The Surge in LGBT rainbow characters - AKA: The New Demographic and why its happening.

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

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This is true, no real way to get around that. The problem is that we don't really know exactly what the publisher demands of the dev. A lot of times that happens behind closed doors. Heck, three years later and we don't exactly know if ME3's shit ending was because of EA or not (They say it was Casey Husdon but the BY MOAR DLC thing at the end makes me question if they're being honest with me). So we have no idea if there's a gay mandate, but personally I kinda doubt that. Publishers are the reason so many games a getting homogenized today, making so many games look a wee bit similar, and gay characters in gaming are still too few for it to strike me as something publishers would look at and say "Yeah this is a real money maker!" especially considering the most recent example, Mortal Kombat, is so subtle plenty of people played through the game without realizing he was gay. If the death of survival horror in the AAA market is anything to go by, publishers aren't very good at being subtle, so I doubt this was just a corporate mandate.

You miss the point. Due to the fact that most game company CEOs come from packaged goods there is also a bit of an awareness of publicity from then. Therefore intentionally forcing their development studios and teams to shoehorn in characters they hadn't planed for is something they do. They don't do it because, "This is a real money maker!" They do it so they can say; "See our game has a gay/trans/black/Asian/Hispanic/whatever character, see we're inclusive!" This is a stunt done not directly to make money, but to make a company look good so that people will have more good will for them. Good and bad publicity are both wins because they get your name out there, they get the product out there. Weather it's negative, or positive attention, it's still attention that brings in customers. Often times for negative, you get people going; "I need to see if it's that bad." For positive attention it's; "This company has cleaned up their act," or "well now I have more good will for them." But if it's inserting characters from a minority, or sensitive under represented group, it's most likely an attempt to get on the customer's good side by being politically correct.

Though there are plenty of developers who include gay/trans/whatever characters because they want to. They still tend to go for the stereotypical and token approach rather than actually writing a character who is gay/trans/whatever who is dealing with their challenge, and is more than just gay/trans/whatever.

Edit:

Basically what it is, is pandering. It's pandering because a lot of people with no connection to the community are championing the community as of late. Really it strikes me like why so many people want gay marriage without actually being gay them selves, and without considering what sort of possible consequences there are for it. I'm not gonna dive in to detail on that matter though.

Wanting equality for others and having empathy for groups that you aren't in means you're "pandering" apparently. Like all those guys that wanted equal rights for women, or whites that wanted equal rights for blacks. It strikes me that they could do that without actually being a woman or black themselves.

Thanks for taking just a small snippet without addressing the point as a whole. Nice way to make a strawman argument there.

If you bothered to address my actual point: It's the people who do it so they can give themselves a politically correct pat on the back, not the people who actually care about equality. Most people will jump on a bandwagon so they can feel good about themselves for doing the bare minimum, not because they care about whatever group is being oppressed. As soon as these things leave the headlines these so called empathetic people suddenly vanish, is that a coincidence? No it's because they do it more to look good and feel good about themselves. While plenty of people actually do care, they generally get drowned out when the outrage group descends on the cause they support. Which usually leaves the cause the worse for wear in the short term. Non-LGBTQ people can support the LGBTQ community, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Where it gets upsetting, wrong, and bad, is when people do it to look good socially and for political reasons only, instead of actually caring about the issue at hand.

 

[Erttheking]

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This is true, no real way to get around that. The problem is that we don't really know exactly what the publisher demands of the dev. A lot of times that happens behind closed doors. Heck, three years later and we don't exactly know if ME3's shit ending was because of EA or not (They say it was Casey Husdon but the BY MOAR DLC thing at the end makes me question if they're being honest with me). So we have no idea if there's a gay mandate, but personally I kinda doubt that. Publishers are the reason so many games a getting homogenized today, making so many games look a wee bit similar, and gay characters in gaming are still too few for it to strike me as something publishers would look at and say "Yeah this is a real money maker!" especially considering the most recent example, Mortal Kombat, is so subtle plenty of people played through the game without realizing he was gay. If the death of survival horror in the AAA market is anything to go by, publishers aren't very good at being subtle, so I doubt this was just a corporate mandate.

You miss the point. Due to the fact that most game company CEOs come from packaged goods there is also a bit of an awareness of publicity from then. Therefore intentionally forcing their development studios and teams to shoehorn in characters they hadn't planed for is something they do. They don't do it because, "This is a real money maker!" They do it so they can say; "See our game has a gay/trans/black/Asian/Hispanic/whatever character, see we're inclusive!" This is a stunt done not directly to make money, but to make a company look good so that people will have more good will for them. Good and bad publicity are both wins because they get your name out there, they get the product out there. Weather it's negative, or positive attention, it's still attention that brings in customers. Often times for negative, you get people going; "I need to see if it's that bad." For positive attention it's; "This company has cleaned up their act," or "well now I have more good will for them." But if it's inserting characters from a minority, or sensitive under represented group, it's most likely an attempt to get on the customer's good side by being politically correct.

Though there are plenty of developers who include gay/trans/whatever characters because they want to. They still tend to go for the stereotypical and token approach rather than actually writing a character who is gay/trans/whatever who is dealing with their challenge, and is more than just gay/trans/whatever.

I fully admit that I don't keep public announcements from gaming companies under a microscope but I can't remember a specific example of a gaming company ever coming out and say "Look at us, we're inclusive." Maybe a couple of times but I can't pin them down. Not necessarily. Bad publicity doesn't necessarily translate into sales, if it did every game Jim ripped apart for abusing Steam would've had their sales skyrocketed, when they didn't go anywhere. Heck I rarely see anyone buying games because "I need to see if it's that bad." That's more something you do with movies. In games you tend to have to sit through awful gameplay which makes it unbearable. If this is something publishers honestly thinks works then they've got a funny way of showing it, considering most games that have a big name publisher are pretty lacking in terms of diverse casts.

And they're stereotypes how? I don't recall many games where the gay characters were flaming sass queens. Or are you saying that they're just writing characters who happen to be gay, because if you are, what's wrong with that?

 

[MonsterCrit]

Basically what it is, is pandering. It's pandering because a lot of people with no connection to the community are championing the community as of late. Really it strikes me like why so many people want gay marriage without actually being gay them selves, and without considering what sort of possible consequences there are for it. I'm not gonna dive in to detail on that matter though.

Saying a character is gay ius a pretty low risk way to get your game some free publicity and kudos from the LGBT crowd. Low risk because you don't have to worry about people being turned off if you never show any of the gay stuff. Lesbian stuff is actually a selling point for the hetero male gamer. Seriously. Two chicks makin out... *H@WT*

Make a leak that there's a lesbian make out scene in your game and the sales will jump right off the bat.

So yeah, pretty much pandering.

 

[Beliyal]

Upon coming onto the forums I'd promptly heard about MKX's new supposed openly gay character, Kung Jin. I didn't even know MKX was coming out and I wouldn't have cared if I didn't see the SJW character.

This strikes me as an odd thing to say. A gay character is immediately a "SJW" character? A gay person exists and it's "SJWs are at it again!"? The bar is so low for being labeled a SJW?

Say a character is gay, in some way imply that this has had a negative effect on their life and let the e-cocks begin battle. Every gaming news website (for lack of better words) will swarm upon it like starved creatures on roadkill because there's virtually nothing to report that will cause as much forum posting, internet ranting or mere conversation.

This happens because including LGBT characters is still quite a novelty. Though I don't see the reporting about it as "swarming like starved creatures on roadkill." I see it as news websites reporting on a news saying "This game has an LGBT character for the first time. Congratulations." I don't know, to me it really doesn't look like a cry for attention. But yes, there will be attention because people will have to complain about "pandering", "catering" and "SJWs" and people will try to determine which insanity or marketing strategy made the developers do this. Maybe the developers and publishers realized that they can diversify their casts and make more people happy (which will obviously bring more money, yes, I am not naive enough to believe they never think about profits). But if they earn more money for making more people happy, that's a marketing strategy I can get behind.

My point is, do you think that this effect has somehow...'fetishized' the original point of HAVING inclusive characters, which was to give LGBT people and youth someone to look up to for reasons, not just because of their sexuality but also because of the trials they face that are NOT related to their sexuality? Does this say that LGBT people are not people anymore but now are nothing more then their sexuality/personal identity, etc, a symbol of previous oppression instead of an actually fleshed out character?

I have no doubt that some of the LGBT characters in media are there only because of fetishizing and queer-bating, though I don't see how this specific situation is applicable. Just to be sure, I googled this character and basically, there are subtle hints in the game's dialogue, fans noticed, asked the creator and he confirmed that the character is gay. Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see any marketing and special announcements about this before the game came out and no cries for attention. The character is gay because some people in the world are gay and it's shown through hints in the dialogue of the game itself. It's subtle, non-intrusive and not character defining (considering how it is only visible in hints; if it were character defining, I assume it would be the first thing on the list of traits and not subtle enough that fans had to ask the creator for confirmation).

... and I believe we've hit a point where we unfortunately have turned gay/lgbt people into false heroes who are ONLY strictly fighting against one specific thing: ignorance. They, in the narratives in which they exist, only seem to exist with the singular problem of not being excepted due to their sexuality/personal preferences.

I believe we need to humanize our LGBT characters, give them you know...actual issues to fight against that are no different then those of their straight counterparts. Then let people know either through narrative THAT DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND THEIR SEXUALITY that the character is the way he/she/the mx., is.

I agree here to an extent. Due to the fact that in the real world LGBT people are currently fighting for the societal acceptance and against the laws that limit their freedom, this translates into our media and art. Tragic and dramatic LGBT stories are perhaps the most common, but I've seen many LGBT people saying that they are tired of seeing tragic stories. A lot of them would prefer characters to relate to who are not limited by their sexuality and how it is treated in society. Now, that doesn't mean that we should stop portraying the LGBT struggles in media, but it would be nice if that weren't the only portrayals. Portraying struggles is important because a lot of people right now are going through those struggles and having role models who fight those as well can be life-changing. But yes, that shouldn't be the only solution for LGBT characters; we should also show them leading happy lives, living in societies that do not discriminate against them and so on.

And I think we're doing fine. There's still a long way to go, but we're getting there. But in order to get there, we need more LGBT characters. So I don't see the point in calling names when a game franchise more than two decades old finally introduces the first LGBT character in the subtlest of ways possible.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

I fully admit that I don't keep public announcements from gaming companies under a microscope but I can't remember a specific example of a gaming company ever coming out and say "Look at us, we're inclusive." Maybe a couple of times but I can't pin them down. Not necessarily. Bad publicity doesn't necessarily translate into sales, if it did every game Jim ripped apart for abusing Steam would've had their sales skyrocketed, when they didn't go anywhere. Heck I rarely see anyone buying games because "I need to see if it's that bad." That's more something you do with movies. In games you tend to have to sit through awful gameplay which makes it unbearable. If this is something publishers honestly thinks works then they've got a funny way of showing it, considering most games that have a big name publisher are pretty lacking in terms of diverse casts.

And they're stereotypes how? I don't recall many games where the gay characters were flaming sass queens. Or are you saying that they're just writing characters who happen to be gay, because if you are, what's wrong with that?

Remember that the ones holding the purse strings come from packaged goods, and rarely have the necessary insight into the gaming market. That's all I can say.

There are plenty of gay characters in media who are total stereotypes. But okay. Sassy/flaming/drag queen are not the only gay stereotypes. There are plenty of the "this gay character goes after every male character" in media in general. On the other end there is the lesbian woman who either fits either the "lipstick" or "dyke" model with essentially no middle ground. Not to mention that trans is often played as "cross dressing = comedy!"

No there is nothing wrong with being gay/les/bi/trans/queer/whatever, still there are a lot of characters who they play the card of it being their only personality trait. I don't care if it shows, as much as I care if it shows because it's the only personality the character has. Which in and of it self is a really nasty stereotype. It's not that "(Insert male character) has a boyfriend" is what upsets me, it's the tendency to play that as the total depth of their character. It's a lot less pronounced in RPGs with options for the player character to be gay, because the player has more agency. I'm perfectly fine with that. I am not perfectly fine with NPCs who have it as the only thing about their personality. Here's the difference I will point out "Male character who has strong sense of loyalty, who joined the fight because he felt it's the right thing to do, and he likes other men romantically." That's perfectly okay. "Male character is gay and that's going to be 90% of your interactions with them outside combat, and if your character is male they're going to be super foreword sexually, even after you tell them to stop it." That is not fine.

 

[Erttheking]

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If they rarely have insight into the gaming market, why would they pander to tiny less obvious minorities like the LGBT crowd instead of the big obvious dude-bro crowd?

Like? Examples please?

Again, could I please get some examples? Because I can't think of anything even close to that in video games.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

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If they rarely have insight into the gaming market, why would they pander to tiny less obvious minorities like the LGBT crowd instead of the big obvious dude-bro crowd?

Like? Examples please?

Again, could I please get some examples?

Good publicity, that's why. If you try to pander to the PC brigade you get good press for it.

I can't think of any off hand, mostly because I'm not very much into what's currently on the market. The things I generally do follow don't have that sort of thing going on. So my impressions are completely second hand. So I could be totally off base. Part of what I'm basing my assessment on is the way these subjects tend to be treated in other media. Which is extremely negative to say the leath.

Wait the rest of your post was being serious? I cut it out because it didn't make sense. You say that supporting equality is bad if you.. don't? Which then means that people that care about equality are left worse because.. ???

Here's a question:

Can you give me an example of someone wanting equality but not caring about it and how that left someone that wanting equality worse off?

It's not who wants equality, it's people using such platforms for social and political gain. Often times this gets a lot of unwanted negative attention on the community in question. Hell look at how the trans community gets treated. When it becomes a big issue politicians and the socially significant pontificate like crazy. Then nothing gets done, or vague easily abused laws get put in, then a whole ton of negativity rains on the trans community.

Tell Furgeson, MO that those riots were great for their city after they jumped to conclusions about a justified police shooting.

 

[Erttheking]

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If they rarely have insight into the gaming market, why would they pander to tiny less obvious minorities like the LGBT crowd instead of the big obvious dude-bro crowd?

Like? Examples please?

Again, could I please get some examples?

Good publicity, that's why. If you try to pander to the PC brigade you get good press for it.

I can't think of any off hand, mostly because I'm not very much into what's currently on the market. The things I generally do follow don't have that sort of thing going on. So my impressions are completely second hand. So I could be totally off base. Part of what I'm basing my assessment on is the way these subjects tend to be treated in other media. Which is extremely negative to say the leath.

You know, from where I'm sitting, anything that looks like it might appeal to "SJWs" will get just as many people jumping down your throat.

So...you say that "developers still tend to go for stereotypes" and then you can't even name one? How can you say that developers still tend to go for stereotypes if you can't even give one example of it? We're not talking about other media, we're talking about video games.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

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If they rarely have insight into the gaming market, why would they pander to tiny less obvious minorities like the LGBT crowd instead of the big obvious dude-bro crowd?

Like? Examples please?

Again, could I please get some examples?

Good publicity, that's why. If you try to pander to the PC brigade you get good press for it.

I can't think of any off hand, mostly because I'm not very much into what's currently on the market. The things I generally do follow don't have that sort of thing going on. So my impressions are completely second hand. So I could be totally off base. Part of what I'm basing my assessment on is the way these subjects tend to be treated in other media. Which is extremely negative to say the leath.

You know, from where I'm sitting, anything that looks like it might appeal to "SJWs" will get just as many people jumping down your throat.

So...you say that "developers still tend to go for stereotypes" and then you can't even name one? How can you say that developers still tend to go for stereotypes if you can't even give one example of it? We're not talking about other media, we're talking about video games.

Well I suppose I could say that same sex romance in Bioware titles have felt a bit token to me, as they did in Fallout 2. So a lot of my sour standpoint on the subject might come from that. MKX's Kung Jin seems a bit tacked on for the sake of it. I'd like to see better arcs regarding these sort of characters, not tacked on mentions, or characters who just seem to be "the gay character."

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

If they rarely have insight into the gaming market, why would they pander to tiny less obvious minorities like the LGBT crowd instead of the big obvious dude-bro crowd?

Like? Examples please?

Again, could I please get some examples?

Good publicity, that's why. If you try to pander to the PC brigade you get good press for it.

I can't think of any off hand, mostly because I'm not very much into what's currently on the market. The things I generally do follow don't have that sort of thing going on. So my impressions are completely second hand. So I could be totally off base. Part of what I'm basing my assessment on is the way these subjects tend to be treated in other media. Which is extremely negative to say the leath.

You know, from where I'm sitting, anything that looks like it might appeal to "SJWs" will get just as many people jumping down your throat.

So...you say that "developers still tend to go for stereotypes" and then you can't even name one? How can you say that developers still tend to go for stereotypes if you can't even give one example of it? We're not talking about other media, we're talking about video games.

Well I suppose I could say that same sex romance in Bioware titles have felt a bit token to me, as they did in Fallout 2. So a lot of my sour standpoint on the subject might come from that. MKX's Kung Jin seems a bit tacked on for the sake of it. I'd like to see better arcs regarding these sort of characters, not tacked on mentions, or characters who just seem to be "the gay character."

Token how? They got just as much attention as the hetero sex ones. See, this is the problem with homosexual characters. Underplay it "it's tokenism" overplay it "it's shoving it down our throats." Not saying you would be saying that, but other people would be. Frankly, there's nothing wrong with having understated homosexuality. Not ever heterosexual character needs to have their sexuality at the core of their character, homosexual characters should be allowed to have the same freedom. Heck, Jung has an entire story separate from his sexuality, so he's not "the gay character". Neither where any of Bioware's characters.

 

[GrumbleGrump]

Maybe the developers and publishers realized that they can diversify their casts and make more people happy (which will obviously bring more money, yes, I am not naive enough to believe they never think about profits). But if they earn more money for making more people happy, that's a marketing strategy I can get behind.

This is what people want, diversity wise? Just some character admit "Well yeah, I'm pretty gay I guess."? Baby steps, I guess.

 

[The Only Gay Eskimo]

I guess I haven't been playing the same games as you since I haven't seen any instances of a gay characters whose main characteristic is that they are gay and their main problem is associated with that.

And in regards to the Kung Jin thing (which I had no idea about), this is what I found in the first article when I googled him:

In the scene, Raiden tries to convince Kung Jin to join the Shaolin Monks, and follow in the footsteps of his ancestry. Kung Jin is resistant.

"I cant? They won't accept," Kung Jin says. To which Raiden replies:

"They care only of what is in your heart, not whom your heart desires."

As far as I know this is the only mention of his sexuality. Seems pretty mild, not something they go on about and not really what I would consider an LGBT hero.

I think the issue is less about the inclusion of these characters and more that some people turn them into some kind of icon to either decry or rally around. As soon as people hear "gay character" they start beating the war drums.

"Oh, the terrible, evil heterosexual fighters would never accept me, boohoo, how am I supposed to combat other fighters to the death if they won't accept that I like to put my cock into the asses of men?"

Apparently the worst problem in Netherrealm. I thought getting frozen and having your body smashed to pieces was bad. But had I only known the terrible oppression some of these fighters face. How do they even muster the strength to make it through the day?

 

[Jarek Mace]

Oh my actual balls does no one even economics.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

So you're saying that people shouldn't fight for equal rights of groups in case people who don't want equal rights for groups start to treat them worse??

That's nuts. That's exactly like saying don't stand up for kids who are bullied in case the bullies treat them worse.

The groups already get negative attention. They already don't even have equal rights. To say you shouldn't stand up for peoples equal rights in case people that don't want them to have equal rights treat them worse is nuts. Instead you focus on the people who don't want them to have equal rights, you focus on the people who are the ones raining the negativity down in the first place. Not the ones fighting against that.

You sure like putting words in my mouth. I'm against politicizing issues because people who use them are doing just that using them. As a trans person I can say from personal experience that phony baloney bleeding hearts who come in only serve to turn things on their ears, not help. They're doing it in their own interest not ours. If they cared about equal rights things would get done, and they wouldn't hop to the next hot button leaving a group high and dry. I'm focusing on people who use things as platforms, not people who actually do things that improve the situation. Even if they don't make it worse, they're using it for shallow self-centred reasons, to gain votes/popularity. That does absolutely nothing to help the people who actually have to deal with these issues.

To put it simply; they come in, stir the shit, then do nothing, and leave the groups they say that they're trying to help holding the bag. That is not helpful, except maybe from an awareness standpoint, but awareness alone doesn't fix things.

Has discrimination and misconduct by the police against black people increased in Ferguson after the riots? And what does Ferguson have to do with what we're talking about?

How these two things line up are this way: Al Sharpton and activist groups came in to "stop the misconduct," which they never proved happened, and they burned the town. They bussed people in from all over to "bring awareness," in the process destroying the town. They came in used the situation as a political platform, then they destroyed the town(for over a year after), leaving the locals to carry an unnecessary burden. That's why I brought it up. It was the opposite of helpful for everyone involved, and got people totally unconnected to it hurt and killed.

My whole point is if you want to do something positive and helpful, then please do. I'm happy with that. If you wanna come in and use someone else's problems as your political platform, then go to hell.

 

[Jarek Mace]

"Oh, the terrible, evil heterosexual fighters would never accept me, boohoo, how am I supposed to combat other fighters to the death if they won't accept that I like to put my cock into the asses of men?"

Apparently the worst problem in Netherrealm. I thought getting frozen and having your body smashed to pieces was bad. But had I only known the terrible oppression some of these fighters face. How do they even muster the strength to make it through the day?

Here's a post that manages to not understand what being gay means and thinks that if bad things happen, things that aren't as bad should for some reason be ignored. Otherwise known as the "There are starving children in Africa so stop complaining" excuse.

Crudely put, but Eskimo makes a very valid point. This is a game based on ultra-violence and combos. I'm god damn surprised there was even a mild reference to romance, either heterosexual or homosexual. Granted, suggestion of attraction and romance has been made before but it was usually comedic relief or by Cage. Usually both.

This just feels... tacked on. It's like they felt they needed to try and install a "Yo, Nether Realm ain't homophobic y'all." message in to - no pun intended - cover their asses. Oh, and in before "you don't understand what gay means" when the majority of my friends are raging faggots (and don't start, they tell me to call them that, I'm just being a PC Social Justice guy here) and I regularly receive very interesting and at times graphic descriptions. At the end of the day they knew this would raise eyebrows and articles along with those eyebrows, and that would raise advertising, all whilst lowering costs. The gay receives no credit, and the company receives dosh.

 

[Azure23]

I guess I haven't been playing the same games as you since I haven't seen any instances of a gay characters whose main characteristic is that they are gay and their main problem is associated with that.

And in regards to the Kung Jin thing (which I had no idea about), this is what I found in the first article when I googled him:

In the scene, Raiden tries to convince Kung Jin to join the Shaolin Monks, and follow in the footsteps of his ancestry. Kung Jin is resistant.

"I cant? They won't accept," Kung Jin says. To which Raiden replies:

"They care only of what is in your heart, not whom your heart desires."

As far as I know this is the only mention of his sexuality. Seems pretty mild, not something they go on about and not really what I would consider an LGBT hero.

I think the issue is less about the inclusion of these characters and more that some people turn them into some kind of icon to either decry or rally around. As soon as people hear "gay character" they start beating the war drums.

"Oh, the terrible, evil heterosexual fighters would never accept me, boohoo, how am I supposed to combat other fighters to the death if they won't accept that I like to put my cock into the asses of men?"

Apparently the worst problem in Netherrealm. I thought getting frozen and having your body smashed to pieces was bad. But had I only known the terrible oppression some of these fighters face. How do they even muster the strength to make it through the day?

Come on now. Mortal Kombat is camp as shit. Hell I was watching a friend play the story mode and there's a scene where Sub Zero runs through Cassie Cage's entire team (gameplay) and shoves an icicle through her head only for her dad to come out, smile that shit eating smile, and proclaim it all "a training exercise." The law of Mortal Kombat is that only things that happen in cutscenes happen. Gameplay is completely incidental. And you're really misrepresenting Jin's mindset here, the last group of warriors he was a part of didn't accept him, so he didn't think the shaolin monks would either. Raiden manages to reassure him with a single sentence. It's really not a big deal.