Is Nintendo Fixing A Gay Marriage 'Bug' In New Video Game?

[DriftingCrow]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/14/183902153/reports-bug-allows-gay-marriage-in-video-game-fix-likely
Author: Bill Chappell Source: NPR's The Two-Way

"Days after the gaming world began to buzz with reports that Nintendo's new life simulation game allows men to marry other men, it now seems that Nintendo is removing that possibility, which by all reports was unintended." In Japan, where same-sex marriage is not legal, people started buying the game (Tomodachi Collection: New Life) after they learned of the bug. The game for Nintendo's 3DS system has been at the top of the sales charts in Japan since its release last month.

Nintendo does not like to be controversial, so they decided to fix the bug which allows men to marry men and date in the game (but women cannot marry or date other women in the game).

" "Whether unintentional or not, due to the political and social sensitivities of the issue Nintendo has been faced with a decision in terms of maintaining male-female marriages only, or using the discovered feature as an opportunity to open up the experience to same-sex couples. It seems that the company has gone for the former option," writes Thomas Whitehead at Nintendo Life."

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Aw, they should leave it and allow women to marry women in the game.  🙁 At least there's The Sims 3 which has same-sex marriage.

[Flan]

Nintendo has a long history of censorship. In Harvest Moon DS (for girls) when it was localized to North America, the option to "partner" ('best friend' event) with another female character was removed.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CensorshipBureau
http://www.gamespot.com/harvest-moon-ds-cute/forum/any-news-about-best-friend-system-42199178/

[Sarra]

Which was sad. I loved harvest moon, but the requirement to enter a heterosexual relationship to proceed made me stop playing the game. That and I sold my GCN. 😛

[Queen B]

Nintendo have a long reputation for censorship but they are quite more lax than they used to be, I think that if enough fans speak out against this Nintendo would be crazy not to listen, they didn't get where they are by being stupid, they know their bottom line.

[VeronicaLynn]

Nintendo also censored Mortal Kombat II,  a long time ago, removing some of the more violent fatalities and the blood. I always liked Shang Tsung, he could into every character in the game, including the female ones. Block, Block, Block turn into Kitana. Why isn't it that easy in real life?