FrontierVille's same-sex marriages originally a 'bug'

Zynga's FrontierVille is the first Facebook game to include same sex marriages. In the Wild West themed game, you create an avatar and, soon after you start settling your piece of frontier property, you have the option to take on a virtual spouse -- which can be a man or a women.

While all this seems modern and open-minded (not to mention, follows a bigger trend in video games, such as The Sims and Dragon Age, that depict sex scenes with same-sex partners) -- turns out that the options for a same sex spouse was totally unintentional. Zynga Chief Game Designer and FrontierVille creator Brian Reynolds says the option to choose male or female was originally a 'bug.' Players seemed to like it, he says, so they just left it in. Since then, the number of same sex marriages in-game is triple that in the US. That piece of data might explain the Fanny n' Bess Valentine's Day mission that launched in February, where the goal was to form a love connection between two of the game's female characters.