Star Wars added support for gay relationships

Dax

"Star Wars" game segregates gay characters on gay planet
Published: January 14, 2013 | FoxNews.com
Retrieved from: foxnews.com/tech/2013/01/14/star-wars-game-segregates-gay-characters-on-gay-planet/

Despite vocal opposition from thousands of angry gamers, a software developer has added support for homosexual relationships to the game "Star Wars: The Old Republic" - albeit just on a single planet.

"As we have said in the past, allowing same gender romance is something we are very supportive of", wrote BioWare's Jeff Hickman, executive producer of "Star Wars: The Old Republic", in a blog post last week. He revealed that same-gender romances (or SGR) would be allowed on the planet Makeb, and the company is "pursuing more SGR options in the future".

The gay planet will appear only in an expansion pack called "Rise of the Hutt Cartel", and it will include characters with canned, flirtatious dialog for same-sex players. The move has generated controversy among everyone involved, with some calling for a separation of sexual preference from the game, and others lambasting what they say feel like digital segregation.

In a heated debate on the company's webservers, the topic received more attention than the ongoing drought on Tatooine or the Empire's latest Death Star.

"Well it's good to see the SGR people are getting some attention. They've only been asking for the option since beta", one player noted. Publisher Electronic Arts has been wrestling with the issue for months, after promising in April 2012 to stand up against what was described as "several thousand" letters and emails protesting the inclusion of same sex content in its games.

"Every one of EA's games includes ESRB content descriptors so it's hard to believe anyone is surprised by the content. This isn't about protecting children, it's about political harassment", Jeff Brown, vice president of corporate communications, told Games Industry International at the time.

It was no April Fool's joke, however, and some gamers remain vehemently opposed.

Others were more strongly unified against same sex relationships than the rebel alliance.

"Star Wars is a family-based story with nothing to do with SGR", one gamer wrote on the forums. "Please, please, please Bioware, Lucasarts, and EA do not allow SGR in Star Wars The Old Republic. It will ruin the game and make a lot of people leave it."

raphjd

I play this game and it's full of hetero romance.

Every time my male character meets a female, there's a "flirt" option in the chat dialog. Ok, maybe not every female, but nearly everyone.

Dax

You're right, raphjd. Because, unfortunately, the developers decided that…
@Dax:

The gay planet will appear only in an expansion pack called "Rise of the Hutt Cartel"

gabrielfs

I wonder if it will actually make it in the game, since during development they stated that they were going to introduce SGR for launch of Swtor but gave into pressure so all that made it into the game was being able to setup relationship in the family tree….. unless that disappeared since I last played

trukr

What's sad is that they're going to put all the gays on 1 planet, just like some hetros want to put us all on 1 island.

Hopefully the "SGR options in the future" they're pursuing aren't too far off in the future.

On the other hand, it'd be awesome of we could go to a gay planet in real life for a vacation get away!

Dax

My thoughts exactly! I totally agree with you, trukr, on all counts!

raphjd

Legacy (the family tree thing) doesn't NEED a "traditional family".

My characters are all male and they are in my legacy. I usually tend to have 1 female character, usually a healer, but I haven't made one yet in SWTOR.

raphjd

Double XP for the next 2 weekends; 6pm Friday to 7am Monday GMT

The expansion comes out 14 April.

Dax

Good to know. Thanks, raphjd!

vladko92

This debate between having and not having same-sex romance was heat up fot a very long time and I think I heard that it was because of EA, they are really strict and against such stuffs… however Bioware is very open on those topics and they've said that they will add same-sex romance no matter what, I see that they finally kept their promise, however I am very dissapointed that this things was spread only to one planet instead the whole game content. I will be still staying on ready for whenever they add this content for the whole game not just for one planet... so yea... if EA wasn't so much against it... this could have happened sooner and so far could have evolved to something way more bigger... but EA was caught in the corner and they had no other chance but to allow this to happen... still hiding behind those '1000 letters' against this options... I am still waiting to see a prove that those letters actually do exist, but somehow I just don't trust them...