They have undoubtably ran the algorithms and concluded that it isn't worth it. How much extra work to implement it correctly? Is it a programming headache that would only be for a small percentage of players? Especially for an emotional and political issue for both sides. If you played Twilight Princess Wii Version, you see that a left handed option was not included because most people used the right hand. That is your answer, cut corners.
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Nintendo on Gay Marriage and Tomodachi Life
- Thread starter Nothing1016
- Start date
I really don't think that's the case.
Instead of just programming male-female relationships you're now programming male-male and female-female relationships as well. It sounds like it would be quite a hassle.
Not exactly true either. Humanity is far more complicated than that.
Incitemaybe
Member
"we're trying not to say anything about anything"
Terrible response.
Sir, you can't just stick your fingers in your ears and expect the world to play your game.
Terrible response.
Sir, you can't just stick your fingers in your ears and expect the world to play your game.
It isn't a case of just flipping a switch though. You don't interact or choose anything in Tomodachi Life, you just watch them going about their business. There is no way of indicating what sexuality a Mii is.
Everyone would have to be bisexual in it to allow it, which wouldn't be any more representative.
The Mii Creator isn't going to get a sexuality slider anytime soon, so it would be tricky to find a solution to this in the context of the game.
I don't disagree with what you're saying, except for the part about Nintendo is a global company. I mean, yes of course it is. But IMHO this was not intended to be a global game. It's a game made for Japan that's being localized just to see if it catches on because it has been really, really popular at home. I mean, from what I've seen of the game from my wife playing it for years (and my daughter's playing it now too) it's probably going to weird people out and if it is popular it'll be for its quirkiness as much as anything. If you want to petition Nintendo to incorporate same-sex relationships in Tomodachi Collection, then hit them up for it on the next iteration in the series. But (just my opinion) it isn't realistic to expect them to have included it in a game that was primarily intended for their home market.
.
shinra-bansho
Member
EA, Microsoft and everyone's favorite company Zynga formally opposed moves to prevent gay marriage in 2012.
For all the "worst company" stuff they get, EA does very well when it comes to equality in this regard. EA hosted an industry summit on LGBT issues in gaming last year. They receive awards in terms of workplace equality, formally take part in pride walks and took part in the "It Gets Better" campaign.
I don't understand how exactly it's good that they don't want to provide a clear stance on the matter either. Coming to that conclusion entirely independently.
gaheris
Member
Yeah they took the simple way out which was to cater to the majority and save the programmers and designers of the extra work. So in this context a patch wouldn't be enough, you'ed have to rethink the entire system from the ground up, there is no switch to flip since you don't actually control your Mii cause hint they are not you.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
................You arguing with Y2Kev with those avatars of both of you.................
Personally I don't think Nintendo are doing what they are doing out of malice, but yes, it would be better if they can adapt better to the needs of broader scope of people.
I think you missed a big point in that a lot of those stories were designed long before it was "ok" to be gay in the U.S. and while a lot of the core characters haven't changed (Barbie is still with Ken ect) a lot of those lines and dolls introduced since then don't "have" anybody in particular to be with so you just kinda fill in the blanks with the kid's imagination. Buy two Kens or two Barbies and make them a couple, even. Who says you can't? Is there a show where it shows Ken w Barbie? (I really dunno). The dolls don't even come in hetero pairs usually (although that's more due to them wanting to charge more for two dolls I guess). That's like Cabbage Patch and Build a Bear and even more defined characters like Spongebob and MLP and Sesame Street and Pokemon stuff, they don't make romance a focal point on a regular basis to the point where for a lot of main/recurring characters you just don't know who/what they are into, so you fill in the blanks yourself (or the fandom does, lol)
There are a lot of stereotypes with a lot of toys that you can go into detail on but the dolls and toys are NOT about having sex and making babies, at least not on a regular basis (I know I've seen prego dolls before but yea, not common...)., part of being in Amurica and the Puritan background ect. that's why most don't have have vaginas and penises. There's tons n tons that are simply there and you fill in the blanks on everything about them (except, as you mentioned, ones based on old-school fairy tale stuff, those are about very certain people and thus not supposed to represent the kid playing with them. Kinda why I have more of a problemo with this game because it's made to represent "you" and that's a core theme of it)
I'd like some more stories about adult characters and cartoon made characters that are specifically gay/lesb/bi/trans and so on, yea, but that's not the same thing or what i was discussing.
That not true. Yes Nintendo can make it so gender does not matter for relationship but then some will always be the girlfriend or wife. That would not be a solution.
Also this WOULD bring negatives because you have no control over who your Mii falls for in the game. There would be tons of news story of "Nintendo trying to turn kids gay" when a parent find that there child is in a same sex relationship.
To do this right with as minimal negative reaction as possible it would have to be a feature from the beginning were you could choose your sexuality. It not going to be possible for this game. The hope is that Nintendo will listen and make it a feature in the sequel. Or make a Tomodachi Life+ maybe even for the WiiU too.
Mihael Mello Keehl
Banned
So legit question.. considering pokemon is about you and depending on your gender in most games your rival or "friend"( I know the one girl was talking about kissing under the stars or something in XY lol) Should this matter with pokemon or no? Cause its kind of have some similar principles.
His answer is fine, although it's obvious there's a more complicated reason but even going into it would create more controversy. So it's best to just dodge it, there's no right way to answer it, there's going to be controversy (maybe even bigger) if they actually made a patch specifically for that.
Fantastical
Death Prophet
shinra-bansho
Member
I'm not arguing with Y2Kev, I'm agreeing. Not that we always agree.
The Sims is rated T by the ESRB, so I would assume kids play it.
Are you saying that a company that has children and young people as part of their target market cannot or should not take stances on social issues?
Not sure if serious. If not, ignore.
The Sims is rated T by the ESRB, so I would assume kids play it.
Are you saying that a company that has children and young people as part of their target market cannot or should not take stances on social issues?
Nooooo, the statement was that toys don't feature amorous relationships. The fact that the examples I gave were all of heteronormative relationships was beside the point (but strongly indicative of the cultural bias here).
My point was that we introduce children to romantic relationships at a very young age, in both stories and toys. There have been relationships and even a marriage proposal in the new MLP cartoons. Gary in the pokemon cartoons hits on everyone. There are plenty of toys that are sold in boy/girl sets targeted at all ages. Yes, they are toys meant to represent specific characters from various media, but the idea that there are no romantic relationships in children's toys is completely incorrect.
theprodigy
Member
he's making a parody of Shinta's posts about "but The Sims is rated T!"
Kageshinzo
Member
And how do you know this? What if the game was programmed to just have a male and a female character, and each one has distinct personalities that separates one from the other, essentially a 1 and 0 scenario? Do you realize that you just classified LGBT people as nothing more than people "who fall for the same sex" when it is a far more complicated thing than that? If it was just a "simple matter" of having a person fall in love with the same sex, what makes it any different from the admittedly laughable workaround the game currently has for "same-sex" relationships?
I think what most people here do not realize is that this is more than just "have my Mii fall in love with the same gender Mii" dipswitch. For all we know, this might entail having to overhaul their coding. After all, your Miis are not something that you control in this game. What would happen if all they ever did was add an RNG that would decide whether a Mii will fall for the same sex or not, and (like someone else said early on in this thread) a straight person's Mii suddenly falls in love with another or the same sex? Would his/her outrage be any less significant than that of an LGBT person?
The bottom line is this is more than just a "patch it Nintendo lol" issue. You can cause a stir and hopefully, Nintendo listens and considers it for a sequel, or to any of their future games. But for this game, I sincerely doubt you're gonna have what's being demanded.
ZombiePlatypus
Member
Well...they don't really have the luxury to decide whether it's an issue or not themselves. If a chunk of their consumer-base is feeling alienated or worse, then unfortunately it's an issue.
I understand that there are cultural differences here and socially things might be different in Japan. I would have been much more sympathetic to this "foreign game" angle though if Nintendo didn't utilize region-locks. They played up the whole "we must region lock to make sure each region gets content that's appropriate and best for them" spiel. Well now it's time for them to put up or shut up I guess. If I'm not gonna be allowed to import games as I please, then I'm ready to see Nintendo go the extra mile, and exercise it's supposed intention to deliver content sensitive to each region and their different nuances.
I like how everyone is acting how crazy it would be if, in a video game, your Miis had no control over their sexuality and sometimes fell in love with someone of the same gender. Kinda like real life? Personally I think it's kind of crazy that it's 2014 and Nintendo is selling a game where boys like girls and girls like boys, the end, shut up we're just about fun. Wtf does that even mean?
Mailenstein
Member
Why do these things always only pop up when certain games are announced for the western market? Here in Japan this was never a thing. People (almost women) buy the game and enjoy the game for what it is. Why do people always need to extend their personal life, beliefs, sexual orientation etc. into games? If it bugs you that much, don't buy it. I for one never cared, if my character in a game is heterosexual, homosexual and/or about the given possibilities on my characters gender. Even if the game does allow f/f and m/m partnerships, it doesn't mean you will end up having one just because you, the player, are gay. And maybe you will never end up having one. Raed up the mechanics of the game folks.
I don't see why everything has to be about politics. That's what Nintendo is saying. "We're not trying to say anything about anything" means that they're not trying to choose a political side. All the people calling on them do to the "right thing" and include gay-marriage have a specific viewpoint on the issue, but there are just as many people who have a different viewpoint. Nintendo doesn't want to get in the middle of that, they just want to make games, so they chose the traditional option, the default option for 90% of the world. Nobody buys Nintendo products for a politically-radical experience, just like no one watches a Disney movie expecting to see the main character with tattoos and piercings. Some people like buying things for their kids that doesn't have any kind of political message bundled inside it. Does this mean there isn't a place for homosexuality in video games? Of course not. Look at everything EA puts out these days for example. But that doesn't mean everything that comes out needs to accommodate every single ideology, and it doesn't mean Nintendo is homophobic or something just because they didn't include an option that would start a bigger ruckus than leaving it out.
I didn't say there were zero, i said it's not a focal point in a wide variety of them (maybe even most of them that don't involve a prince/princess thing?), because it's not. We don't know the sexual nature of a ton of main characters with defined traits because it's never come up. it's widely assumed that Bert and Ernie have a thing going on, but we might never know because Sesame Street never brings it up. Rainbow Dash from MLP's another "hot" topic but we might never know because it's never been brought up. Maybe every single one of the Pokemon regions has a lesbian gym leader, but we dunno because it doesn't come up. Almost all of those examples you mentioned are tied to very certain characters of said show and for none of them are marriage/dating a focal point of it. None.
Yes, they could and probably should at least introduce more and different types of relationships in one off characters like they did in Good Luck Charlie, especially if they frequent the topic on a regular basis, but they almost never do. They should bring them up even more if with main characters if romance develops but it's almost never a focal thing in non-oldschool maiden/knight type stories, at least those targeted at the very young. On average and across toy lines that hit at the teenage and up market, I absolutely think it's more of a concern . That is why I am more interested in this game and this scenario, because marriage and things are a focal point of it, and it's not aimed just at young kids either.
Freezie KO
Banned
But exclusion is choosing a political side. Their statement is literally that heterosexuals can get married, but homosexuals cannot.
Right. There are two sides. That's why pro-gay marriage people have to be louder than those other people.
Is it 90% of the territories where the game will be distributed? Where are your numbers coming from? And are you talking about the legality of gay marriage or its support?
Yet a feminist film that subverted classic Disney "helpless princess" tropes just became their biggest grossing animated film.
So if those parents want to teach their kids to be equally large assholes, then they don't have to buy the game. Nintendo is already taking a stand. That stand is exclusion. The point of speaking out is to get them to change their stance.
Nintendo's not homophobic. They care about money and brand image. The point of speaking out is to show that excluding homosexuals is worse for their brand than including them.
J'aime Fils-Aime
Neo Member
If Nintendo doesn't want it to be about politics, then they should simply remove all marriage and relationship features in the game. That way, everybody wins, right?
If Disney acted the same way as Nintendo does and people never criticized their films, we'd never have gotten Frozen, but Cinderella 27: Still Scrubbing Floors.
cosmicblizzard
Banned
With how quirky the game is, I honestly wouldn't have a problem with this. However, people are seeing the miis they have no control over as actual representations of themselves. The miiquality movement does not seem to be for total randomness when it comes to getting a partner in the game.
Also something I'd be fine with.
shinra-bansho
Member
Oh, is that why the latter was banned? Do people seriously think that kids don't play the Sims? :/
They are essentially choosing a side though. I don't think people are saying Nintendo is homophobic. I don't think the issue is even necessarily with Nintendo itself, but the view being espoused that essentially ignoring the issues and/or only allowing the status quo is a better course of action because they'd otherwise cause a "ruckus."
It's not.
Question: are you gay?
Because if not, then that might be a reason you don't understand why people want representation.
You don't seem to understand that Miis are an avatar of yourself and this game is supposed to be a form of real life simulation.
Mailenstein
Member
No, I'm not. But that doesn't mean I don't understand things.
Nothing1016
Member
Unless Nintendo sees huge sales ramifications from this issue, which I doubt they will, they are not gonna dedicated man power to fixing it. Your best bet would to hope they fix the issue in the next game.
Okay, perhaps I misread something you wrote. Defining romance as a focal point can be odd though, because even characters who ate in a known, steady relationship don't necessarily have that relationship as a focus of their story, it's just a characteristic of the character.
Mailenstein
Member
Well, that is what you want to see. Other people's Mii is a totally fictional character. I for one have the game and I know how it plays and that's why I don't get this whole uproar when this "real life simulation" totally isn't a "real life simulation". As I said, read up on the game mechanics and you'll understand why the Miiquality movement is set for fail. That's not how the game is designed.
Brainfreeze
Member
They should just replace marriage with a "best friend" system. Make it easy on themselves.
I mean, as a bisexual man, this doesn't bother me at all. Because my sexual preferences mean nothing in a game about childish antics and schoolyard friendships. Why even give the controversy a leg to stand on when it's irrelevant to the game anyway? Seems silly.
But, I've never actually played the game. So maybe that's a big feature? I don't know. I guess I'm just not super passionate about this.
I mean, as a bisexual man, this doesn't bother me at all. Because my sexual preferences mean nothing in a game about childish antics and schoolyard friendships. Why even give the controversy a leg to stand on when it's irrelevant to the game anyway? Seems silly.
But, I've never actually played the game. So maybe that's a big feature? I don't know. I guess I'm just not super passionate about this.
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
So lets just say they flipped a switch that gave equal random chances for same sex relationships and hetero relationships. Would that change your opinion of or desire for the game at all?
I would say dating, getting married, and having children is one of the biggest features of the game, going by the marketing material. Half the Nintendo Direct about it focused on the confessing your love portion.
poorlonelycomputer
Member
Yup, this. They're already making a statement. As for the backlash argument... I mean yeah sure people will be upset. People were upset when schools were integrated too. But sometimes you have to be willing to upset the people who are straight out wrong. Being against inclusivity is the wrong position, period.
poorlonelycomputer
Member
Let me also just say, I identify as 100% straight but I would be totally ok with my Mii being gay. I don't know what that little guy gets up to.
Mailenstein
Member
As I said before, I don't care about gender settings and/or the sexual orientation of my character in games. I just want the game to be fun. That's about it.
The contention being that their choice with this one feature of this one game makes their allegiance clear?
More than two sides have been expressed in this thread alone.
Opinionatedfish
Member
From what I remember, there was an issue where -when you changed the gender of a Mii from male to female after downloading them from the Wii- the game would develop a bug that would cause it to corrupt a save to the point that the game would become unplayable due to crashes.
Since a Mii is a custom avatar and the options for how they look are fairly universal to begin with, it's perfectly possible to make a male or female version of yourself so that you can match your Mii up with the gender that you are attracted to.
There does not seem to be a way to get your Mii to be attracted to both genders or to get married multiple times at once to members of both gender at the same time.
Actually, that sounds like it would be a pain in the ass to account for in bug testing.
What people are asking is for Nintendo of America to spend many more months of Q&A on a title that was finished and patched by Nintendo of Japan to be more stable.
It's nice to make political statements but there are actual costs in time and resources to implement a statement that wasn't there to begin with.
It's the "belling the cat" idea.
"Hey! I don't like PAX for a comment from someone or I don't like that Anita person!"
"Whatever you say, why don't you make an alternative to PAX or your own videos that state your opinion in contrast to Anita?"
"Umm.. that takes too much time and effort. I'd rather just complain about it."
Nintendo has had gay characters in their games before, although sometimes -in Animal Crossing- their gender changes from region to region. That's really a problem. Next Animal Crossing, Gracie and Sahara should keep their original genders. It may be more useful to rattle some bones on that issue over a game where you can customize your gender without having to make it match gender normative attributes.
Since a Mii is a custom avatar and the options for how they look are fairly universal to begin with, it's perfectly possible to make a male or female version of yourself so that you can match your Mii up with the gender that you are attracted to.
There does not seem to be a way to get your Mii to be attracted to both genders or to get married multiple times at once to members of both gender at the same time.
Actually, that sounds like it would be a pain in the ass to account for in bug testing.
What people are asking is for Nintendo of America to spend many more months of Q&A on a title that was finished and patched by Nintendo of Japan to be more stable.
It's nice to make political statements but there are actual costs in time and resources to implement a statement that wasn't there to begin with.
It's the "belling the cat" idea.
"Hey! I don't like PAX for a comment from someone or I don't like that Anita person!"
"Whatever you say, why don't you make an alternative to PAX or your own videos that state your opinion in contrast to Anita?"
"Umm.. that takes too much time and effort. I'd rather just complain about it."
Nintendo has had gay characters in their games before, although sometimes -in Animal Crossing- their gender changes from region to region. That's really a problem. Next Animal Crossing, Gracie and Sahara should keep their original genders. It may be more useful to rattle some bones on that issue over a game where you can customize your gender without having to make it match gender normative attributes.
Given the actual statistics of acceptance of gay marriage in the States and the rest of the continent I really see as an incredibly obvious thing they would give us a non answer.
Nintendo strays away from even the smallest tiny bit of controversy, whether is religion (OoT and the muslim chants/crecent in the shield), violence (green blood), and of course a hot topic like gay marriage, this is the reality of the situation right now.
Also, marriage in Japan is not really like that fairy tale / love at first sight thing that we have been taught by Disney in the west, so I'm sure there's also stuff lost in translation about marrying in Tomodachi life. From the bits I've seen the game is nowhere near close to something like The Sims.
Nintendo strays away from even the smallest tiny bit of controversy, whether is religion (OoT and the muslim chants/crecent in the shield), violence (green blood), and of course a hot topic like gay marriage, this is the reality of the situation right now.
Also, marriage in Japan is not really like that fairy tale / love at first sight thing that we have been taught by Disney in the west, so I'm sure there's also stuff lost in translation about marrying in Tomodachi life. From the bits I've seen the game is nowhere near close to something like The Sims.
That's a good idea for the next release. But this release is just fielding a game that was made for the japanese market into other markets with a simple language translation. Most of what people are suggesting here (such as replacing marriage with a best friends system) would require coding an entirely new game, which wouldn't make sense for what is really an experimental release.
Someone earlier said that "Western culture is rapidly progressing to the point where deliberately excluding same-sex relationships from an otherwise open-ended life sim says more about one's stance on homosexuality than including them" ... and that may be true. But this game wasn't made by or for westerners.
shinra-bansho
Member
So I'm just catching up on the thread in full and... you can't make people of darker skinned ethnicity?
Err... why? :S
EDIT: Oh they were referring to Animal Crossing rather than Tomodachi Life.
I guess that gives one optimism that in future games there'll be a conscious choice to be more inclusive in relationships.
Err... why? :S
EDIT: Oh they were referring to Animal Crossing rather than Tomodachi Life.
I guess that gives one optimism that in future games there'll be a conscious choice to be more inclusive in relationships.
Necromanti
Member
Which is why it was a false equivalence and a dumb point to bring up to begin with. And I never said that anyone was physically prevented from playing anything. "Demonstrate other toys that have similar issues but are being glossed over" was my point.
Hours Left
Member
Being capable of understanding things doesn't mean you do. In this case, you're commenting saying "I don't get why X and Y care that they're not represented even though I'm neither X or Y"
Seems a little problematic to be speaking for others when you aren't able to experience what they're feeling.
ZombiePlatypus
Member
I would have absolutely agreed with this argument, but as stated previously, they're the ones that opened themselves up to this mess by forcing region-locks on players in the name of region specific and region sensitive content.
If they just somehow undid region locks on 3DS instead of actually addressing the issue within Tomdachi Life, I think it'd be fair. They just can't have it both ways.
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