Dragon Age writer ponders romances; would you buy a BioWare game without sex?

The inclusion of sex scenes and romances in BioWare's games has often led to heated discussions, with the original Mass Effect's same-sex love scenes being debated at length by mainstream media.

But would BioWare ever make a game without romances? That was the question asked to Dragon Age: Inquisition lead writer David Gaider on Tumblr. In a lengthy and fascinating reply, Gaider admitted straight away that "sometimes it’s tempting" to think of losing the developer's controversial love scenes.

Gaider said that there will be an "inevitable reaction" from disappointed people when the romances in Dragon Age: Inquisition are revealed. "Some of them will rant at length as to how they were only deprived of said romance because of some agenda," he said.

"We took away that romance because we’re mean, or because we’re boring and couldn’t we see that the romance they wanted would be so much more interesting? And that romance we actually put in is not only terrible but is homophobic/biphobic/racist/pedophilia/etc., which their romance pairing would not be."

It'll be at this point, Gaider says, that the development team at BioWare will have a "conversation of why we even bother."

"For the most part, it’s not hard to soon remember that we bother because there are a lot of people who enjoy the romances we write very much--and if there are people who take it to an angry place, it’s probably because they passionately care. And also probably because we do sometimes make mistakes and can indeed do better."

"To me, the thing that BioWare does best is not story but characters--I think our characters are done to a level that few other games even attempt, with an element of agency that strikes a chord in our players…and romances have been a natural outgrowth of that."

"Sure we could stop, but that would be turning our backs on something we do which almost no-one else does. The question would be: 'why?' And what do we replace it with?"

"There are a lot of people who enjoy that part of our games immensely and who might not be willing to buy into a new series which didn’t have it. Some folks might be eager to write those fans off, but I’m not really sure that BioWare feels the same."