Great news. Like them or not, EA is a massive company in the game industry. Them doing it and making a deal out of it is only good.

Contrary to how people seem to see the civil rights as an event in the 60s, I like to think that it's been with us pretty much all the way to this point. And, it likely won't stop.

This thread went from something great... to an argument. :c

If it does get locked, it won't be for the wrong reasons.

Ahem...

I'm actually quite glad EA is doing this. Regardless of their possible motives, at least they're doing something positive and progressive inb the community. That's no small feat, especially since EA themselves have been (usually wrongly) accused of poorly representing homosexuals. It's good to see a company adapt to criticism in a positive manner (even if it seems like they may not have deserved that criticism in the first place).

I'm going to come out and ask that we keep this discussion civil, mature, and on-topic — you'll note i've deleted quite a few off-topic posts from this thread already. I'd like to see this not go the usual way hot-button threads tend to pan out, so let us do the worrying about whether a given thread will/should be locked or not (and if this thread does take a dive it will be locked, I assure you), report any comments that you feel violate our Community Rules, and let's all refrain from dropping homophobic slurs, even when used in example. We all know what those sorts of words are, and if you are honestly not sure what I'm talking about, go play an FPS with a headset for a few minutes and I'm sure you'll be given a thorough schooling from some random kids halfway around the world.

Thanks in advance, guys :3

You can't see it but I applauded my computer screen. Well done EA.

I think it's great that they're doing this, but I hope you do realize that they're doing this to get more sales on their new games, right?

Human rights are important and everyone should have the same rights despite sexual orientation/race/gender/religious creed. Kudos to EA for doing the right thing.

I've just developed mad respect for EA. It's a shame that this issue hasn't been thoroughly addressed by people in the industry earlier, but better late than never.

As I hav already said in this thread, a company's Corporate Social Reposibility program is not managed by the marketing department and is not funded by marketing dollars

So no, this is not an attempt to sell more games.

Yeah I'm not really sure that having "gaymer" conventions and whatnot is the right way to go about getting rid of prejudice. I mean, discrimination is based on the idea that a certain group of people are fundamentally different from the majority and should not be treated as equals. Having separate conventions for LGBT people is sort of counter-intuitive in my opinion.

That's what i was thinking: the idea is good, but it smells a lot that they mainly want to clean their image for wanting every little penny of us with abusive DLC and ingame purchases.. But, hey, they support gay raights, which is perfectly okay for a big company, but in heart, that will never change that they are some sort of evil company with some disgusting price and game policy.

I mean, we are talking about a company that wants to charge us more money for 70$ games: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/02/talking_point_the_sl...

Three times now..

I'm not making this up. The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program of a corporation - and all the big ones have CSR programs - has nothing to do with the marketing department.

Typically, CSR programs are extensions of Human Resources. The idea being that people that work at corporations feel better about their jobs when their job allows them to give back to the community. I've written about some amazing CSR programs. IBM, for instance, sends its staff from around the world to the most poor of poor communities. One IBM lady was telling me a few years ago that IBM paid to send her, and some other staff from Japan, The US, The UK and so on, to Africa for a few months to help an underadvantaged community.

But yes, that's a HR function, not a marketing one. I'm sure EA's CSR program is no different in intent.

@Bankai
Still, any company knows that doing this sort of thing will boost their reputation and will likely encourage consumers to support them.
It might not be the main motivation, but It's a very beneficial side effect that is surely taken into account.

It's not about boosting reputation. It's about maintaining a good Corporate Citizen profile.

In other words, it's about EA being a ethical company. Of course an ethical company will have a better reputation than one that doesn't have a CSR program, but no, the executives at EA did not go to whoever heads up its CSR program and say "hey, you, you better make us look good."

This is what happens. The CSR program would be treated as any other division within the company. It would have a budget and a manager who reports up to the executives about the projects it is undertaking.

This manager felt like this initiative was worth supporting. End of story, really.

I couldn't find any information on same sex pairing in that game. What's it like and who is it between? I was already intending on getting that game at some point but I'd like to know more about that aspect of the game.

Its a little bit ironic, because in a recent episode of IGN's Up At Noon, Brian Altano was making fun of EA's lack of women protagonists

Go to 5:44 if you want to see my point. But its a funny show, you should watch the whole thing.

How can you compare the two? The Civil Rights Movement was much bigger than this.

Great move on EA's part. They need a reason for someone to like them lol

Good news!

I'll be sure to give them an extra dime of my own then.