Are Video Games Anti-LGBT?

Dunno, skipped to the bit where he talked about Mass Effect and he barely mentioned its positive potrayal of gay relationships in the 3rd game. I mean your shuttle pilots character arc is you helping him get over the death of his husband, and another male crewmate of yours is bisexual. Yeah it had inequality in the first 2 games (you could always be a lesbian, but not a gay male, though the scene he used for the lesbian romance in that video is modded, the women in that scene is straight) but if he's only going to give ME3, and other positive potrayals, a fleeting mention then it really doesn't give me confindence in the rest of the video.

 

Wow..this was an awesome video....

He did leave out major characters...Quina Quen! Joachim Valentine...both were presented as just extremely bizarre and entertaining entities..no 'real' content about them..they are just weird and gay all day kinda thing...'inhuman'...

Anyways...I mean video games are very straight male perspective...they are made by them and to them for the most part...I mean it is amazing though how I didn't notice at all that there was lgbt things going on at all in some of the games listed..because I just thought people don't even think we exist lol.

But ya..I just don't understand why is male homosexuality so frightening - but it is...I have seen fear in most males eyes when I confess to being gay..and my very best friend sent me straight out a 'gay panic' webpage from Wikipedia, and I think he was trying to communicate what he's feeling....in an indirect way...

The best way I have read how most males feel about gay men in this day and age...is that I am homophobic as much as I am arachnophobic..itsnt that I hate spiders but I'd panic if I find one in my bed.

This realy put it to me in perspective to be honest although I know most of us find it offensive..we have no problem viewing a spider as a perfectly fine villainous monstrosity, or snakes..or whatever kind of animal..even though sometimes the most impact-full animal assaults and frighting facts are from different, quiet friendly animals...Dolphins (Ecco), and Orcas come to mind...read some dark facts about them..not so cute after all.


I am optimistic though...I think video games used to demonstrate evil as different races - period (us vs. them the end)..games now try to make a case for evil..or to try to make the player feel uncertain wither what is actually the good or the bad side..and that's what players want now..because they realized the fallacy of the pure alienation and don't really find it fascinating anymore...

But ya to no surprise that games are like this really...but then again games have a lot of different problems (how women are like them for example?)..simply because they are oriented to the straight male mind (and made by them!)...which is perfectly understandable....if we want games to be more oriented to our minds..we need to get ourselves in the industry and make an impact ourselves...only us know what its like to be us...

Ya I love video games..sorry for the text wall lol. Regardless of how idiotic the representation of gays are in video games...I choose to enjoy them and appreciate the huge effort and sweat put into them...

 

Absolutely not! I actually took a video game theory course this semester in college. My prof is a "radical leftist" of the "Lennin-Marx" philosophy, and has argued time and time again that video games are anti-GLBT. I frankly disagree. I believe that video games just aren't as observant of the GLBT community. Rightly or wrongly so, keep in mind TheR video game companies don't care about the social issues. Their goal is to make money. They will cave to society's norms and cater to the largest demographic, neither of which serves the interest of the GLBT community.

I believe that there's a niche market that companies can exploit if they so wish, and I'm certain that this will happen in the coming years. EA has kind of led the pack in doing this with The Sims. A sim can be gay if the player chooses. While not 100% GLBT friendly, it's a huge step. I had a long conversation/debate about this in my class, so I know all the arguments on both sides.

 

I would disagree, but I tend to play or know of a lot of indie games (which tend to have much more friendly views of lgbt individuals). So I might not have as much of an accurate view of the mainstream gaming culture's view on this.

 

Well then let me put what I think in a concise manner.

Yes they are homophobic or at the VERY least they don't give a damn about LGBT issues.

Because Straight Men are the most passionate video-gamers out there.

Most straight men put mildly don't understand homosexual males and don't want to.

Lesbians/Women are ok if they are sexy..no surprises their.

Game companies need to make profit, they aren't working for social justice, so until society specifically their customers likes that kinda thing, they ain't changing.

They have changed a lot over and over..so maybe one day they'll change to make us something they can brand (unlikely in my lifetime).

 

I'm actually kind of surprised he didn't even mention Harvest Moon. I guess it's a game series that's not really looked at very often as it's more of a cult hit than anything else. Still, it would have been interesting to hear his thoughts on their LGBT friendly characters and how they only get censored to North American audiences.

 

What do you expect? Video game market like many others, comics or action movies, created by hetero males for hetero males.

Widening audience newly introduced term to those markets. New gay superheroes, gay action hero stars or video game characters coming up with each year.

Sometimes I think we whine too much but not contribute enough. There are so many good amateur stuff waiting support from us. There is enough negative things in the world so I am choosing to focus on positive ones.

I still remember hurtfull things people said for those brave comic publishers or video game creators.

 

And your social shift effects all the areas I said in my post as, wheter people like it or not, USA is the entertainment provider of the world.

 

I don't know whether they're actually anti-LGBT, but a lot are heteronormative, that's for sure. I remember in Fable though, you could be involved with men or women, so there's that.

 

Games very rarely look into the LGBT community ad much as Persona 4 did with Kanji being supposedly gay (the us version didn't pursue this all the way) and with Naoto being at least questioning her gender (you could definitely see her being considered a he at the end of the game and for sure gives off the male trans vibe in P4Arena... especially when Aigis scans Naoto).

However Quina was not fully developed as an interesting view into gender completely. There are some examples of transgender people in final fight but poison is actually a female in the us version.

Alfred and Alexia Ashford in Resident Evil depicts Alfred as a crossdresser and psycho. Well technically he was both but...

Again the lgbt community gets marginalized or fetishized for the most part in gaming...

 

I agree with most of what you guys posted here. And I get that those lgtb characters are, most of the time, super stereotype. I believe this is caused by the little knowledge they have on lgtb people. Although I have to say that I don't want forced lgtb characters if they are not needed for the narrative. Like, at least on IGN(not the best site, but yeah) most people say they should make more protagonist that are lgtb, but then what will happen to the vast majority of gamers, most which are straight males? I think if the game permits it, then at least give the option for lgtb characters.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, that they shouldn't shove lgtb characters to a game when, to that game, it really isn't needed. If they can imply it without saying it directly, then I guess more people will be more accepting of that. If for the narrative, or the plot, saying that the character is lgtb is important then go for it. They should also study more the lgtb community and stop relying on stereotypes because they don't apply to everyone, and I guess that is what makes straight males to ignore those games.

 

Whenever this comes up in gaming circles you always get three reactions -

Minority opinion - "This is a serious problem that needs to be looked at and addressed."

Somewhere in between - "Fucking gays" and variations thereof.

Majority opinion - [YOUTUBE]e3mxVjB4aqI[/YOUTUBE]

What does that tell you?

 

GTA for sure yes.

 

Mainly, they strike me as sexist/macho, and thus in a roundabout way seem to praise traditional masculinity. So in some sense, one gets the feeling that red-blooded he-males should like girls with big boobs, and that's that.

But I'm not at all a gamer...

I like table-top games better, and playing pinball machines. The images in video games tend to be too violent and annoying for me.

 

I think both straight and gay people alike are lacking video game characters they can identify with.

For men you have the two extremes of either hypermasculinity (*cough*Gears of War*cough*) and adrogyny (Raiden comes to mind, or any JRPG hero).

For women you have the problems of characters being feminized and softened (the pretty little princess types) or oversexualised (revealing clothing, breasts on show). Even characters who do buck some gender-norms (like Paine in FFX-2) are still dressed scantily.

There is just very little middle ground.