Bill Trinen talks Tomodachi Life’s gay marriage situation
Nintendo of America product marketing manager Bill Trinen has issued some lengthy remarks regarding the situation surrounding gay marriage in Tomodachi Life.
You may remember reports that had surfaced from Japan about players being able to partake in same-sex relationships. This resulted from two scenarios: a data leak and players dressing up their Mii characters as males even though their gender was female.
The former scenario was caused by a free tool on the 3DS eShop which allows players to transfer Mii characters from the original DS game. Nintendo eventually patched the bug, though it’s obviously still possible “to create a male version of a Mii character and assign their gender as female.”
Trinen says that there have been some misconceptions in the west, but in Japan, there was no confusion. He also mentioned that Nintendo must “try to find what’s the best way to create this experience and really have a fun and entertaining experience.”
You can find all of Trinen’s comments below.
“There actually was a misconception over what the issue in December was. There were two things that were going on at the time that essentially were grouped together as one. The first, that there was a patch. And what the patch was fixing was actually a data leak.”
“The other thing that was going on was that quite a few Japanese players were dressing up Mii characters. Essentially they would create a male version of a Mii character and assign their gender as female, and that was how the two males were able to have a baby.”
“Because we didn’t have the DS version [in the West], there is no data transfer issue for us. So it was actually two separate things that got lumped together into one piece of confusion that resulted in people not quite understanding what had gone on.
“From our perspective it’s kind of tough because as a game development company, our primary focus is always looking at creating entertainment and fun and entertaining products. And there’s a lot of decisions that can go into that process. What we try not to do is… well, it would be very easy to look at Animal Crossing and say, ‘well, what wasn’t included in an Animal Crossing, so what’s Nintendo saying about that?’ We’re not really saying anything about anything; we’re just constantly trying to create fun and entertaining experiences.”
“We’ve got to try to find what’s the best way to create this experience and really have a fun and entertaining experience. And for us it’s all about a whimsical world where you bring these people together and you see what happens as a result.”
“I think, at the time, in Japan there actually wasn’t confusion. As it was reported in Japanese, they had an understanding of what the [data corruption] issue was. The other wasn’t an issue. It was just a unique way that people were playing the game.”
“At the time, because the game wasn’t out here, we hadn’t really gotten into the detail on it. And that was primarily because we hadn’t announced that we were working on the game.”
