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Nintendo Direct : Tomodachi Collection confirmed for Europe/na
- Thread starter L~A
- Start date
eighty(one)
Member
Don't know what that's (reference) supposed to be :3
Okay. I really need this game.
themagicalkitsune
Member
I'm preordering this
I may have missed this in the past 18 pages, but here's a GameSpot interview with Bill Trinen about the game. Among some good tidbits, I was happy to read this:
They mention giving out characters via QR codes. Would be great to have the "official" Miis for various Nintendo icons tooling around in your town.
Bill Trinen said:
They mention giving out characters via QR codes. Would be great to have the "official" Miis for various Nintendo icons tooling around in your town.
Hours Left
Member
I wonder if any of the big media sites are gonna ask about the same sex relationship issue.
I would like a clear statement from Nintendo on this, not just a response about the male pregnancy bug "fix" from the Japanese version.
Oscar contender for best original song.
Well done!
There really should just be an option when creating your Tomodachi to pick what genders they are attracted to. It could be as simple as that. I don't think the exclusion of same-sex relationships is Nintendo being purposefully conservative though, they probably just didn't think to make it a feature. In Animal Crossing New Leaf there's no option to choose the colour of your character's skin, and it's not like anybody would ever get angry if there was. I can imagine there being backlash if Nintendo doesn't include same-sex relationships though (there already is) because relationships seem to be an important part of this game and they're essentially preventing gay people from properly experiencing it.
Owlowiscious
Member
Game was made over a year ago shouldn't these types of concerns be reserved for a possible sequel? What exactly do people want done with this current game?
Hours Left
Member
They've already made changes to this version compared to the Japanese version, they could certainly include more.
What we want is equality.
Patches are a thing, it's not unheard of. They already edited heavily the game to the point for US/EU anyway.
Black Volt
Neo Member
Preorder ready, Nintendo heads=Fantasy
Im not optimistic, I think the only way to get a response if people give them enough shit for it.
Ask, and you shall receive.
http://candycrushcopeland.tumblr.co...xplains-why-it-patched-same-sex-relationships
Wesley Copeland said:
Nintendo Rep said:
Nintendo Rep said:
excellent, but i was hoping they would say why they dont allow same sex marriages in the game.
Owlowiscious
Member
What? Changing art assets? The text box character set? Concert templates?
Has there been any gameplay changes in the localization that can equate to changing the relationship structure?
I would think a change like that would at least be a DLC level of programming's worth.
Might not be a big issue in Japan's game industry when they designed and programmed the game. If it sells well internationally, when making a sequel, they might consider international's interest, and include it next time.
The voices remind me too much of Ratboy Genius.
I won't even ask if you're ready ... because there's no way you are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrkYB4Q7gwk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrkYB4Q7gwk
MisterHero
Super Member
TESTIFY
Mango The Magician
Banned
I literally just watched the Direct for the first time, and I can safety say I'm sold. XD
For some reason imagining Iwata popping out of the ocean out of nowhere is really easy. lol
For some reason imagining Iwata popping out of the ocean out of nowhere is really easy. lol
Considering the game is coming out in two months, yes, you're right that it's extremely unlikely they'll change anything in this regard this time around. But I want them to get some shit for it anyway, so that next time they make a game like this they give us some consideration because they don't want to create controversy with *that* game.
Owlowiscious
Member
Sounds good. Hope it goes well.
bluepolicebox
Member
There are many references in Animal Crossing: New Leaf that can be perceived as pretty progressive especially when it comes to gender: NPCs mention that it's perfectly fine to wear clothes intended for the opposite gender, some villagers say it's okay for men to wear makeup, and there's a nice emphasis on men and women being friends.
Nintendo's stance on same-sex relationships in this game is pretty disheartening. Especially the way it was patched out. The idea of supporting it in its current form makes me uneasy.
AlexMeloche
Member
Still unsure if I'll get this, mostly because of the lack of gay pairings.
Is it a full price game?
Is it a full price game?
PoloBlue28
Banned
Iwata before doing this direct.
It's $35 (so below standard 3DS MSRP by $5).
I was kind of impressed they had so many as it was. I can only imagine being in charge of the "let people share images" program and having to maintain umpteen dozen API implementations. Ugh.I just found out Nintendo's image share tool doesn't feature instagram. That's pretty much the only image sharing app I use so this is a pretty big bummer
I just found out Nintendo's image share tool doesn't feature instagram. That's pretty much the only image sharing app I use so this is a pretty big bummer
If you hook up your instagram with twitter wont your tweets upload to your instagram?
I can see how that would be bothersome but instagram is one of the most popular photo sharing apps out there so you'd think Nintendo would get with it for their image sharing tool. It's not like instagram is still small or new even.
I don't tweet so I don't know.
Hours Left
Member
I said "aside from the bug 'fix'".
I want a media outlet, (multiple ones would be better) to straight up ask NoA if same sex pairings are in, and if not, why they are absent. I doesn't matter about some supposed game breaking glitch from the Japanese version.
DXB-KNIGHT
Member
This is an equivalent to legalizing marijuana.
I think officially adding same-sex pairings in would be the right thing to do, but commercially it would have to be implemented wisely so that social conservatives don't freak out and boycott Nintendo.
Interesting reading in the thread about the whole gay Mii marriage thing and I'm glad it's mostly been a reasonable discussion so far on both sides. Gonna ramble here, so excuse length in advance (har) and if you think this is derailing the thread from talking about the game, well, this seems to be a major talking point about the game and until more information comes from Nintendo all the other topics seem to be covered as well.
I think we're at a watershed point now where Nintendo being a family-friendly company doesn't matter, and the fact that kids might be playing doesn't matter, to the argument of whether or not to include Miis of the same gender dating in a game. Those being reasons to keep gay content out of things are from a time when the concept of being gay was diametrically opposed to the concept of family life. It's 2014. There are gay couples and gay families everywhere in the two main markets we're talking about here, North America and Europe, and despite it being an uncomfortable line of thought for some people, children are not inherently straight, nor a separate species from the gay adults in our societies. Some kids are or will be gay. They have a right to see media that tells them they are not freaks and that what they feel is a part of the broader human experience as well as what they see all the time with hetero couples.
The more games come out that let you simulate your life, or let you play as a character with enough agency given to you in the area of relationships that many people will treat them as an avatar of themselves and want to make the same decisions they themselves would (e.g. Mass Effect), the less of a niche discussion this becomes. As an earlier poster said, my existence as a gay person and my desire to reflect my real life (my male partner) in a game like this is not social commentary or being PC or being political. It's my life. Don't put "your life" on the box if there's gonna be a honking great implied asterisk that says your life in some corporate-conservative filtered version of what that means.
Some people have asked for perspective on what Japanese people think about all this. I lived in Japan for some years and had a reasonably fulfilling gay life there. I would say that Japan is a place where a (what one might call) conservative view on society and the role of the family prevails. Your role in Japanese society is to get married and have children. Not fulfilling this role, be it because you're a woman who wants a career, a gay person, or a person of any gender who isn't interested in making that life for yourself, positions you as something of an outsider. In that sense gay people are not singled out as a destructive force against society in the same way (some) conservative demagogues do in the west. You don't get that "think of the children" attitude.
However, the vast majority of gay people keep their sexuality to themselves. Being out at the office is almost unheard of. It may sound horrible but I don't think most gay people necessarily feel oppressed by this on a day to day basis. Japan is not a country shaped by a history of organised religion, and the associated repression of sex and sexuality in all its forms, in the same way many Western countries are. There is no real concept of homosexuality as a sin or something you're going to hell for, and most people would be hard pressed to tell you what was wrong with it other than the fact that you aren't like most people (conformity is a virtue there) and you won't have a family, which is a shame. Many people view it as something you do rather than something you are, which was the prevailing attitude in the west as well until relatively recently. I found people in Japan would say things like "I didn't know you were into that", as if it was someone confessing a fetish or a sexual peccadillo rather than their entire orientation, but they would also say "does that mean you want to be a woman?".
There is a prevailing template of gender roles in Japan and being gay puts you outside that system (just as being a working mother does, or an at-home dad), hence the tendency to try to understand homosexuality in those terms: man loves men does not compute, man must somehow deep down be like a woman, or aspire to being one on some level. I'd say this is why there is also a huge tendency to conflate homosexuality with transgenderism and transvestism, which leads us to one of the key points: being gay may be a political hot topic in the west sometimes, but in Japan it's usually the focus of comedy. A man liking men is just weird and something to laugh at.
Anyway to get back to some kind of point, I honestly think the time has come to ask Nintendo why this isn't in their game. Not in some belligerent hostile campaign, but in plain and simple terms that are honestly asking for an answer to the question. Not because we'll like the answer - chances are a truly honest answer would come down to social conservatism in the Japanese Nintendo office and fiscal/public relations concerns in the western ones - but because making them think about the question is one way for the audience to force an internal conversation that might start us down a path to a positive resolution on this issue.
'Nintendo' is not a monolithic entity. We can be 100% sure that producers, translators, testers and others at both NOA and NOE (and let's be fair, some at NCL as well) were aware, upset and vocal (perhaps not at NCL) about the heteronormative version of life portrayed in this game, and those would not just have been LGBT people but straight people (what some call allies) who think equal representation of a diverse spectrum of sexuality in media is a right for everyone, whether or not they're personally affected.
Let's not lash out and blame just yet, but instead question and engage. The #Miiquality hashtag might be a good place to start, as public campaigns are harder to ignore than private letter-writing or effort-free petition website clicking. But to come back to my opening statement, I feel this is a watershed moment. It's one of those times when you finally say, actually, no, I won't be told this is a non-issue or that I should be happy I can find a crappy workaround in the game, or it's the inevitable product of the intersection of Japanese and big-company thinking, or I should be satisfied being gay isn't making me worse off in my life in other ways anymore and complaining about representation in a game is a first-world problem (which it surely is). The time for straight-talking (as it were) on this issue is now.
I think we're at a watershed point now where Nintendo being a family-friendly company doesn't matter, and the fact that kids might be playing doesn't matter, to the argument of whether or not to include Miis of the same gender dating in a game. Those being reasons to keep gay content out of things are from a time when the concept of being gay was diametrically opposed to the concept of family life. It's 2014. There are gay couples and gay families everywhere in the two main markets we're talking about here, North America and Europe, and despite it being an uncomfortable line of thought for some people, children are not inherently straight, nor a separate species from the gay adults in our societies. Some kids are or will be gay. They have a right to see media that tells them they are not freaks and that what they feel is a part of the broader human experience as well as what they see all the time with hetero couples.
The more games come out that let you simulate your life, or let you play as a character with enough agency given to you in the area of relationships that many people will treat them as an avatar of themselves and want to make the same decisions they themselves would (e.g. Mass Effect), the less of a niche discussion this becomes. As an earlier poster said, my existence as a gay person and my desire to reflect my real life (my male partner) in a game like this is not social commentary or being PC or being political. It's my life. Don't put "your life" on the box if there's gonna be a honking great implied asterisk that says your life in some corporate-conservative filtered version of what that means.
Some people have asked for perspective on what Japanese people think about all this. I lived in Japan for some years and had a reasonably fulfilling gay life there. I would say that Japan is a place where a (what one might call) conservative view on society and the role of the family prevails. Your role in Japanese society is to get married and have children. Not fulfilling this role, be it because you're a woman who wants a career, a gay person, or a person of any gender who isn't interested in making that life for yourself, positions you as something of an outsider. In that sense gay people are not singled out as a destructive force against society in the same way (some) conservative demagogues do in the west. You don't get that "think of the children" attitude.
However, the vast majority of gay people keep their sexuality to themselves. Being out at the office is almost unheard of. It may sound horrible but I don't think most gay people necessarily feel oppressed by this on a day to day basis. Japan is not a country shaped by a history of organised religion, and the associated repression of sex and sexuality in all its forms, in the same way many Western countries are. There is no real concept of homosexuality as a sin or something you're going to hell for, and most people would be hard pressed to tell you what was wrong with it other than the fact that you aren't like most people (conformity is a virtue there) and you won't have a family, which is a shame. Many people view it as something you do rather than something you are, which was the prevailing attitude in the west as well until relatively recently. I found people in Japan would say things like "I didn't know you were into that", as if it was someone confessing a fetish or a sexual peccadillo rather than their entire orientation, but they would also say "does that mean you want to be a woman?".
There is a prevailing template of gender roles in Japan and being gay puts you outside that system (just as being a working mother does, or an at-home dad), hence the tendency to try to understand homosexuality in those terms: man loves men does not compute, man must somehow deep down be like a woman, or aspire to being one on some level. I'd say this is why there is also a huge tendency to conflate homosexuality with transgenderism and transvestism, which leads us to one of the key points: being gay may be a political hot topic in the west sometimes, but in Japan it's usually the focus of comedy. A man liking men is just weird and something to laugh at.
Anyway to get back to some kind of point, I honestly think the time has come to ask Nintendo why this isn't in their game. Not in some belligerent hostile campaign, but in plain and simple terms that are honestly asking for an answer to the question. Not because we'll like the answer - chances are a truly honest answer would come down to social conservatism in the Japanese Nintendo office and fiscal/public relations concerns in the western ones - but because making them think about the question is one way for the audience to force an internal conversation that might start us down a path to a positive resolution on this issue.
'Nintendo' is not a monolithic entity. We can be 100% sure that producers, translators, testers and others at both NOA and NOE (and let's be fair, some at NCL as well) were aware, upset and vocal (perhaps not at NCL) about the heteronormative version of life portrayed in this game, and those would not just have been LGBT people but straight people (what some call allies) who think equal representation of a diverse spectrum of sexuality in media is a right for everyone, whether or not they're personally affected.
Let's not lash out and blame just yet, but instead question and engage. The #Miiquality hashtag might be a good place to start, as public campaigns are harder to ignore than private letter-writing or effort-free petition website clicking. But to come back to my opening statement, I feel this is a watershed moment. It's one of those times when you finally say, actually, no, I won't be told this is a non-issue or that I should be happy I can find a crappy workaround in the game, or it's the inevitable product of the intersection of Japanese and big-company thinking, or I should be satisfied being gay isn't making me worse off in my life in other ways anymore and complaining about representation in a game is a first-world problem (which it surely is). The time for straight-talking (as it were) on this issue is now.
Hours Left
Member
Anyone who would boycott a company over something like equality measures doesn't deserve any contemplation anyway.
blitzwolf215
Member
Nice post. Question, what is the thought of adopting in Japan, how is that viewed.
Adpotion in Japan is pretty much a completely different thing than in the west in the first place. I don't even remember ever having thought about gay couples adopting in Japan since it's already (IMO) pretty messed-up how hard it is just to place kids with adoptive hetero couples. Most kids without parents (or with parents who don't want to raise them) just grow up in orphanages, especially if their biological parents are still alive and legally their parents. Here's some reading material:
Japan Times - Japan's forgotten children, Cultural and legal hurdles block path to child adoptions in Japan
Owlowiscious
Member
If these concerns and how they're presented discourage future Japanese games from being localized I will be upset.
Yeah, I hate this. It looks like it was made in Microsoft Word whereas the US one is half-decent. Don't suppose there's any chance of a change at this stage?