Gay gamer battles Nintendo on same-sex marriage

Tomodachi Life, a new social simulation video game for Nintendo’s handheld game system, allows players to import a virtual version of themselves called a “Mii” into a virtual world where they interact with other players’ Miis.

Miis can take romantic walks on the beach, have awkward “define-the-relationship” talks over coffee, get into lovers’ quarrels and get married to someone of the opposite sex.

But they can’t marry someone of the same sex.

Last week, Tye Marini, a gay gamer in Mesa, Ariz., started the #Miiquality campaign to convince Nintendo to make same-sex marriage an option in the new U.S and European versions of the game that comes out next month.

“Not being able to date and marry the gender that I’m attracted to in real life really takes all of the immersion and fun out of the game for me,” Marini says in a video for the #Miiquality campaign.

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It wouldn’t be as big of a deal if relationships weren’t such a huge part of the game, Marini said. Many features of the game, like having a kid or getting a bigger house, are only accessible if you get married.

The most popular social simulation game, The Sims, allows same-sex relationships. Increasingly, so do other video games, including popular fantasy role-playing games such as Dragon Age and Fable.

So why didn’t Nintendo make same-sex relationships an option in Tomadachi Life?

“The relationship options in the game represent a playful alternate world rather than a real-life simulation. We hope that all of our fans will see that ‘Tomodachi Life’ was intended to be a whimsical and quirky game, and that we were absolutely not trying to provide social commentary,” Nintendo said Tuesday in a statement. 

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Public opinion on same-sex marriage is split in Japan, according to a recent poll, which found about half of respondents think gay marriage should remain illegal. About a third of Americans believe it should be illegal, according to a March Bloomberg poll.

Marini responded that excluding same-sex relationships is a form of social commentary.

The game was a top seller when released last April in Japan.

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