[quote=@pugbutter]


And no, I don't draw an arbitrary line between the first three games and [i]Andromeda[/i]. BioWare's descent has been slow and gradual, because swallowing the "SJWs buy games so we should cater to them instead of our core audience" meme didn't happen all at once.
[/quote]


BioWare was a niche developer for most of their time until EA took them in. Their core audience was DnD and CRPG people which is a dwindling market. KOTOR was their first real title that put them on more radars because it hit at a time when Star Wars was in the public eye (for the wrong reasons). Jade Empire didn't exactly set the world on fire and it was Mass Effect that brought them out of the niche. BioWare's core audience shifted from the Dnd/CRPG crowd to literally fuckin everyone right around the time Mass Effect 2 came out and stripped everything down to generic shooter with ammo and arenas. Dragon Age Origins was their return to their niche and that even had gay characters in it as well as bisexuals. 

Their whole representation thing didn't suddenly happen and it was never a pandering thing. Sky and Silk Fox from Jade Empire are bisexual. It was only their recent games that included strictly gay or lesbian romance options with actual preferences like a person might have. Sera is a lesbian and not really into elves but loves qunari. Dorian's entire character is how fabulously gay he is. And both of these characters came after Steve "Hey I'm gay" Cortez and Samantha "I wanna fuck EDI's voice" Traynor. You could make an argument that Cortez is pandering but it's less pandering and more BioWare didn't know how to write a gay person without having him say "I'm gay". 

BioWare having queer characters in their games isn't pandering to the SJW crowd no matter what the internet machine says. This is the same machine that claimed having a black dude and a woman in Star Wars was pandering. People that don't like BioWare or who can't let go of Mass Effect 3/Dragon Age 2 like to scream about BioWare and it's the current climate of internet commentary that turns criticism of their choices and designs into shit slinging shout matches of "CUCKWARE PANDERING TO THE SJWS THEY HATE WHITE PEOPLE REEEEEEE." It absolutely IS a meme when people say "BioWare caters to SJWs". Because they don't. Even in Andromeda the lesbian and gay character are characters before sexuality. Suvi isn't just "I'm the lesbian" and Renley Baratheon isn't just "I'm the gay man" and in both cases you'd have to flirt with them as the opposite gender to even find that out. It's okay for there to be lesbians and gays and trans characters in video games. But they need to be characters first. That's the difference. 

There are problems with Andromeda as a video game. They don't have to do with its representation. Other than Hainley. Because what the fuck.