Heteronormaltivity in games
- Thread starter thebakedpotato
- Start date
I am an aspiring designer and actually should I ever get to form my own studio that was gonna be the one thing I would start introducing. A dream project if you will.Likely though someone else will beat me to it before I get there and while I will be happy I will also be kind of sad.However if its done but not "done right" by the time my light gets to shine you bet your ass I'm jumping on it.
So what you are actually asking for is romance drama games, you got a whole genre for that called dating sims, and since anime characters can barely be distinguished by gender you can make it swing any way you want by squinting a little.
You probably didn't mean this when you wrote that, but it's a very good point - Most writers are likely straight, and will be able to draw upon straight experiences. With a gay character, that's not so easy to write. It's like, trying to write a woman as a man. It's possible, but it's not easy. If you try to define the character by the gender, you fucked up. If you assign the gender arbitrarily to fill a quota, you fucked up. Same with gay characters. If there's a role for a gay character in the story and you write based off that, you're going to upset people. If you make a random character gay for the sole reason of having a gay character, you've fucked up.DRTJR said:
Everything in a story is there for a reason. Things that look random, characters having random traits or habits, it's all relevant. Irrelevant things are left out. If a character's gay, it's going to be challenged or rewarded at some stage. If a character's female, gender-specific things will happen, and that all depends on the medium's message. It's the same for literally every medium, not just videogames.
Game of Thrones, The Borgias and all those TV shows have varied sexualities and scattered characters among genders because there's a fuckbucket of sex in that. It's central to the tone of the show, especially as sexuality played a major role in states and interaction between families. When the power's held by people like that, lower pleasures are going to hold much more significance.
So essentially, it's not that gay characters are considered abnormal. It's that sexuality is a definite afterthought unless the story calls for otherwise. A story about a gay man overcoming prejudices requires gay characters. A story about a space marine saving Earth from an alien invasion does not require gay characters, and there isn't really a lot of room for the extrapolation of a gay character, unless somehow relevant to the plot. And even then it becomes terrifyingly stereotypical.
God damn it private, you're going to wear those boots with that helmet and YOU'RE GOING TO LIKE IT.
I tend to project a fair bit of my own sexuality onto the character I play. Which, in practice, mostly translates to: "I got no time for your romance stuff, I got a universe to save!"
Seriously, though, if "romance" isn't an essential part of gameplay, I don't really care. What does irk me is when you *have* to have an extraneous romance sub-plot, and don't get to choose whom you'd like to pursue. Yeah, game, I get that you want me to save, woo and make babies with that horrid, shrieking harpy. I'm gonna do it *if* I think the rest of the game is worth it. But don't expect me to love it.
Also, joining in the praise for Bully and The Last of Us, where the *character* matters, not whom that character likes to sex.
Seriously, though, if "romance" isn't an essential part of gameplay, I don't really care. What does irk me is when you *have* to have an extraneous romance sub-plot, and don't get to choose whom you'd like to pursue. Yeah, game, I get that you want me to save, woo and make babies with that horrid, shrieking harpy. I'm gonna do it *if* I think the rest of the game is worth it. But don't expect me to love it.
Also, joining in the praise for Bully and The Last of Us, where the *character* matters, not whom that character likes to sex.
Then is also stupid to make a white straight male character? shall we just play blobs from now on?Ponyholder said:
You can have a character who is gay, female, black, Indian, whatever without there being some specific reason to have them. The fact that everything is white straight male by default and portraying "minorities" without making that the central feature of their character is considering ticking off a check list and having no point is one of the reason they are poorly represented.
That isn't the norm though, they are treating the majority. I would also dislike playing as a gay because I personally find it gross, and it would totally ruin the game for me. I mean, only if they showed he was gay, like trying to save his boyfriend or something like that. But if you don't put something like that in, then what the fuck is the point? Being straight is the default in games and isn't really a plot point for them.thebakedpotato said:
Many games do not explicitly tell you the orientation of the characters, most just ASSUME they are straight. However, there is no reason why you cant assume they are gay.
Hell in the Last Remnant there are pretty strong arguments that both of the main characters are gay. However, most people on these forums seems to want gay characters "done right." In other words, they are more than just a gay character which would require focusing AWAY from that aspect (which pretty much brings us back to assuming people are gay/straight).
The industry can easily make efforts into a highly published gay character, and they will most likely be terrible as that will be the only aspect they concentrate on. Like how games try to add more female characters, and many of them turn out to be terrible because they didn't get any farther than "its a female character."
Moral of the story, be careful what you wish for because in all likelihood your desire will backfire in an epic way as the industry will try to milk this wish without actually putting in the effort.
Hell in the Last Remnant there are pretty strong arguments that both of the main characters are gay. However, most people on these forums seems to want gay characters "done right." In other words, they are more than just a gay character which would require focusing AWAY from that aspect (which pretty much brings us back to assuming people are gay/straight).
The industry can easily make efforts into a highly published gay character, and they will most likely be terrible as that will be the only aspect they concentrate on. Like how games try to add more female characters, and many of them turn out to be terrible because they didn't get any farther than "its a female character."
Moral of the story, be careful what you wish for because in all likelihood your desire will backfire in an epic way as the industry will try to milk this wish without actually putting in the effort.
Marcus from gears of war is not expressly straight. He very well may be but he never makes a move on anya or anything. There's much more focus on his questionably deep rooted friendship with dom than any other relationship in the game.thebakedpotato said:
But anyways, on the point of hetero-normality in general, I mean, it's kind of a cop out to pull majority card here but isn't the straight-gay ratio something like 20-1? Kinda makes it a little less marketable to have a gay romance weaved into the main narrative as a core part of the story. That's 20 people who won't connect with it for every 1 that will, and that's operating on the assumption that those 20 people are so open to watching a homosexual love story unfold that it doesn't make them uncomfortable and they may be willing to look past it. It would really pigeonhole the demographic, and this is an industry that turned dead space into an action game with coop to widen the appeal. I don't see it happening.
Most games where you get to choose who to bang have the option to be gay nowadays, so that's cool.
With respect, how do you know the sexuality of the characters in a good chunk of games? Rather than saying the majority is straight it'd be more accurate to say that the majority are observably asexual, basically you'd assume they have a sexuality because they're supposed to be people but it never gets raised.
Secondly there aren't many gay people in real life, it's something like 5% of the population maximum right? Well it's like when people ask why there aren't more black actors on UK shows and when you actually look in to it it turns out black people are something like 2% of the entire UK population, people seem to think it's like 10% of the population and think they're under represented but when you really think about it black people on UK TV are actually vastly over represented. Maybe proportionally there are the right number of gay people in games.
Secondly there aren't many gay people in real life, it's something like 5% of the population maximum right? Well it's like when people ask why there aren't more black actors on UK shows and when you actually look in to it it turns out black people are something like 2% of the entire UK population, people seem to think it's like 10% of the population and think they're under represented but when you really think about it black people on UK TV are actually vastly over represented. Maybe proportionally there are the right number of gay people in games.
You guys forget the golden rule. They are fictitious, and therefore you can imagine them any way you like. Case in point: Gears of War. Sure, the developers want you to think they're all manly and hard, but considering the -staggering- amount of man on man action depicted in fan art...