Nintendo Promises Future Tomodachi Games Will Be More "Inclusive"

@amafi: agreed

If I was black I would just move on, and drink from the fountain designated for black people. Can't they be happy with their own fountain? Why do they feel the need to be considered every time a new fountain is built?

They should have included the ability for anyone to marry anyone from the start - to not think to include the option is a form of passive "social commentary" in and of itself, which I think is what they (and some of their defenders) continue to not understand.

Nintendo have thousands of gay fans, many in states or countries with gay marriage, who have no ability to represent their actual sexual preference in this game.

Their new response is better than the initial one, though I still don't buy that it's too crazy difficult for them to patch it in - or promise it in a future patch.

Some of the reactions to Nintendo were a bit overheated on this issue (welcome to the internet), but disappointment in Nintendo is fully warranted on this one. Even Electronic Arts, for all of it's massive faults, is way out ahead of Nintendo in recognizing and respecting different sexual preferences in their games.

Everything about that sentence is way off and frankly it's the only thing offending me in this entire scenario.

Glad the mole hill was actually just a mole hill after all.

Predicting rage at launch regardless, the internet hate machine never turns its gaze away from Nintendo. At least they addressed the problem sensibly.

Making drama out of nothing again, America - fuck yeah.

That just brings it down to the level unintentional social commentary- passive rather than active exclusion. The PR quote about not intending to make social commentary from the AP article was itself another bit of commentary. That's how things go. That's why the term tone deaf was appropriate.

If the game was all homosexual relationships, I probably wouldn't play it. I can see the point being made. I'd also be real upset if my Mii married a guy if they could and did change the game to include both hetero and homosexual relationships.

End of the day I don't know near enough about the game to even comment on any of it. Nintendo seems to be in clear on this one though imo.

The original response should have been something like this all along. Good on them for at least changing their words.

@planetfunksquad: You bring up a good point. We like to be accepting of different people, their sexual preferences, their customs, and also their culture. However, that can often create conflicts. As you said, the reality is different cultures view homosexuality in very different ways, some of them in very negative ways.

I think I would have preferred a more honest response from Nintendo:

We chose not to include same-sex relations because we know that many or most of our customers (especially parents, or perhaps the Japanese, whatever) would not like it. The backlash from them would have been worse than the backlash from the other side.

Whatever they say or however they word it, that's what it basically comes down to. :)

@viciousreiven: After taking the time to trace this shitstorm all the way back to the beginning I'm realizing the real problem here was an irresponsible gaming press sensationalizing all of this. Patrick included.

It seems like many people were just bummed to have this option left out. They were letting Nintendo know they'd like to be included, since they are fans of the company and their games and want to feel welcome in the Nintendo universe. That's reasonable and understandable. When I first started hearing about this it seemed like some people were calling Nintendo out for being anti-gay. Biased due to omission. You do see that in this thread as well, unfortunately. I will never support anyone's creative vision to conform to anything ever. I do support people letting a company know they are an overlooked segment and they'd like that to change.

Other than the Nancy Grace who editorialized it here and the Alex Jones's following suit in the comments decrying an anti-gay conspiracy; I think we're all pretty much in agreement that we want everyone to have fun with their games and its cool with ALL of us for a company like Nintendo to reach as many fans as possible. Just don't expect a consensus among all gamers to guilt anyone if their creative output isn't inclusive enough or strong arm anyone into awkward apologies for their artistic output (thankfully that doesn't seem like that was the original intent of the Miiquality movement).

First the press wanted us to be pissed off that Nintendo removed code to allow same sex couples. That turned out to be inaccurate (it was a bug that broke the game). Then they wanted us to be pissed off because they don't know how to read a response. Then they wanted us to be pissed about a clarification and apology and treat it like backpedaling ("Ha, we caught those fuckers now!"). Where they move the goal posts next is anyones guess. The worst part is they piggybacked all this click bait on the much more level headed Miiquality movement and ended up perverting the entire thing. The media wouldn't have said a single thing about this issue if it wasn't for the friendly, fun and positive outreach to Nintendo by a few fans. Something we could all have gotten behind without ripping out each others throats. I hope the opportunistic, exploitative a-holes felt all the extra traffic was worth it. Write an article that is honest, stays positive and encourages healthy discussions on where we can all find agreement and I bet you don't end up with a comments section like this.

Nintendo has been nothing but kind through this whole thing, and people are still down their throats about it looking for any reason to bitch, they explained why it wasn't possible and why it wasn't included to begin with, apologized and are promising future games will support it.

I don't understand why this isn't done and over with.

But that's the thing. I amgoing to play this game. Maybe it doesn't make me homophobic, but it still makes me part of the problem in yours and other people's eyes. Maybe I shouldn't care about that, but I do.

I've been waiting 5 years for a Tomodachi game to come to the West. I had no idea there was even an issue here until earlier this week. Maybe that's a blind spot on my part, but still, it's not my fault Nintendo dropped the ball.

I don't really wish to speak on behalf of anyone other than myself here. I really, really want to play this game, and have wanted to play it for years… and under the current circumstances, I feel like I'm going to be judged very harshly if I do, and that's just not fair. I'm playing the game in spite of it's failures, not because of them, as will be the case for most, if not all people who play the game. Why should we be looked down upon?

It's real easy for people who weren't gonna play a game in the first place to boycott it. The fans are caught in the middle. It's Shadow Complex all over again.

By the same token, I don't want to subject myself to the kinds of mental gymnastics it would take to handwave away the controversy just so I don't have to feel guilty about it. Maybe there's a way I could make it up to the LGBT community?

@raven10 said:

The only thing I find offensive in this whole affair is the way the media comported themselves.

The campaign starts out reasonably. People are disappointed that there aren't homosexual relationships in Tomodachi Life. They start a grassroots campaign to simply request either a patch or representation in the next game(s). Nintendo makes its first awkwardly worded response, attempting to explain that it wasn't done out of malicious intent. Ever hungry for a controversy, the enthusiast media completely misinterpret the statement, paint Nintendo as bigots, and poison the dialogue. Nintendo further explains the situation, apologizes (not for the first statement but the lack of gay Miis), and promises to fix the problem in future games. The enthusiast media don't even acknowledge (much less apologize for) their own errors or poor behavior, continue taking pot shots at Nintendo even though the people behind the movement got the desired result, then smugly pat themselves on the back as if they got a stubborn Nintendo to backtrack from an offensive position (which existed only in their minds).

The syntax in that first sentence seems off.

I find it funny how people can categorize Nintendo's first response as "tone deaf" when those people themselves seem to be regular deaf.

Their original statement didn't mean "we think that acknowledging homosexual relationships is social commentary". It meant "we didn't intend any social commentary by not including homosexual relationships in our game".

@defaultprophet: Fair about the hyperbole :/ and Im sorry and no I forgot the B , not on purpose D: I knew I was missing a letter so sorry about that too.

Agreed. They were almost certainly not going to be able to change it at this stage, but explaining why and promising to include it from the beginning next time is a much better response.

If Nintendo knew they would receive this much backlash for not including same-sex marriage then I'm pretty sure they would have either given the development team enough time to implement the feature, or simply not bothered with localizing the game at all. At this point in time they kind of need all the money they can get, so why would they intentionally leave out the feature and risk alienating a significant portion of their American fan base?

The answer is they most likely did not intentionally leave it out as some sort of homophobic social exclusionary commentary as the internet is wont to believe, and just didn't realize that same-sex marriage is something that the American market would want. (As people have mentioned and as far as I am aware, gay rights are barely a thing in Japan. But correct me if I'm wrong.) The criticisms about it feeling like a missing feature are completely fair, but to jump the gun and call Nintendo homophobic for leaving it out is baseless conjecture, and would make you as much of a problem as the bigots you decry.

@bunnymud: Yea, that time we let women vote? Bad.

Yes I do think the amount of commotion was warranted because the game may be small but the company behind it is not.

Yes I do think it's ok for people to ask the developer to change a game after release in cases like this because if they can't do it all they have to do is respond with why and if they can reasonably do it and it will make a significant amount of people happier and not affect anyone else then why not?

@euandewar: They were fine in asking the proverbial "why", but do you think it's ok for people to ask the developer to change a game after release when the changes aren't addressing game breaking bugs? Did this small game really warrant the amount of commotion that was raised around it?

@melodiousj: Playing Tomodachi doesn't make you homophobic. But I do feel that games that are intentionally exclusionary should not be played, if only to send a message.

@tebbit: This post is so wrong in so so so many ways.

Any reason you're dropping the B in LGBT?

And no, you're not wrong if you're a white cis dude. I'm a white cis dude and I'm on the other side of the issue. The difference is I'm trying to see it from the side of a gay dude or lady and you're ignoring their voices.

But I don't know why I'm responding to you when you used such tired hyperbole and feminazis.

Maybe Nintendo shouldn't have begun to localize it at all, that would have solved the issue from the beginning. Maybe no one would be happy, but no one would care I guess.

I'm also interested in seeing how the game actually does, because the more I hear about it the more... boring it sounds.

I don't understand how the new statement is considered a "backtrack" from the original. If the original stated that any upcoming sequel would never include these new elements then it would be backtracking...but it doesn't. I think i'm starting to understand the Nintendo Direct thing, the press seems to try and burn Nintendo every chance they get.

The internet will still be mad, because of the fact that Nintendo will include same sex marriage IF they make another Tomadachi. Nintendo is still a company that wants to make money and more importantly needs to make money, so if Tomadachi isn't profitable enough for a sequel, they're not going to make one just to calm the internet down.

@jumbs: And I say they dont because it is a company not a democracy. Or as I stated if they had promised that then sure and I would have joined the complaining. And since when did this became about race? Because Im white and heterosexual Im automaticly wrong? So you are saying that if a some one makes a media product that exludes me I should have the right to demand them to change their product to catter to me? No I dont , if I disagree I will just not buy the product (as I dont buy stuff that catter to LGT becuse I have no interest on it or exteme feminist agenda etc.)

I guess we just have a pretty fundamental disagreement then because I do feel in this case that people were well within their right to ask the questions that were asked. Sorry to have wasted your time.

@aetheldod: Sure, if Nintendo have all the right in the world to do so, then people who are being excluded by these decisions have a right to complain.

Mayhaps people in this thread should have some form of social empathy instead of "im a white cishet male, who cares?!??!!?!?!?!??!?!?!?! *folds arms, bees fly out of eyesockets*

Very confused by this. The entire internet read Nintendo's statement as "We deliberately did not include gay relationships because we wanted to avoid making a social commentary" but I read it as "We did not intentionally exclude gay relationships to make a specific statement about gay relationships."

Nintendo is not saying gay = social commentary.

Nintendo's new comment should have been the one they issued first. It really pisses me off when people imply that the inclusion of LGBT content in games is a political statement. It's not. People don't have gay relationships to protest hetero normative intolerance. They do it because that's what feels natural, just like straight people do. Homosexual love is only as political as heterosexual love.

Anytime a game or anything for that matter is bullied into changing is an all around a bad thing.

I will just say that while I think some parties overreacted on both sides in the name of sensationalizing this story, I'm glad we've reached this resolution. And I'm triple glad that this headline contains the phrase "future Tomodachi games" because I don't want this crazy train to stop at one game. I'll leave it at that and stay out of the word wars.

After reading some of these comments, I can't help but feel that pieces like Samantha Allen's post on Polygon did much more harm then good.

To me, Miieqauility started as a extremely civil request. "Heeeey. We would really like this feature for these reasons. I realize that it probably can't make it into this game. But maybe add it in a patch? Or in the next Tomodachi Life? It would be best if you could just acknowledge this. Thanks!"

There was no outrage. No vitriol. No bullying like some of these comments claim.

But then I read Samantha Allen talking about "the beating, bigoted heart of Nintendo" and I'm like 'Whoa, whoa whoa! This is a bit much! She doesn't represent us!'

But stuff like that happens a few times and now we have a forum war. One where I bet people would probably agree if they didn't both make assumptions about what assholes the other side are.

@euandewar: I simply think there has been a strange shift in consumers buying a product and accepting it's strengths and limitations, and this new blooming movement of purchasing a product and then demanding that product be changed to match their specific expectations. Could they have added same sex marriage? Of course. Should they have? Well thats more of a grey area to me. Should people who bought the game be upset, or in some cases even outraged, that this option is not in it and in turn demand Nintendo patch it in? As far as I'm concerned, no. To me the game is what it is and it feels a bit presumptuous, not to use the now ruined word "entitled", to say "no, I don't like this - change it."

I completely understand why people would want a game with same sex marriage and I'm not opposed to it at all. Heck, I had a beautiful family in a Sims game with a same sex couple that adopted a child which later attended a private school and was the pride of the family - it was great. I simply don't quite understand the mentality of asking, or in some cases demanding, that games be changed after the fact.

I get what you're saying but getting a company as big as Nintendo to acknowledge the desire for a same-sex option could potentially be pretty important to some people.

Also I don't know I would describe it as apologizing for making a game they wanted to make, at least not without knowing more about the creative process behind the game. My guess from the wording of their statements is they just never really thought to consider the same-sex option in the first place. If so I think there's a crucial difference between having a very specific artistic vision and just forgetting to include something. I think if you said to Nintendo before they started connecting and creating TL "Would you rather make a relationship game with same-sex relationships or without them?" they would answer "With".

Again though I don't know the reasoning and don't wish to make any assumptions as to Nintendo's motives. Just wanna point out that I don't think it's particularly fair to say they were bullied into apologising for nothing.

@chrisharris: Exactly. I know this is the internet, where everyone is at each other's throats at a moment's notice, but a bit more level headedness wouldn't go amiss.

I think that their second statement is kind of what was needed: it is a clarification, it stops people taking the first statement as being explicitly "anti-gay", which almost certainly (or at least hopefully) wasn't their intention.

If people hadn't reacted as vocally as they did though, then there wouldn't have been a clarification, and those that did feel that the first statement meant that including same sex marriage would be social commentary, rather than that excluding same sex marriage wasn't intended as social commentary, would have been left feeling that their requests had gone unheard by Nintendo, when in fact they had, but the response probably wasn't as clear cut as it should have been.

@sergio: I guess you have a stronger stomach than I do.