GayGamer.net has a lot to answer for

[88chaz88]

Wootini is quite right and the term was used in the homophobic sense. I'm sure this would be allowed to slide if you were using the term amongst your friends but this guy was making a public statement and should have been more proffessional about it.

 

[gamer_parent]

I'm more surprised by the general amount of venom thrown at Gaygamer for being offended by this. I mean, did he overreact? probably. He probably could have acknowledge that it wasn't intended as a slant towards gay people, but still maintain that it was in poor taste. He clearly could have dialated his reaction back.

But wow, you guys here seem to be more offended that he's offended than anything else, like he should dutifully swallow that and stand for it. C'mon guys. Just because our somewhat deplorable youth culture attempts to reappropriate the word doesn't mean it ceases to hold the same meaning it does to the people it was reappropriated from.

But anyway, this is all relevant now, since they both apologized and that's that.

 

[Thyunda]

I'm surprised the man used the term gay that way, not because I find it offensive or because I think it's taboo but because it seems so juvenile and unprofessional.

Much less than David Jaffe's swearing (Dave please don't change).

It's unprofessional to say you're bored of hypermasculine characters who are so very obviously gay? Gay is not an insult. It's a word. Yes, you can use it to mean 'defective', but, now hold onto your seat, this might shock you, it can also mean 'homosexual', which was very clearly the intent in the post.
I personally don't see anything wrong with saying you're bored of seeing gay space marines. You get the two main characters. You see their power armour. And suddenly it's a bromance. You just see it coming. If games suddenly started featuring only female characters, would we dare say 'I'm bored of seeing all these women'...something I never thought I'd write, but still...? Or do we risk feminist attack because we're being offensive to women?

Think about it. What other word could the guy have used? He could have said homosexual, but that takes too long. He could have said 'flaming' but that would probably have caused even more. Hell, 'fabulous' would have been amusing, too, but the thought of Marcus Fenix with fashion sense...kinda scares me.

He meant gay as in defective not homosexual.

Now where'd you get that idea? He called the space marines gay, and how many games do you know with defective space marines? You're fishing for a fight, buddy. It was a jab at the blatant homo-eroticism between the protagonists of such shooters.

 

[Eduku]

Ugh. I hate it when a more vocal part of a minority group are so sensitive they get offended at the slightest thing.

Anyway, when I first read the comment, the first thing I thought of was the over-masculine 'bromance' (Top Gun, anyone?) found in shooters nowadays. Nothing 'homophobic' or anything.

 

[Spacelord]

If Mr. Denby had said "Dumb space marines", I doubt very much the mute community would be as up in arms about it as Wootini is.

To be fair though I doubt anyone'd hear them.

Zing!

 

[SonicWaffle]

Only if you let it separate you, if I call myself a gamer do I separate myself from the rest of society? Nope but its nice to go somewhere where people have a few things in common with you, and see where you're coming from when you complain about your parents not understanding gaming culture. Isn't that basically the same reason most people would join a site like gay-mers?

It reminds me of that scene from Life of Brian, where the Jewish revolutionaries are talking about various other anti-Roman factions and referring to them as 'splitters'. I'm a pretty big guy, but I don't feel the need to start ChubbyGamers.com to share my specific experiences of how difficult it is to be fat. If I want to talk about games I'll come here, if I want to talk about being fat I'll...I don't know, go on the WeightWatchers website. It just strikes me as odd - being gay is who you are, gaming is a hobby, why the need to have a special site to discuss your hobby with other gay people?

When there are so-called sandbox games that STILL only allow you to court someone of the opposite sex then yeah, actually, that affects you specifically as a gay gamer. Maybe I'm slicing the pie wedge just a bit thinner by patronizing a site that deals with issues that come up as a gamer but there's specific issues that come up when you're gay still. Is that stupid? Yes. Shouldn't it be different? Yes. But until it is, there's my site for people like me to talk about things that are applicable to me.

I don't really understand the problem with only "courting" (love that word) someone of the opposite sex. It's not as if it's real - I played a female elf mage in Dragon Age: Origins and you'd better believe I jumped every bone I could (only for the achievements, of course. Ahem.) and it didn't bother me because my character is not me. My character was a straight female, so she got banged by dudes. Multiple dudes, IIRC, until Alistair got all pissy about it. Little ***** that he is.

I see this much the same way I see the complaints from black people that they invariably end up playing white characters; does it matter? Why can't we just enjoy the game without stressing about what colour our character is or who they like to fuck?

 

[Timmehexas]

Only if you let it separate you, if I call myself a gamer do I separate myself from the rest of society? Nope but its nice to go somewhere where people have a few things in common with you, and see where you're coming from when you complain about your parents not understanding gaming culture. Isn't that basically the same reason most people would join a site like gay-mers?

It reminds me of that scene from Life of Brian, where the Jewish revolutionaries are talking about various other anti-Roman factions and referring to them as 'splitters'. I'm a pretty big guy, but I don't feel the need to start ChubbyGamers.com to share my specific experiences of how difficult it is to be fat. If I want to talk about games I'll come here, if I want to talk about being fat I'll...I don't know, go on the WeightWatchers website. It just strikes me as odd - being gay is who you are, gaming is a hobby, why the need to have a special site to discuss your hobby with other gay people?

Why do you NEED to go to a gaming site to talk to other gamers? Its not a matter of need its trying to find like minded people, I go to gaming sites to find like minded gamers. *shrugs* I don't really see the point in discussing it anymore, you seem pretty set in your opinion of it and it just don't see the point in trying to change it.

All I can say is its nice to join a group and know'll you'll be accepted instead of judged.

 

[lancashirered]

It?s a sad world we live in where previously repressed genders social groups get to own words. As a socially tolerant heterosexual male I should be able to use the word gay for any of its currently accepted meanings without the fear of labelled homophobic. Reading his original interview, it really doesn't look like he used the word "gay" as a derogatory reference to the homosexual community. Gaygamer.net has damaged its own credibility by blowing this all out of proportion. There are times when words are used as weapons to repress any social group, race and gender, but I don?t believe this one of those times.

 

[Jim-a-Lim]

Mountains over molehills. A pathetic excuse to conjure up an argument. But perhaps 'gay' isn't the right word to use when trying to demonize the cookie-cutter plethora of space marine games.

-Bingo
Got a gay gamer mate at work, I know he'd find this funny. Any excuse to create a fuss these days.

 

[Wereduck]

People using "gay" as a synonym for bad, broken, unwanted, useless can go to hell. I hope the first pizza-faced little basement dwelling puke who coined it fucking rots. Mkay?

This

As a straight white male I'm routinely irritated by mindless political correctness and double standards applied towards the majority group but THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE SITUATIONS. 'Gay' as a general derogatory term is derived from it's meaning regarding homosexuals - i.e. it's homosexual ergo it's bad. Does anyone seriously imagine it's derived from 'gay' meaning joyful?

I'm not saying anyone who uses the word in that context is a homophobe but we all appreciate that it can be understood that way so if you choose to use it you're taking your chances and had best be prepared to apologize when someone takes offense. If you're too petty to apologize then think before you open your mouth.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

He actually was using it to mean "homosexual" though. So I don't see the problem. He was using it to mean that the space mahreens were actually gay in the case of Dom and Marcus and all those other hyper-masculine chest-bumping bromance space mahreens. I mean the Escapist posted on him apologizing [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103716-Mafia-2-Producer-Apologizes-for-Gay-Space-Marine-Comment] and he explains it there.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I imagine he called them 'gay' simply to imply that the space marines in question tend to be super buff, muscle bound and oozing so much man-sweat and testosterone that it becomes almost homoerotic, like in 300.

300 is one of the gayest movies I've ever seen.

People aren't tired of the homo-erotic aspect, just the space marine aspect.

 

[Woodsey]

Be a deviant; Get offended when people treat you differently; Stay classy.

A "deviant"? xD

Didn't realise we were still in the middle fucking ages.

OT: Denby Grace did actually say gay meaning "Bromance" (just read the news piece on the Escapist), instead of gay as in "rubbish".

Still, they're becoming separate meanings for the same word if I'm honest. I've seen gay people use the word gay for the latter meaning without a second's thought.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I really got mad when homosexuals took the word gay which used to describe being lighthearted and carefree and turned it into a word that you could no longer use in public without being branded a homosexual.
And now someone has taken the word gay and turned it into something to describe something stupid like an activity i.e. "This 50 mile march in our underwear is totally gay"
And now the homosexuals are angry again.
What a bunch of bags.

You have an incredibly ignorant viewpoint there.

Gay people aren't an organisation that come up with plans to snatch words, or a collective hive mind that communally freak out over offensive things.

They're just dudes who like dudes.