And the latest MMO in a gay controversy is ... "Star Wars: The Old Republic"

This certainly isn't a promising start. The upcoming Star Wars MMO (massively multiplayer online) game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, a confusingly-titled companion to the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games, got the notice of video game blogs this week because its official boards had the words "gay", "lesbian" and "homosexual" banned. Until recently, game developer BioWare hadn't commented on the topic, leaving defenders to rationalize the ban as an attempt to avoid hate-speech that threw out the baby with the bathwater.

However, in a discussion of the ban, BioWare community manager Sean Dahlberg offered an unfortunate clarification saying: 

As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars. 

Thread closed. 

The thread has since been re-opened and the ban withdrawn (where posters were quick to name minor gay Star Wars characters such as Goran Beviin and Juhani) but this is another discouraging moment for gay gamers and Star Wars fans.

While the Star Wars books and games have shown that same-sex relationships occur in the Star Wars universe, the closest the films have gotten to including queer people was the Truman Caopte-inspired Ziro the Hutt.

Meanwhile, BioWare's history of gay inclusiveness in their games starts and stops with Mass Effect, which let players enter in a same-sex relationship with the all-female Asari race.

Star Wars: Clone WarsIntroduced Ziro the Hutt, a villain heavy on the stereotypically gay traits

Furthermore, Dahlberg's thread-closing statement is troubling. The experience of playing a MMO isn't limited to the themes developers decide to put in the game. MMOs require you to interact with real people and unless The Old Republic is going to have a rule that bans out-of-character conversations, a discussion of how sexual orientation will be handled in the game is relevant.

Sadly, the thread that started the discussion is an illustration of why gay gamers often find online gaming communities an unwelcoming place. The negative responses hit all the cliched points such as "This is a video game site, not a sex site.", "Won't someone think of the children!" along with cries of "Whining!" and "Political Correctness!"

I'd like to think this controversy will inspire a bit of introspection at BioWare about how it should treat LGBT players, but only time will tell. The game is schedule to come out sometime next year.

Are any readers following the development of Star Wars: The Old Republic? How have you felt, so far, about how LGBT players have been treated by BioWare? Is this incident a reliable sample of how gay gamers are usually treated or is this just an low point in an otherwise-positive experience?