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Would it diffucult to admitt that you are gay say when playing online or in gamersociety? This is quite the open question,, why would you say you are gay while playing sc2? Can you imagine starting a game by saying," gl hf I like to fuck x"? Now the gamersociety depends on the demographics entirely but more often than not i would say people wont really care unless they are kids, (most extremecons dont play too much) and kids mock minority regardless of reason =/. At least i know i wouldnt care.
Would such person be treated differently?Most of the time, yes , doesnt mean theyll treat him/her bad though, if you want to polarize theyll either flame him til exhaustion or be super sensitive, but of course, reality is more in between. How would you react if a good progamer came out as gay? They are all korean so im pretty sure theyll get ostracized in SK.
Do we need to change they way we portrait norms in videogames? Does it affect how we perceive reality? Dont know what you mean by norms, law ? morale? For the second question, a game should rely on gameplay first so sexual orientation is, at least at first, out of the question, now when you start putting plot and characters and try to actually create some kind of art through gameplay it SHOULD affect how we perceive reality. This has nothing to do with the issue at hand though.
What kind of norms and values are advocated in games? Same as in movies? Depends entirely on the game and developer, cant really compare Dragon Age to Duke Nukem or Persona.
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On August 02 2011 03:59 Belgo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2011 03:53 Chairman Ray wrote: Why is having gay characters in video games beneficial? In fact, why is representing any minority something that's beneficial in video games? When I'm playing video games, the last thing I care about is my character's race or sexual preference. Because a characters race/sexual preference/species what have you ends up tying into there background. Which is highly important in a very story driven game.
If it's a storyline element then that's perfectly reasonable. What I was referring to is having certain characters be gay for the sole purpose of representing the gay community.
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On August 02 2011 04:09 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2011 03:35 Chargelot wrote: It's not that there is a lack of gay characters. It's that we don't care what said characters do with their NONEXISTENT penises. No one asks if Rory Swann is gay, because no one cares. If blizzard went out of their way to overly "gay" him, it would only hurt gays who want homosexuality to be integrated into the hetero-normative society. Exactly. The vast majority of characters in games is simply of nondefined sexuality. For example, in SC2 we pretty much only know that Jim Raynor is hetero, and that only because he is hot for Kerrigan. As far as i know, neither of the other characters makes any statements whatsoever. Now, i might be wrong on this, but asking for token gay characters seems strange. I am usually not interested in the sexuality of characters in games if it does not influence the story. I don't think that the sexuality is the main defining characteristic of a person, and as a result it does not require overproportional amounts of attention. Maybe Gordon Freeman is gay, maybe not. The important fact is that he runs around killing combine, not if he does not have sex with a man, or if he does not have sex with a woman.
Exactly (to be redundant in using the exact same opening sentence). If you wanted the gaming equivalent of American Beauty, well sex is an important topic there.
But, seriously, just look at the modern state of gaming and tell me that sexual orientation is important to the story.
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BTW I dont know if you (or me) got lost in translation or something but I believe these aren't the proper question to address this issue. More importantly, minorities in online communities are not the same subject as minorities in video games. Theres quite a lot of different factors influencing each.
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On August 02 2011 04:12 skindzer wrote: BTW I dont know if you (or me) got lost in translation or something but I believe these aren't the proper question to address this issue. More importantly, minorities in online communities are not the same subject as minorities in video games. Theres quite a lot of different factors influencing each.
What questions would be more fittning? Again, these where the topics I where given for preperations, so this is what im asked to think about.(though I find them interesting)
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Have you ever played a video game? This is not anime. We are not anime nerds. We don't care what makes the characters hot. If Auron enjoyed gay sex, I doubt it would have made FFX different.
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Well it depends, are you focusing on online communities/online interactions or are you focusing on videogames?
If you are supposed to talk about the former rules or morality in videogames are not an issue at all, you could focus more on stuff like Are people more willing/predisposed to flame each other through online gaming ? Does online competition encourage homophobia? Are players more comfortable spreading their intolerance? Etc..
If the latter then the questions should be completely different. Are videogames as a media accurately portraying society? If so why arent there more gay characters? (Or atheist or vegans or whatever for that matter) . Will gay characters just become a token all politically correct games should have? But for this to actually be an issue sexual orientation should be relevant to the games plot, i dont care about Link or Gordon Freemans sexual orientation, the subject has no place in their respective games. But it could be relevant if the motivation behind a character actions are conditioned by their beliefs and eventually can provides more insight in what the developers wanted for us to experience.
So another question arises.. in games where a character sexual orientation could be important, how is homosexuality portrayed? And if it isnt portrayed in any of those? Why?
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On August 02 2011 04:06 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2011 03:59 Belgo wrote:On August 02 2011 03:53 Chairman Ray wrote: Why is having gay characters in video games beneficial? In fact, why is representing any minority something that's beneficial in video games? When I'm playing video games, the last thing I care about is my character's race or sexual preference. Because a characters race/sexual preference/species what have you ends up tying into there background. Which is highly important in a very story driven game. Would you say that anyone has even done it successfully with sexual orientation? Bioware is really the only company actively trying to cater to the gay crowd through their romance options, but they're so utterly hollow they've lost all meaning. They were a surprise and very cool in BG2 and Planescape: Torment. But, now it's been done to death. Just like real life, nobody but you should give a shit if you're a gay captain Shepard, or a straight captain Shepard. Am I crazy, or are there people that want to take that trivial little gameplay element and turn it into a badge of distinction?
Done to death? And straight romance hasn't been? I don't understand your logic here.
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On August 02 2011 04:16 Magenta wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2011 04:12 skindzer wrote: BTW I dont know if you (or me) got lost in translation or something but I believe these aren't the proper question to address this issue. More importantly, minorities in online communities are not the same subject as minorities in video games. Theres quite a lot of different factors influencing each. What questions would be more fittning? Again, these where the topics I where given for preperations, so this is what im asked to think about.(though I find them interesting)
I'd probably start with whether or not sexuality is something that's important to video games in the first place. As many people have already mentioned, it's more often than not something that's used a gimmick rather than a meaningful element of story or gameplay. I suppose my example of this would be The Witcher, which touts itself as a game with a "mature" storyline, but ends up coming off as the bastard child of a textbook fantasy RPG and a Japanese dating sim. Sure, you might get some sort of achievement or a few different lines of text on the screen, but it's hardly consequential and feels more like an afterthought than something incorporated into the game in a deliberate and meaningful way.
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It is normal not to be gay, hence what you perceived as a lack of gay representation.
Gay people are out numbered by straight people for a reason.
Gay couples serve no purpose in keeping our species alive.
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On August 02 2011 04:40 krbz wrote: It is normal not to be gay, hence what you perceived as a lack of gay representation.
Gay people are out numbered by straight people for a reason.
Gay couples serve no purpose in keeping our species alive.
I'm not gay myself, but that's a pretty horrible way to see things. There's a lot more you can contribute to society and the human race than breeding... And just because it's not tremendously common doesn't mean it's not "normal". Obviously it's normal enough for it to be constantly present in humanity over the course of its history and it's important to recognize that.
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Why does the sexual orientation of a character make a difference in the game you play?
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Enough of this gay rights movement crap. I already have to sit through Dragon Age II having all npc's, male and female, all bisexual - for no other reason than to be politically correct, i'm sure. How would this be plausible in a real life scenario? I mean i do acknowledge and respect your sexual orientation, but keep it to yourself and stop shoving it in my face at every turn.
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First off using the term "Queers" where i live is extremely offensive, and a word i personally hate. Doesn't matter if you are gay or not, its a horrible term that means 'weird' and there is nothing queer about being gay......... but I digress
There is no reason why gay people should be represented in games unless there is value to it from a character perspective, games are fantasy they don't reflect real life and characters are written to fit the storylines of the game. If having a gay character just for the sake of it was enforced on publishers you would end up with many stupid characters that simply don't fit the game.
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I think being gay, or a female, has nothing to do with video game design.
That is like saying, why are most main characters "White"?
It shoudn't really be a part of the design to try and integrate all human sexual orentiations. I mean for all you know. Zergs and homosexual and protoss are females.
E-sports wise, again gay and femalish = non relevant.
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On August 02 2011 04:41 LegendaryZ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2011 04:40 krbz wrote: It is normal not to be gay, hence what you perceived as a lack of gay representation.
Gay people are out numbered by straight people for a reason.
Gay couples serve no purpose in keeping our species alive. I'm not gay myself, but that's a pretty horrible way to see things. There's a lot more you can contribute to society and the human race than breeding...
What is every animals main goal in life?
To live long enough to reproduce. So their species doesn't die out.
That is the nature of this world. This is not horrible in any sense. It is merely normal. What you were built to do.
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I've always been puzzled by the need to have gay characters in videogames. If you think about it, very few games focus on anyone sexuality to begin with, for all you know the 14th marine you made today was gay, but there's no need to have banner flying across the screen letting you know.
Bioware have given alot of options, wich is fair, but aslong as there's no "THIS GUY IS HETRO BTW", there should be no need for "THIS GUY IS GAY" focus either.
If you want, you can pretend half the npcs in any rpg are gay, whatever floats your boat.
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On August 02 2011 04:51 krbz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2011 04:41 LegendaryZ wrote:On August 02 2011 04:40 krbz wrote: It is normal not to be gay, hence what you perceived as a lack of gay representation.
Gay people are out numbered by straight people for a reason.
Gay couples serve no purpose in keeping our species alive. I'm not gay myself, but that's a pretty horrible way to see things. There's a lot more you can contribute to society and the human race than breeding... What is every animals main goal in life? To live long enough to reproduce. So their species doesn't die out. That is the nature of this world. This is not horrible in any sense. It is merely normal. What you were built to do.
And gay animals exist through out the world, its actually more normal than you would think. Humans have moved beyond needing survival of the fittest anyway, we make the world how we want it to be. Humans aren't going anywhere and it has nothing to do with the fact that we are mainly hetro with adoption, sarrogacy and IV gay couples can pass on their genes and have children of their own..... please take your narrow minded views elsewhere
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