That’s my point. Unless a game shows a person (who isn’t otherwise stereotyped) in a romantic relationship, you can’t know whether they are gay or straight.
You’re making two conflicting demands, and they’re IMO - unreasonable. You’re saying that you don’t want homosexual romantic relationships in games to be the way that homosexual characters are explored (you want it to be about the character not the sex), but you’re also saying that you don’t want the character to have homosexual stereotyping.
You have to have one or the other if you want to make a direct statement about a character’s sexuality. Otherwise, just as in real life, any number of game protagonists may be gay - just not outed. Unless it’s part of the plot, it’s not our business who a character has in their bedroom. That’s the reality that gay men and women live with all their lives.
That’s why I said that the main character in Counterspy could be gay. He could be gay. He could be straight. He could be a furry. It doesn’t matter. It’s not a part of the game. He acts like a normal spy-guy - so you decide.
I think sexism does enter the equation, in that it’s a vicious circle in a way. For example, if I don’t like Call of Duty, it’s because “girls don’t like shooters”. If my husband also doesn’t like Call of Duty, it’s because he’s “not an FPS guy” or he’s “a strategy gamer”. My gaming preferences get defined by my gender. His get defined by his actual preferences. So if less women play X, it’s because they’re women. If less men play X, it’s because it’s … not a very good game?
Funny story. I play Guild Wars 2. A few months ago, they finished up their Living Story Season 1 plotline. 7 of the 9 major NPCs, including the main villain, were female. There were complaints on the forum that there were “not enough guys” in the story. I had to laugh. The ratio is reversed all the time and no one (well almost no one) seems to notice.
I was surprised at how good GW2 was when it came to gender… Very little chain-mail-bikini type stuff, and tons of strong female characters, without really sticking out as “trying to hard”, or “waving it in your face”, it all feels very natural.
Though, this topic aside, this has been getting much better. ESO also was pretty good at being fair. Skyrim was mostly non-sexist, as well. There might be a bit of backlash going on in the background.
Perhaps, but their linage is quite different. Adventure games started with text-only Zork type games, while H.O. games have always been visual in nature. There’s now some overlap in gameplay, but taken overall, it’s unlikely that an experienced player would have any difficulty discerning one from the other.
Please read my posts. I have not said this. In fact, not only have I denied saying this, but I have also tried to clarify what I had meant earlier.
To reiterate: I don’t like the stereotyping, but I have no problem with characterization through romance. Separate comment, which is only tangentially related to the previous statement: Video games do not generally handle romance, relationships, or sex at all well.
Exhibit A: the interchangeable spouses in Western RPGs such as Fable or Skyrim.
The implication isn’t that video games should just give up on romantic relationships altogether, but that they should try harder to get them right. Writing for video games is hard and a low priority, but if the medium wants to be taken seriously, it needs to be able to tell a compelling story. Nobody gives cinema a pass, just because it is visual, rather than printed. Similarly, the new dimension added by interactivity does not excuse the parade of same-y stories about unshaven straight white dudes blowing shit up.
Look, I did read your responses, and that’s what I wrote an answer to.
I provided the three ways people can write a gay character into a script: they can write in a scripted romance, use stereotyped traits to identify the character as gay, or involve a player choice for an encounter with a same sex character at some point in the game. Otherwise, there’s no reason/way to put a character’s orientation into the game - at all.
You said you didn’t like stereotyping (you complained about Big Gay Al), you also complained about player-choice sex set-ups (you said they were “meaningless” and made the NPCs “bisexual”), and you complained about the quality of romance writing for games.
Here’s the thing, if it doesn’t belong there, it won’t be well written. The romance in the movie Constantine was a joke. That romance never appeared in the comic, and was crafted to fit Hollywood standards.
You then said:
Which is a glimmer of hope. Because you may sorta-kinda get it. You shouldn’t have to discuss whether your protagonist is gay - anymore than a teacher at a Christian school should have to confirm who they go home to at night. That’s how gay equality really works.
What I wrote before was that I think the best way to provide gay romance/sex in video games is to allow players to choose their own sex and the sex they are interested in at the start of the game. It allows a game the most playability, and it involves 0% stereotyping. It only comes into play if sex comes into game play. If you don’t like that option, then you’re probably going to continue to be disappointed. It also sounds like you just want better written romance lines in gaming in general - and that’s not a gay/straight question - that’s a question of genre, and time for content vs. gameplay.
EDIT: Just letting you know, I’m stepping away from this conversation because it’s slightly off-topic for the thread. Please do respond if you want to. I will read it, but this is my last post on this subject.
Alright, that’s fine, since we seem to be speaking at cross purposes anyway. Thank you for reading and please excuse this long final post.
This was an example of the poorly-done romance I mentioned earlier. Not every game can or needs to have character customization. Due to technical limitations, player input makes large chunks of the story generic - it has to be written like a form letter.
In that sense, I called accidentally creating bisexual characters “lazy”. They are the product of these technical limitations, rather than deliberate action. It’s not an altogether bad thing, but it makes for stilted dialogue, along the lines of “Dear Sir/Madam, I am passionately in love with you/wish to remain friends.” Just look at the NPCs in Borderlands 2 awkwardly refer to everyone as “they”.
I “may sorta-kinda get it” because I actually do get it. People are not defined solely by their sexuality, and whatever they do in private is their own business. Anyone you meet might have any sexual orientation, so any video game character might be gay, and you wouldn’t outright know. Ideally, it shouldn’t matter.
However, the point isn’t for characters to scream from the rooftops: “Look at how gay I am!” It’s to acknowledge homosexuality actually exists. Video games largely do not do this. Their target demographic is straight young men, and seeing a positive portrayal of gay people might curtail the rampant homophobia in the hardcore gaming community.
That is exactly what I want. I made two separate points, and they were only slightly related. One was about the existence of gay protagonists in video games, and one was about the quality of in-game romances.
Maybe some of the misunderstanding would be resolved if I separated games that have character customization from games that do not. Addressing the former case, I said that romances in such games were badly done and generic. Addressing the latter, I opined that it would be nice to have more gay protagonists.
To finish up, I can name some games/characters off the list you linked that I would consider well-written. For example: Ellie and Bill from The Last of Us (Ellie is actually playable), Sam Greenbriar from Gone Home, Arcade Gannon and Veronica Santangelo (I guess the list mentions Cass is bi, but I don’t remember that dialogue option) from New Vegas. I also recall one of the more interesting party members in Persona 4 was gay, but I still haven’t finished it, so I don’t know his entire backstory.
Note that, as I have already mentioned, I am not LGBTQ, so my views on what constitutes “well-written” aren’t exactly useful. I am merely including this list so that you might understand where I was coming from. Also note that none of these are main characters, hence my earlier comment.
I highly recommend downloading SCUMMVM and Maniac Mansion and giving it another go. I found it FAR less frustrating playing as an adult who has seen Rocky Horror and is aware of B-movie tropes than when I was a kid trying to figure out WTF was going on.
Since the dude didn’t answer your question, I’ll take it on. Nothing. It’s format is the same as any other console RPG I’ve ever played. It’s a quest to defeat a boss, only you’re solving puzzles along the way instead of slaying sub-bosses/minions.
Same basic formula, but you have a clearly defined adversary that yaks at you the whole game until you can shut her/him down, and you don’t have to take detailed notes to get through the damned puzzles.
I think I’d call it a puzzle game with a first-person shooter skin. It’s a really good gateway game in both directions. It’s good for teaching a puzzle gamer the controls of a FPS and good for getting someone who only plays FPSes into puzzle games.
Before Portal I only played stuff that was over the shoulder or would let you switch to over the shoulder. I could never keep my bearings in first person. But after Portal, I started actively switching views in Skyrim, and played Borderlands 2 with no problem. I’m thinking of going back and trying again with games like Halo where I used to have too much trouble with figuring out where the enemies were. I think I have finally just gotten used to the two analog stick control now. I still can’t do first person with keyboard/ mouse though when it involves shooting, even though I played the first Portal on the computer. ( I played the second one on console.)
