EA bans Dragon Age: Inquisition in India over gay content?
It seems people in India will have to find another way to play Dragon Age: Inquisition because EA refuses to sell the title in the region due to obscenity laws.
EA announced that it won’t release the game in India because the company doesn’t want to breach local content laws, however, they didn’t mention which laws they were talking about. According to NDTV Gadgets the ban is due to the gay content present in the game.
If that’s true, then I’m quite surprised that EA has decided to withdraw Dragon Age: Inquisition from sale in India because of gay content. It’s not as if it’s the first time Dragon Age has featured characters who give players the option for a ‘gay’ romance in the story. Dragon Age: Origins had Zevran, Leliana, and Morrigan, while Dragon Age II had Anders and Fenris.
The characters mentioned above were able to be romanced no matter the gender of the player. So, you can define them as bisexual or sexually fluid. You can easily have a gay romance and watch gay sex scenes with Zevran, Andres, and Fenris if you play with a male character.
Dragon Age: Inquisition on the other hand introduces Dorain, the first-ever actual gay character in Dragon Age. No matter what you do, you can’t pursue a romance with him unless you are playing with a male character. News about Dorian led to the usual homophobic reactions in the gaming community; however, writer David Gaider was proud of Dorian.
A representative of EA told Kotaku that the company’s decision was because of ESRB content description for Dragon Age: Inquisition. The description talks about a lot of sexual content in the game.
This is not the first time a game has experienced some sort of ‘penalty’ due to the laws of a country. Russia put an adult’s only rating on Sims 4 because it allowed players to have a gay romance and in turn was harmful to children.
People in India who pre-ordered the game will be refunded. So, at least that’s some comfort for fans of the RPG franchise who waited years for the latest title and paid for it before-hand. I guess they will have to ask someone else to send them a copy from abroad or maybe find less reputable means of playing it.
I’m currently playing Dragon Age: Inquisition and will get a review up as soon as possible. It has hours of content and yes, Dorian is gay and he’s awesome. His full name is Dorian Pavus and the way he rebels against his upbringing seems to mirror his sexuality in the most enjoyable manner. As far as the sexual content in the game is concerned, it’s not something I haven’t seen before in the previous titles of the franchise.
India recriminalized same-sex relationships last December. So, it’s possible EA doesn’t want to get on the bad side of the country’s law by releasing a game that might cause possible out lash from some people.
Have you played Dragon Age: Inquisition yet? What are your thoughts about EA banning the title in India? Let us know!
Author: Farid-ul-Haq
Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.
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Oh, so a country where gang raping women is a national sport won’t allow gays in a video game? How pathetic.
That says it all.
CHRIS I get what you are saying, but the way you said it, and generalizing such a thing to a whole country, is you know, disrespectful. So, keep that in mind when commenting cos of the site’s comment policies 🙂
But yeah, I do agree with you. Anti-LBGTQ+ countries have more serious problems to worry about than a video game that contains gay content.
Please don’t generalize an entire group of people like that.
I don’t mean to overstep and Chris can certainly correct me if I’m wrong, but I took the original statement as a reflection of what the “country” tolerates – i.e. the government, whether openly or by a demonstrated lack of interest. I didn’t get the impression the OP’s statement was meant as a generalization commenting on the people (general populace) of India who, as with the people of any other country, would have a diversity of opinion and ideals. I see how the wording may be open to interpretation (and appreciate the site’s desire to ensure that gross generalization isn’t acceptable). But I didn’t get the impression that the OP was in any way implying that the people of India as a whole tolerate that behavior any more than anyone else would.
Fair enough. I didn’t issue a warning because it was open to interpretation. Still an awkward and potentially triggery comment. But it’ll stay.
I need to point this out since I happened to notice.. Morrigan in Dragon Age: Origins is straight and in Dragon Age 2 all the romanceable companions (Fenris, Anders, Isabela and Merril) can be romanced with both male and female characters.
Sure we don’t want to generalize but (unfortunaely) sarcastic Chris has a point here, bad censorship is always gross: it’s awful that there are still this kind of issues in lots of countries (religions-theme included), anyway a big shout out to this game series!! Tat’s great news & 1 of the right ways IMO to reach the mainstream market (it’s particularly relevant being it mainly aimed to a young audience :-)).
This game graphic is very beautiful.