April 2, 2011 | Online

Dragon Age 2 writer under fire from straights and gays

A gay gamer has launched a petition calling on BioWare to fire Dragon Age 2 lead writer David Gaider for 'disrespectfully stereotyping' homosexuals. 

Paint some geeks confused by the gay gamer's anger. Gaider, after all, published a well-worded defense of gay romances in videogames after an angry straight male player whined about being hit on by male characters and the lack of a "No Homosexuality" button in the game. Gaider dismissed the complaint, saying that romances in the game were there for everyone, not just "the straight male gamer."

No good deed goes unpunished, though. "As a homosexual playing Dragon Age 2, I've witnessed the worst stereotype homosexual characters in this game. If you refused to make your moves on a gay character then you are received rivalry points for not wanting to be gay for the character," the gay player's petition states. "This is completely wrong, homosexuals do not approach people and force them to kiss us, the person that wrote this game should be fired for stereotyping homosexuals in such a disrespectful way."

GayGamer.net disagrees. "Considering one male companion does this (Anders) and yet another does not (Fenris), this shows that the 'gays' in the game are capable of being normal people after all," the site wrote. "They are capable of flirting and not flirting. You know, as people do."

A new petition has been created in support of Gaider. 

It must be nice to have nothing more to worry about than a few characters in a video game.

Not All Gay Gamers Think Alike [GayGamer.net]