Square Enix considering same-sex marriage for Final Fantasy XIV
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Publisher says same-sex marriage an "extremely controversial topic" and will consider feedback from players before making final decision.
One of the new features in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is the ability for avatars to get married. At launch, only avatars of opposite sex can get hitched, but that may change.
Square Enix discussed the matter of same-sex marriage, among other topics, in a nearly two-hour video posted to YouTube. A representative from the company said Square Enix has been carefully considering allowing same-sex marriage, though no final decisions have been made.
"As for same-sex marriage, this is an extremely controversial topic that has been under discussion in the MMO world for the past few years," the company said. "As you know, each country has a different way of thinking. So first we would like to start out with opposite-sex marriage, and then consider the feedback from our players in order to make a careful decision.I can’t say whether or not it will be possible at this point in time. I’d like to keep dialog open with our players as we deliberate the matter."
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is a re-launch of 2010's Final Fantasy XIV. It is in development for PC and PlayStation 3 and has been rebuilt from the ground up. For more, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
517 comments
2 Like They're adding catboys AND same sex marriage? Squeenix's massive fangirl base will be flocking to the game!
There are same sex content and scenarios in games like Skyrim, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age, and it didn't affect the sales of those games.
I don't see any reason why same sex scenarios would be an issue in FF XIV or in other games.
@toyo75 In Skyrim and Dragon Age, u can avoid these topics entirly w/o affecting the game play.
@toyo75 Actually, Dragon Age was affected by the same sex content. If the NPCs you had in your party wasn't allowed to have sex with the player, then you didn't get to do their Side Missions. And there was some other stuff.
2 Like Lol. Its a lotta hate in this room. We gotta learn to love and accept people for who they are. At the end of the day we're all human and deserve a little happiness. Not too much though. People who are super happy are kinda annoying
1 Like @Razer361 And you think Square actually cares if you buy another game of theirs?
@FlawlessGoBot Maybe that is true, but when it comes to video game, u gona discover the whole game and every aspect of it. So its not the same with other companys
1 Like @Razer361 Feel kind of sad for you that you wouldn't buy a game because it contains something you don't have to do or will probably never even come into contact with.
@Razer361 If you are going company level on this then you might want to Google a list of company's that support same sex marriage. And that list is a lot longer the you would think.
3 Like @FlawlessGoBot uh no. It's a personal thing. They will always have fans. if only1 person or even a group of people stop buying their games it probably won't affect them, and i'm not trying to start anything but same sex marriage is wrong and i'm just supporting my belief by not supporting a company that openly supports it by putting it in their games
1 Like @Razer361 Ahh yes the ignorant bigot boy-cotters shall strike again. That will teach em`! Just like it did Nabisco.
Its frigging game for god sakes who the hell cares if there is same sex marriage or not. If anything it probably makes more sense to have it than not as there are probably more males players than there are female players. But the main point is its a game f*** cares man.. seriously!!
3 Like @ManHooYin it's wrong. and putting it in a video game is promoting it as ok or fine.
@Razer361 What's wrong is homophobic comments like yours. Same sex marriage is perfectly OK, as evidenced by the fact that countries that allow it (such as mine) have suffered nothing from its legalization. Furthermore, it's made those same people far happier citizens of the country overall. What you're promoting is simple hate speech, that's the problem we as a society face today.
@Razer361 @viertel Saying you prefer not to debate while you put forth ridiculous claims as you have says to me that you have no case. If you do not want to tell your reasons, that is fine, but that also means you have no argument to put forth in the first place. If that's the case, your hate speech is all the more bewildering because there's no debatable basis upon which you build your ideas. You have completely failed to back up your ideas, and yet you claim your idea of morals is the right one?
Also, animals don't think for themselves? They don't think in the way we do (with words, since they don't have a definite Wernicke's areas or homologous structures), but they have cognitive processes just as we do. And the direction towards sources on animal homosexuality was not an act of comparison, but a source that completely debunks your claim that homosexuality isn't natural. You know as well as I do at this point that that's a fantastically wrong statement.
@Razer361 No, you'd "prefer not to" because you simply *can't*. There's nothing factual about your statement you can certainly prove that it's wrong (nor can you prove that souls exist -- that's called religion). All you do is fall back to a religious context and spew more hate. You have no stance, you have no facts, and you have no logic -- you have only your religious views, which *are* wrong in and of themselves because they promote hate and segregation.
@Razer361 Right, you don't hate them, you just accuse them of being sick, immoral, and rebellious, and won't allow them to marry people they love. What do you do to people you hate?
You haven't provided *any* detail about why homosexuality is wrong, aside from you saying it's not "natural" (like computers and polyester clothing?). Bonus points if you can avoid religious mumbo-jumbo like "souls."
1 Like @viertel I don't hate them, they are people just like me. And you are comparing humans to animals, which is illogical, as Animals don't have souls, don't think for themselves, and certainly don't have to get married to have a family. I can get into great detail about why homosexuality is wrong, but i'd prefer not to.
@Razer361 1. Nature is based on variety, randomness and nonconformity. Homosexuality is by its very nature natural, because it demonstrates how unexpected it can be. It's unusual, I'll give you that, but that does NOT mean it's wrong.2. You have NO proof that people aren't born with same-sex affiliations. That is a slap to the face of countless homosexuals who would love nothing more than to conform, simply due to the fact that people like you look down at them, as if they are lesser beings. Suicide rates among homosexuals in countries that don't tolerate it are shockingly high, why do you think that is? Because of rebellious nature or because who they are is disregarded by their society?
3. You have completely negated to mention WHY same-sex marriage is in any way immoral. Because it's not traditional? That's a pathetic argument. Because it's not natural? Already discussed how that doesn't work. Because it's not in line with the idea of family and procreation? Love is not only about making and raising a family - regardless of the fact that homosexual couples can make just as good parents as heterosexual ones.
Because you can't understand homosexuality yourself? Now, I think that's the real reason here.
@viertel @Razer361 Unnatural he says, it isn't just humans that have same sex relations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals
2 Like @Razer361 No, what's wrong and unnatural is the hate speech that you and other imbeciles continue to spout. Unnatural? You better tell that to the several *thousand* other species of beings across the planet that also engage in homosexual activities. The ONLY reason you see it as unnatural is because you're delusional enough to buy into the hate propoganda that people before you have spouted because of one little line in a shitty book that was written by hateful clergymen centuries ago. You have no logical or scientific stance from -- it's simply hate spewing from your mouth.
2 Like @Razer361 1st i don't see how its wrong.
2nd by that logic i guess its ok to shoot people in the head since they put that in CoD, Halo and other games or it's ok to steal a car like u do in GTA, saint rows etc
1 Like @ManHooYin Call of duty and Halo are games about war, which in itself, is hard to classify as right or wrong, and it's kinda of hard to go through life without it, since nobody can seem to get along.
I see a lot of hate in this thread, first I should mention SE are doing a brilliant job rebuilding the game from the ground up, the whole dev team is now working on ARR, to get it live when it is ready.
Secondly the marriages were after player requests, not the devs wanting to shine light on the game.
And thirdly, they are treading carefully because yes we have the religious people against homosexuality, but there are also some countries in which homosexuality is a crime punishable by death. We all know the stigma video games get in the media for encouraging violence and drug use, why couldn't FFXIV get the stigma of encouraging homosexuality in countries where it is still a crime, could people get executed for marrying someone of the same sex ingame?
I am personally for this but I agree SE need to be careful.
Oh and anyone who is saying FFXIV is still a failure before ARR comes out, is ignorent and to be honest I hope you stick by that and don't come to the game, a lot of people are hyped, even people who quit 1 month after release of 1.0.
"Ok, that's it. I'm completely burned out. I have no idea what they want from a Final Fantasy game. We try to make them edgier and grittier everytime and gamers only bash us for it. I give up.
I leave it in your hands. You can announce whatever marketing gimmick you want if you think it'll help the next one sell a bit more."
Final Fantasy XIV Creative Director.
3 Like I'm against this 100%. Why? Because I don't want games to be used for a political war!
My favorite sci-fi strategy game, X-COM, was given to a developer who only care for same-sex rights; they didn't care for X-COM or even games. So anyways, they took X-COM, lied about being huge X-COM fans, and changed *everything* to serve their needs, but not that of the fans. They moved it to the USA only and set the timeline to 60 years ago so they can use the civil-rights as a allegory for same-sex rights and marriage.
And the X-COM fans gets nothing out of it! No strategy, no cool sci-fi, No base building, no research, no agents, no nothing! It was going to play like the new Syndicate, but much worse. But fortunately, the developer's game moved to 2014, and Firaxis saved the day with a real X-COM game.
My point is, keep same-sex stuff and political wars *OUT* of video games, or you will be force to play games that will try to control what you think; and all your heroes from Halo, COD, Gears of War, Half-Life will be "coming out of the closet" to fight for same-sex marriage.
They already made some comic book heroes non-straight (like Alan Scott of Green Lantern), don't let them make games into South Park.
It is just a game. So Square Enix is going to pull a stunt like this to get people talking about FF14 version 2. The reboot, so having this as a feature. Serves no real purpose. Square Enix cannot mess things up anymore than they have?
i suggest going through with this idea spells doom for the franchise!leave that subject matter alone square enix!try some different one not the former!
3 Like Do it Square. Stick it to the religious fanatics who can't accept people for being who they are. Human rights all the way.
3 Like @tightwad34 It's not just "religious fanatics," some atheists, and I'm sure some agnostics, oppose same-sex marriage as well.
I know that, it's the first thing that popped up in my head. And they are the major opponents of it(at least from what we hear). That's also probably because they make up a large chunk of the population.
@tightwad34 I would wager that you're right about that, but what I recently learned is that some people in the religious community do support same-sex marriage. Our world is definitely not a 'cut and dry' one.
advertising no more ...
it remind me of apple and its stories about stolen prototype in a bar...
2 Like @7a9ed You are aware that it was Gamespot that's doing all the advertising. The producer was answering a live letter. The question was brought up to him and he gave his answer. Out of the 1.5+ hour video, this topic only lasted about a minute in his presentation. Instead of Gamespot talking about all the changes that is happening to the game or about the new trailer or even about the progress of the Alpha, they pull this sh*t. The one's who are advertising is Gamespot. Look at all the other articles and notice how THIS one has the highest amount of comments on it.
2 Like Why is this even a story? Do you report the fact that male and female characters can marry? No. Same sex relationships are the norm these days and do not require more or less attention.
2 Like Controversial? Not in civilised society. But alas, there are still many which still live in the dark times of persecution and hatred. I pity such societies.
@kavadias1981 That's why this is a story -- it is slowly becoming perfectly normal for same sex marriages to be allowed, and so it seems backwards that Square-Enix is not allowing them and is debating whether they will be included or not.
@minneyar @kavadias1981 What you all may view as right probably doesn't sit well with other cultures. SquareEnix IS in Japan and their form of culture is completely different from Americans/Europeans. Go to any other country in Asia and they'll feel the same way. I mean yeah they have some of the most deceiving crossdressers out there, but it's not necessarily looked up upon.
@minneyar My apologies, I just scrolled straight down to the comments section. I was under the assumption that it was just going to be included in the game and that was that.
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