Mcface said:
Leodiensian said:
The poll is objectively, mathematically showing you are wrong - seventy five percent of people would welcome gay protagonists and only ten percent would be against it. You have anecdotal evidence, but here we have statistical evidence which is much stronger from a debater's perspective.
Thats the escapist, and in no way represents the majority of gamers.
This particular website attracts the a certain type of person, for the most part.
Correct, it does attract a certain type of person; it attracts gamers and people who play video games, people who talk and read about video games. And in a sample of 360 of these gamers, from varying nationalities, religious backgrounds and ethnic groups, 75% of them claimed they would not mind. And bear in mind that the majority of the people who voted will not be identifying as bi or gay. It's not a great sample size for some big psychological experiment, but it's still 12 times bigger than your 30 alleged anecdotal games and hence a far better platform to be base statements about what "most gamers" want.
Once more to turn your logic back on itself, multiplayer gaming attracts a certain type of person. A more competitive type, and possibly a type more prone to homophobic language; I'm not going to deny that. However, the option to play a gay character is currently most often found in non-MMO RPGs, which are single player. Not everyone plays multiplayer, of course; I practically never do and the last time I played something like Counterstrike was years ago, because I've been playing games for years but I'm not that competitive.
I personally am much more about the single player experience, because I'm interested in games both as an entertainment platform and as an emergent narrative platform. I want to see what designers can come up with - good or bad - because it's such a young medium that it's really still finding its feet in the grand scheme of things and the only way it'll learn is by trying new things. That means dabbling in things like character and narrative structure should be encouraged, from my point of view. If gamers try to stifle this through claiming they just wont play as a gay character, or a black character, or a girl character, we'll be stuck with some interchangable hetero caucasian male supersoldiers in cover shooters on various dirty-brown planets fighting aliens.
Variety is the spice of life. Overlord lets you play as the bad guy - it wasn't a great game from a gaming perspective, but it was fun to have that twist on a classic narrative formula. Mirror's Edge makes combat really ill-advised and focusses on platforming, which it actually pulls off really well despite having a first person perspective. Doing something with a fresh perspective can make a good game great and a mediocre game pretty good. And the only way we'll find out if a game with a gay protagonist can be enjoyable is when one gets made and put out there for general consumption and, most importantly, if gamers can be open minded. And, if this survey is anything to go by, the game won't be panned just for having a gay character; it'll be judged fairly on whether or not it's a good game.
