I mean from groups that complain about that sort of stuff.
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LGBT representation in video games. Is there a way to do it right, or are western devs forever going to suck at it?
- Thread starter Crystal Winters
- Start date
ShadyAcshuns
Member
I suppose either side would get static for disingenuous behavior from a majority of people. I know Japanese characters and their culture get a lot of push back from some Western gamers just for being different.
GigaBowser
The bear of bad news
ahah no
Rockondevil
Member
9 times out of 10 it doesn’t even need to be mentioned if their straight or gay, but for some reason it does.
On the odd time it matters to a characters story it just needs to be normal… as it should be.
On the odd time it matters to a characters story it just needs to be normal… as it should be.
Hoddi
Member
Of course it's possible. I don't think most modern people care even slightly as long as it's done well and we're seeing that in this very thread. I'm liberal as all hell but that doesn't mean I think it belongs in medieval fantasy games where it's so obviously forced like in Veilguard.
Nobody (sane) minds seeing LGBT characters in games like Cyberpunk or Mass Effect because it makes perfect sense in those futuristic contexts. But trying to inject it into medieval fantasy is equally idiotic as purposely avoiding it in a futuristic fantasy. There's a time and place for these topics and that's all there is to it.
Nobody (sane) minds seeing LGBT characters in games like Cyberpunk or Mass Effect because it makes perfect sense in those futuristic contexts. But trying to inject it into medieval fantasy is equally idiotic as purposely avoiding it in a futuristic fantasy. There's a time and place for these topics and that's all there is to it.
Nickolaidas
Member
Of course there is. You write them not as gay characters, but as characters who HAPPEN to be gay. As long as their sexuality does not define their identity, you have the POTENTIAL to write a good character.
In the end, if you can't writer a compelling gay character, you probably cannot write a compelling character, PERIOD.
In the end, if you can't writer a compelling gay character, you probably cannot write a compelling character, PERIOD.
Jsisto
Member
Its really as simple as treating them like normal people with normal problems who happen to be gay/trans/etc. Thats really all that non-crazy people in those groups want, right? That should be what progress is all about. To be treated just like anyone else. If there was a heterosexual character and the narrative kept reminding you that they were heterosexual that would be incredibly odd. Its no different for any other group IMO.
Rubim
Member
In BL3, you actually attend his wedding.
Sir Hammerlock in BL2 is gay. It's mentioned in passing in a natural way at least twice I think, blink and you'll miss it. Plenty of characters have an LGBT angle. I believe one of the audio logs mention Tiny Tina had two mommies.
It was subtle and that's how you do it.
In the Pre-Sequel there's a questline with the man and he can't shut up about his boyfriend and how gay he is. Janey Springs (the first character you meet) makes sure you're very aware of how much of a lesbian she is before you finish her quests. There's more stuff in there, but the subtlety was lost.
Radical_3d
Member
sigmaZ
Member
Yeah. Build the character in the same tried and true ways you would any character in a story.
Just don't have them virtue signal or try to push lifestyles or agendas.
You could take any male led game almost replace with a person of whatever background and peave the stoic heroic characteristics and make it work. Lightning is a perfect example of this from FF13. For all we know she can be nonbinary pan-sexual furry, but it's never brought up because it's not integral to the story.
Just yesterday I saw Inside Out 2 which I heard was one of Disney's best movies as of late.
And it was actually quite good. You could tell which characters were LGBT by their appearance but there was no virtue signaling. They spoke and acted in ways that aided the narrative.
Just don't have them virtue signal or try to push lifestyles or agendas.
You could take any male led game almost replace with a person of whatever background and peave the stoic heroic characteristics and make it work. Lightning is a perfect example of this from FF13. For all we know she can be nonbinary pan-sexual furry, but it's never brought up because it's not integral to the story.
Just yesterday I saw Inside Out 2 which I heard was one of Disney's best movies as of late.
And it was actually quite good. You could tell which characters were LGBT by their appearance but there was no virtue signaling. They spoke and acted in ways that aided the narrative.
ShadowNate
Member
Write in any character you want in your story. Don't make them obnoxious unless that's the point of the character.
Also don't try to specifically please or pander to obnoxious people (from either side). They never will be happy.
Also don't try to specifically please or pander to obnoxious people (from either side). They never will be happy.
CompleteGlobalSaturation
Member
What do you mean? I thought he loved Meryl?
CompleteGlobalSaturation
Member
Yes i.e. with Volgin, or Bill from TLOU.
Nevertheless, in a video game I genuinely do not care or need to know where you like to insert your rod. I still do not understand why sexuality has to be the most defining aspect of a character. I don't go around screaming 'I'm straight' to the world.
xrnzaaas
Member
Don't make a game specifically with lbgt representation in mind and instead include them in a natural way, make them a minority like in real life, don't force them to come out shouting they're gay, trans or whatever and instead have them be subtle about sharing that stuff after you get to know them (again, like in real life).
Nope, not possible for modern Western games. They have to be front and center and the story must revolve around them.
Nope, not possible for modern Western games. They have to be front and center and the story must revolve around them.
Crystal Winters
Member
Man, I forgot all games like Signalis and Va11-Hall-A. Shame on me.
GymWolf
Member
Lol people already posted examples of games that do it right, just stop with the bullshit narrative.
Just because sony and M can't do it right doesn't mean that everyone else can't.
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A way could be to remove any sexual content and just allow deep friendships for the main characters.
The player doesn't need to "fall in love" with any characters.
It is as on many movies these days, I just don't understand why sex scenes must be in it. Sometimes it is just needed to hint that they have sex together and the rest should be the imagination of the viewer. Somehow authors have forgot just to hint something without explicit showing it. Seems that they believe their audience is dumb as bread or something like that. These days many games and movies forget to let the imagination of the viewer do its stuff. This would bind the audience much more in a long run instead of just another movie/game that is forgotten after the end credits appear.
A good book/movie in that regard is Harry Potter. The sexual orientation of characters is absolutely uninteresting there, as the focus is on the kids that save the world. That e.g. Dumbledore was once in love with a man, was just not important. In the later prequels it was part of the story and ok, as it was part of the plot why he couldn't do anything against him. It wasn't forced it was just added in a logic way into the story.
The player doesn't need to "fall in love" with any characters.
It is as on many movies these days, I just don't understand why sex scenes must be in it. Sometimes it is just needed to hint that they have sex together and the rest should be the imagination of the viewer. Somehow authors have forgot just to hint something without explicit showing it. Seems that they believe their audience is dumb as bread or something like that. These days many games and movies forget to let the imagination of the viewer do its stuff. This would bind the audience much more in a long run instead of just another movie/game that is forgotten after the end credits appear.
A good book/movie in that regard is Harry Potter. The sexual orientation of characters is absolutely uninteresting there, as the focus is on the kids that save the world. That e.g. Dumbledore was once in love with a man, was just not important. In the later prequels it was part of the story and ok, as it was part of the plot why he couldn't do anything against him. It wasn't forced it was just added in a logic way into the story.
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Crystal Winters
Member
I am legitimately surprised with some of the great feedback I have gotten in this topic from many people. There is still the occasional edgelord in here that has nothing of value to add, but I am glad that they are the minority *heh.
GymWolf
Member
They know that their sony\M momma is indirectly under attack so they have to raise the shield to protect them from the chuds.
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laynelane
Member
I've been playing Fallout 4 and in one of the DLCs you meet a character who you can choose to save from deadly radiation poisoning. If you do, he'll tell you how he ended up like that and how it resulted in the death of his husband. Veronica in Fallout New Vegas comes to mind too. In both cases, being gay is worked into their character stories but isn't their whole character. There's no drama (push-ups, bigot sandwiches) surrounding this in the game either. It's weaved into the story in a natural way.
PendekarRajawali
Member
Can we just play video games without any agenda?
cormack12
Gold Member
Imagine asking someone to design a gay character. And this was assigned to a straight guy/girl. Then they decided to:
Smother the character in pride flags or trans flags
Give them cliche hair colours
Give them cliche hair styles like the undercut
Make their bodies chubby or unflattering in terms of fitness/athleticism
And imagine the uproar. Then check out the skins and characters we're largely getting games.
Anyway, there are a lot of characters who are gay who usually open up with player initiated probing in RPG style games. Not 'meet someone and within 5 secs they are announcing it'. Lore notes that specify same sex partners etc.
Smother the character in pride flags or trans flags
Give them cliche hair colours
Give them cliche hair styles like the undercut
Make their bodies chubby or unflattering in terms of fitness/athleticism
And imagine the uproar. Then check out the skins and characters we're largely getting games.
Anyway, there are a lot of characters who are gay who usually open up with player initiated probing in RPG style games. Not 'meet someone and within 5 secs they are announcing it'. Lore notes that specify same sex partners etc.
ikbalCO
Member
The game you have as a profile picture has a femboy who marries his half brother..?
JerryinSoCal
Member
It all depends, don't be preachy about it and just treat the relationship like you would a straight relationship. It's not really something that needs to be focused on unless you have a really good story to go along with it and have a true reason to go that deep into the characters life.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Gestalt/Replicant is a 2010 game, so representation is organic, subtle and only used because its relevant as a character trait within the story.
As Yoko said, "there are people like this in the world, small in number, but this is normal".
Ironically you can look at Nier as being a particularly sharp critique of the excesses of wokism. The whole point being that its easy to do really bad things even when your intentions are pure.
It was remarkably prescient back in the day, and I was (sadly) entirely unsurprised when this message was largely ignored by critics reviewing the remake.
S0ULZB0URNE
Member
I don't use such character.
Londo
Neo Member
It's possible using the well known "Tell me you're ______ without telling me you're ______" trick, but, you know, for that you need writers who can actually write.
David Foster Wallace can make you feel engaged about a character who's reading a fucking ingredient list from a bottle of shampoo.
If the industry continues to give jobs to people without talent we'll always see something forced.
Every industry needs professionals, why videogames should be different? Just to generate "reactions" or "to stay relevant" in this day and age? And how's worked out lately?
David Foster Wallace can make you feel engaged about a character who's reading a fucking ingredient list from a bottle of shampoo.
If the industry continues to give jobs to people without talent we'll always see something forced.
Every industry needs professionals, why videogames should be different? Just to generate "reactions" or "to stay relevant" in this day and age? And how's worked out lately?
KungFucius
King Snowflake
How would anyone evaluate such arbitrary bullshit? Does it make sense for the story is such a pathetic idea. How would it not make sense? If the person writing the story decides that a character is gay, then it makes sense to them and since they are creating the story, there is no reasonable argument otherwise.
The idea that something is forced is paranoia. People get upset and whine about everything and insist that it is forced. Publishers want to appeal to a broad an audience as possible and that means inclusivity makes sense but they do that by bringing in writers that agree with that and include different types of people because they want to create something that does that. Turning that simple reality into a fucking culture war is pathetic in so many ways. The initial triggering is pathetic, the hate for the creators is pathetic, the cry of forced is pathetic. Its awful because it splits people into groups who don't have a problem with it and those who are so pissed they display really gross behavior so some in the first group get upset by seeing such awfulness on display over something that should just be considered normal.
daninthemix
Member
I expect it will continue to have all the subtlety of a preacher wielding a sledgehammer.
Basically just don't make their sexuality or pronouns or whatever the fuck a matter.
For example, Squid Games season 2 nailed it until
Orverall, no problems to put some LGBT characters, but stop making their whole motives always in some way related to their sexuality.
For example, Squid Games season 2 nailed it until
the trans character starts explaining about the discrimination he/she faces, blah blah blah, who cares.
Games that do it right, are not the one screaming this, but integrate it into the plot seamlessly.
Volgin is a perfect example, seeing through Snake's cover due to his erection, stuff of legends.
BaneIsPain
Member
Force inclusion is never a good thing and bad games made it worse.
To be fair, what game has obnoxious LGBT activists in them? Most of the games that suffer from backlash don't really have that "loud and proud" character who goes around telling everyone they're LGBT.
This character was retconned into being 'bi' in a remaster (if the player chooses a male) but isn't really bi. You might aswell post commander Shepard in that case. They're both a player choice thing.
JohnnyTropics
Member
You really want to do this bro?
Let's do it.
We're going to answer this together, through a series of questions that you anwer.
1. What is a homosexual?
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Crystal Winters
Member
I don't know who that is.You should ask The Professor about this
manzo
Member
There it is. The reason just is that video game writers are absolute trash. The gay and other stuff are mostly self-inserts for the writers and that's why the characters are written around their sexual preferences or pronouns, instead of being a character who just happens to be gay.
Remove these tumblr-level writers that create fantasies that spiral around themselves and their kinks, we can actually see interesting characters in games. But hey, the good ones already go write books. The absolute trash and bottom of the barrel handle video games who then try to get to the Hollywood to continue their shtick.
GymWolf
Member
ULTROS!
People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
In Eastern games, when they create an LGBT character, they don’t express it loudly “I’m gay!!!!” And rather they treat it like it’s completely normal. Even if they’re overt or subtle about it, they never mention and put front the character’s sexuality.
ikbalCO
Member
Its not a character you use, its an integral part of the game’s lore.
This just proves that its pretty much unaviodable
SJRB
Gold Member
The retarded notion that everyone needs to be represented in everything at all times and that someone’s gender or sexuality is somehow a defining personality trait is how we got into this endless clown parade of slop in the first place and just shows how irredeemably vapid these people are.
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moniker
Member
It can be done in medieval fantasy too. For example, Mislav the hunter in Witcher 3 - if you press him you find out that he has been ostracised by the community after it has been found out that he's with another man. His lover has committed suicide and you can even find his grave which says "May Melitele forgive his sins against nature's laws". Tragic, but fits the setting.
DeltaPolarBear
Member
On the other hand, in many fantasy worlds there is literally no reason to be Trans at all if gender can be easily altered either through magic or superscience. In Asia fiction there is plenty of stories where people either reincarnate into a body of a different gender, or have someone use a potion to become a different gender. And sometimes you just have no organs like a barbie doll.
But that horrified the West because that bypasses the Trans community entirely. Because if you can become the opposing gender with full biological functions, no one would choose to be stuck half way.
And of course, the fringe area for Asian fantasy is the hermaphrodite. it means having both sets of gender organs but both are fully functional. Once again, something the West doesn't explore because there is no real life human equivalent.
Asia talks about gender identities all the time, they just don't care to deal with imperfections like hormonal treatments or surgeries, that is mortal stuff. Go find an animal mascot and make yourself a Magical Girl, or master Alchemy and perfect your body into a homunculus with true immortality. If you want to be female then be female, if you want to be male then be male, and if you change your mind just swap back. Enough with the "They" pronoun stuff that just show you failed at becoming what you originally wanted.
TheThreadsThatBindUs
Member
If LGBT representation is done right in games, the player should never know.
IRL, I spent 10 yrs working alongside a colleague without knowing he was gay. So, unless the game is a dating simulator that directly deals with romantic relationships, a character's sexuality should be invisible to the player.
Games which shoehorn in romance also fall afoul of this. Like, if i'm playing grimdark Gears of War, I don't fucking want to see any romance in that game, it's not relevant. In a story where humanity in on the verge of being wiped out by an alien threat and my characters are fighting on the frontlines, the last thing I expect them to be thinking about or talking about is who they want to fuck.
IRL, I spent 10 yrs working alongside a colleague without knowing he was gay. So, unless the game is a dating simulator that directly deals with romantic relationships, a character's sexuality should be invisible to the player.
Games which shoehorn in romance also fall afoul of this. Like, if i'm playing grimdark Gears of War, I don't fucking want to see any romance in that game, it's not relevant. In a story where humanity in on the verge of being wiped out by an alien threat and my characters are fighting on the frontlines, the last thing I expect them to be thinking about or talking about is who they want to fuck.