Nintendo v. Gay Rights - growing controversy

[A Black Falcon]

For anyone who hasn't heard, the issue is that Tomodachi Collection, a 3DS game releasing soon (watch the quite amusing Nintendo Direct!), doesn't allow for gay relationships or marriages -- it's heterosexual only. Naturally, while this wasn't too controversial in Japan where gay rights aren't nearly as far along, it's caused quite a problem here, even though the game isn't out yet. Here's a good summary of why this is an important issue:

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/ChristianNutt...roblem.php


This doesn't surprise me at all, of course. Nintendo has always been a conservative company, with backwards views on gender roles present in many of their games. I wouldn't have expected anything else on the issue of gay rights from them, unfortunately. I just hope that they change in the future, because greater equality is the future. They do seem to have been trying for the past year or so to have more female characters in some of their games; hopefully this is next.

Oh, for another issue that came up a while back, Animal Crossing (the newest one, for 3DS) was criticized for not having any darker skin colors available; it's light-skin only, unless a character gets tanned from the sun or something.

[A Black Falcon]

So now Nintendo has apologized for this. Good for them! http://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/...0aoa-d4pgx

[Dark Jaguar]

Nintendo is Japanese, american political alignments don't really apply.

Though yes, the game doesn't take a lot of lifestyles into account. Maybe next mission. We'll see then.

[A Black Falcon]

I think that it's entirely fair to criticize them for things like this; I do think that human rights should be universal, and not just a "Western idea" or something. Just because gay marriage is illegal in Japan, and isn't nearly as big of an issue there as it is here, it's okay for Nintendo to discriminate too? I'm sure Russia and conservative Americans would agree with that, but those groups are on the wrong side of history, and they're losing this, fortunately.

[Dark Jaguar]

You misunderstood me. I was saying that their basis for their views has no connection to our basis for our views. I didn't even know gay marriage was illegal there though. That's new to me. I thought Japan was more progressive than that.

As for Nintendo, I just thought that on this issue, it was sheer lack of will and effort that were responsible, not a malicious intent to snub anyone. I could be wrong, but until then, as I said, I will just wait for the next game.