Mass Effect 3 - Interview @ Kotaku

Kotaku has two articles about Mass Effect 3. The first one features Ray Myzyka and Greg Zeschuk discusses why you can play as a gay man in ME3.   A quote about why this is so:

The corners BioWare may have considered to cut are not being cut. Hence, among other things, a Commander Shepard who now might be a gay man. "We are doing it as a service to our fans, because we think it's part of the expectation of a role-playing game," Muzyka said. "It's part of the expectation of a BioWare game because of the way our games have been for the last couple decades. We've had that kind of choice going way back to Baldur's Gate back in the 90's. It's been refined. We think it's a good thing to offer players. Choice is always a nice thing, when it works. When it's high-quality." BioWare today is, alongside Rockstar and a handful of other big-name game studios, an outlier. Most games, as violent as they are, remain sexless and void of talk or depiction of any sexual identity other than straight. The doctors know that puts them on the edge. "I would say, our entire career, one of the frustrations has been not just in this but in all kinds of areas we've been held to a really high standard," Zeschuk said. "It's always, ‘we can totally innovate everything. We can do this. We can do that.'

The second article on Kotaku is a Q and A with Ray Myzyka and Greg Zeschuk discussing rather humorously whether Mass Effect and Dragon Age are in the same universe?
Apparantly, the doctors have a Matrix feel to it all:

Me: So you're telling me Dragon Age is a video game series within the Mass Effect universe. I like that idea. Shepard is playing Dragon Age.

Zeschuk: In the future, it's the greatest franchise ever.

Me: I like it. I think every game should be played in one of the others. And it should just telescope out.

Muzyka: Maybe we're in a game right now.

Zeschuk: Think of all the emotional engagement we could have.

Muzyka: And I'll tell you one thing, Stephen, if that's not emotionally engaging, I don't know what is.

In other ME3 news, MCV brings news that pre-orders for Mass Effect 3 have been above expectations. On top of the Mass Effect 3 games attached to the launched weather ballons,
EA has planned some other PR and Marketing stuff:

“TV, cinema, online, print and outdoor activity will help capture the mainstream audience,” said EA product manager Will Graham.

“For the core Mass Effect fan, we’ve been building on the immersive nature of the game with a host of trailers, social media activity and fan site activation.

“Currently our pre-orders have broken the targets set, we are well ahead of where we were at the same point with Mass Effect 2 and we have all of the platforms aligned for launch, which is a first for the Mass Effect franchise,” Graham added.