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Back door huh? Good idea 28 Apr, 2009 / Comments: 18

By The Tingler


Either they got commands from on high or they're getting worried about more controversy from the homophobic American media, but Bioware have begun locking threads discussing homosexuality and censoring words such as "gay" or "lesbian" on their Star Wars: The Old Republic forum.

Bioware's Sean Dahlberg explained simply: "As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars. Thread closed."

So, to reiterate: C-3PO is camp, not gay.


jp update: The moderator on the Bioware forum has apologised for overstepping the mark, and the gay discussion there has been allowed to continue. Source: Kotaku.

Source: Kotaku

18

18 Comments

  • Izzy on 29 Apr, 2009, 21:15…
    If your gay than come out the closet and admit it. Don't go around exercising your right to be gay.
    Actually in Fable 2 you can be gay right?
  • Zaarin on 29 Apr, 2009, 22:05…
    Everybody's gay in Fable 2 if you got enough fame. Just like in real life.
  • Bad Asp! on 28 Apr, 2009, 18:14…
    Lucasarts = the video game equivalent of Westboro Baptist Church.

    "God hates fags, because they don't exist in Star Wars!"
  • Zaarin on 28 Apr, 2009, 18:18…
    I love how you manage to bring some LEC hate into every situation.
  • Bad Asp! on 28 Apr, 2009, 21:56…
    Hey, they were asking for it. It seems like every second I blink they give me more reasons to hate them.
  • jp-30 on 29 Apr, 2009, 01:30…
    A bioware messageboard moderator (who has since apologised for his actions) isn't quite the same as "LucasArts", though, is it?
  • Bad Asp! on 29 Apr, 2009, 14:12…
    Yeah, but still.
  • Remi O on 29 Apr, 2009, 15:13…
    Still, what?
  • Bad Asp! on 29 Apr, 2009, 19:45…
    Is this like in Day Of The Tentacle, when Hoagie said to Thomas Jefferson, "Later, dude", and Jefferson replied, "What's going to happen later?"
  • mrcolinp on 28 Apr, 2009, 16:56…
    As long as the person on the forum talking about the hot alien chick is a man, it's totally appropriate. What?

    To those who "understand" why Bioware would want to do this: The banning of those words is offensive. The mere use of them is not. The end.
  • Jake on 28 Apr, 2009, 16:51…
    By that measure nobody is allowed to talk about "Windows Vista" or "Audio drivers" either, as they've never appeared in the Star Wars universe? That's surely a load off for the BioWare tech support team!
  • Capn_Nacho on 29 Apr, 2009, 00:35…
    Zing!
  • Jeo on 28 Apr, 2009, 16:47…
    They don't exist in Star wars? Give me a break... Juhani in KOTOR, for example, clearly had the hots for the female main character at one point. Plenty of other examples out there.

    They probably just want to play it safe.
  • Capn_Nacho on 28 Apr, 2009, 13:13…
    Kind of shitty thing to do.
  • Kroms on 28 Apr, 2009, 13:10…
    Two points:

    1. I can understand why Bioware would do that. They wouldn't want to offend their users and whatnot, and there's bound to be your average homophobe on the interwebs. Flame wars ensue, Bioware loses their frustrated fanbase.

    2. It's like the lesbian gamer issue that happened with the Xbox Live thing. Look, if you're gay and are willing to admit it, that's great. But there's no need to drag it where it doesn't matter, aka gaming forums.

    I'm not saying you SHOULDN'T admit you're gay and brag about it, but a gaming forum doesn't seem to be the best place for that. And there's bound to be homophobes that'll cause the Bioware guys a headache, so just avoiding the issue altogether seems about right. Sort of like proposing at a funeral.
  • Gabez on 28 Apr, 2009, 13:15…
    Except you can't really avoid the whole issue -- banning the words offends the people who aren't homophobes (and out of the two sides, I'd rather the homophobes were the ones offended!)

    Something similar happened in WoW, when a GLBT clan was banned. I think that was appropriate to do, but banning the words on the forums seems a bit too far.
  • jp-30 on 28 Apr, 2009, 12:00…
    LOL. A woman who fucked her robot was OK in KOTOR 1 though, but I guess he was a male robot?
  • Gabez on 28 Apr, 2009, 09:43…
    That is absurd -- though it looks like they've unbanned the words now (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=26291&page=5)