VICTORY

Nintendo Apologizes For Gay Couple Snub

Tomodachi-CollectionNew-Life_gayx400_0OK, you can call off the pitchforks and angry mob. Nintendo’s apologized for leaving gay couples out of their upcoming game, Tomodachi Life.

In case you haven’t been following along, the game allows characters to create characters (including representations of themselves) and then turn them loose in a world where they can potentially fall in love. But only with partners of the opposite sex. Queer gamers freaked out, and Nintendo provided a tepid non-pology that suggested they considered gay couples to be a “social commentary.”

That’s not great. But their followup apology today should help smooth things over:

We apologize for disappointing many people by failing to include same-sex relationships in Tomodachi Life. Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to change this game’s design, and such a significant development change can’t be accomplished with a post-ship patch.

OK, so we won’t get gay love in this version of the game. That’s a shame, but it’s kind of what we expected. The game is done and comes out next month, so it’s not like they were going to recall it and make an adjustment at this point. It’s just nice to hear the word “apologize,” and “failing.” It’s an acknowledgement that the relationships really should be in the game.

Also, there’s this:

We pledge that if we create a next installment in the Tomodachi series, we will strive to design a game-play experience from the ground up that is more inclusive, and better represents all players.

And that’s the real victory here: we got their attention, we showed them that we felt left out, and they made a commitment to do better in the future.

We’re looking forward to their next installment in the Zelda series, in which Link and Tingle finally elope.

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