OOC:

This article was just emailed to me by a friend: http://www.pcgamesn.com/swtor/star-wars-old-republics-gay-planet

I couldn't agree more with the author's points, but I wanted to share the article with you all and open up a thread for discussion.  Unlike Endor, this is no trap: feel free to voice dissenting opinions.  As ever, I ask only that you speak respectfully.

An acronym and a walled off ghetto (even when that ghetto is, in this case, a whole planet) where I can pay for the privilege of unlocking fewer storyline options than straight players enjoy all the time, everywhere, for free (now) in the base game... it's a step in the right direction, I suppose, but one that leaves me feeling somehow more marginalized and "othered" than I did when the game launched and same sex romance was simply missing.

Then, it was like "new" homophobia: subtle, with an ideologically bigoted agenda operating behind the scenes (they just pretended that gay people don't exist in a Galaxy far far away, despite the presence of billions upon billions of Humans, which would suggest at least as broad a range of sexual identities and gender expressions as we have on the one planet we inhabit in reality).  It was bigotry of exclusion.  This new compromise in the Hutt Cartel is like "old-fashioned" homophobia, to my mind: it's an ideologically bigoted agenda operating in the open (forced to confront the idea that gay people exist, at least in their own fan base, BioShock has labeled them with an acronym and relegated them to their own confined space, so they don't upset "normal" players).  It's bigotry of the separate-but-equal variety.

I understand BioWare's position.  They have a business to run, and they're therefore trying to balance the desires of multiple constituencies... they're trying to satisfy LGBT players and satisfy bigoted players at the same time.  But the thing is, for me and millions like me (including several others here in the VE), this is personal.  And I can't help but feel that one "side" in this debate has right on our side, while the other shouldn't really be a factor in BioWare's decision-making process.

OOC:

Tried to be as non-confrontational as I could, while still sharing my two credits.  At any rate, enjoy the article.

Yeah, I agree with Raz.  I love SWTOR, play it damn near every day, but this is one of the things that really irks me.  They should have had the courage to put homosexual relationships in in the first place!

Other Bioware games are famous for their gay content, with the noticeable exception of KOTOR and now SWTOR.  Something about the Star Wars label has made them shy away, and thats just a shame.

I understand how some could see Rise of the Hutt Cartel as some sort of 'fenced off' area for gay gamers, and I agree totally with how offensive that seems.

Hopefully this fiasco is just a step on a longer and grander path, that true equality will come to the larger game, and that maybe truly homosexual companions will be added in later.

Like I say, I hope.

That...

Is...

GENUIS!!!

Well done Raz!

I feel that fantasy should have a wider berth than that which is allotted to normal fiction and certainly than that which we give to our reality. carrying over our bigotry to a fantasy world is to taint that world with our own narrow minded viewpoint. Conflict must occur for the story to exist but we shouldn't be holding back the players personal personality/viewpoint/preference to create manufactured conflict. its a lazy way to tell a story.