Like many video role-playing games, Dragon Age: Origins, a medieval epic that was released in November for PCs, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, gives its players far more to do than wage war against mythical beasts.

The game, which was developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts, and is meant to take 60 to 80 hours to complete, allows players to develop combat and magic skills, interact with other characters and have romantic encounters. If you play as a male character, it is even possible to have a liaison with a male elf named Zevran.

This last detail has gotten Dragon Age: Origins (which is rated M for Mature, meaning that it is intended for players 17 and older) noticed by the news media, and has prompted a range of responses about the depiction of gay sex in mass entertainment.

At the conservative Web site World Net Daily (wnd.com), in an article with the headline “Players have dirty ‘gay’ sex in hit game,” Chelsea Schilling wrote that Dragon Age: Origins “depicts two men in various sex positions in a secret scene of homosexual seduction.” The gossip blog Gawker.com took notice of the game and the World Net Daily article, and responded with a rhetorical question: “Who, in these United States, could possibly object to foisting this content on teenaged boys?” Ryan Tate wrote. “Oh, right, like half the population.”

The game has also been noted by political and cultural bloggers, including Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic, and cited by the Web site GayGamer.net, which wrote that the scene “shines equality on gay love.”

BioWare, the game studio in Edmonton, Alberta, that created Dragon Age: Origins, said the inclusion of the gay sex scene, as well as other romantic interludes, was not meant to incite arguments or bolster any social causes, but to provide players with an immersive gaming experience.

“This isn’t a product about controversy,” Mike Laidlaw, the game’s lead designer, said in a telephone interview. “It isn’t a product designed to shock, by any means.”

Instead, Mr. Laidlaw said, the game “is designed to celebrate player choice and create a story that is reactive to the way you choose to play it.” The key to creating a believable game experience, he said, “is telling a good story.” He added, “Among the tools that we have as storytellers, I see romance as being one of the principal ones.”

BioWare, which also produces popular adventure games like Baldur’s Gate, Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, pointed out that the gay love scene in Dragon Age: Origins occurs only if the player chooses it. To prompt the sequence — which is far more chaste than scenes in “Brokeback Mountain” — the player must accept an invitation from Zevran to his tent and prompt him with a few lines of innuendo-laden dialogue. (“I was raised to take my pleasures where they could be found,” Zevran says after the rendezvous.)

Though male-female and lesbian couplings are also possible in the game (which received a highly positive score of 91 from the review-aggregation Web site Metacritic.com) for its PC release, it is the gay sex scene that seems to have provoked the most discussion and generated the most hostile reactions from commentators.

Other game publishers have faced severe punishments for depicting sexual acts in their releases. In 2005 the makers of the Grand Theft Auto video games — already disliked by parents and pundits because of their violent contents — were investigated by the Federal Trade Commission and faced several lawsuits when players discovered hidden sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. (These companies reached a settlement with the commission in 2006 and paid settlements in some cases.)

Expressions of gay attraction among actual humans can also have consequences in other entertainment media.

In recent days, the singer Adam Lambert had his appearances canceled on the ABC talk shows “Good Morning America” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” after his Nov. 22 performance at the American Music Awards, during which he kissed a male band mate and simulated sex acts with his male and female dancers. (The network has acknowledged that the performance received numerous complaints, but said it was not punishing Mr. Lambert, who is gay, for his sexual orientation.)

Mr. Laidlaw said that BioWare knew about the criticism of the gay scene in its game, but added that these comments were not coming from its customers. “People who have played the game are very happy with the experience that they’ve been having,” he said. “If players are happy with the experience, I think we’ve done our job.”