Link: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/mass-effect/mass-effect-5-studio-was-reportedly-told-to-tone-down-inclusivity-by-ea-after-saudi-arabia-buyout-former-bioware-dev-alleges-so-as-to-not-cause-offense/

Because an entire race of Blue Polysexual Mono-Gender females only able to birth other females didn't seem to click very well with the Saudis.

Why would inclusivity cause offense to any rational person?

See, the problem is that none of these people are rational.

What I can't get over is the idea of "You can do homosexuality in Mass Effect!?" when to have any romantic affair in the game you need to try and do it. If you're against Homosexuality and you are a male Shepard and you have sex with a male NPC, you had to fucking try to have sex with a male NPC. You spent hours seducing him.

Edit: I totally forgot Garrus is the only NPC who doesn't have a homosexual romance option.

but we were just very close platonic friends!! And I accidentally hit the buttsex button!

Reminds me of the Wukong scandal where the devs forbade sponsored influencers to talk about feminism among other "too political" subjects.

This really puts me off purchasing a game from people capable of that kind of censorship.

But, I WANT offense. I WANT those people uncomfortable. So let’s do more not less, kthx.

That had nothing to do with inclusivity: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/28/black-myth-wukong-game-controversy-china-streamers

the curtain drops on the entire strategy for why so much money is being invested in US media, games, news and sports by outsiders

It's Saudi Arabia. They're basically in the dark ages with the oil money to buy modern infrastructure. It's an absolute monarchy, You get the death penalty for being any flavor of queer, It's a surveillance state. They literally sent a kill squad into a foreign nation to (successfully) brutally murder a journalist. We don't hear it much because of all the other constant noise in the digital world but they're not good people. Everyone turns a blind eye because they have that sweet sweet oil and since like the 70s the US has been on it's knees for them.

Don't get me wrong here. It's a very nice looking place but it's built on some of the most terrible human rights abuses you can name.

They have almost open slavery. It's not a good place. The fact that they were allowed to buy EA at all is a problem.

Then its halal.

"I tripped and fell on my keyboard and mouse and while they were in there they accidentally progressed the dialogue trees that make you have gay sex."

This really puts me off purchasing a game from people capable of that kind of censorship.

A reminder that if you buy any game developed or published by EA, you're funding this kind of hate.

Toning down inclusivity offfends me.

I want more optional homosexual romance in my games, not less!

If these people think Homosexuality is a choice, then let people choose to have a straight relationship or a gay relationship. If they're so hellbent on sexuality being a choice, they'll just intentionally avoid all the homosexual romance options throughout the game, right....?

Right...?

Called it (not that it took a crystal ball or anything.) the day the EA+PIF news came out. I had just wrapped up playing the ME series and Dragonage games, said it out loud to my spouse. Saudi Arabia sucks camel balls and chops up reporters.

I’m pretty sure the only same sex romance options are Femshep and Liara, your admin assistant in ME2 (kinda), and then your admin assistant and shuttle driver in ME3. You can’t even romance Jack as Femshep.

Why the fuck would any rational person buy a game from EA. That company hasn’t produced a decent game in almost a decade.

To be honest, something like this can actually happen!

In Baldur’s Gate 3, I accidentally had very gay sex with an incubus by selecting a wrong option by mistake…
To be fair, that particular demon could change their sex at will, so maybe it’s not a great comparison.

So kinda like what a lot of Republicans want for the US?

Do you have a shitload of money? Then they don't care.

I think its for the best that it was cancelled. The first two Mass Effect games are some of my favourites and I would rather have no new game in the series than whatever EA would produce today.

Party members are always throwing themselves at you in Baldur's Gate 3.

I guess you suffer from it still and are now gay.

/s

That's were our presidents advisor lives so yes.

Yeah, Gale went from homie to horny real fuckin quick.

I think Kaidan is also an option for MShep in ME3? Maybe I'm wrong, I just pick Tali every time.

But we're missing out on an alien race of traders that will only accept Mass Effect Funbucks, and sell you a range of cosmetic items that change weekly!

And Liara barely counts because her species doesn't even have a biological sex. They all just appear female compared to humans and so that's how they tend to identify when working with sexually dimorphic races.

I was always a bit disappointed that there was no option to romance Garrus as Male Shep. One would think that gender comes secondary to species in terms of sexual preferences, but apparently not.

It Takes Two was pretty amazing, and they published that (though Hazelight Studios developed it).

At this point I'm genuinely concerned you might be functionally illiterate. The comment you replied to doesn't mention inclusivity at all, the story we're commenting on reminded them of the wukong story.

No alcohol. No exposed ankles. No gays.

A bit of a sensationalized headline, considering BioWare was only asked to remove a flag which resembled an LGBT flag in the game. IMO that is a bit different from "removing inclusivity," which does a lot of heavy lifting. I mean, ignoring that this happens all the time for games sold in the region of Arabia (and maybe also China, but I am not sure about that, though I do know marketing materials are often altered for the CN region to make certain race characters less prominent such as Disney's Star Wars The Force Awakens making John Boyega less prominent in marketing materials, for example).

Personally, I don't really see why there would even be any flags at all in a Mass Effect game in the first place. In the original 3 games it seemed that humanity as a whole had advanced beyond the need, desire, or use of flags as representative of people or their identities. I cannot recall any of the first 3 ME games having any, and BioWare made the romance options not care about the gender of the player character. NPCs in the games didn't seem to care about it, really, so I don't understand why the flag would have existed in the first place. For the same reason I would wonder why any current country flag would appear in the game either, I just don't remember any flags at all. Perhaps I am misremembering and just forgot about one somewhere.

To that end, IMO including any flags at all would seem like a regression of human society compared to the first three ME games, unless the cancelled ME took place in a human timeline very close to our current year. It just seemed humanity had advanced beyond the use of flags entirely, which I would imagine most space-faring civilizations would. I am not praising EA here, I am just confused as to why the situation happened in the first place, considering the established lore of the series.

something like this can actually happen

Heh, reminds me of some reactions when Cyberpunk 2077 players don't realise that Ángel is a male Spanish name and accidentally hire a male doll at Clouds (or a female one if they pick Skye by elimination thinking that Ángel must be female; in any case, the opposite of what they were looking for).

Of course there's no sex in that scene because V is working and has too many things in their head (both literally and metaphorically), only intimacy, but still, it can be a bit of a shock, apparently.

That means that you are now gay for life. You will surely go to hell. Oh, actually I think you have already been ;)

The Femshep gay options SUCK. Far as I know they planned for more, but had to tone it down for the very first Mass Effect game already. Puritan ass fucking Americans are not better than the Saudis!

Minus the gay part, I would believe that if I heard it in the context of the first ME, it all takes three polite conversations

(or was it four? idr, does Liara's mission count?)

Because we live in the era of hate politics, where societies are being divided and conquered by populism's of bigotry. Inclusivity counters that.

Well, I doubt most reasonable people strictly needed more reasons to want EA and everything associated with it to stop existing, but here is one anyway.

Is it ok to dismember journalists while they're still alive though?

Only if you keep the dismembered ankles covered up.

Sure but they only care about not offending the right people.

I mean, as long as you didn't fuck Mizora.

In Lae'zel's case, literally.

Romancing Shadowheart was really difficult. But very rewarding. Out of all the romance options, though, I had the most fun with Karlach's romance plot. It was emotionally healing, especially if you're playing as Wyll.

Hey Titanfall 2 was really good! Wait it's been exactly 10 years? Fuck.

Jokes aside, the Jedi games were pretty good imo. Can't say the same about anything else though to be honest.

They are religious people. Why do you call them rational?

The amount of people that got up in arms about KCD2 having a totally optional gay romance options, that gives you multiple, explicit options to abort (which doesn't happen with some of the hetero flings...) but it was too much for them.

Worse there are ghouls arguing that Boltgun 2 is 'woke' since it has an optional female protagonist.

I certainly hope the pendulum starts swinging back soon, this is all getting out of hand.

saudis gonna sod

No smoking, no swearing and no ALIEN SEX!

He literally posted this as a reply to a story about inclusivity by EA. It reminds him, and I posted an article to clear up that Wukong had nothing to do with inclusivity issue. If he posted an off-topic reply, then my explanation is needed, so others understand what is happening.

You don't fucking say