Jimquisition: Tomodachi Strife

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

the belief that inclusivity is often political

It is not, but going out of their way to support something not traditional would be. And Nintendo is anything but is nothing, if not traditional and conservative.
I don't particularly agree with Nintendo on this one, but I can't say I am surprised that they decided to represent marriage and romantic relationships in the most traditional way. Furthermore, Jim says its not political, but if the case was different (if Tomodachi Collection supported same sex marriage), it would not be seen as obvious, but it would be used as an example of open-mindness. In other words, it becomes political either way.

Fixed that for you, and completely agree. Trying to have a conversation about this very issue with my mother made me realize that it would absolutely be a political statement if Nintendo included same sex marriage in a game about relationships. Not because of same-sex relationships, but because it's NINTENDO, a company known mostly for kid-friendly games.

And we live in a sad world where even those accepting of homosexuality, often find the entire issue somehow more inappropriate for children, more sexual by nature, than heteronormative relationships.

 

[Dragonbums]

Then correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Boycotting the game the OPPOSITE effect Miiquality wanted?

It was definitely the opposite of what Tye wanted in his Miiquality campaign video.

My favourite part of this whole thing is how everyone seems to just ignore you two on every article about Tomodachi... Did I say my favourite? I meant the most disheartening.

It's the same reason why nobody brings up the actual message Tye said in the Miiquality video. Because if they actually watched it, they would realize that their grand scale World Polices of social justice tactics was not what the man wanted in the slightest.

 

[carnex]

You don't know much about programming, do you?

I know enough that they would have to add a ton of new subroutines to address scenes meant for couples. It's one function for limiting who you can marry, many over to address scenes that are meant for couples. I'm not programmer, never wrote anything more complex than basic organizer in pascal but I know that much.

 

[Phourc]

Alternate perspective: as someone who has a somewhat decent idea of what goes into creating a game, the sheer effort of programming and testing all the possibilities of a second kind of marriage is a big investment in manpower for what appears to be the work of a smallish group.

Just throwing my 2c in the ring to say it's not an easy thing to justify when *maybe* one in ten of Americans would use it and probably much, much less in other countries less okay with homosexuality. Most likely it came down to "we could make gay relationships OR that creepy, muscle-textured skin shirt."

Really, would we even have expected it if either a glitch or cross-dressing and translation failures gave us the impression that it might be there?

 

[snintendog]

Just checked again and, yeah, unless I'm missing or misunderstanding something, this is how the whole thing went:

- Nintendo releases the game with the gay marriage thing
- The devs patch it away because it wasn't intentional
- The press starts going on about Nintendo being against homosexuality
- Nintendo responds, saying "this isn't what we were trying to say. We were just fixing a glitch"

Basically, the fault lies with whoever moron thought that patching gay relationship out of the game was necessary

I had the impression it was a game Breaking glitch freezing and such and it was just a secondary effect that Same sex of the glitch fixing the glitch removes the same sex since it was caused by the bigger more problematic glitch.

 

[DrOswald]

As he does when he can't write episode based on facts he reinterprets someone's words and then writes about that.

Nintendo didn't make social commentary. Just because they didn't include it does not it make it social commentary. They just didn't program it in.

You don't know much about programming, do you? You have to code the process of marriage in it's most basic form or you're going to take up a lot of space recoding marriage after marriage after marriage. First you program just one marriage function and then then extra code is written to block the event triggers in situations or settings that you don't want. The event triggers have to be present in each human character because the player could be any gender. Either they wrote code to deactivate the triggers depending on which player character gender is chosen OR they wrote code to deny access to same-gender trigger options (or wrote the inverse as a code that only allows access to opposite-gender trigger options).

So they didn't just "not program [homosexuality] in"... they had to actively program homosexuality out.

This assumes that marriage in this game is completely shallow and gender a non issue. If you take game design into account then including same sex marriage is much harder. They most certainly would have had to program in homosexuality and design around that possibility. Not to mention that increasing the romance possibilities from 1(M-F) to 3(M-M,F-F,M-F) will exponentially increase the difficulty of creating content and AI programming.

Frankly, your extreme oversimplification of this issue makes me think you know next to nothing about software development and game design.

 

[Redd the Sock]

I going to go out on a limb and say that the only person that got things right in all this was the guy behind Miiquality: he was polite, non-accusatory, was still willing to give nintendo business and just asked that if it couldn't be fixed to think about it in the future.

The the internet did what it does best and went batshit.

The progressive press ignored any sense of facts to write the usual opinion bits about how wrong it was for the international corporation to not openly affirm gay marriage, and less reputable ones went full out and called them anti-LGBT. The lemming readers, never one to avoid a good twitter shaming of perceived bigotry, didn't stop to ask about context, and went on to vent their usual vitriol about how the rest of the world hasn't come about to the correct way of thinking. People wonder why social justice people get the bad rep, but it's hard to not see spoiled children when your entire argument is "why didn't you think about me you big meanie?)

I mean, I don't think not having gay marriage in tomodachi life is a good thing, but it's a kid friendly, niche title made for a more Japanese audience. It was not likely to be worth the trouble to include it for the NA market given it isn't a high profile, high demand title, and despite what people want, gay marriage is still highly politicized, and not so supported (especially on a global level) as to make those against it a tiny minority to be dismissed. I can't fault Nintendo's decision, though we do need PR people that get that large portions of the internet will throw a tantrum without a lot of provocation and are better prepared to deal with it.

 

[Phasmal]

I mean- where the fuck were these people when you couldn't have gay marriage in FE:Awakening? Seriously.

To be fair I was pretty sad you couldn't have gay marriage in FE. But I also kind of understand when you consider how the latter part of that game plays out.

OT: Some people have commented (Dragonbums included) that Jim got the issue of the bug wrong and that's not what Nintendo meant.
I haven't been following it closely so I don't know the ins-and-outs, but I do know that regardless of what Nintendo intended to come across and whether a few wires may have been crossed- many people have been defending the `social commentary` statement on it's face.
And it's not an uncommon argument. How many times have we been told inclusion is pandering?

I for one enjoyed the episode.

 

[Dragonbums]

To be fair I was pretty sad you couldn't have gay marriage in FE. But I also kind of understand when you consider how the latter part of that game plays out.

I agree. No matter what my game states Vaike and Lon'Qu will always be my gay OTP (but then I miss out on Batman kid too...*huff*)

 

[Phasmal]

To be fair I was pretty sad you couldn't have gay marriage in FE. But I also kind of understand when you consider how the latter part of that game plays out.

I agree. No matter what my game states Vaike and Lon'Qu will always be my gay OTP (but then I miss out on Batman kid too...*huff*)

I'm actually currently trying to unlock all the Support cutscenes- so the marriages are getting a little weird.
I actually feel FE:A is a good example of a game that did not have gay romance for story reasons, though I'd love it if they included it in a future game.

Until then, I just have my bros.

Spoiler: My men's Support song

 

[Elyxard]

What some people don't understand is that the reason it's wrong for Tomadachi to not have gay marriages while it being okay for other games to not have it is the fact that you're inserting yourself into Tomadachi as your Mii. It's not a designed character you're playing, it's literally yourself. The Sims would get the same kind of beef for excluding same sex couples.

Especially since there's no direct narrative in Tomadachi; the ease of which it would be to include same sex marriage would be paltry compared to most other games. That's what makes this damning for Nintendo.

And that's partly the problem, NoA doesn't have the authority to make even the slightest changes to the games they localize I would bet. I'm sure they would have loved to have made the change, but they lack the approval and manpower to do so, which is a real shame.

 

[xaszatm]

And you have proof of this where? Have you even bothered to look at the game or are you using your knowledge of other games cloud you to the code of this one. Tomadachi Life is different from most other Sims games in that you do not have complete control over the character. You literally just throw Mii's with different personalities into the game and see how they act out. The entire game is based around the various Miis interacting with one another, going on dates, forming relationships, marrying, and having children. And you're saying that it will be an easy fix? Care to provide proof?

Of course they won't let me see the code. But which do you think is more likely:

One set of relationship-controlling codes that applies to everyone with an extra set to halt trigger events under certain circumstances.
...or...
A massively large set of identical relationship-controlling codes for each potential pairing of each potential Mii (as long as they're opposite gender).

---

Well? Which one of those is going to take up more space than most console harddrives have access to?

If we go by your choices, then yes, the second choice is the easier one to implement. However, as one who has played Tomadachi Life, you realize how many triggers there are and how many restrictions to get said triggers exists. The game has a multitude of events that are not only triggered based on personality but on gender as well as relationship status with other Mii's. So, yeah, it's isn't going to be a simple coding exercise to remove it.

 

[Coruptin]

So how long until someone throws up the whole 'danger of inclusion' argument like what happened with Mass Effect?

"If we allow the Gay Tomadachis, then we have to allow PEDOPHILE Tomadachis as well!" or what not?

already happened in another thread
never expect to be disappointed by the internet

Did people forget that homosexuality is a deviant lifestyle that is still not in any way the norm, and when representing the norm it is not at all unusual to leave out things like homosexuality? Yes, it is normal that homosexuals exist, they are very real people etc. but that in no way makes interaction with homosexuals or being confronted with homoSEXUALITY normal in any way.

And I can make the same damn argument for autistic people, I am autistic, apparently over 10% of the human race is autistic, yet media rarely acknowledges autism and when it does so it's in extremes, I feel this game doesn't do right by autistic people and it is erasure that they didn't include autism as a theme in this game.

So tell me, where does this stop? Bestiality? War? Racism? Scat? Gore? Torture? Murder? all very real, all TOO real, which is exactly why games tend to not include them, especially when catered to a specific group of people, especially when catered to children. And lets be real here, games and any kind of product made for children generally isn't allowed to deviate from the norm, which homosexuality is far from.

Nintendo never claimed to be all-encompassing in it's representation of human interactions and lifestyles, never meant for it, you can take their words out of context or claim "with us or against us" but the great irony is that it is YOU who is the bigot for even making that suggestion. In your desperate struggle for acceptance, you've forgotten to accept that there are people out there who cannot accept you, and those people do so for real reasons, your stigmatizing of these people is the very erasure you speak against.

*edit*

Kind of went off-tangent in the last paragraph there, but to clarify the point is to not try and force people to acknowledge or accept you, just be who you are and feel free to defend yourself if the notion is ever presented that you are not allowed to be who you are, but don't go out of your way to demand representation of your lifestyle, that'd just get ridiculous if everyone would try it.

 

[DrOswald]

What some people don't understand is that the reason it's wrong for Tomadachi to not have gay marriages while it being okay for other games to not have it is the fact that you're inserting yourself into Tomadachi as your Mii. It's not a designed character you're playing, it's literally yourself. The Sims would get the same kind of beef for excluding same sex couples.

Especially since there's no direct narrative in Tomadachi; the ease of which it would be to include same sex marriage would be paltry compared to most other games. That's what makes this damning for Nintendo.

And that's partly the problem, NoA doesn't have the authority to make even the slightest changes to the games they localize I would bet. I'm sure they would have loved to have made the change, but they lack the approval and manpower to do so, which is a real shame.

While it is true there is no linear set narrative, there is a dynamic narrative. This is not the Sims, which lacks a story. It dynamically creates a narrative from the pieces you place. This would make it far more difficult to include same sex marriage. If you are working off of a linear set story (or a non story like the Sims) same sex marriage is just as easy as hetro marriage. But with a nonlinear, dynamic narrative you have to account for many, many possibilities. Adding more variables, such as including homosexual relationships (tripling the possible relationship options) exponentially increases the complexity of crafting a dynamic narrative generating system.

It should have been in there, but saying it would have been trivial or even easy is really misrepresenting the problem.

 

[CelestDaer]

I was extremely confused by the wording in the description, especially at first, and then I watched the video, and it made a lot more sense... I thought Jim was going to rant about inclusion of fifty bazillion options for gender or whatnot...

 

[Kaimax]

I'm really disappointed at this.

Jim just went all over the place with false information.

Quoting again for the TRUTH

I'm going to imagine this was done early on because my. fucking. God.

Goddammit Jim. You got the info of the bug wrong, you got the nature of the statement wrong, you got everything fucking wrong.

First off, the bug in question only came about due to a sex glitch within the Mii's during transfer that assigned whatever sex to whatever Mii. Due to this fact the game began to internally conflict and prevented player progression, corrupted save files, crashed the game, and in worst case scenarios actually damaged the 3DS software itself.

The gay coupling players saw in screenshots were not a result of the bug. It was a result of Japanese players dressing up their "female" characters as male character and having them romance each other.

Nature of the full bug at IGN (of all fucking places to get things right.) http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/05/05/nintendo-on-gay-marriage-and-tomodachi-life

Secondly this game is about a year old. It came out in early 2013. Early 2013 for a Japanese only audience. You want to know what's illegal in Japan? Gay marriage. Guess what dude, Nintendo is not a political crusader machine. Gay relationships in 2014 is only normal in first world countries like the United States and Great Britain. In many other parts of the world it fucking isn't normal and is often frowned upon, illegal, or met with a death sentence. Japan just happens to be one of those countries. So why would Nintendo- who are not- mind you- a political crusader company by any stretch of the word- implement a system in a game meant only for Japanese players that is illegal in Japan? Seriously. Ask yourself that. Why would they?
Let's also keep in mind as well that by the time Nintendo decided to port this game over to English, the game was well done and over with, the original dev team is off doing other projects, and nobody inside our outside of Japan gave a shit anymore?

Third, the message Nintendo sent to Miiquality wasn't fucking stupid. Did you not watch the video? The man was extremely realistic about the outcome of his video. He even stated that there is a high chance they wouldn't put it in this game, but they would put it in future games. And that's what Nintendo said. They specifically said that if the feedback is positive enough they will put them in future installments to Miiquality.

But that doesn't mean fucking anything. Because once again the whole world revolves around us. Did you even mention the legality of gay marriage in Japan? No. You didn't.
Japan never got a feature that we didn't. Their game doesn't have gay marriage in it and our game doesn't have gay marriage in it.
The only thing stupid here is the willingness-despite having all the evidence right in front of you telling the full story- you still decided to perpetrate the misinformation and misunderstanding that occurred throughout this fucking disaster.

To reiterate:

Nintendo did not patch out the bug because it contained gay marriage. They patched it out because it corrupted saves files, prevented player progression, caused the game to crash, and did actual harm to the 3DS system. This was a result of an error through Mii transfers from the Wii/DS systems where a random sex was designated (or absent) from the Mii's and it confused the games coding and caused it to fail.

Read the link. Read the IGN link. It explains fucking everything.

 

[malnin]

As he does when he can't write episode based on facts he reinterprets someone's words and then writes about that.

Nintendo didn't make social commentary. Just because they didn't include it does not it make it social commentary. They just didn't program it in.

You don't know much about programming, do you? You have to code the process of marriage in it's most basic form or you're going to take up a lot of space recoding marriage after marriage after marriage. First you program just one marriage function and then then extra code is written to block the event triggers in situations or settings that you don't want. The event triggers have to be present in each human character because the player could be any gender. Either they wrote code to deactivate the triggers depending on which player character gender is chosen OR they wrote code to deny access to same-gender trigger options (or wrote the inverse as a code that only allows access to opposite-gender trigger options).

So they didn't just "not program [homosexuality] in"... they had to actively program homosexuality out.

At best your solution would result in every character being bisexual which fixes nothing as my gay characters could still marry the opposite gender and my strait characters could marry the same gender. Also adding in homosexuality would require additional checks for not just for gender but orientation in partners.

 

[xaszatm]

Then correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Boycotting the game the OPPOSITE effect Miiquality wanted?

It was definitely the opposite of what Tye wanted in his Miiquality campaign video.

My favourite part of this whole thing is how everyone seems to just ignore you two on every article about Tomodachi... Did I say my favourite? I meant the most disheartening.

It's the same reason why nobody brings up the actual message Tye said in the Miiquality video. Because if they actually watched it, they would realize that their grand scale World Polices of social justice tactics was not what the man wanted in the slightest.

And for added irony, we finally get another article on the subject that has a more balanced approach and it gets promptly ignored in favor for more mud-slinging.

 

[Pebkio]

This assumes that marriage in this game is completely shallow and gender a non issue. If you take game design into account then including same sex marriage is much harder. They most certainly would have had to program in homosexuality and design around that possibility. Not to mention that increasing the romance possibilities from 1(M-F) to 3(M-M,F-F,M-F) will exponentially increase the difficulty of creating content and AI programming.

Frankly, your extreme oversimplification of this issue makes me think you know next to nothing about software development and game design.

No, you're wrong about that. Writing code specifically for gender would be harder to write code without taking gender into consideration. The difficulty rising in proportion to the complexity of the interactions.

You write a very long stream of interactive code that determines how one character models can interact with each other. It saves a hell of a lot of space to just write one string that can then apply to everyone and then just control the variations though smaller lines of code.

To have a separation in terms of activities across gender (which is what would be required to have the need to program homosexuality in)... first you have to write specifically for the purposes of separation (which is automatically more work than the first option). Then, you have to have to have multiple lines of code that are doing the same thing as each other (thus taking up the twice as much space) with only slight variations in each.

I'm not saying they couldn't have done that... I would just point out the sloppiness mess of that code...

...for the reason of, what appears to be, keeping certain same gender people from participating in all activities.