00:00:00

Bombin' the A.M. With Scoops & the Wolf!

Bombin' the A.M. With Scoops and the Wolf: 05/09/2014

We close the book on Child of Light, ponder Nintendo's recent comments about Tomodachi Life, and hope for the best on the new Unreal Tournament.

Grab a cup of coffee, and catch up on the day's headlines with Giant Bomb guys that aren't in San Francisco.

May. 9 2014

Posted by: Patrick

57 Comments

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alternate

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hot man on man action

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fobwashed

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Edited By fobwashed
No Caption Provided

Here's the video ya'll duders missed =P

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Edited By skynidas

...

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@fobwashed: omg stop him! he is chanting in tongues!

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AMyggen

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Edited By AMyggen

Really great discussion on the Tomodachi Life stuff. Also, for anyone interested in LGBT rights in Japan, the Wikipedia article on that is a pretty good overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Japan

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Memu

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Edited By Memu

Hmmm. I don't see any problem with Nintendo's response. They are just saying "It's a game not a social commentary." How is that a bad response? I tire of people seeking insult where none is intended. Every game requires complete sexual and ethnic diversity of characters now?

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DrPeatore

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@fobwashed: If only I could be so grossly incandescent.

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@memu said:

Hmmm. I don't see any problem with Nintendo's response. They are just saying "It's a game not a social commentary." How is that a bad response? I tire of people seeking insult where none is intended. Every game requires complete sexual and ethnic diversity of characters now?

It implies the very existence of gay relationships is by itself (no added "this is a bad thing" or "this is a good thing" commentary, just... having them) some incendiary political thing, as opposed to an okay normal thing no one should mind.

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Memu

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@lightningproof: I don't see how it implies anything like that. The way I read their statement is "We did not purposefully leave gays out of the game to make a statement about gays in society. We simply did not think to put it in or it is not necessary to the gameplay. Stop getting your panties ruffled because not every game has gays in it." And that seems like a perfectly valid response to me.

People seem to like creating controversy where there is none.

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BeyondStrange

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@memu said:

Hmmm. I don't see any problem with Nintendo's response. They are just saying "It's a game not a social commentary." How is that a bad response? I tire of people seeking insult where none is intended. Every game requires complete sexual and ethnic diversity of characters now?

It implies the very existence of gay relationships is by itself (no added "this is a bad thing" or "this is a good thing" commentary, just... having them) some incendiary political thing, as opposed to an okay normal thing no one should mind.

I usually repudiate the type of thing that Memu says. The response of "just deal with it" to me is just forceful and close minded. Still, on this whole issue, I find the outrage indeed a bit of a stretch. Everyone is interpreting the statement in the way that lightningproof described, but to me, that interpretation feels a bit convoluted. I think Nintendo is saying "we did not intend not including homosexuality to be a political statement. That is how the game came to us" with it being strongly implied that "we don't have the budget to add it."

I don't want to demean the Miiquality thing. The original campaign was very thoughtful and all the points are valid. Still, I do think having such a strong adverse reaction to everything demeans protest and creates more "just deal with it" people. I have read that statement dozens of times now and I still can't perceive the issue in the way most people are taking it. The political commentary mentioned is the act of not including the gay marriage, not the issue in general. They are in a tricky situation where I feel like no matter what they say, it will be taken in the most negative way possible. In fact, to me, this is the same exact thing as in the Parks and Recreation episode about the gay penguins. This statement is basically saying "we thought it was cute, dammit."

This episode of "Bombin' the AM" was enjoyable and insightful as always, but I felt like there was a bit of frustrating hypocrisy involving this issue. There has been a lot of discussion on the show recently about how much games cost to make and how difficult programming can actually be. Yet, during the Tomodachi Life segment, Patrick is talking about how adding this should just be part of localization. Yes, I would LOVE if my Boris Yeltsin Mii could be in a romantic relationship with my Vladimir Putin Mii in which they had a child together, only for Yeltsin to have a secret affair with my Joe Biden Mii, who in turn is cheating on my Leslie Knope Mii. Still, that obviously would take extra coding and money to implement. This game is a risk to begin with. No one ever thought it would be released in the west and despite the buzz among internet folks, it is not guaranteed to be a success. I doubt it would just be as easy as typing in the code "allow homosexuality now" like many suggest or imply. I mean, homosexuality isn't a choice, so they would have to add a whole element to the process that would mark the sexual orientation of a Mii when you first input it. That does not sound simple to put in.

Still, I think the best statement Nintendo could have published is "we don't have the budget to add it guys. Sorry. Maybe if you buy a bunch of copies, we will in the future." Can anyone post the exact statement, please? I swear when I originally read this that Nintendo added they would think about adding it in future installments. I tried looking for the original statement, but there are like a billion editorials now so it is hard to find what was actually said.

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@memu said:

@lightningproof: I don't see how it implies anything like that. The way I read their statement is "We did not purposefully leave gays out of the game to make a statement about gays in society. We simply did not think to put it in or it is not necessary to the gameplay. Stop getting your panties ruffled because not every game has gays in it." And that seems like a perfectly valid response to me.

People seem to like creating controversy where there is none.

@amafi said:

@lightningproof: Really? I read it as "us not having it shouldn't be seen as social commentary".

Subtly different, I guess I'm not enough of a cynical dick to see the very worst in everything all the time.

I'm just going to quote a good article about this because arguments in comments sections:

"More insultingly, Nintendo’s response dismisses gay and lesbian gamers with a “Hey, we’re just here to play; this isn’t real and don’t drag us into your politics,” wave of the virtual hand. It suggests that the business of existing and loving is normal and “fun” when it’s opposite-sex oriented, but part of an unfun debate when it involves LGBT people. It suggests that asking for equal representation is just picking a fight and dampening the mood."

Although (@memu) I would suggest to maybe reconsider referring to gay people as "gays". It's kind of dehumanizing.

And also (@amafi) thanks for being weirdly hostile to my relatively polite comment? You sure showed me, bro.

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dasakamov

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@memu: In addition to what Lightningproof said, there's the fact that Nintendo released a game that is marketed as a near-real-life-simulator, while completely sidelining a significant real-life group of people.

Nintendo is a company that, traditionally, prides itself on being an company that is accessible to all demographics. It's a pretty glaring misstep to say, "Here's a game where you can make an avatar who is just like YOU! Unless you're LGBT, in which case you're not invited."

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dasakamov

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Edited By dasakamov

@amafi: Also, way to imply that "If I'm not offended, NO ONE is allowed to be offended!"

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I'm not being mean by saying this, But @patrickklepek & @alex you are both kind of wrong. Nintendo will never do anything like this unless things change drastically. Even expecting as something as vanilla as the sex in ME from Nintendo is kind of crazy. OK I know us as video game vets look at this and roll our eyes, But considering how much fox news lost their shit at ME *wrongly so. Nintendo would like to avoid that. If they had made gay relationships every news organization would of published stories that varied upon the common theme of, "Nintendo says it's OK to be gay." Which it is just fine and OK to be gay. However, This would of led to a number of things happening. Like fox news running with the story, And them pulling software or hardware from store shelves. Is it right? NOT TAT ALL. But this would happen. If you don't think it would of, Just look at the now nearly 99% useless swapnote. That got crippled because people could maybe swap friend codes in forums and happen to trade crudely drawn dicks WITH CHILDREN!!!! So the internet functionality was removed. Now I'm not saying pedophilia is a wonderful thing, But seriously to ruin your own software in the hopes you save one child from jumping through the 40 hoops to maybe be in danger is Nintendo's M.O. and will be till the media stops raking them over the coals for crap like this. How you said the points are in fact on point with how people should think, But unfortunately games are for children you do realize?

P.S. There was a story on CNN just here recently that pissed me off about something similar to this but was a story of how some weird blame game version of 7 degree's of Kevin bacon led to Nintendo dooming children to some form of harsh fate. I don't remember exactly what it was?

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@dasakamov: I'm not saying that at all. I just don't see the malice in the nintendo comments a lot of people seem to do. Far be it from me to tell people how to feel about stuff.

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Edited By dasakamov

@amafi: But that's the thing -- no one accused Nintendo of being malicious. Both Patrick and Alex fell along the lines of "Nintendo's executives are old-fashioned and clueless about today's reality, but they didn't intentionally shun the LGBT community."

Outside of our Giantbomb community, the interview-cast-thingy, Patrick stated that the activist groups were exceptionally polite when bringing the issue to Nintendo's attention -- they weren't calling for a boycott and they weren't accusing Nintendo of being homophobic. Somewhere along the line, you seemed to get the impression that people were blowing the issue up out of proportion when there's no evidence of that.

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Edited By Afroofdoom
@linus_south said:

I'm not being mean by saying this, But @patrickklepek & @alex you are both kind of wrong. Nintendo will never do anything like this unless things change drastically. Even expecting as something as vanilla as the sex in ME from Nintendo is kind of crazy. OK I know us as video game vets look at this and roll our eyes, But considering how much fox news lost their shit at ME *wrongly so. Nintendo would like to avoid that. If they had made gay relationships every news organization would of published stories that varied upon the common theme of, "Nintendo says it's OK to be gay." Which it is just fine and OK to be gay. However, This would of led to a number of things happening. Like fox news running with the story, And them pulling software or hardware from store shelves. Is it right? NOT TAT ALL. But this would happen.

Maybe it would.

Instead, there are hundreds of articles, and TV reports, about "Nintendo says it's NOT OK to be gay", and with the way social attitudes have shifted, that is probably WAY WORSE than the chuckle-heads at Fox trying to slam them.

Nintendo will have to change with the times. If they don't, then they have no future.

EDIT: Well, would you look at that, Nintendo apologises:

We apologize for disappointing many people by failing to include same-sex relationships in Tomodachi Life. Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to change this game’s design, and such a significant development change can’t be accomplished with a post-ship patch. At Nintendo, dedication has always meant going beyond the games to promote a sense of community, and to share a spirit of fun and joy. We are committed to advancing our longtime company values of fun and entertainment for everyone. We pledge that if we create a next installment in the Tomodachi series, we will strive to design a game-play experience from the ground up that is more inclusive, and better represents all players.

Nintendo

Good on 'em. If this had been the *first* PR response than this story would have been put to bed day one.

Communication matters. The original statement was horrible and open to homophobic-interpretation, this one is unequivocally inclusive and apologetic about the previous oversight.

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Edited By amafi

@dasakamov said:

@amafi: But that's the thing -- no one accused Nintendo of being malicious. Both Patrick and Alex fell along the lines of "Nintendo's executives are old-fashioned and clueless about today's reality, but they didn't intentionally shun the LGBT community."

Outside of our Giantbomb community, the interview-cast-thingy, Patrick stated that the activist groups were exceptionally polite when bringing the issue to Nintendo's attention -- they weren't calling for a boycott and they weren't accusing Nintendo of being homophobic. Somewhere along the line, you seemed to get the impression that people were blowing the issue up out of proportion when there's no evidence of that.

The original group was fine. The reaction to Nintendo's statements got ridiculous.

To see what I mean, look at the links @afroofdoom just posted.

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Japan didnt include a way for gay marriages in their new game..........Oh well. I bet they dont include a way for me to become Buddhist monk and forsake all material things.....now a game with both those things is ripe to be made by the LGBT crowd or anyone else.....someone do it instead of crying over spilled milk.

#1stworldproblems

Sorry some things just seem trivial when there are young girls being sold into slavery in Nigeria as i type this.....

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No one is saying that every game has to have gay characters in it. But when the hook of the game is taking YOURSELF and putting it inside the game in mii form, its pretty dang odd when it excludes certain groups of people from participating in that. It also kinda makes a statement about what is considered "normal" which is why Patrick says excluding it is inherently political.

What if you were black and you tried to put your mii in the game, but for some reason the game changed your skin color to white. " Sorry, we aren't trying to be political, but only normal people are allowed in Tomodachi." That's kinda the unspoken message that is being sent.

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The Tomadachi Life thing definitely drives home how little autonomy NoA has. I'm sure they would love to change the game for our market, but I doubt they even have the staff capable to make such changes, nor would they ever get approval from Japan to make such a "drastic" change. It's very unfortunate.

I do hope they'll fix this problem for the next game they make; it would take little to no effort just to accommodate an extra 10% of the population.

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Memu

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Although (@memu) I would suggest to maybe reconsider referring to gay people as "gays". It's kind of dehumanizing.

So what exactly should I say so as not to completely unintentionally offend anyone? I have not kept up to date with the politically correct term. I actually thought "gay" was the current PC term.

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Edited By Nomin

Nintendo has been rather close minded and not forthcoming in empathizing with outward concerns of certain selection of gamers. While it isn't much to become irate about in the end, then again it doesn't take them much to tweak their game a bit to satisfy and resolve the issue outright without letting it become toxic. I don't understand this type of dismissive attitude when they really need all the gamers they need to opt into their platform. This type of attitude goes beyond this issue as well in the question of using conflict minerals in their products. While Sony and MS demonstrate proactive approaches to address the problem, Nintendo put up a wall and attempt to direct the question of accountability on the role of manufacturers.

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@ajroo said:

Japan didnt include a way for gay marriages in their new game..........Oh well. I bet they dont include a way for me to become Buddhist monk and forsake all material things.....now a game with both those things is ripe to be made by the LGBT crowd or anyone else.....someone do it instead of crying over spilled milk.

#1stworldproblems

Sorry some things just seem trivial when there are young girls being sold into slavery in Nigeria as i type this.....

First of all, I don't really understand your point about Nigeria. Yes, we can all agree sex slavery is much worse then the lack of customization options in Tomodachi Life. I don't really understand why that means we can't be upset and try to fix both problems? I think murder is worse than rape. But I don't think that means I should give all rape a pass until we totally fix the murder problem in the world, which is what it seems you imply.

Secondly, it WOULD be very odd if they didn't include a way to become a Buddhist IF a part of the game was about finding a religion for your Mii and the only religion included was Christianity. And sexuality IS a part of Tomodachi life (which is something Nintendo decided to add as part of their game) so it is very odd that only a subset (albeit the majority one) is represented in the game.

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Edited By Raszagal

@nomin said:

While it isn't much to become irate about in the end, then again it doesn't take them much to tweak their game a bit to satisfy and resolve the issue outright without letting it become toxic. I don't understand this type of dismissive attitude when they really need all the gamers they need to opt into their platform.

Haha...You have to completely reprogram the entire game for that. That is the reason why they didn't change the original game.

It's all about money and changing the game would likely cost them more than they would gain. Both short-term (development cost) and long-term (possible backlash).

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@raszagal: Dude has Haggar for an avatar. I imagine that makes him more qualified to talk about Nintendo's 3ds game production pipeline and how extensive the needed changes would be than you. If he says it's a trivial change, who are you or Nintendo to tell him differently?

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@memu said:

@lightningproof said:

Although (@memu) I would suggest to maybe reconsider referring to gay people as "gays". It's kind of dehumanizing.

So what exactly should I say so as not to completely unintentionally offend anyone? I have not kept up to date with the politically correct term. I actually thought "gay" was the current PC term.

As quoted, "gay people" or "people who are gay".

I am not "a gay", I am "a person who is gay". My boyfriend and I are not "gays", we are "people who are gay"

It's not something I would really call people on (unless they were being offensive in other ways and it was part of a pattern), because usage of other similar nouns (like "Jews") is actually preferred over the alternative ("Jewish people").

(And then this is switched around again for "Black people" vs "Blacks", etc, etc.)

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@koolaid:

It seems to me the person is trying to say that if you have two problems and one problem is way worse then the other problem the lesser problem can continue to exist and be a problem until the more significant problem is solved.

Makes sense right?

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Edited By dasakamov

@jasonr86: It makes sense in a two-dimensional world, but not in the real world. It's not like there's a "WORLD DEPARTMENT OF PROBLEM SOLVING" who focus on one problem at a time, and once that's taken care of, they move on to the next.

There are several problems that co-exist concurrently in the world to day. There are many groups that are out to do what they can to tackle these problems in the ways they know how. To say "we shouldn't talk about equality rights because girls have been kidnapped in Nigeria" would imply that talking about Equality would somehow make people forget that girls have been kidnapped in Nigeria, or that people would have to stop trying to help girls in Nigeria (or wherever) in order to focus on Equality in the United States.

None of that is true. There are people working to aid those in Africa against groups like Boko Haram. There are people working to promote greater Equal rights in the U.S. Neither of those efforts takes away from the other.

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@lightningproof said:

@memu said:

Hmmm. I don't see any problem with Nintendo's response. They are just saying "It's a game not a social commentary." How is that a bad response? I tire of people seeking insult where none is intended. Every game requires complete sexual and ethnic diversity of characters now?

It implies the very existence of gay relationships is by itself (no added "this is a bad thing" or "this is a good thing" commentary, just... having them) some incendiary political thing, as opposed to an okay normal thing no one should mind.

i dont think the statement implies that at all. the absence of non-hetero relationships in the game was not intended to be social commentary, thats it. the "social commentary bit" of the statement wasn't referring to an addition of more inclusive relationship features.

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DAT THUMBNAIL! Brilliant work, fellas..

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Edited By ChrisTaran

Where's the video version? Am I missing it?

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chazwuzhere3

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Having watched all 4 seasons of Prison Break in the past few weeks I was really looking forward to hearing how Patrick felt about the "The Final Break". Maybe next week!

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ichthy

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Fuck yes UT.

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krabboss

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Edited By krabboss

@jtotheotothestothee said:

@lightningproof said:

@memu said:

Hmmm. I don't see any problem with Nintendo's response. They are just saying "It's a game not a social commentary." How is that a bad response? I tire of people seeking insult where none is intended. Every game requires complete sexual and ethnic diversity of characters now?

It implies the very existence of gay relationships is by itself (no added "this is a bad thing" or "this is a good thing" commentary, just... having them) some incendiary political thing, as opposed to an okay normal thing no one should mind.

i dont think the statement implies that at all. the absence of non-hetero relationships in the game was not intended to be social commentary, thats it. the "social commentary bit" of the statement wasn't referring to an addition of more inclusive relationship features.

What? They said they didn't want to include same-sex relationships because the game isn't meant to be making a political statement. There's no misinterpreting that - it's plain as day.

But you aren't making a political statement by including same-sex relationships, you're just including a reality of life in your life game. Their statement was silly and it's good they've backtracked from it.

"Every game requires complete sexual and ethnic diversity of characters now?"

Seriously, fuck off with this shit. This is the argument used by every nerd in the comment sections here and it's shitty. No, not every game needs to include sexual and ethnic diversity, but this game does. (Also, not every game needs to be a straight white male lead but that's what we've got in 99.99% of games, so stop whining.) It's a game based on life. There's no greater narrative, there's no story the writers at Nintendo want to tell. It's a game based on human life with human relationships in it.

One game is asked to not be the same heteronormative shit that 99.99% of games are and you can't handle it.

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mrpepin

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99.99% of games do not have a white male lead. that is factually inaccurate.

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AMyggen

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Edited By AMyggen

@mrpepin said:

99.99% of games do not have a white male lead. that is factually inaccurate.

Oh, I'm sure he meant it as a literal fact...

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spraynardtatum

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Just audio here? I'm confused.

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jtotheotothestothee

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@krabboss said:

@jtotheotothestothee said:

@lightningproof said:

@memu said:

Hmmm. I don't see any problem with Nintendo's response. They are just saying "It's a game not a social commentary." How is that a bad response? I tire of people seeking insult where none is intended. Every game requires complete sexual and ethnic diversity of characters now?

It implies the very existence of gay relationships is by itself (no added "this is a bad thing" or "this is a good thing" commentary, just... having them) some incendiary political thing, as opposed to an okay normal thing no one should mind.

i dont think the statement implies that at all. the absence of non-hetero relationships in the game was not intended to be social commentary, thats it. the "social commentary bit" of the statement wasn't referring to an addition of more inclusive relationship features.

What? They said they didn't want to include same-sex relationships because the game isn't meant to be making a political statement. There's no misinterpreting that - it's plain as day.

id say at the very least its ambiguous, far from plain as day saying its social commentary to include gay people in their game.

"Nintendo never intended to make any form of social commentary with the launch of Tomodachi Life. The relationship options in the game represent a playful alternate world rather than a real-life simulation. We hope that all of our fans will see that Tomodachi Life was intended to be a whimsical and quirky game, and that we were absolutely not trying to provide social commentary."

their intentions are referred to in past tense, during the development/launch of the game, before people requested a revision to the game's limited relationship features.

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masterrain

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@memu said:

Hmmm. I don't see any problem with Nintendo's response. They are just saying "It's a game not a social commentary." How is that a bad response? I tire of people seeking insult where none is intended. Every game requires complete sexual and ethnic diversity of characters now?

It implies the very existence of gay relationships is by itself (no added "this is a bad thing" or "this is a good thing" commentary, just... having them) some incendiary political thing, as opposed to an okay normal thing no one should mind.

No they are asking that people don't interpret the game as social commentary. So the lack of homosexual relationships is not a homophobic message from Nintendo, likewise, the lack of pets is not a message about how it is cruel to keep pets.

Homophobia is a real problem that people have to solve, however this is a non-issue. Calling everyone bigots all the time diminishes the legitimacy of a movement.

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mtfikhan

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So um where's the video version?