Video Gamers Outraged Over Nintendo Refusal TO Include Gay Characters

Nintendo is not interested in altering their gaming software to include the LGBT community…are they in the wrong?

Video Gamers Outraged Over Nintendo Refusing To Include Gay Characters

A group of  video gamers are protesting against gaming pioneer Nintendo’s decision not to include gay characters as a player choice in their games.

via Fox News

Nintendo isn’t allowing gamers to play as gay in an upcoming life simulator game.

The publisher of such gaming franchises as “The Legend of Zelda” and “Mario Bros.” said Tuesday it wouldn’t bow to pressure to allow players to engage in romantic activities with characters of the same sex in English editions of “Tomodachi Life.” This follows a social media campaign launched by fans last month seeking virtual equality for the game’s characters, which are modeled after real people.

“Nintendo never intended to make any form of social commentary with the launch of “Tomodachi Life,'” Nintendo of America Inc. said in a statement.

Tye Marini, a gay 23-year-old Nintendo fan from Mesa, Arizona, launched the campaign last month, urging Osaka, Japan-based Nintendo Co. and its subsidiary Nintendo of America Inc. to add same-sex relationship options to English versions of the hand-held Nintendo 3DS.

The game was originally released in Japan last year and features a cast of Mii characters — Nintendo’s personalized avatars of real players — living on a virtual island. Gamers can do things like shop, visit an amusement park, play games, go on dates and encounter celebrities like Christina Aguilera and Shaquille O’Neal.

“I want to be able to marry my real-life fiance’s Mii, but I can’t do that,” Marini said in a video posted online that attracted the attention of gaming blogs and online forums this week. “My only options are to marry some female Mii, to change the gender of either my Mii or my fiance’s Mii or to completely avoid marriage altogether and miss out on the exclusive content that comes with it.”

“It’s more of an issue for this game because the characters are supposed to be a representation of your real life,” Marini said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “You import your personalized characters into the game. You name them. You give them a personality. You give them a voice. They just can’t fall in love if they’re gay.”

Do you think Nintendo should amend their player choices to include gay characters?