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EA Stands Against Anti-Gay Protests Over ME3 and SWTOR
Between the announcement of the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut and EA being named Worst Company in America, it was a little tough to keep up with all the news swirling around Electronic Arts last week—but, in case you missed it, EA took a stand against some hate mail last week that had nothing to do with the ending of Mass Effect 3.
According to a post on GamesIndustry, EA received “several thousand” letters and e-mails taking the company to task for including same-sex content in its games, particularly Mass Effect 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. A few years ago, there was a similar furor over the ability to engage in same sex relationships in the original Mass Effect, and now, as then, EA has no intention to budge on the content their games’ content.
“Every one of EA’s games includes ESRB content descriptors so it’s hard to believe anyone is surprised by the content,” said EA’s VP of corporate communications, Jeff Brown. “This isn’t about protecting children, it’s about political harassment.”
The letters, apparently, threaten to boycott EA’s games if they don’t remove the “offending” content, and further allege that the company was pressured by LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) groups to include this content in the games. Moreover, the letters complain that EA is deleting forum posts against the content—but EA says they’re only doing so when the comments violate rules against hate speech.
Said Brown on the allegations:
“EA has not been pressured by any groups to include LGBT characters in our games. However, we have met with LBGT groups and sponsored industry forums to discuss content and harassment of players in online forums. In short, we do put options for same-sex relationships in our games; we don’t tolerate hate speech on our forums.”
Michael Cole-Schwartz, the director of communications at the Human Rights Campaign, also offered his view to GamesIndustry on the content and EA’s reaction to the letters and e-mails:
“As in all media, there remains work to do in order for more people to feel represented and included. This is true for video games and for LGBT people. EA’s step in this instance is indicative of a continuing cultural shift toward greater inclusion.”
What do you think about EA’s position here? Plenty of people have been critical of EA’s inflexibility to those upset with the content included in the company’s games lately—does that criticism apply in this instance too?
Via GamesIndustry
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Homophobes can all go fuck themselves and cry about how they masturbated and sinned before God. Fuck’em.
You people need to learn that religion began to explain things. There is no God, gods, demons, or anything of the like.
You people need to learn to be more tolerant of others and that yelling at them is dumber than the beliefs you are fighting against.
Also the person you are attacking neither confirmed or denied their belief in God, they said were talking about the homophobes being hypocrites.
This world would be so much more of a better place with out people like Cullen Lea who react on every third class attempt at politics with hate.
EA has pulled the simplest and most common card signed with demagogy: Choose a bad opinion that has nothing to do with the problem at hand, and make a standpoint against it.
Even though it is literally impossible that they received thousands of mails about gay content, they are now shifting every aspect of criticism towards this, just so they can turn mentally impaired retards like CL against those who would criticize the company in ANY aspect.
At times like this when im confronted with how easily some people can be manipulated into hate, im ashamed to be human. Not because of the gays, not because of the homosexuals, but because of those who are just about mentally regressed not to understand a god damn thing about the world around them, but still be able to react with hate towards everything that doesnt go after their personal taste/belief.
Well, this is unexpected. Seriously, what are some people’s problem? Like EA, these “protestors” should get with the times and be more accepting of people’s preferences. EA are doing the right thing to defend their position on such a non-issue.
Didn’t you know that if people can have homosexual relationships in a video game, that gay people will bust into your room and sodomize you?
It’s true. It’s in the bible. Jackthew 18:4 or something.
My bad, I must’ve missed that part, I’m not big on the Bible!
Cant help but to not take seriously and question groups that do not even take notice of all the killing and premarital sex in movies and video games, but you include someone that is GLBT and they come out of nowhere raising hell and calling for bans. Why are their priorities so out of wack??
In both games there is cahracter customization right? Tahn can’t they make a Male that looks like a female and than have that male do sex with a female. LOGIC!
The Homosexual people can’t say a damn thing about EA’s games. I am more worried about the fact that they make old games, that were huge hits in their time, new and also stupid today. They simply screw up every game they make. I am not surprised that they have got there title for being the Worst company in America, because they really are the worst in gaming history! And I am also a big fan of the Mass Effect series, I like it allot! I am not offended by any of the sexual content in Mass Effect. If you don’t like the sexual content in the game, THEN DON’T FUCKING PLAY IT! Children these days already do things that nobody will believe! And if you want your kid not to be like those kids, then only let him play the games suitable for his/her age!!! Because that’s what age rating is for!!! I AM SORRY TO SAY THIS, BUT THE PROTESTERS ARE JUST AS RETARDED AS EA!!!
I can see this being the case, I can also see EA getting 25 hate letters about gay rights and using this to make them look before because of the horrible ending contriversy same can be said for these rights groups, the reality is both make out in the end, EA makes themselve look better while these rights groups get their names in the news and thus recruitment is up, you know who gets shafted the consumers
Why do I have an ebbing feeling that the number of messages on this topic that EA received was a bit(read: very largely) exaggerated, and that they are using this as a PR move given the recent controversy over ME3 and being rated the worst company of 2012?
You’re right about the PR move. They want people to forget about screwing the ME fans over with the end and instead focus everyone on “EA FIGHTS HOMOSEXUAL WAR!!! WE’RE COOL, RIGHT?!?!?!” This doesn’t distract me from feeling sour about the ME3 ending. I’ve put off completing my other playthrough’s until we get the Extra Cut they were promising. Also, I think I’m pretty much done with ME in general until Bioware get’s their priorities straight… ME is the only EA game I have ever bought…
EA are just abusing the negative feedback they received over various aspects of their recent games and general business practices to pull some kind of white knight publicity stunt. The problem with Mass Effect 3 isn’t the homosexuality, it’s the hypersexuality. There’s barely anything you can’t have sex with, from aliens to androids, and it’s almost getting shoved in your face at points. And then there’s the generally bad writing in the game, issues concerning Origin’s intrusive DRM and spyware allegations, negative feedback about overpriced launch day expansions that give players the advantage in online matches just because they paid more, and so on. And that’s just one game. To top it all off tons of players are frustrated with EA’s practice of buying entire developer studios, gradually replacing the entire staff, milking the franchises of the studio until they’re empty shells, and then killing the studios off entirely. EA is simply a bad business these days.