Where the Heck Has Shannon Been, and Easter Eggs in Dragon Age. Yeah, THAT Easter Egg.

Well, apparently it's socially acceptable for me to say "Happy Holidays" to everybody now - and simply because "Happy Holidays" is PC. Little known fact about the Shanster...I am obsessed with Christmas. Although I haven't been blogging lately, I have been fanatical about listening to Christmas carols and secretly counting down the days until I can decorate.

I know lots of people hate people like me, and admitting this to me readers may cause me to read a few of you (i.e. 3-5 of you)... which would mean I would lose all of you. Shit, I've got to get better at math. Either way, it's out now - a scrooge, I am not.

But that's not the only "news" I have! What's mostly kept me away from my blogging is that I have been adjusting my job situation, and have started a firm with two of my colleagues (one of whom, Steven Shapiro, has a wonderful brand licensing blog here). Our name is still TBA, but the firm will still have the goal of serving "baby businesses," entrepreneurs and start ups, particularly in the areas of entertainment, brand and IP licensing, and complex corporate matters. So, lots of planning has been going on, but rest assured there are VERY exciting things to come!

Alright, enough about me. Let's talk about sex, baby. Namely, homosexual sex in Dragon Age: Origin. That's one hell of an Easter egg if I've ever heard of one. Now, this little "secret" has been circulating the interwebs for some time now, but I haven't read a whole lot of substantive commentary. It's almost like no one wants to say "that's what I'm talking about!" Well, perhaps that's not the way they feel, given that's it's two magical dudes going at it. Either way, this is my blog, so I'm going to share MY opinion on it (funny how that works out so nicely...).

Thanks to Mrs. Gore, all video games bear cover-ruining stamp telling parents the overall "level" of content in the game. Dragon Age is rated "T" for teen, which, in this day and age, parents are usually cool with purchasing this game for their ten-year olds. They may not, however, have gotten around to explaining homosexuality to their kids. Not cool (on two levels), however, a parent's choice. My guess is that the ESRB was not away of Bioware's hidden "extra content," in which case I think it's a little out of line. That being said, is your average 10-13 year old going to find this Easter egg? Probably not. But they could, to me, that possibility alone takes it up to "M," which doesn't stand for "Moms, buy this game for your ten year old."

Now, please don't get me wrong; this isn't about homosexuality - I would be saying the same thing if it was a hot female black mage and a muscle-rippling male warrior (woah, I got a little carried away on that one...). And I like to consider myself as socially "liberal" (dare I use the term) as they come. However, I believe that the ratings system is designed to educate parents - although, in my personal opinion, parents also need to engage in independent research before purchasing a game. Parents should be making educated choices about the content they expose their children to, and hidden sexual content makes that very difficult.

I completely respect developers and the hard work they put into making a visual masterpiece like Dragon Age. However, make sure you know your audience, or the focus will be on one tiny part of your masterpiece, and that should never be the case.

Editor's Note: My lovely fiance pointed out to me that Dragon Age is actually rated "M," not "T." I was looking at the PC version online when I was doing my research for this blog. Luckily, this serves simply to bolster my argument that parents should find out what's in games, and, in the case of Dragon Age, this SHOULD involve simply looking at the cover (which is a dragon made out of blood spatter) and the big "M" slapped on the front.