PETITION: PLEASE CHANGE THE NO GAY LOVE INTEREST DESIGN

[Cycloneman]

No gay love interests design is bad for many reasons, including (but not limited to) the following:

 

1) It takes away the tension of accidentally completing a gay love interest quest and being treated to unexpected gay sex.

 

2) It dilutes reasons for empathizing with male characters since you can't have sex with them anyway.

 

3) Only option to counter overpowering of good relationships with female characters is to make them very easy or not plot relevant. I've seen this in some games and it's not fun, practically making such women toys.

 

I see no single positive thing in no gay love interests design. Letting you have sexual relations with men, flirt with them, et cetera is dead easy thing to include. As there's nothing to gain from this design - in fact I believe it'll weaken experience just like other times when I've encountered it - I think it would be better for quality of game change this design.

 

Blizzard has practically halted their project sand started design again from the scratch sometimes. This no-gay-love-interests design is small part of overall mechanics and shouldn't be big thing to revamp at all.

 

So please Obsidian, consider this. I don't typically care enough to go and start petitions seriously (do it sometimes for the lulz) when it comes to games and such but this caught even my ire with its stupidity.

[Pop]

Are you sure this isn't for the lulz?

 

I mean, despite being from the internet, I'm also from San Francisco and gayness isn't really all that special or notable. Still, the devs have said that it wasn't in the cards, and despite how we may see it, they know the project better than we do and it's their call. Besides, you might as well petition for them to put a red car in the game. A gay love interest wouldn't add any more value to the game than any other sort of love interest, and you can ask any gamer or most any of the devs on this board and they'll tell you that love interests add very little to a game.

[Tigranes]

Fair enough, but 1) doesn't make sense to me at all. Uh... I mean, what. Is that supposed to be a 'feature'? Sounds like horrible justification at the moment, though maybe I just don't get it.

 

2) It dilutes reasons for empathizing with male characters since you can't have sex with them anyway.

 

Oh. So that's the reason we empathise with females?

 

Actually, that's probably a YES in some cases...

[Jaesun]

heh that was quite funny.

[Cycloneman]

Fair enough, but 1) doesn't make sense to me at all. Uh... I mean, what. Is that supposed to be a 'feature'? Sounds like horrible justification at the moment, though maybe I just don't get it.

Yeah, you know, you're playing through and then you accidentally pick some of the wrong options and then you realize you accidentally just said you'd like to hit another dude and you're like, "oh no!" but it's too late.

 

If you don't like watching two guys getting it on, it means you've gotta pay attention during conversations.

 

Also, it's for symmetry with Xard's topic.

Oh. So that's the reason we empathise with females?

 

Actually, that's probably a YES in some cases...

It's one of the reasons, yes.

 

Are you sure this isn't for the lulz?

Well, it's also PARTLY for the lulz because this has about as much chance to succeed as Xard's petition a while back (okay, maybe a little more). Edited July 31, 2008 by Cycloneman

[Hell Kitty]

A gay love interest with a red car, please.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Don't forget the lesbians toooooo!!!!1!!!!11!

[Pidesco]

Lesbianism always makes a game better.

 

I mean, name one game that wasn't made better by the inclusion of lesbians. See? You can't.

[Xard]

Mass Effect

[Pop]

You really know how to ruin a joke.

[Cycloneman]

Don't forget the lesbians toooooo!!!!1!!!!11!

How exactly is a game where you must play a male going to involve lesbian romantic stories, without resulting in it being impossible to nail "all the chicks"?

 

Huh?

 

Yeah, that's right. It can't.

 

You really know how to ruin a joke.

Who?

Edited July 31, 2008 by Cycloneman

[Pop]

Xard. Pidesco was obviously referring to Mass Effect, just going out and saying it invalidates the humor.

[Xard]

You really know how to ruin a joke.

 

BAAAWW

 

edit: okay fine fine I screwed up, I admit it

Edited July 31, 2008 by Xard

[SirPetrakus]

So your reasons for including gay sex is

 

1) There is no such thing as male friendship/bonding (don't mistake bonding for bondage!)

 

2) Women in games are blow up dolls

 

Maybe I'm a little crude but I think that sums up your point, am I right?

 

I'm not into manly love, but if there is a reason why I support the option is exactly that, freedom of choice, if you want to, you should have the option.

[Zoma]

Gay love? Pffft.

 

I demand TENTACLES

[Cycloneman]

So your reasons for including gay sex is

 

1) There is no such thing as male friendship/bonding (don't mistake bonding for bondage!)

 

2) Women in games are blow up dolls

 

Maybe I'm a little crude but I think that sums up your point, am I right?

I suppose. Though #1 is a bit oversimplified; sexual attraction is one reason, not all the reasons, so it reduces the number of reasons.

 

I'm not into manly love, but if there is a reason why I support the option is exactly that, freedom of choice, if you want to, you should have the option.

Yeah, that's a good reason too.

Edited July 31, 2008 by Pidesco
quoted post

[mkreku]

Seriously, wouldn't it be kind of groundbreaking if Obsidian made a game where you had equal chance of having gay sex as having lesbian sex? Since you can't be female in this game, it won't apply to Alpha Protocol. But maybe for their next project? If you can have lesbian sex, you SHOULD be able to have gay sex too!

 

Or is the US still so uptight about different sexualities? I mean, it was possible to do lesbian sex scenes in Mass Effect so it should be possible to make equal gay sex scenes, right..?

[Pidesco]

It's not a question of being uptight. It's just that including lesbian stuff in a game creates an increase in the number of units that are sold while gay sex does the exact opposite.

 

Sex sells, especially lesbian sex.

[themadhatter114]

They could toss in lesbianism with a surprise threesome without giving Thorton the option of saying "I'm not an orgy guy!"

Edited July 31, 2008 by themadhatter114

[SirPetrakus]

Seriously, wouldn't it be kind of groundbreaking if Obsidian made a game where you had equal chance of having gay sex as having lesbian sex? Since you can't be female in this game, it won't apply to Alpha Protocol. But maybe for their next project? If you can have lesbian sex, you SHOULD be able to have gay sex too!

 

Or is the US still so uptight about different sexualities? I mean, it was possible to do lesbian sex scenes in Mass Effect so it should be possible to make equal gay sex scenes, right..?

 

 

It's not a question of being uptight. It's just that including lesbian stuff in a game creates an increase in the number of units that are sold while gay sex does the exact opposite.

 

Sex sells, especially lesbian sex.

 

You people forget that in Fable men could fall for you. There I was strolling down my home town and half the men where enamored with me while the female population just went "humpf!". Fable did ok as far as sales go, which s why we are waiting for 2, but promoting a game because you can have gay sex ... I mean imagine this: Movie Guy doing an AP ad saying "Mike Thorton is a man of mystery *shows in game footage* ... action *more in game footage* ... and MANLY LOVE *in gayme footage* * SFX of the needle veering off the LP*

 

You see, implying that he gets the girl works for all those macho men that used to play football in High School and went out at age 14 saying "Yeah, I'm 21!" just to get beers from the liquor store. It's like getting another chance to go Rambo on that mofo! And that is encouraged by the gaming industry, so instead of getting better, more innovative games, we are usually left with interactive versions of Stalone and Arnold.

 

But I am rumbling. I just meant to say that, at least for OE's first original game, gay sex would probably take sales down.

[Tale]

Gay sex is cool and all, but UNEXPECTED GAY SEX?! I can see that going over well.

 

"Well, that was a surprise. I was being nice to some guy and suddenly my character ended up having sex with him."

"Wait, you were surprised by sex? Oh dear..."

":("

 

There should definitely be a "no means no" option.

Edited July 31, 2008 by Tale

[Pidesco]

Mod mode: Stop talking about unexpected surprises, please.

[Sharen the Exile]

It's not a question of being uptight. It's just that including lesbian stuff in a game creates an increase in the number of units that are sold while gay sex does the exact opposite.

 

Sex sells, especially lesbian sex.

Yep, lesbian sex surely makes the sales go up, but I disagree that gay sex would harm AP sales. It didn't have any negative effect on Jade Empire, Fable or The Sims. It's not like Obsidian&Sega would write it on the cover "Alpha Protocol: With Gay Sex! "

[SteveThaiBinh]

Jade Empire slipped under the radar I guess, but Mass Effect got lots of controversy/free publicity from its sex scenes, gay and non-gay. Who knows if it helped or harmed sales? I think Bioware did it on principle, because they have consistently included homosexual options in their games, not for the publicity. I'd like Obsidian to do the same.

 

With regards to Alpha Protocol, it's a shame given that they had limited your options of defining Thorton as female, that they don't open up the possibility of him being gay or bisexual. Nevertheless, that's not going to happen. Now I'd like to see how they include any kind of gay content - NPCs, for example. This game is supposed to be set in the twenty-first century, isn't it?

[sharkz]

Alpha Protocol isnt an RPG where you can design the main Character, Obsidian have taken the route of designing the character themselves so he will have a somewhat set personality and style otherwise creating the character themselves would have been completely pointless. They have choosen him to be a ladies man and not a homosexual and there shouldn't be a problem with that at all.

 

If he was strictly gay I wouldn't really have a problem with that either but the sad truth is that it would probably hurt the sales figures.