BioWare has stirred up some controversy on more than one occasion due to the erotic nature of content in some games (the same sex love scenes in Mass Effect for example). One game writer recently weighed in on the controversy.
David Gaider (lead writer of Dragon Age: Inquisition ) recently gave some interesting insight on the matter (via Tumbler). “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?” Gaider said.
Gaider also touches on the fact that it’s hard to please everyone, and that removing these elements all together is a “temptation.” In regards to the upcoming Dragon Age: Inquisition , he said, “Some of them will rant at length as to how they were only deprived of said romance because of some agenda… 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…”
Rants like these, Gaider points to, are ones that will lead to his team having the conversation of “…why we even bother.” He says.