Poll: Games aren't gay enough.

[Bara_no_Hime]

Annywho, I heard a rumor you were pregnant (not a malicious one) and was going to ask if it were true. If so, congratulations! If not... well... that's a rumor I heard lol.

I'm not pregnant anymore... as my two-month old child can attest. Or could if said child was yet capable of speech.

And thank you. ^^

 

[In Search of Username]

Cortez is just a horribly offensive stereotype of what a gay man is. IMO.

Please explain this to me. I've seen a lot of people saying this, and it just doesn't make any sense to me. Cortez is the LEAST stereotypical gay character I have ever seen in anything. INCLUDING REAL LIFE. At no point does he act in any way like what a stereotypical gay man would act like, far as I can tell. What exactly offends you about him?

 

[Verrenxnon]

Honestly, I was disappointed that "Brokeback Mountain" wasn't about the Man With No Name who just happened to be gay.

It'd be nice to see gay protagonists whose sexuality was just a facet of their character. ME3's Cortez was a decent start, but he wasn't a character. He was just "Gay Romance Option" with one-note characterization. And not terribly convincing voice work.

The point of all this shouldn't just be for multicultural purposes (but that IS a major motivator); protagonists in mainstream games are getting awfully samey. A little bit of nuance can go a long way.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

It doesn?t disturb me, but yes, it would be nice to have some diversity. You could say the same thing about the underrepresentation of minorities, non-sexualized females, and transgender people*, especially as main characters rather than supporting characters. But, because gaming is still a relatively young medium, they?d just end up making most homosexual characters in-your-face stereotypes or have it as their only defining personality trait. And everyone knows that sexuality shouldn?t be a personality trait. I mean, wasn?t there an extremely pandering sex scene in God of War 3 that had a bunch of ?honorary lesbians? getting turned on by Kratos and then turning their arousal on each other? Jesus Christ, we?re not all horny teenage boys, and even if we were, we can find that shit on the internet. We don?t need a video game to get our jollies.

What I do find annoying, in both films and video games, is how they try to shoehorn relationships, obviously mostly heterosexual, into things that don?t call for it. Like in The Matrix, the entirely unnecessary plot point towards the end of Trinity, the only woman on the team, falling in love with Neo for no fucking reason and kissing him to give him life when he?d been knocked unconscious by Agent Smith.

As for whether or not it would turn some gamers off from buying a game?really? I think even the most immature of homophobes wouldn?t be bothered that much from a male main character perhaps muttering on the attractiveness of his male comrade, or maybe a woman?s supposedly unhealthy fixation of the female antagonist that?s eventually discovered to be her anger at their betrayal in a relationship. Or, you know, subtle implications. I?m just snowballing here, but something like that would be fine. Good writing is key here, not a devolution into one-dimensional caricatures.

But as surg3n said, I personally play video games instead of having sex. That?s why it kind of annoys me when, for example, playing Super Street Fighter IV, Capcom seem to be trying to sell me porn (hyperbole, but you know what I mean) by including a sexy teenage schoolgirl whose skirts flies up almost every time she fucking moves and practically saying, ?Look! Play as her! Masturbate!?, when all I want to do is just try out some combos and brawl with other people without a raging boner. I don?t care about sex in video games, I don?t care about romance, I just want to have fun, and video games should stop trying to pass themselves off as films.

Although, chances are, there probably is some bara eroge visual novel game from Japan that?d probably be controversial in the West.

[*I mean, heck, the entire reason Poison, originally just an enemy character in Final Fight, is notable today and included in Street Fighter X Tekken is because of her transsexual status, complete with ?hurr durr she?s got a dick? win/lose quotes from other characters in the game]

 

[verdant monkai]

I would prefer games to concentrate singly on being entertaining. I would prefer to play a game which someone has designed to be awesome, rather than a game which has a romantic gay love story between two disabled Russian guys, crammed in to please people who like to be extra politically correct, or are gay Russian and disabled. I would prefer developers to put all their effort into making the game the best they can make it. Rather than including unessential shit to pander to social demographics.

Call me selfish, rude, uncaring whatever. I'm uh busy guy I don't find homosexuality/ being poor etc. entertaining. So when I have free time I dont want it filled with all that stuff. In want it to be pure entertainment with nothing in the way. I dont waste my time hating on that sort of thing and I know there is a time and a place for it, but I am not entertained by it. So no I dont want anything like that in the game.
UNLESS IT IS USED IN AN INTELLIGENT WAY TO AUGMENT MY EXPERIENCE AND THE OVERALL QUALITY OF THE GAME.

 

[zehydra]

Careful, ask for "gay guys" in games and you're likely to get overly flamboyant twinks who flap their wrists and go "oh YOOHOO!"

More important than having gay characters is having the option to be gay (in the case of RPGs)

 

[Dr. Doomsduck]

Just so you know I'm not here to poke fun or be an arsehole. I'm here to find an answer to a question I've had stuck in my head recently. Any insensitivity is probably due to the fact I care very little about polotical correctness and I lack alot of tact when it comes to matters such as this.

Listen, being politically incorrect, or tactless is exactly the same as being an asshole. The only people who differentiate between those two is the people who believe they have a right to be assholes to others. You are not born politically incorrect, it is not an excuse. You're tactless? Fine, go work on it. If not for everyone around you, then for yourself. It might make people want to approach you more kindly as well.

Can you imagine what it's like to be compared to a paedophile or someone who performs bestiality?

No?

Try it? Seriously. Would you feel angry? Would you feel sad? Would you be insulted?

Congratulations, you have now mastered the first step into empathy.

Step two: Envision the question you wanted to ask and think before you hit that enter button whether or not the question would insult you if it were asked to you. Is the answer yes? Try again.


do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you.

 

[Skullpanda]

Yes. I agree. We need happier games. Everything is all grim and gritty and hardcore...people need to relax and just enjoy stuff more.


...Wait. I mixed up definitions again, didn't I?

 

[Jegsimmons]

[HEADING=1]who gives a shit?[/HEADING]
if you're the type of person whose worried about the lack of gay characters in video games, you probably shouldnt be playing video games.
remember gay people make up like a third of a percent of the US. so why do we need a WHOLE of video game characters to be gay?

how about we focus on gameplay and story first, worry about gayness later unless it directly effects characters in a story?

 

[lord.jeff]

I can't say I really care I don't think gay or straight is a big enough deal to me for it to change the character, plus most game romances are weak and shoehorned in anyway.

 

[Sepko]

Their sexuality isn't important and most people just assume those characters are heterosexual anyways.

But if it ever, came out, that Mario and Donkey Kong, etc are officially gay, I would never play one of their games again.

Afraid The Gay might radiate out of the screen and infect you?

 

[VeneratedWulfen93]

Just so you know I'm not here to poke fun or be an arsehole. I'm here to find an answer to a question I've had stuck in my head recently. Any insensitivity is probably due to the fact I care very little about polotical correctness and I lack alot of tact when it comes to matters such as this.

Listen, being politically incorrect, or tactless is exactly the same as being an asshole. The only people who differentiate between those two is the people who believe they have a right to be assholes to others. You are not born politically incorrect, it is not an excuse. You're tactless? Fine, go work on it. If not for everyone around you, then for yourself. It might make people want to approach you more kindly as well.

Can you imagine what it's like to be compared to a paedophile or someone who performs bestiality?

No?

Try it? Seriously. Would you feel angry? Would you feel sad? Would you be insulted?

Congratulations, you have now mastered the first step into empathy.

Step two: Envision the question you wanted to ask and think before you hit that enter button whether or not the question would insult you if it were asked to you. Is the answer yes? Try again.


do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you.

You are asking me to change what kind of person I am. I refuse. I don't want to be politcaly correct because i think its bullshit. I had an opinion, a niggling feeling that I couldn't shake and wanted to resolve it. My delivery shouldn't matter. If someone thinks less of me for having free will then so be it.
If someone calls me anything i turn the other cheek and don't waste my breath.

 

[Yopaz]

I just don't see any actual need for it in gaming. Not talking about gayness, just sexuality in-general. You want the character to be gay? Great, he is, but do we really have time to worry about his sexuality when DEATHAGEDDON, LORD OF BONES is currently defiling the world with his vile hordes? It can be used for cutscenes and talks to flush out characters and set them apart, but sexuality in a game, varying to a certain degree depending on what the game is actually about, doesn't need to be that big of a deal.

Thank you! I don't care about my character's sexual preference. I want a good game, not some sort of dating simulator. If it's relevant to the character or to the story they could add some romantic idea, but honestly I don't think sexuality is required for a good story.

 

[C117]

I think the biggest problem with how gay people are portrayed in games, is the way the developers makes it incredibly obvious that they ARE gay, flaunting their sexuality for everybody to see in the form of not-so-subtle hints like "I'm homosexual, yo". Homosexual people don't act like that in real life, heck, heterosexual people don't act like that in real life! It's just ridiculous!

 

[HardkorSB]

EDIT: HOLD THE PHONE, DADDYO. I don't want token characters, just want variety cause it's generally a good thing and groovy and stuff. Okay? Koo. And I don't mean to bad-mouth Mass Effect, I enjoy most of it, I just personally found the relationships odd. I still admire the attempt by Bioware.

Yes, I did give it that title to be eye-catching. If your reading this, it worked. DANCE PUPPETS.

I've come to a disturbing realization recently. I was playing Persona 4 with a friend about a week ago (she's a lesbian) And she asked if the main character could be gay. He couldn't, and she found this weird, as one of the lead characters in your party was.

And...I kinda found that weird as well. And then I noticed something worse: I couldn't think of a single decently portrayed gay character besides that one guy. In all of gaming. Period.

I mean, I'm not exactly a champion of political correctness, but that kind of horrifies me that 2012, we only have ONE well-written gay guy in the whole mainstream gaming spectrum. 0 well-written lesbians. I'm sure some of you can point me in the direction of indie games and some visual novels that defy this, and that's better than nothing, but what about the mainstream? And I know Shepard and other such open-world leads can be gay, but I'm talking about in-canon characters that are written as GAY. I'm not so sure I consider his/her love interests to be all that well written at times, personally. I mean, they're great characters, but I feel like they act...odd when you get them in the bedroom. I dunno, maybe that's nitpicking.

Either way, that's only 2 mainstream games that does this (debatably) right. Does this disturb anyone else? I thought our little medium was growing up. Was I wrong? I don't think it should be mandated that all games include a member of every race, gender identity, sexuality etc. But inclusion is a good thing, no? I'd like to see a bit of variety to next cast of heroes, for more reasons than one.

Why do you want people to cram gays into their games just because there "aren't enough gays in games"? That can only end up with token characters.
Most writers don't write gay characters because they themselves aren't gay and wouldn't even know how to write gay characters accurately.
You know those token black characters in movies, the ones that are stereotypes, the ones who always die in a horror movie? Movie makers were often pressured into putting black people into their films for the sake of political correctness but they didn't like it so some of them would purposefully write them badly and/or kill them off in the most brutal of ways if they could.

Also, in gaming, story isn't always the main focus so adding homosexuals is pointless then.
And even when the story is the main focus, if the fact that the character is gay doesn't serve the story in any way, I don't think the writers should bother (it would just seem like pandering to people to broaden the demographic).

 

[Skratt]

I could play a gay main character if there were no relationship building involved. Love stories can add to a game experience but since I can't relate to being gay it would just be awkward and weird and not a lot of fun. Maybe just have some references to it so you get to know the character, but that's it. It was a neat concept to have relationship options in Mass Effect, but I don't think the game would have suffered much (if any) had they been absent.

 

[Amaror]

EDIT: HOLD THE PHONE, DADDYO. I don't want token characters, just want variety cause it's generally a good thing and groovy and stuff. Okay? Koo. And I don't mean to bad-mouth Mass Effect, I enjoy most of it, I just personally found the relationships odd. I still admire the attempt by Bioware.

Yes, I did give it that title to be eye-catching. If your reading this, it worked. DANCE PUPPETS.

I've come to a disturbing realization recently. I was playing Persona 4 with a friend about a week ago (she's a lesbian) And she asked if the main character could be gay. He couldn't, and she found this weird, as one of the lead characters in your party was.

And...I kinda found that weird as well. And then I noticed something worse: I couldn't think of a single decently portrayed gay character besides that one guy. In all of gaming. Period.

I mean, I'm not exactly a champion of political correctness, but that kind of horrifies me that 2012, we only have ONE well-written gay guy in the whole mainstream gaming spectrum. 0 well-written lesbians. I'm sure some of you can point me in the direction of indie games and some visual novels that defy this, and that's better than nothing, but what about the mainstream? And I know Shepard and other such open-world leads can be gay, but I'm talking about in-canon characters that are written as GAY. I'm not so sure I consider his/her love interests to be all that well written at times, personally. I mean, they're great characters, but I feel like they act...odd when you get them in the bedroom. I dunno, maybe that's nitpicking.

Either way, that's only 2 mainstream games that does this (debatably) right. Does this disturb anyone else? I thought our little medium was growing up. Was I wrong? I don't think it should be mandated that all games include a member of every race, gender identity, sexuality etc. But inclusion is a good thing, no? I'd like to see a bit of variety to next cast of heroes, for more reasons than one.

No i don't think there should be more gay characters in games
...
now hold on let me explain myself. What you are saying is not: "There are so few gay people in games...", its "There are so few gay people in games that we take notice of..."
That's a different thing. How do you want to know that, for example, canderous of knights of the old republic is straight?
What i really hate is that in every media someone is either straight or so gay that rainbows shine out of its ass.
Most of the characters you meet in games are other soldiers and you don't need to know what their sexuality is.
I know quite a few gay people and, believe it or not, they are just normal people, that just happen to like the same gender.
They don't go around telling everyone they are gay and they don't regulary dance with rainbows, either.

When you tell developers to put gay people into games, then they will mostly just make it their one and only character trait and that sucks.
I know you asked for "good developted gay characters", but you can't just demand something like that. The development team needs to want this character to be gay, maybe because it makes sense, not because you told them to. Otherwise the character will just be bland.

And nearly every single time a developer puts something like this into their game, they just want you to know REALLY REALLY Bad.
Like Cortez of mass effect 3. Every single sentence he said could be strechet down to "I HAD A HUSBAND! I AM GAY! DO YOU GET IT NOW?" And i hate something like that.

 

[Dr. Doomsduck]

Just so you know I'm not here to poke fun or be an arsehole. I'm here to find an answer to a question I've had stuck in my head recently. Any insensitivity is probably due to the fact I care very little about polotical correctness and I lack alot of tact when it comes to matters such as this.

Listen, being politically incorrect, or tactless is exactly the same as being an asshole. The only people who differentiate between those two is the people who believe they have a right to be assholes to others. You are not born politically incorrect, it is not an excuse. You're tactless? Fine, go work on it. If not for everyone around you, then for yourself. It might make people want to approach you more kindly as well.

Can you imagine what it's like to be compared to a paedophile or someone who performs bestiality?

No?

Try it? Seriously. Would you feel angry? Would you feel sad? Would you be insulted?

Congratulations, you have now mastered the first step into empathy.

Step two: Envision the question you wanted to ask and think before you hit that enter button whether or not the question would insult you if it were asked to you. Is the answer yes? Try again.


do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you.

You are asking me to change what kind of person I am. I refuse. I don't want to be politcaly correct because i think its bullshit. I had an opinion, a niggling feeling that I couldn't shake and wanted to resolve it. My delivery shouldn't matter. If someone thinks less of me for having free will then so be it.
If someone calls me anything i turn the other cheek and don't waste my breath.

First, you said you had a question, now it's an opinion?

If you really didn't care about other people and their opinions, then why bother shouting out yours to the world? Do you want to convince them? Do you want them to listen to you?

If you thought being polite was bullshit, then why post that you don't mean to be an asshole when you obviously don't care whether or not you are one. 'cause you're such a bad boy, you ain't ever gonna change, right?

I do think less of you now, and I'm guessing, based on the other discussions here that there are a lot of people in this thread who are thinking less of you now. Also, you haven't turned me the other cheek. I called you something, and here you are, saying you want to be yourself. Defending your right to be 'politically incorrect'.

Do you exercise your free will when you talk to your mother? your teachers? The elderly in your neighbourhood? Does your delivery matters then? They are no more deserving of your respect than the people on this forum, than the gay people we're talking about.

Change is a natural aspect of life, I should sincerely hope that you are not the same kind of person as you were when you were five. Think of it as growing up.