Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Was BG3 overly sexualized?

It’s not *just* to engage with fanfiction. Only the bear scene is just that.

1. Why does romance matter beyond fanservice?
a. Life defining feature incomparable in importance to a subset of the audience. This reads like a definition of fanservice.
b. Simulation of sexual identity is one of the closest-to-reality characters traits to roleplay in a game. It is easier to learn yourself from this feature than most other RPG feature. I could write an essay about this one ("who could ever identify with race or class issues?" "how could an rpg possibly contain impactful features?"), but suffice to note theme and metaphore aren't valued. It's about ease of impact, not its quality.
c. People are forcibly confronted with questions about what they want out of a relationship when they are playing an interactive relationship more than if they were watching a romance film. Forcibly?
i. Causes people to break up with poor partners IRL. Larian write dialogue the way arsonists start fires.
ii. Causes players to realise sexual, gender identity. I've heard that, and it's awesome. Any media that can help their audience come to terms with parts of themselves is double plus good. It's noteworthy that this awakening is more common in the fanfiction community than the general population.
d. It is the longest tail of the fandom you will create - people will write about a good romance in fanfiction for years.
The character analysis in those fanfictions will continue debates about your work for a long time. Players just don't respond to any other feature in this kind of manner. "Fanfiction writers are the best fans, so make sure to keep them happy."
e. Simply because of the cultural association with the fanfiction community, including romances will make female and LGBT+ players feel included in a game's community as it is making a feature predominantly for the fanfiction audience. No ambiguity here : "it is making a feature predominantly for the fanfiction audience"

2. How can we make better romances?
a. Do not have your romance culminate at the end of the game. Games have a longer playtime than any other media format. We have a lot of space to show the development of a relationship once it has begun, and we rarely take advantage of it. In the talk, this is framed as an opportunity to add depth to characters (because fanfiction writers care about character depth). All well and good, but no mention of how it could add depth to the overall story (fanfiction writers toss the story aside, so who cares?).
b. If you integrate really unusual systemic romance design into your game it will stand out. Standing out is good quality for a feature in a product. I would hope features in a true work of art are chosen for other reasons than marketability.
c. There are so many types of challenging relationship issues we've simply never seen in video games. Pick one. Write about it. BUT FIRST go talk to the game director to see if it fits with the vision. Maybe that's implied, but this presentation gives the sense that the romance writing wants to be noteworthy in itself. That's what I mean when I say the writing could fit in any game. It's presented as a themeless blob designed to maximize the appeal to a specific community. Larian don't have anything to say, they just want to challenge you for the sake engagement.
d. Don't treat this as pure escapist wish fulfilment. People will forget a story that is too 'happily ever after'. Again, impact for its own sake. There are a million ways to leverage a subplot of a larger story. Being impactful is only one of them, and it can be detrimental to the rest of the game if it turns focus away from something more thematically relevant.
e. Animated sex that is explicit is going to age. For this one, the presenter brought up a clip of another game, just to laugh at it and move on. Classy.
f. Players find solidarity and community in liking romances with unconventionally attractive characters. These characters are the target of way more obsession. To be clear, when Larian say "better romances", they mean specifically "romances that generate more obsessive fans".

And they actually go for dark themes, so I don’t think many other games could have inserted that.

But I'm very interested in other players' opinions on this. Tell me please, would you like to see such a thing in a romantic relationship with your favorite companion in your game?