Beat Agents" for an American release, then adding in same-sex marriage certainly seems trivial in comparison at least to my uneducated, programming illiterate mind. Speaking from personal experience, and what seems to be the case for everyone in this thread bar you, Western gamers don't typically "get" the whole 80s J-drama thing. Similarly, they wouldn't "get" the concept of a cheer squad.

Elite Beat Agents is a completely different game altogether. Opinion discarded
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 18, 2014, 03:34
If your argument hinges on Tomodachi Life being a parody on J-dramas, then there's not much left to discuss. You don't want to elaborate on your points, so I can't say anything else. Seeing as I don't see how the J-drama parody aspect can even possibly relate to same-sex marriage, then I'll ignorantly conclude that there is no relationship between the two, and therefore that your point about Nintendo attempting to maintain a joke has no relevance to this thread.

Also, I maintain that it's entirely possible for Nintendo to add same-sex marriage to the sequel to Tomodachi Life, without too much trouble.

As a company, Nintendo should carefully consider what people have to say about their game, in order to make an informed decision on what games people want to buy. The fact that they've issued statements regarding the issue have shown that in this instance, they have done exactly that. But ultimately, I concede that Nintendo have the final say on what games they will make.

If the people for Miiquality are fortunate, then the sequel may possibly have same-sex marriage included.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Lord Raven on May 18, 2014, 05:08
can someone explain the Last of Us thing cos its one of those games i wont be playin until a good year or so cos im ghetto as all hell and wasted my entire videogame budget on two xenon xbox360s (outside of like, two 3ds games) like a clown
which, well, you know what xenon 360s do best, might as well just threw my money up my own arse really
Something like this (http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2014/02/24/the-last-of-us-left-behind-plot-point-explained-by-druckmann-ellies-job-explained/)

And this is the very point where we disagree. In my view, it is okay about complaining about a lack of a feature. That's what is done in game reviews, in comparisons between games, between consoles, in many other places.

People have complained about the lack of contests in Pokemon games. That's fine. People have complained about the lack of RNGing being possible in new games. That's fine.

If you can't complain about features missing or not being what you want, that's a big chunk of game criticism and review gone.
It depends on the reviewers.  I've seen some dumb complaints in reviews about things that are missing; I've seen a review of Fire Emblem:  Radiant Dawn where the reviewer complained that you couldn't insert your Miis into the game.

If you don't like the game because it doesn't have a feature that's fine, but saying a game sucks because it doesn't have a feature doesn't sit well with me.  There are an endless amount of ways to improve a game and there's an endless list of things a game doesn't have.  Doesn't mean the game is worse because of it, it just means the game could be better.

Of course, it's all contextual.  There have been some dumb complaints in reviews and there have been some genuinely good ideas as to how a game could benefit from features.  Some features don't always fit into games.

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As a company, Nintendo should carefully consider what people have to say about their game, in order to make an informed decision on what games people want to buy. The fact that they've issued statements regarding the issue have shown that in this instance, they have done exactly that
I think fans that speak out don't speak for every buyer of a game.  Can you do me a favor and back up your argument by finding a petition that told Nintendo to include same-sex marriage, then compare it to the number of people who are buying the game?  There's a faction of people indifferent, there's a faction of people against it, and there's a faction of people for it from my point of view, and fans outcry is not very telling of the actual number of people who want it in the game.

On top of all that it's not like Nintendo said that they think homosexuality is abhorrent... (http://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/c4FWbi-Uave2T9R1h7SFzX0aoa-d4pgx)  The impression I get is that localizers aren't too good at messing with the coding to begin with.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 18, 2014, 14:38
If your argument hinges on Tomodachi Life being a parody on J-dramas

It does not. Learn to read.

You don't want to elaborate on your points, so I can't say anything else.

I've elaborated more than enough and you've purposely avoided the crux of the argument to pontificate about something else because you know you cannot refute it.

Seeing as I don't see how the J-drama parody aspect can even possibly relate to same-sex marriage, then I'll ignorantly conclude that there is no relationship between the two, and therefore that your point about Nintendo attempting to maintain a joke has no relevance to this thread.

"I haven't researched what I'm arguing so I'll conclude there's no relation!!!"

Also, I maintain that it's entirely possible for Nintendo to add same-sex marriage to the sequel to Tomodachi Life, without too much trouble.[/qupte]

Good for you.


Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Hahex and Oshawott on May 18, 2014, 15:59
"I haven't researched what I'm arguing so I'll conclude there's no relation!!!"
I don't believe you've done any research either. Sounds like you read somewhere about the relationship about Tomodachi Life and J-dramas and are just baselessly parrotting it as an excsue. What are your top 5 favourite J-dramas in that case?
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 18, 2014, 16:23
I don't believe you've done any research either. Sounds like you read somewhere about the relationship about Tomodachi Life and J-dramas and are just baselessly parrotting it as an excsue. What are your top 5 favourite J-dramas in that case?

Who said I have to like J-Dramas to know anything about them? I don't think any sane human being could enjoy them, but that doesn't mean they can't know anything about them. I don't know anything about Enka music but I can sure tell you the stereotypes of the genre and when a videogame is referencing Enka cliches. The same can be said for Soap Operas or Comic Book heroes.

You're just dodging the point again and again and again and now that I've called you out on it you're effectively calling me a liar and throwing accusations. How ironic that the person saying that accusations aren't being thrown is now throwing the accusations himself. I wonder how long before you fall back on the "You're a homophobe for not agreeing with me" fallacy.

Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: The Shrub Dragon on May 18, 2014, 19:16
i'm not gonna have too much part in here but re the 80s j-drama point - i think you'd be a bit put off if the economy of the world was like that as well; you know, a bubble economy where everything inflates so quickly that you can never buy anything because it just keeps outrunning you.  obviously the money system in games like these is idealistic (though i can't find anything to confirm whether or not there'll actually be money and that ingame), and the games themselves are described as a 'paradise'.  this kind of brings about the idea of lgbt people not being a part of perfection which is pretty flawed if you ask me

and yeah i know that missed the point a bit but i had thoughts and i couldn't formulate them properly so you get that pile of crap

(also next time i notice a character based on someone else in a video game i'll be sure to tell you that they're not acting exactly like that person i'll give you a call bc lmao last time i checked things don't actually have to BE what they're based off like that sort of defeats the point imo)

(also wow i'm incoherent)

(and turner you're being a bit bullish i think maybe you need to stop it with the whole 'i'm gonna really directly act like this person is completely stupid' thing because as far as i can tell you're about to get into insult territory)

(sorry)
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Turner on May 18, 2014, 21:47

(and turner you're being a bit bullish i think maybe you need to stop it with the whole 'i'm gonna really directly act like this person is completely stupid' thing because as far as i can tell you're about to get into insult territory)

(sorry)

Hahex is literally outright refusing to read posts and then trying to debate a point he hasn't even researched. Considering his entire approach to this debate has been "Deny ignorantly now, research and refute later" I'd say the only person being bullish here is him. There are questions he is asking that have been answered pages ago, him purposely ignoring arguments he can't refute is quickly verging into troll territory, it's a miracle I've put up with it for this long.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Delicious_Scout on May 18, 2014, 21:55
No. You both. Stop. In name of OpalRhea, Lalice, Robin, Joeno and mine; stop.

EDIT: Chloe is included as well in the list of protestants.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Wolstenholme on May 18, 2014, 22:08
This has literally turned into an insult war. You can add me to that list, Scout.
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Kerou 犠牲 on May 18, 2014, 22:59
The debate's fine, no one should be interpreting it as offensive and it shouldn't have to stop.

Don't care about this game, Nintendo isn't homophobic.

my contribution to thread = over
Title: Re: nintendo excludes gay marriage from tomodachi life
Post by: Joeno on May 19, 2014, 07:51
This debate is not fine and has descended into namecalling.

Let's just end it here.