No homosexuality in Star Wars - BioWare Comments by Ellie Gibson

@Coin-Op

If only we could keep you out of the internetz.

Nice one Bioware - I'm boycotting your games until you smarten up.

I don't see what all the fuss is about myself, it's BioWare's forum so they can set the rules which people have to follow. If people want to discuss homosexuality in Star Wars or BioWare games then there's plenty of other places they can do it such as Eurogamer for example. Right?

P.S. I cannot see why anyone would want to discuss the sexuality of fictional characters anyway. Seems a bit silly and pointless to me.

"It seems strange coming from Bioware seeing as they've peppered their games with homosexual characters for years now. Mainly lesbians (sound marketing after all) like Juhani the gay cat lady in KotOR but certainly Jade Empire included hot man on man action (and threesomes)."

My money is on LucasArts (or whoever BioWare is dealing with in terms of licensing) being to blame for this ban.

@Darren

On my forums you can't discuss jewish stuff cause I don't like jews. What? It's my forums and I can set whatever rules I want amirite?!?!

Okay, kinda overlooked that Bioware not only banned the discussion, but also banned the users discussing the issue!
Well, that's just wrong. Don't they have something called Company Policies? I wonder how they look like? Tssk...

One question though: Were the users banned just because of the discussion of homosexuality in Star Wars? Or was there something else!? I mean, I don't want to start a riot for nothing! ;)

Apparently bigots don't get out of bed until 11am.


"Don't they have something called Company Policies? I wonder how they look like?"

They almost certainly don't have a company policy on something like this, as a closed policy like that that would leave them open to direct critisism. So in the end it comes down to individual "community managers" (far less senior a role than it sounds) to amke up the rules as they go. Often as not, low paid moderators aren't able to think on their feet OR consider the wider picture. So they end up cack-handedly dealing with situations like this the best way they know how... which is very badly.

"GAYS - bore the fuck outta me LOL"

So does writing sentences, clearly. I'm willing to bet that school bores you too.

"GAYS - bore the fuck outta me LOL"

So does writing sentences, clearly. I'm willing to bet that school bores you too.

lol !! good one.

I don't see why they didn't just let the topic burn itself out, which is always the best way to deal with an issue in the public domain, or at the very least move it to a more appropriate thread.

I somehow get the feeling that this may have been forced upon them by Lucasarts. He may have very specific rules pertaining to the Star Wars Universe (apart from it being okay to rape people's childhoods) and Bioware are the ones taking all the flak. Bioware may be in a no-win situation here. Mass Effect clearly demonstrates that Bioware are quite comfortable with homosexuality so I think the problem here is more Star-Wars-related than Bioware-related. Star Wars (despite protestations from many) was always geared towards children - even more so today. It may be some misguided attempt to retain some kind of "sense of wonder" without having to include serious real-life issues. Me, I couldn't care less if a character is gay and isn't the light saber just a phallic symbol anyway?

Perhaps someone should investigate further before everyone starts crucifying Bioware.

Lots of "what you can't do" but not enough "why you can't and who says you can't."

It's funny how many super geeks jump on Biowares back about not talking about homosexuality yet these people tend to be the sort of people who use 'you gay lord' or 'thats so gay' as form of insult/ statement of opinion.

Maybe, just MAYBE they are saying that characters sexualuality isnt important in the Star Wars galaxy, I mean with a galactic war going on you'd be worried about that then if your two male neighbours are having sex. Maybe they are saying that in the Star Wars galaxy any sexuality isnt importnant that no one cares and no one is labled.

Its an unimportant topic, what the hell has sexuality gotta do wtih Star Wars? Its about the fight between good and evil. Not weather your character prefers the pussy or loves the cock.

GET OVER IT

Lets see, pretty sure bioware are fairly okay with gay relationships after mass effect. Also weren't you able to have a relationship with one of the female charachters in BG2 if female? (I may be remembering it wrong, but viconia or jaheira perhaps?)

Just makes this sound a little off, a bit out of charachter for them...

It's most likely a lucasarts thing, or a subject their trying to avoid, to avoid splitting the player base (lets face it, a lot of people won't play this game if its seen to openly encourage homosexuality. And a lot of people won't play it if it's openly anti-homosexuality. I don't know which number is bigger, but I do know which group will make more noise about it and rope in more of their non-gamer friends to protest it...)

@mr_writer

"Its an unimportant topic, what the hell has sexuality gotta do wtih Star Wars?"

What you are saying is the same non-argument that is always wheeled out in these cases. But the question as always is IF its an unimportant topic, why ban people from discussing it? Why do you actually go out of your way to involve yourself with something you are deeming to be unimportant? That just makes no sense.

What your approach is really saying is "we would actively like to ban this activity, but expect most players won't care either way, so we expect they won't mind if we prohibit the activity in question".

There is absolutely no reason for them banning this sort of activity, unless them themselves DO care about it and DO think it is an important topic. An unimportant topic is surely one that merits no attention from anybody, and yet here we have Bioware actively spending man hours banning it.

For those who say sexuality of none of the characters is important in Star Wars, that isn't exactly true is it? The heterosexual desire between Amidala and Anakin was very important to the foundation of the plot. The heterosexual desire and the consumation of said between Han and Leia is very important in the extended universe.

Desire/Love is talked about as something to be avoided for Jedi.

Desire fuels the Twi'Lek sex trade.

Jabba clearly had sexual desires for Leia.

The universe does have sexuality in it. It does also have homosexuality in it (Juhani, extended universe Madalorians--which makes a lot of sense, etc).

It makes sense people would ask about the HoYay in SWoR considering it's presence in KotOR...people want to know if that tradition is going to continue.

But someone put the big smackdown banhammer on. I'm hoping, that this is a lone mod freaking out and not the company's stance.

Anyway, lastly...there are those (mostly on Kotaku) who have said that Star Wars is George Lucas's world and if says no gays, then that is the way it is. Except, that it isn't just his world. His first wife was ghost writing/script doctoring on Empire/Jedi. The actors in the film held create what is happening. Then there is all of the stuff written by the authors of the extended universe in various formats. If Lucas's word was law, then the fans would not complain about Han Shooting second, or some of really dumb things he did with the new trilogy. This creative work is now in the universe and all of us are part creators. And as a collective, we say Han shot first, no matter what Lucas says. And there is enough canon evidence for the existence of homosexuality for this to be a non-issue.

But some mod in Texas has got to be an ass.

@ kangarootoo

Its a forum about a Star Wars MMO not about sexuality. Why oh why do people have to make a big song and dance about sexuality in a GAME ffs. Ok if someone gay/lesbian/ bi I for one don't care but why do they have to kick up a fuss about it. Bioware are simply saying that such lables dont exisit in Star Wars universie so they shouldnt be disscussed. Because they know as well as everyone else that it will only end up causing trouble when the homphobic geeks come crawling out of the wood work.

Read that it say 'such terms' dont exsist, so they are not saying that all the characters are straight, they are just saying that sexuality doesnt exist. Yet you still get morons trying to apply real life logic and lables to a fictional galaxy...

Does it mean that homosexuality doesn't exist in SW universe or that there is no term for homosexuality (or hetero sexuality for that matter) in the SW universe? As in, no one in the SW universe really cares enough for it to matter. At least, that's what I understood from what Mr. Dahlberg wrote.

Remember people, that Bioware made Mass Effect. And that Sean specifically talks about the Star Wars universe, which has nothing to do with Bioware policies.

Edit: If I wasn't clear. Sexuality matters to us, humans on Earth. From what I see, going by Sean Dahlberg words, sexuality doesn't matter to the creatures that inhabit the Star Wars universe. Thus they have no terms like homosexuality or heterosexuality or gay or lesbian or bisexual, etc. I think alot of people are jumping on the Stupid(tm) bandwagon here.

I think the argument that it is only the terms that don't exist not the activity is probably not going to fly. Because I somehow doubt the mod would be okay with graphic discussion of sex acts that avoided identity labels.

"Juhani is clearly gay" seems a much more family freindly discussion than, "I understand that sexuality labels don't exist, but it is clear to me that Anakin likes to put his **** in Amidala's **** and probably multiple times, don't you think? Do you also think that he ********. But considering he's a Jedi, I'd imagine that when he ******* with her she'd ******** around him with a ********* but only if they both ****** with a ******"

People complain about labels...but they are quick way to avoid talking about people licking on other people in detail.

those fags :p

"Juhani is clearly gay" seems a much more family freindly discussion than, "I understand that sexuality labels don't exist, but it is clear to me that Anakin likes to put his **** in Amidala's **** and probably multiple times, don't you think? Do you also think that he ********. But considering he's a Jedi, I'd imagine that when he ******* with her she'd ******** around him with a ********* but only if they both ****** with a ******"

And maybe B my L on some T's.

"Sounds like nice PR clusterf#ck in the making. I geuse they diden't learn from the Live PR dissaster from a few months ago."

You mean the PR disaster where they are trying to protect gay users from pricks and are openly in discussion with gay rights groups about how they can improve their service in this respect?

Yes, that started with MS looking extremly bad and then they came around. Bioware could have learned a lesson from that and avoided this mess.

@mr_writer

But Star Wars isn't something so simple as a piece of wood, or a receipe for fish. It is an ENTIRE ficticious world. If someone started talking about golf, or riding a bicycle, would they ban those discussions as well on the basis that those things don't exist in Star Wars?

In fact it has been suggested by others more familiar with the source material than sexuality IS in fact part of the Star Wars world. In any event, the response was really just someone trying to form an non-offensive answer to justify what they knew to be a potentially offensive action.

We all know what this boils down to. Its got nothing whatsoever to do with the continuity of the SW universe. That is the feeble excuse the community manager gave out in his paniced state. But if that were true we would also be seeing the golf and bicycle bans that I suggested earlier, but of course we won't.

Its a forum about a Star Wars MMO not about sexuality. Why oh why do people have to make a big song and dance about sexuality in a GAME ffs.

Because it's a goddamned MMORPG aimed at adults, to a large extent,, you muppet. People often play those to ROLE play. Sometimes that involves sexuality. Just because most of us play MMO's to kill monsters and get loot that doesn't mean the roleplayers are some insignificant part of the userbase. It should be natural for an MMO developers to be prepared for discussions about gender roles , sexuality or similar issues from that part of their userbase. Outright banning all such discussions, even if they aren't hateful or abusive, is massively bad PR. Sure it's Bioware's forum, so no one should be able to force them to allow discussions they don't want there. However i this case you can bet your ass that their PR department is filled with people cursing this community manage.

The problem is that people were banned discussing homosexuality. That's the problem!

What a bunch of idiots. Banning the terminology itself is egregious.

"Persona4's main character is gay inside."

No he isn't. He sleeps with four or five different girls.

No homos in Star Wars, but all the incest you can handle.

@Darren, @mr_martin etc

right, let's clear a few things up quickly

1) sexuality pervades bloody *everything*.
switch on a telly, open a magazine, listen to a song - it's there. watch some kiddies tv show where mummy and daddy are portrayed and the lil baby girl, oh look there it is again.
The thing is heterosexuality is so knobbingly pervasive you're too stupid to notice it anymore. hence when people raise homosexuality you go, oh gods why raise it as an issue, when heterosexuality is raised as an issue *constantly*.

2) this isn't about it being innappropriate, it isn't about it being a non issue - why exactly do you think this news post today, of all the other news posts on eurogamer, has, what, nearly 10 times the comments? Sexuality is important, which is why lgbt folks won't just shut up about it, and equally why the bigots will go out of their way time and time again to try and oppress it, because it's quite important to them that they do so (prob because they have invested in an insecure model of masculinity which is easily threatened by differance).

the robots from battlestar galactica vs the gay robots from star wars...aah simpsons, thank you

"Jabba clearly had sexual desires for Leia."

Ewwhttp://www. Don't say things like that!

They relented and debaninated the words concerned: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthrea...

I feel sorry for mods sometimes - I used to do it for a job, and it can be hard work - but this was a very stupid way to handle it so I don't feel much sympathy for the guy...

I'm a TOR forum regular, and I have to say this issue has been completely overblown. The maturity levels of the TOR forums are by and large appalling. It generally consists of idiots going "LULZ I WNT A BLAK LITESABAR" and "LUL I WNT A LITEWIP".

One LGBT user with perhaps two others expressed distaste in a 50-post thread about the words "lesbian" and "gay" being filtered that didn't get much attention from the community in general, because it was on a sub-forum that no-one reads. Given the level of maturity on the TOR forums, these words were inevitably be used as insults more than used in creative discussions, since perhaps 1 thread in 3 is actually interesting and worth replying to. Especially on the off-topic forums, I've seen an appalling level of homophobia from lots of spamming idiots, which is usually cracked down on hard by the mods. I think given the level of that sentiment, it was a wise decision to leave gay and lesbian filtered - they were used in an insulting manner in almost every thread that contained the word that I've seen.

Said LGBT user's thread was locked and Sean's [community rep] post was made. I suspect that the poster went whining to Kotaku [who will print anything that gets more hits] and got Bioware some completely undeserved bad press. Bioware have since unblocked gay and lesbian on the forums, nobody was banned for posting in the threads as explained in a subsequent post by Sean, and it remains a fact that the statement simply refers to the words gay and lesbian, not gays and lesbians as some outlets and intellectually challenged people seem to claim. In case you hadn't noticed, Bioware has had LGBT interactions in at least two prior games - Mass Effect and Jade Empire. I can't think of a dev that has included more LGBT content than Bioware in their games. The problem was that Bioware didn't deem it appropriate for the words gay and lesbian to be used, not that they didn't think it appropriate for gay and lesbian relationships to be discussed - several threads discussing the possibility of homosexual relationships have sprung up in general discussion over the last six months and gone on perfectly fine until the crowd who used gay and lesbian in a derogatory manner showed up.

It's simply that one poster took the filtering of two words totally out of context and whined, and now has essentially forced Bioware's hand. I am not impressed by him or his tactics, TBH. I am not impressed with Eurogamer on this - it's a completely meaningless story taken entirely out of context. Do your bloody research instead of reposting what Kotaku does.

So the Star Wars universe doesn't have homos. Big deal.

Regardless of your views on sexuality, it's been stated in TOR that players will form "relationships" with their AI partners, including ROMANTIC ones.

@AphoticCosmos

"It's simply that one poster took the filtering of two words totally out of context and whined"

To my eyes it appears that exactly the opposite occurred. Bioware had in fact filtered two words completely out of context. Said words may have been used insultingly in the past, but in this case they were not and STILL got filtered.

Seriously, to start banning words that COULD be used in an insulting manner is the absolutely height of stupidity. The vast majority of words that are used in insults are common place words. I can insult somebody in 50 different ways without even once straying from a list of words that would make for suitable broadcasting before the watershed.


"The problem was that Bioware didn't deem it appropriate for the words gay and lesbian to be used, not that they didn't think it appropriate for gay and lesbian relationships to be discussed - several threads discussing the possibility of homosexual relationships have sprung up in general discussion over the last six months and gone on perfectly fine until the crowd who used gay and lesbian in a derogatory manner showed up."

EXACTLY. It wasn't the words, it was the people that used them in a derogatory manner. And the solution is for Bioware to ban the words themselves? HOW that does not seem idiotic to everybody is beyond me. Its like a highbrow joke that Arthur C Clarke might make about a future eutopia ffs.

I gonna take you a gay bar, im gonna take you a gay bar, im gonna take you to Mos Eisley Cantina, tina, ina

@kangarootoo just because you have a vocabulary doesn't mean the average forum poster does.

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As more on this comes to light, I can understand the filtering of the words (Although I want to make it clear I don't actually condone it, I just tend to argue as devils advocate a lot because I tend to be able to see both sides in an argument.) based on their use.

Here is a metaphor:

A child has a toy, they enjoy it. A larger child comes and takes it from them, then enjoys beating the smaller child with it. An adult comes along and takes away the toy. Neither child is happy, but the adult gets some peace.

Here the adult seemingly tried to pre-empt the screaming match by just not giving the kids their toys.

Is this wrong? Yes, it's a cop out that does nothing to change or address the situation. The larger kid still likes beating the smaller one. Taking away the small childs favourite toy makes it seem he is being punished and merely forces the larger child to get more creative. (The small child as such starts crying and the large child starts taunting him... this metaphor is becoming more accurate than I had possibly imagined!)

What should the adult do? Seperate the children to punish the larger child, give the smaller child it's toy back, but prevent the small child from taunting the large child with it.

Can bioware do this? No. Videogame creators are not parental substitutes. The two sides of the argument may well be children though.

@Sycopat

Great parent analogy. Wish I'd thought of that ;(

According to AphoticCosmos the words 'gay' and 'lesbian' (and probably among others) weren't allowed on the forums. Not in the game. How long have these forums been up? And how long has it been known that the above words were banned on the forums?

Looks like another case of media madness over alot of nothing.

No time to read all this! But the guy from the forum clearly hasn't seen the Clone Wars film!! Jabba the Huts Brother anyone??

@KingsXKing

"HaHa Kangarootoo went to school so he could post lengthy bore posts on EG the clever cunt he is."

Yep, thats it. That is why I went to school. So I could confuse and bore simpletons on the internet with basic common sense and words of more than two syllables.

And with your contribution I guess I can now consider my life's ambition complete. Thanks for helping me out.

And in other news.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/biowar...

Wow, looks like Bioware have more common sense than many of the posters on here.

/goes to thread to count the number of "buckled under pressure" and "pussies" comments from some of the great thinkers of our time.

It seems strange that homosexualilty is banned, but incest is fine (Luke and Leia kissing) Also wasn't Leia a (Sex?)slave in her gold bikini?
This "gay ban" nonsense is discussed in the podcast http://www.visitingthevillage.com along with other gaming news by indie games developers Ian and Paul. Its quite amusing, you should check it out if you got time.

Yes keep it out of the games. The forums don't really care. Although that guy was funny in Enchanted Arms, shocking at first but ultimately funny.

gay star wars character
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Goran_Bev...
and he's a mandalorian!