Same-sex marriage and video games: a sensible discussion

As my recent post about children and video games proved, the 1001-Up.com guys can sometimes have a mature conversation. And following on from the outcry against Nintendo earlier this week a lot of discussion has been going on within the team.

Nintendo has been slated for not allowing gamers to play as gay characters in the western version of life simulation Tomodachi Life, due for release in the US and Europe next month. Below is a transcript of a conversation on the subject that took place between Ben, Tim, Jay and Kevin last night. I wasn’t a part of the discussion but I was listening in on WhatsApp and the guys kindly agreed that I could publish their conversation.

Ben: Could you ever have gay relationships in The Sims?

Tim: Yes.

Ben: Splendid. Any other life management games where you couldn’t? In fact, are there are any other life management games at all?

Jay: Harvest Moon had marriage in it.

Ben: Same sex?

Jay: Nope. Which is funny, because you can date a witch but she will only date you if you do some pretty mean things to the people of the village. Yet same-sex marriage is off the cards.

Ben: So Nintendo have previous…

Jay: Nintendo have always been conservative. They changed symbols in the American releases of The Legend of Zelda because of religious iconography.

Ben: I didn’t know that. Interesting.

Jay: And they changed a character’s history in Paper Mario. Apparently there is a male character who identifies as a female but they changed his back-story in the US version.

Ben: America would have freaked out at that.

Jay: Yet we’ve become accepting about Poison from Final Fight being transgender!

Kevin: Yeah, because beating up a woman was ‘worse’. I think the main issue is these games are made in Japan and are of course based on their views. The localisation team just translates but doesn’t add more to the title. Wasn’t Birdo originally male too?

Jay: I was going to mention Birdo. They actually changes sprites in the American Version of Final Fantasy VI.

Kevin: To cover up skin.

Jay: One of the summons was naked and they covered her up so you couldn’t see 16-bit behind.

Kevin: Because in Japan they really didn’t care about that.

Jay: Nope.

Kevin: But Americans do and most content and censorship is driven they them. But on the other hand, Zelda did cross-dress into Sheik.

Jay: But that was integral to the story.

Kevin: Yep.

Jay: And it’s not like Disney didn’t do the same. Mulan comes to mind.

Kevin: Yeah. I don’t really see the issue but maybe it’s just because I don’t give a damn about life sim games; I’ve never seen the appeal. On the social side, I think it’s a matter of contrasting ideologies between Japan and the rest of us.

Jay: I always see it from both sides really.

Ben: I’m interested in the reactions from the other side. And whether any precedents have been set in years gone by. I’m most interested in those who are screaming loudest about it – because they’ll be the ones praising Mario Kart 8 from the rafters in two weeks.

Kevin: Yep. I think we’ll see same-sex marriage in a Nintendo Japan game when legislation changes and it becomes legal over there. Until then don’t hold your breath.

Remember I said above that the guys could have mature conversations? Well, from this point it descended into a discussion around Tim being a dirty stop-out, gay bars and Jay’s singing. Oh well, it’s a start!