A Bioware forums user wrote up a big long post about how, in Dragon Age II, "Bioware Neglected Their Main Demographic: The Straight Male Gamer." This post went as you might expect, being the complaints of someone for whom the gaming industry only caters to a tiny 99 percent of the time. It's the usual self-involved complaints of a privileged dude who fails to see how hilarious he has accidentally become. (It's all too easy to imagine Stephen Colbert having written this.)

The rest of the world, the part that isn't straight and male, responded with variations on the theme of, "Welcome to my life!" Because the worst aspect of ignoring your privilege is that you come off like a total ass. It's like complaining about your sneakers being ugly in front of an audience of land mine victims. ALL THE TIME.

But this screed of entitlement did have a silver lining. Because it encouraged David Gaider, Bioware creator, creator and lead writer for both Dragon Age and Dragon Age II, to issue a singularly stinging slap-down. Made all the more awesome for existing under his official capacity, if not being the official corporate message per se.

Gaider acknowledges that in fact, straight male gamers are NOT their main demographic with the Dragon Age games. This may shock some straight male gamers, but there are other people playing video games. People who are not straight, or not male, or both. And Bioware knows which side its bread is buttered on. It has, in Gaider's words, "good numbers […] on the number of people who actually used similar sorts of content in DAO and thus don't need to resort to anecdotal evidence to support our idea that their numbers are not insignificant."

And this right here is the point I (and many others) have tried to make over and over. Although it seems that many straight male gamers still have difficulty wrapping their heads around it, I'm glad to see some of the industry movers taking heed. There is a lot of money to be had in catering to markets other than straight male gamers.

Just look at the Sims franchise, with its flexible sexuality, gender parity, skin tone variety, and with same-sex marriage baked in since the very beginning. A lot of "hardcore gamers" dismiss it as being little more than a toy, but that toy happens to be "the best-selling PC franchise in PC gaming history."

Gaider goes on to slather his post in awesome sauce. "the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They're so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance."

And don't I wish I could have that printed on a t-shirt?

Gaider's response is fantastic. His work is commendable on many levels. Bioware's products are pretty great. Aside from being accommodating - nay, welcoming - of non-straight and non-male gamers, Dragon Age II is getting insanely great reviews. You should get you some!

And I can't wait to see what projects Gaider creates in the future.

Photo credit: Flickr/man0riaX