Bit of a tempest in the nascent Star Wars: Old Republic community boards today, when a player discovered that such words as “gay”, “lesbian” and “cryptofascist” were added to the obscenity filter. The forums nerd raged about this until the Bioware CM, Sean Dahlberg posted that the words were being filtered because
As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars.
Thread closed.
The fine, fine moderate journalists at Kotaku thus immediately posted a story with the words “BIOWARE: THERE ARE NO GAYS IN STAR WARS” which caused the nerd rage to explode into a fury of POLITICAL nerd rage, ending only with Dahlberg apologizing directly to the player making the original post.
Well, isn’t that special. My take on all this:
- This isn’t a tempest in a teapot, it’s a tempest in a thimble that may someday, possibly, hold a tea leaf. The “community” for SW:TOR doesn’t have a lot of actual game to discuss, so they talk about things like, oh, the political implication of words in your censor file. This is a pretty powerful argument that there’s no real reason to, you know, host forums for a game that is years from actually technically existing. The rabid fans who want to discuss their own personal views of how SW:TOR will implement womprat husbandry can do so on someone else’s dime. Kotaku wouldn’t have cared less if IGN added “lesbian” to their autocensor filter.
- But say TOR was actually in beta, or up and running. My initial reaction is that there’s a suite of topics, mostly involving politics, religion, and the various convergences thereof, that simply aren’t appropriate for an official MMO discussion board. There are many topics that you just simply don’t want to worry about moderating. An intelligent moderation is key here – discussing LGBT-friendly guilds and issues raised from that (mostly involving 12 year olds saying “ghey” a lot) is on topic. Discussing your views on California’s Proposition 8 isn’t. Real world politics is not a morass you want to dive into, because people with very valid opinions that differ violently from yours are still your paying customers. Note: simply adding words like “lesbian”, “gay”, “mormon” and “Arlen Spector” to your autocensor file does not count as intelligent moderation.
- Gay marraige is a third rail at the moment. The folks at Turbine (who have tended to be fairly liberal politically) punted on the issue for LOTRO by simply saying that it didn’t work with the license. Blizzard has been fairly conservative on the issue, to much distress. (Ironically, one of the guild names listed in that story as protesting Blizzard’s actions is a crystal clear TOS violation, or would be if anyone at Blizzard knew what it meant. Hint: it’s not Stonewall Champions!) There is no good answer here. If you disallow same-sex marraige, you piss off a solid minority of your player base. If you allow same-sex marriage, you piss off a solid minority of your player base. If you disallow ANY marriage, you piss off a solid majority of your player base. So really, just do what you feel is right, since there’s no right answer here. I tend to the Sims solution – just let the players do what they want, and be completely agnostic about it. Which – not surprisingly – will piss off a solid minority of your player base.
- You guys DO know Alec Guiness was bisexual, right?
- Sanya Weathers thinks the issue is a bit simpler.
In case you’re wondering, I think that banning any kind of virtual relationship between avatars makes you look like a reactionary monkey. I also think that most in game relationships are between people who are male in the physical world. Finally, I think that if the Jedi council were real, they would think this entire discussion is for mental midgets without any awareness or comprehension of the serious issues endangering the citizens of the galaxy.
The REAL question of course, is which way Boba Fett swings. Because, you know, which ever way he does? That way is correct.
#1 by Bugz on April 29th, 2009
Crap. This is just another excuse for the League of Perpetually Outraged Persons to put the spotlight upon themselves.
It’s politically correct bullshit, and Bioware should be ashamed of themselves for caving to it.
#2 by Joshua Meadows on April 29th, 2009
They were against it in the 70s too when black people wanted to marry white people.
Thank god the US constitution is set up to protect the minority against the majority, huh?
#3 by foolsage on April 29th, 2009
Your intent is unclear here. Are you suggesting that Bioware should have stood firm by their decision that sexuality is ok to discuss but not LGBT issues? Or are you saying they should have stayed out of the whole issue?
#4 by Joshua Meadows on April 29th, 2009
Why is it fair for anyone to need to be concerned about sharing that?
If you say “I’m a girl in RL” in a game you get a fuckton of lewd sexually suggestive offers too. Should girls be afraid to speak out about it?
I have a feeling you’ll say yes, that isn’t the correct answer though; just so we’re clear.
#5 by geldonyetich on April 29th, 2009
To an extent, we’re just part of the League of Perpetually Outraged Persons to even bear this any notice. It’s a bit of self-inflicted human delusion.
Consider, for example, that Kirsten Dunst is hot. Yes, she likely is fully capable of having sex, but believing you’ll ever have anything to do with her is nothing but flat out self-delusion. Why are you turned on? It’s a non-happening.
Now consider that some people prefer to bugger those of the same gender. You don’t have that preference, it has completely nothing to do with you, and it’s self-delusion to believe it does. Why are you so concerned with their sexuality? They’re not buggering you, that too is a non-happening.
So why, exactly, does it bother us at all that anyone would use the term “gay” or “lesbian?” Because we’re evolved monkeys whose newfound intelligence has the unfortunate side effect that it’s a whole lot easier to delude ourselves. Period. End of story.
What significance does Bioware’s choice to add these words to their obscenity filter have? Whatever significance you assign to it. Meaning is interesting in that it is a human invention. What we’re debating about here is the non-presence of a couple of arbitrary labels.
#6 by maess on April 29th, 2009
I find it amusing that some of you who are offended by the use of the word ‘gay’ as a pejorative have no problem using the word ‘retarded’ the same way…
#7 by Brent Michael Krupp on April 29th, 2009
Being retarded is actually a bad thing. It’s wrong to be mean to retarded people and retarded is considered an impolite word to use for them and it’s crude to call people you don’t like retarded but the word is inherently negative.
Unless you’re a homophobe, gay is not inherently negative. Using it as a synonym for bad is worse than using retarded that way.
#8 by wowpanda on April 29th, 2009
One of my friend once said, he wanted his country to be just like America, where instead of fighting for food/living space to survive, they fight over abortion and gay issues.
It will be very interesting to see what the next big issues are after the above two.
#9 by Bugz on April 29th, 2009
I’m not familiar with the common topics of discussion over at the Bioware community boards, but maybe I’m just lucky that way. If they had frequent discussions regarding sexuality over there instead of concentrating on game development, then maybe Bioware should have assigned a adult to take charge of the monkey house to keep them from throwing shit at each other. Those whose limited attention span prevented them from staying on topic should have been booted so that they could carry on their stupid conversations over at Hustler Online, or some similar high quality site where that kind of crap is appreciated.
Yeah, I’m a curmudgeon, and damn proud of it too. Let return to talking about games, shall we? DarkFall, as it so happens, is turning out to be a damn fine game with plenty of PvP goodness to go around for those who appreciate that kind of thing…
#10 by Joshua Meadows on April 29th, 2009
I hope everyone here whining about how discussing sexuality in a video game ruins immersion, has no place or otherwise steals your virginity has never, in any capacity explicit or implied, discussed the following in any massively multiplayer virtual dungeon fantasy sci-fi 3D avatar etc-game:
1. What pets you have.
2. What sports you enjoy.
2a. What sports teams you enjoy.
3. What your gender is, if you don’t use voice.
4. Where you’re from.
5. What school you go/went to.
6. “I can’t raid tomorrow, my girlfriend wants to do this.”
7. “Oh shit something funny just was on the TV let me tell you about it!”
8. You get my point.
If Bioware et al wants to outlaw the discussion of *any and all relationships and any and all sexuality* in their game, that’s fine, I can live with that. But as is so often the case the standard is only applied one way.
And crying about how hearing about gay people or politics or whatever ruins your game is really stupid. I don’t go through WoW announcing that I sucked cock last night, but I can’t say I’ve ever played once when I didn’t have to hear “You guys are fucking fags, this instance is gay.” But if I complain, I’m the whiner? We both have the option to ignore; I generally roll my eyes at those comments, if they’re abusive I act accordingly. But man up and don’t expect to control other people hypocritically.
#11 by Bugz on April 29th, 2009
I for one, do not cry about what stupid people talk about on game forums. I don’t bother with them, so I really and truly don’t give a shit. One thing I am profoundly happy with is that in DarkFall, if you really feel an obsessive need to discuss your sexualilty in any of the chat forums, I completely free to repeatedly gank you into oblivion. Players who do not play DarkFall do not have that luxury. Sucks to be you.
I guess that makes me a griefer.
#12 by Joshua Meadows on April 29th, 2009
Or it makes my penis bigger than yours.
Ooh, did I mention sexuality again? o_0
#13 by Bugz on April 29th, 2009
You don’t happen to play DarkFall do you?
#14 by Joshua Meadows on April 29th, 2009
I don’t live in Europe; as far as I’m aware Shadowbane-lite isn’t available anywhere else, right?
#15 by Scott Jennings on April 29th, 2009
Say Darkfall again.
Say Darkfall again!
I dare you.
I double dare you motherf**ker.
Say Darkfall one more goddamn time!
Do they speak English in Darkfall?
#16 by Joshua Meadows on April 29th, 2009
In Darkfall, English speaks you.
#17 by Jessica Mulligan on April 29th, 2009
Yeah, come on! I mean, you’d have to be lazy as a nigger to get offended at that. I was discussing this same thing with a spic and a kike just the other day and we all agreed that waving your arms around and whining like a wop with no pizza about that just makes you look like your average GOP trailer trash ho. Or a gamer; we had a hard time figuring out which.
#18 by Paks on April 29th, 2009
And with the above I’ll just say:
Game, set, and match bitches.
#19 by Joshua Meadows on April 29th, 2009
Also, Scott, I hate you for making this blog post. Don’t you think I already argue with people on the internet enough?
#20 by Vetarnias on April 29th, 2009
*Sigh* Now it’s Penny Arcade:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/4/29/
#21 by taodon on April 29th, 2009
I’m offended you didn’t use faggot or chink. Obviously you failed to mention them both because you’re a homophobic anti-asianist. But, the fact you didn’t mention frogs – that’s probably good – everyone hates the French anyway.
#22 by Bugz on April 29th, 2009
DarkFall.
C’Mon, Lum. If you haven’t played DF (admittedly, this is difficult right now), ranting against it without first hand knowledge makes you sound like the old crazy coot hollering, “You damn kids, git the Hell off my lawn!”
DarkFall, contrary to some people’s expectations, is turning out to be a very good game, assuming you like a pvp-centric game.
I have yet to read anything other than English in any of the chat channels, by the way, but that might be a function of the time of day when I log in. All the Germans, French, Dutch, Italians, etc. may be asleep then. I have heard some very thick accents in the Ventrillo voice chat channel my guild runs, though…
#23 by Scott Jennings on April 29th, 2009
You realize this post has nothing to do with Darkfall, right?
I mean, you *are* aware of this.
I have made posts about Darkfall before, by the way.
(also, I’m pretty sure you didn’t get the joke.)
#24 by Bugz on April 29th, 2009
I live in Utah, which is pretty far removed from Europe, although I have been told that some folks consider it to be a separate country anyway.
The truth is, only the cool people are playing DarkFall in the U.S. right now.
You don’t play? Oh.
#25 by Joshua Meadows on April 29th, 2009
Ah. Say no more, friend. \o/
#26 by foolsage on April 29th, 2009
Amusingly, you complain about what people talk about on blog comments though.
Also, I think you missed Lum’s reference with the Darkfall bit. But then, the path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Or so I’m told.
Edit: Damn, timing is everything. Lum just gave it away.
#27 by Bugz on April 29th, 2009
Sure I got the joke, and sure I realize this thread isn’t about DarkFall, but I’m trying to perform a public service here by steering the conversation away from stupid shit about people going into convulsions because “THERE ARE NO GAYS IN STAR WARS!!!111!1eleventy”
It’s clearly not working, so I’ll quit spamming the thread.
#28 by geldonyetich on April 29th, 2009
How did a comment thread about what constitutes appropriate levels of gay reference come to be a thread about Darkfall?
Oh, right.
Carry on.
#29 by Freakazoid on April 29th, 2009
@neispace
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe you just ran across some bullshit propaganda on an unregulated forum? The internet is never short on conspiracy nuts spreading the latest government secrets wherever they can.
#30 by neispace on April 29th, 2009
freakzoid: I found it, it was called neo-tech. I’m not sure that they used that term though, but there were batshit-insane randians with a tendency to overun usenet, and that’s what I thought of when they banned that term.
#31 by Gx1080 on April 29th, 2009
First, DarkFall. That said, the guy that said that people do grow of the “im a victim” standard, thank god for that, i was honestly starting to believe that wasn’t possible.
#32 by Davide on April 29th, 2009
I don’t think LGBT is inclusive enough and offends lots of people that the four letters don’t mention, like Asexual, Autosexual, Pansexual, Polysexual, Pomosexual, Zoosexual, Objectum-sexual, or Artifical Sexual (robot love).
And what about Hermaphrodites, Androgynins, Hijra’s, Eunuchs, Fetishism, Concubinage, Courtesanshipism, Hypergamism, and Sadomasicism?
Maybe I am Polyamorous and want to marry a bunch of other characters, or polygamous.
Why can’t my male character wear women’s clothing in game?
Or vice versa?
And if I discover at some point that I am transgendered can I get my naughty bits cut off (or added) and change the sex of my character?
Can I take hormones to start the process and help me decide if I want to go all the way with the procedure? Test drive a beard on my female character, for example.
Why can’t my transgendered character speak in the proper voice?
I also want to be referred to with the proper pronoun, no simple he/she for me thank you.
And make sure you have all the proper symbols to represent any behaviour I have mentioned.
Maybe..
Maybe …
Um…..
(Head explodes)
#33 by Banegrivm on April 30th, 2009
This is my first time responding here, but I’ve been reading Scott’s blog off and on. Personally I find the whole gay/lesbian thing and trying to bring it into something that’s a game I feel is just appalling. I’m not gay, I don’t support gays, so why should I have it forced down my throat? If you want to be gay, go be gay. Doesn’t mean I need to hear about it. Doesn’t mean people’s kids that play these games especially need to hear about it either. I have to agree like others, I’m disappointed that Bioware cow towed to this politically correct garbage. The hat is old and worn thin. Usually the first response, is often the right one and that’s definitely the case here. I guess Bioware truly is EA now.
#34 by Joshua Meadows on April 30th, 2009
I just want you to know, since I quoted your post– you caught it. That’s right. I can do that. You’re gay now.
Hope you like sequined shoes.
#35 by TPRJones on April 30th, 2009
I don’t understand. I was under the impression that no one in Star Wars has sex, or poops for that matter. If there is no sex there is no gays, nyet?
Not at all homophobic, because there are no straights, either. Not to mention the implications of permenant universal constipation.
#36 by Guy on April 30th, 2009
“permenant universal constipation”
Oh, that’s a great phrase…
Response to Banegrivm’s post (for the benefit of those who are uninformed): People are born gay. Just like they’re born straight. It’s not a hobby.
#37 by chaos_engineer on April 30th, 2009
Yes, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. The polls are also showing that support for gay marriage has been increasing at a steady 2% a year. I’d guess that gay marriage will be legal in most of New England by the end of 2009…the New Hampshire legislature just passed a gay marriage bill (it’s not clear whether the governor will sign it), and there’s also legislation working its way through the system in Maine and New York.
The recent court ruling in Iowa didn’t seem to create a lot of outrage. I think what happened is that the Republican Party leadership did the math and realized that they need to abandon the homophobia if they want to win any elections ever again. That message is slowly trickling down through the ranks but it might take a couple of months to reach the talk radio hosts, and maybe a year before the major bloggers fall into line.
California has an unfortunate number of bigots once you get out of the big cities, but if current trends hold, a gay marriage referendum will probably pass in 2010, or 2012 at the latest.
So don’t get discouraged! In ten years, it’s a good bet that gay marriages will be recognized at the Federal level and in all the states except maybe Utah and the Deep South.
Oh, my! The LGBTQ people I know are hardly ever loud and never obnoxious. Most of them are polite and soft-spoken.
It sounds like you’ve been hanging out with an unusually trashy part of the community. You should widen your circle of friends!
#38 by TPRJones on April 30th, 2009
You do know it doesn’t work that way, right? I mean seriously, consider this: do you recall the day when you were young and in early puberty and looked at boys and girls and decided from that day forward which one would cause you to pop a boner? No? Right, you didn’t, because you were born with your sex drive pointing in a particular direction and the other group holds no interest for you. It’s exactly the same way for homosexuals.
The only people that “choose” to be gay or straight are people born bisexual that then decide to limit their choices for whatever reason. And even then the odds are they’ll still get excited by the other group they’ve chosen against, they’ll just deny that interest because they’ve decided to pretend it doesn’t exist.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you on a political or religious agenda.
#39 by Jeff on May 1st, 2009
Bane’s point is still spot on.
Sniping at one line doesn’t change that.
#40 by Sara Pickell on May 2nd, 2009
Bane’s “point” was that he didn’t want to hear about gay people so nobody should be allowed to acknowledge their existence in games. That’s not a point that’s just being a selfish prick. You don’t get to cherry pick the groups of people that are allowed to exist while you’re around.
#41 by TPRJones on May 2nd, 2009
Sniping at one line doesn’t change that.
I’m not just sniping at one point, I’m pointing out just how ignorant a particular – and disappointingly common – concept is. It’s admittedly a bit off-topic, but I still felt compelled to address it.
#42 by Guy on May 2nd, 2009
It’s sniping to highlight the core attitude of the poster? And to identify the core misunderstanding that drives that attitude?
#43 by Jeff R on May 3rd, 2009
That’s not what he said, which would be clear to you if you could read his post sans agenda.
Whatever your sexual preference is, the whole server doesn’t need to know about it. In a nutshell that is what Bane is saying.
Star Wars in particular has no reference to gay couples in its movies or novels, wo why even go there? The mod was right, it doesn’t exist in Star Wars.
For the love of my great aunt Petunia, get over yourselves already.
#44 by Guy on May 4th, 2009
The whole “it doesn’t exist in Star Wars” thing was a pathetic excuse to end the discussion, nothing more. The real reason is PR (fear of losing homophobic subscribers?).
And besides, if George Lucas jumped off a cliff, would you jump off it too?
(I am not saying George Lucas left gays out of Star Wars because he was against them, or even intentionally… but what if he did? Do you actually think that would strengthen your moral position?)
#45 by Jeff on May 4th, 2009
You need to learn the difference between an excuse and a fact. I’m simply stating the facts. The only real reason for recanting on their position is not PR but political correctness. Would you rather apologize or watch the left wing hype machine blow up this nonsensical issue into astronomical levels of asininity? When a company is facing the decision of whether they want talk about the game to be about the game or instead about a small minority being the squeaky wheel that wants their grease, they are going to choose the first option.
Especially when, through no fault of their own, they already have to prove to the world they are not a second coming of Galaxies.
It’s a damn shame. What was said by the Bipware/EA PR guy was fact. Some people may not like that fact, and instead of just getting over themselves, they make enough noise that it just becomes nonsensical to anyone that has an ounce of self respect or self worth.
#46 by Jeff on May 4th, 2009
Let me put this another way.
If someone wanted something to do with Jesus, as in the Christ, put in the game, and a Bioware Developer or PR guy said “Jesus doesn’t exist in Star Wars,” would there be this big of a bruhaha going on?
I think not.
Because the simple fact is, other than some religious overtones in “the force”, JESUS DOESN’T EXIST IN STAR WARS.
#47 by Guy on May 5th, 2009
Facts can serve perfectly well as excuses. The point is it can be an irrelevant fact, unrelated to the actual decision process used, despite being a fact. In this case, the real decision process is “let’s not antagonize potential players who might feel uncomfortable about gays, because it would cost us money”. See, had nothing to do with the fact there have been no gay characters or gay themes in Star Wars.
The reason they recanted was *identical*. They accidentally pissed off another group that could be potential customers. There are many squeaky wheels; both those not wanting any whiff of gay issues and those objecting to its being blocked have demands. In this case they are mutually exclusive, and so the company, as Lum said, is in a lose-lose situation.
Accepting his excuse at face value and basis for decision-making is a poor choice.
#48 by IainC on May 5th, 2009
This is a false equivalency. Jesus doesn’t exist in the Star War universe but relationships do. Your analogy is absurd.
#49 by Ardanna on May 5th, 2009
Personally I think this was a ham handed way of dealing with this. It was a dumbass response and that’s what’s most disappointing to me. This person is supposed to be a PAID communications specialist who made a fairly sweeping political comment (he/she had to knew it would be a charged political issue) flippantly.
That’s one of the most disappointing things to me and I’ve seen it with all kinds of community representatives, they’re not actually professional communicators in a corporate sense and have little or no training in that regard BUT are in a position to speak for the company to “the masses”.
If this were some other corporation (not some gaming company where product and other customers expectations can be low apparently) you can bet they would have had a much more polished and well-reasoned response.
#50 by Jeff on May 6th, 2009
There are two types of people in this thread. The people that “get” what the PR guy said, which like me just want to play a Star Wars game without diverse interest groups shoving their sociopolitical agenda in our faces, and group two.
In case you have not figured that out, group two are the proponents of said sociopolitical agendas, and want to make sure it is everywhere, even in space operas where it never existed in the first place.
Jesus may not exist in Star Wars, but religion clearly does. Just like relationships clearly existed, just not homosexual ones. The point is still valid. But I am done debating, because group two is too wrapped up in their agendas to even consider the factual or rational.