Same Sex Marriage Causes Controversy in Tomodachi Life

Same Sex Marriage Causes Controversy in Tomodachi Life

Tomodachi Life is a recent game that was released in Japan, where players are able to import their Mii characters into the game and live their virtual everyday life. Players get to play minigames, make friends, eat, and even form romantic relationships, just not with Miis of the same sex.

Ever since its release in Japan, Tomodachi Life has been highly successful in sales. At one time, the game appeared to once be able to support same-sex relationships, however Nintendo described this incidence as a "glitch" within the new game that was quickly solved. This being said, same-sex marriage within the game was no longer an option.

Nintendo UK commented on how the misunderstanding sparked:

This occurred because they saw Japanese fans posting game screenshots of male and female Mii characters, where female Mii characters were designed and clothed in such a way that they looked male. Since these explanations were made in Japanese by the Japanese fans who posted the images, the Japanese people do not have such a misunderstanding.

Nintendo UK

Because pictures of female characters dressed as men were posted, this caused outside countries to believe that same-sex relationship were possible within the game. However there was another glitch that also had to be addressed:

Second, a critical bug occurred in the original Japanese version of the game which made it impossible for the player to continue the game. When Mii characters were imported from a Wii console, or the previous game in the Tomodachi Collection series on Nintendo DS (which was only released in Japan), into the Nintendo 3DS version, it could lead to scrambled Mii data within the Nintendo 3DS version. This could result in different Miis being randomly assigned to existing in-game relationships, such as already married Mii, or as just one other example, giving the appearance of same-sex relations. Because this bug caused the inability for the player to save the game data and continue the game, we released a patch.

Nintendo UK

Scrambling of data after the import of a Mii character seemed to be another reason as to why many believed that this feature was originally included within the game. Even though Nintendo seemed to pretty much sum up the issue, it still was not brought up whether or not this feature will be possible within the game in the future.

We know that Japan's version of Tomodachi Life has taken off the same-sex marriage feature within the game, but will that stop them from doing so for the UK or US version?

Nintendo seems to be taking a safe route within this controversy by avoiding this political and rights issue. This move may be criticized by those who strongly believe in incorporating a more current and fully inclusive quality of the game, but ultimately this approach may possibly be the smartest decision for company as of now.

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Joey Mesquita

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