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I personally don't understand the whole thing of a fictional character in a video game where there is absolutely no romance anywhere having a preference. I don't care whether my character in a game like Borderlands is straight, gay, lesbian, or anything in between so long as I can pop the heads off my enemies.
Because a lot of games have a story of some sort and traits can help flesh out a character?
Okay, but then leave it ambiguous and let people think of the character whatever they want. It doesn't matter if doomguy was gay, it matters that he slays
And then of the characters significant other is important? Like they complained about Spimer-Man 2, despite the playable characters not even being gay. We know that because we know who they are after.
It Takes Two. Me and my boyfriend played it. Beautiful game. Loved it. Plan to wait a few years and play it with him again. It's about a straight couple. I can't imagine how that game would work if we didn't know that. Like I guess we could keep stretching the argument to "Well they could be bi", I guess. We don't need to know that. But it kind of helps to know they're married to know the story. Otherwise it's gonna get weird with the kid involved.
We don't have to try and out progressive everyone for everything. A story can have a romance and we can see the romance and we can know who they're dating and we can know they're sexuality. None of this is the issue.
Your example would make sense in Doom. Sure. I've literally never seen anyone ask for it in doom. It's a terrible example because it's not that kind of game.
But for many games where the story is actually a big part, and not for games like Doom where the story really doesn't matter, it's fine. We can still celebrate love in really any shape or form(thats not harmful). If a game wants to avoid it, thats also fine. Once again, not arguing every game needs it. But if that's the story, that's the story, and it seems pointless to be angry that you know who a character is dating.
The movement for queer acceptance isn't for people to be hush hush and for us to make the closet bigger to invite straight people in. It's to get people out.
There's 2 problems with that
LGBT people deserve explicit representation as much as cishet people do, and cishet representation is all over media
Even if there's a LGBT coded character people will fight to death to say that they're actually very straight and that the degenerates are attacking them personally
That's an interesting one because I actually always headcannon doom guy as gay ever since I was a kid and it was just being silly, always pictured him as a badass marine that loves sucking cock and he's fighting his way to hell because his bf died and was sent there.
Duke Nukem on the other hand was explicitly hetro which is fun, I would have also enjoyed in a different game a character like the duke who was aggressively homosexual or even better a good representation of a ego obsessed badass power bottom that has all sorts of fun quips like 'I'm here to suck cock and kick ass, and I already drained everyone's balls...' it would be silly, fun, and we could have lots of shots of his toned butt and stuff... But no, thirty years later and people are still scared of fun. Sad.
:::
Couldn't he slay more fabulously though, if he was gay?
He killed demons with a chainsaw, the man has style
Don't call them gamers, that gives them credence and insults actual gamers. Call them what they are: insecure babies. There are many, many insecure babies with the exact same opinion that do not play games. They are worse than the gamer bros, because they're out harassing people face to face.
The problem isn't games or gamers or gamer culture. It's ignorant bigots. (yes, I know it's still fun to make fun of gamergate crap, that's why I still upvoted the joke)
The meme is drawing a difference between lowercase g gamers, who are normal people who play video games, and capital G Gamers™, who are insecure manchildren who tend to make up a vocal majority among gaming communities. If you disagree, spend some time in a CoD lobby, or on /v/, or in real life with men who spend their time playing video games. There are a lot more Azs than you think.
I really don’t see it much and I’ve been online gaming since the 90s. I think drawing attention to it like this meme creates more problems than it fixes.
Just ignore any trolls you come across. Don’t engage. The silence is more painful to the bigots than whatever logic or empathy you try to throw at them.
Not that I don't deny it, but are these things people think/care about? It's a video game, I can be anything depending on the game I am playing. I don't get mad or wonder why I have to play as a woman in some, hell I was perfectly fine playing last of us 2 which was a woman and gay. I can be a spirit or an alien and that's why games are so great.
I grew up with plenty, I still know a few through mutual friends. Every opportunity to complain about how "woke" games are these days is taken. If an lgbtq+ character is in any way involved, they immediately change any reviews to 1 star, start massively shittalking the game, and continue to play it while bitching to everyone and anyone about it the whole time, and for weeks after they finish.
In games that let me choose, I play a woman most of the time. Been mocked for it. Cool Bro, you play your way I play mine. Only I don't spend my time thinking of ways to try and make you feel bad for it.
When you can play as a mining ship captain in the year 3300 , a green plumber turned Ghost-buster in a world with kidnapping turtles , and a dinosaur all on the same day, like you said, who gives a fuck
Are most video games protagonists straight? Cuz I have played way more games where the protagonist is mute and doesn't show sexual interest in anything at all.
Like... Is Gordon Freeman straight? Doom guy? Kirby? Capt. Olimar? Red? The Prince of All Cosmos? 🤔
I'd say that video games have the most asexual representation of all forms of media.
Kirby sucks like a nanny goat.
That statement has more to unpack than a therapist's office in Trump tower
Me when I’m forced to play as a bishop even though I’m clearly a rook.
Why be a king when you could be a queen.
If you wanted everything in the video game to mimic your real life, just go outside. Video games have always existed as an escape, to put ourselves into a situation we'd normally never find ourselves in, to live a life we can't in the real world. If pretending to be gay for a few hours threatens your sexuality in a way that pretending to be a superhero for a few hours doesn't threaten your abilities, maybe that says more about your sexuality than it does about the game?
So many non-plumber people who were forced to play as plumber in Super Mario games. So many humans were forced to play as undead and orcs in WoW. Imagine the torture!!!
In a large portion of games I've played, there is no mention of the main character's sexuality at all.
Furries when they're forced to play as a human 99.99% of the time.
You've obviously never played FFXIV or been to Balmung and it shows
Y.. Yeah.
Touche!
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The generic white muscled male, who can do anything the plot throws at him (with only a bit of fake struggle), and gets the girl at the end, is so damn overdone in every media. People talk about characters being Mary Sue when John Sue is way more common.
I want variations in my fiction! All kinds of genders, preferences, cultures, opinions, and species. The only rule I have is for the fiction never to encourage cruel acts IRL.
Obligatory mention of New Vegas making sexuality a set of perks, just like in real life.
I don't understand people who complain about things like this.
Just don't play it. Easy as that. No conversation needed. Go play something else. There's only an infinite number of other options that you can spend your time on.
Representation matters.
The more it's shown, the more it becomes socially acceptable.
Idgaf about the orientation typically. But if it's gonna be explicitly called out, then it better be significant to the character's identity, otherwise it's just meaningless attempts for the developer to ingratiate themselves with the LGBTQ without so much as providing a representative character of substance. I can't think of any examples of these off the top of my head, but there were some games and/or shows where I lost interest because every character was whatever different flavor of sexual and I was just like "this contributes nothing at all to the story, who tf cares about that shit?"
then it better be significant to the character’s identity
I was saying the same thing a few years back, but now I don't even think it's the case. I think it's more like "if it's significant to the character's identity or the game's world, make it make sense".
For example, Cyberpunk's Judy was a great character. You could have several full playthroughs, and wouldn't know she was into girls if you didn't try to jump her bones that one time. You could maybe infer she was more than just good friends with that other character. And that's how it should be. I mean in normal conversation it comes up very rarely who are you into sexually.
All I'm saying, it's not natural in real life to know who everyone would do in real life, and it's not natural in a video game.
The industry has long invented a near-perfect solution:
MAKE IT TWO LESBIAN GIRLS
The only side still uncovered is gay men, that's all.
Who has the time to give a shit about this one way or the other?
Yeah don't lump me in with either of those two groups.
I don't give a fuck
On the realm of porn games at least, gay men are well served (provided you are also a furry).
I don't give a shit who or what I play as, as long as they're bad-ass
I can identify with Mario much better than these new “woke” characters because he has no discernible personality and nothing he does ever makes any difference to his world.
B.bbbb-but if I see it then I might catch The Gay! We all know that the moment you see or hear anything even remotely related to lgbtq+, you checks flash cards immediately burst into dance while singing Queen and waving a pride flag.
I play a woman named Vala (Mal Doran) or Adria in 99% of the games that let me customize. Because every other game I've played is always a generic male character doing generic action things.
"I've ~~seen that movie~~ played that game before" - Jordan Peele, if he were a gamer.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic had a lesbian character, with a fully developed romance with the player. Devs were forced to nix it, still there but requires a lot of work to unlock. First gay character in Star Wars canon, although I guess Disney owns our imaginations and that doesn’t count anymore.
Jade Empire is another BioWare title that you can be gay in - if you play as a man, there is a male romance option which basically requires a guide to do right. He won’t give you a hint there’s an option until you actively piss off every female romance option.
Yeah, Hollywood pandering is annoying and most of the time hollow. “The henchman from Beauty and the Beast is gay now!” But being able to make my Skyrim dude marry another Skyrim dude is great. I was early in transition when the Dragon Age with a trans guy came out - in a world where I was this alien in-between thing people didn’t understand, having this world where I could be normal was wonderful. Heck, Old School RuneScape upgraded their quests so you didn’t have to change your character to female for a quest and could be gay - I cried like a silly idiot.
Video games are escapism and queer people deserve escape too. There are enough stories for everyone.
The closest to sexuallity the character I'm playing at the moment can get is necrophilia (gay, straight, group sex - up to the player really) and I need to abuse the engine a bit and use my imagination.
Granted, in single player Project Zomboid there aren't any other living humans.
One of my favorite games makes no mention of the main character's gender, and the main character is always depicted in an outfit that is a sort of cross between a spacesuit and worker's coveralls. And it doesn't make one bit of difference in the game.