STAR WARS GAME TO ALLOW SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS
The creators of a new Star Wars ‘massively multiplayer online role-playing game’ (MMO) have decided to allow players to have same-sex relationships in the game, reports Newsarama.
BioWare, the company behind the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic, had first said that only heterosexual virtual couplings would be allowed in the game but later changed its mind after receiving a deluge of comments from fans.
Stephen Reid, the senior online community manager for the game, announced that the feature to allow same-sex relationships would indeed be introduced, but only after the game’s launch.
“Due to the design constraints of a fully voiced MMO of this scale and size, many choices had to be made as to the launch and post-launch feature set,” he said.
“Same gender romances with companion characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic will be a post-launch feature. Because The Old Republic is an MMO, the game will live on through content expansions which allow us to include content and features that could not be included at launch, including the addition of more companion characters who will have additional romance options.”
The option to allow same-sex characters to engage in relationships in role-playing games is becoming increasingly common in the industry, with games such as Dragon Age 2, Skyrim and Fable III leading the way.
LOL. This is actually a lot more complex than being a gay/straight issue. Studies show that 85% of the MMORPG community is male, yet there is a very high population of female characters on game servers, which leads to the MMORPG gender bender conundrum. (There are numerous scientific studies on this, believe it or not!!) In short it has less to do with sexual orientation and more with pure role playing, perception etc. To use a non-MMO example – straight men LOVE controlling Lara Croft in Tomb Raider games. If they actually had the option to let Lara have a romance, would it be with a man, or with a woman…? LOL