We live in 21st century, I still do not understand why it is relevant or important to separate people by their sexuality. Well... Maybe the next step of social-evolution has to wait another millennium or till OUR Sun runs out of hydrogen.
But being A-sex gives me the great opportunity to attend both "kinds" of conventions and not feeling displaced. Oh wait. I am not straight or gay/bi. Should I demand my own con now? Do I not belong to the other kinds?
To be honest, if boys want to have "no girls club". Or in this case "Only gay/bi/insert here" club - GO AHEAD. You do not need to attend these events.
This all boils down to... YOU DO NOT NEED TO ATTEND THESE EVENTS - so whats the issue? You stop trowing rocks at them and they will stop trowing rocks at you. Simple ain't it. (I wish - there are always "those people")
But if they want to have Con of their own and pay for it them self's - whats the issue? It is their choice. If they don't want to attend cons which they fell are not for them. (And I kinda agree with them - all the big breasted skinny clothed booth babes annoy me a lot. It is con for gaming what does skinny clothed girls have to do with it?!)
This boils down before burning as a black stain on the pot in to - live and let live.
We live in 21st century, I still do not understand why it is relevant or important to separate people by their sexuality. Well... Maybe the next step of social-evolution has to wait another millennium or till OUR Sun runs out of hydrogen.
But being A-sex gives me the great opportunity to attend both "kinds" of conventions and not feeling displaced. Oh wait. I am not straight or gay/bi. Should I demand my own con now? Do I not belong to the other kinds?
To be honest, if boys want to have "no girls club". Or in this case "Only gay/bi/insert here" club - GO AHEAD. You do not need to attend these events.
This all boils down to... YOU DO NOT NEED TO ATTEND THESE EVENTS - so whats the issue? You stop trowing rocks at them and they will stop trowing rocks at you. Simple ain't it. (I wish - there are always "those people")
But if they want to have Con of their own and pay for it them self's - whats the issue? It is their choice. If they don't want to attend cons which they fell are not for them. (And I kinda agree with them - all the big breasted skinny clothed booth babes annoy me a lot. It is con for gaming what does skinny clothed girls have to do with it?!)
This boils down before burning as a black stain on the pot in to - live and let live.
I agree completely, anyone actually complaining about a gay con for gamers is making a mountain out of a molehill.
Think it's silly, redundant and segregational, and that there shouldn't be a need for it? Welcome to cons in general. You may as well ask why gamers should have cons at all, and you'd have pretty much the same arguments.
I answered this only 7 posts above your post so I'll quote myself rather than repeat myself.
Guestyman said:
You can't honestly believe that *we're* the ones who are bringing sexuality into this. Gaymercon is the *result* not the *cause* of gay people being isolated within gaming culture. I would like nothing better than for my sexuality not to be an issue with wider gaming culture but wider gaming culture doesn't give us that luxury.
If you're so concerned about people bringing sexuality into an area that has nothing to do with it, don't tell me. I don't want my sexuality brought into it. Tell it to the straight people who decided my sexuality was such a hot button issue that they made me feel unsafe in my own subculture. Tell the idiotic bigots on livechat and at cons that my sexuality shouldn't be brought into gaming. Gaymercon *Wouldn't need to exist* if people didn't keep on bringing other people's sexuality into places where it needn't be discussed.
No, you came up with a list of how there are properties containing hetrosexuality. How are you hard done by by the existance of these things? Again this is like demanding that there be an atheist gamer convention because obviously games are all slated towards theists, since titles like god of war exist.
Its silly. i know its silly, you know it silly: Lets all stop being silly.
I am going to put it this way, since you continue to act dismissively instead of respectfully: you have no idea what you're talking about. You speak as if you were some sort of higher authority who possesses the ultimate truth on this matter, when you're not even part of the group who has observed this problem.
Allow me to repeat it, so that it sinks in: you have no idea what you're talking about. You're just saying it's silly because it's a subject you have no knowledge of and still manage to find it in your heart to spend time and effort trying to pretend you do, and patronising the people who actually know what they're talking about.
matthew_lane said:
Again your statment is the same as if i said "religion sells games like god of war." Lets pretend that i am adamnetly opposed to religion to the point where i am offended by even fictional religions (though to be fair they are all fictional): The existance of God of War doesn't say anything about the entirety of games.
Let me once again contain the innate outburst of rage I had when reading this, and allow me to reply calmly and rationally: comparing sexuality to religion is absolutely ridiculous. Just because some games use religion in their world-building doesn't mean that religion is widely considered to be a selling point for games. At no point the selling point of God of War is its religion! The selling point of God of War is a power fantasy of violence and gore, using a male avatar (Kratos). What you refuse to get is that even though religion is part of the game industry, it's not a selling point. In fact, Extra Credits has done two episodes explaining how the industry is more or less decent using the lore of pre-existant religions, but is sorely lacking when it comes to dealing with actual faith. Its treatment of religion is exclusively background world-building, not something meant to appeal to gamers. The only game that uses religion as a selling point (that I know of) is Left Behind: Eternal Forces, though I'm quite sure that there are only a handful more at best.
matthew_lane said:
Likewise the fact that some games are in fact sold on the principle of sexyness, doesn't mean all games are, or even most games. An just because you don't like games sold using hetrosexual sexyness, there is no reason why those games shouldn't exist.
It's not "some games", not all games need to be DoA to use sexuality as a selling point. They don't need to shove sexuality in your face to include it as a selling point. Every Tomb Raider game has had sexuality as part of its selling point, as well as fighting games, fantasy RPGs, sci fi games, and any game where you see women showing ass, cleavage or legs for no discernible reason. Which are actually a great deal.
Mass Effect has the asari for this (why does Benezia need such an excessive cleavage, for example?), Dragon Age has Morrigan (and Flemmeth, in the sequel), we have Bayonetta, the Hitman assassin-nuns, the female LoL champions, the depiction of women in WoW (and the rest of the Warcraft franchise, where only women have the power to charm or seduce, for example, and are in stereotypically revealing outfits), all the stripperriffic armour for female heroines in fantasy RPGs (I've been told there's a skin for a female LoL champion whose teleport animation is a pole stripper dance), the fact that in most world-building, women embody the concept of seduction (such as that lesser evil in Diablo 3), Kerrigan has built-in stiletto heels and gets turned into a naked female human, female ghosts in Starcraft have body-hugging catsuits and no helmet (to show off their hair and cleavage), the body type of women in fighting games (and practically all games) is "supermodel" with almost no variation (there are practically no fat, muscled, or flat-chested women, and most of them are dressed in outfits that show off their body), Resident Evil has Ada Wong wearing a terribly inappropriate outfit, Claire Redfield showing midriff, Jill Valentine showing cleavage and so on (while the men wear sensible outfits), prostitutes and strippers in games are almost universally female (even in fantasy/sci fi/alternate Earth universes), desire demons in Dragon Age appear to be universally female, and clearly female (not androgynous or hermaphroditic), not to mention almost completely naked, female asari banshees have inexplicable cleavage/increased bust size, Skyrim has mobs that are clearly feminised (hargraven, flame elementals, spriggan, wispmothers and so on) with no male equivalent, half of which are creatures that by logic should have no gender at all, you only rescue women in the Dead to Rights games (stripper minigame!), everything about the Duke Nukem games, the God of War games (with the sexualisation of female monsters and goddesses), Halo's Cortana (and the female-looking aliens), Overlord 1 and 2 (including the harem of women), most of the things that have been described as "fan service" (very rarely is fan service aimed at women or non-straight men)...
Need. I. Go. On.
matthew_lane said:
But this has nothing to do with sexuality of the player. Sexuality doesn't come into it at all. Can i suddenly not enjoy playing a lesbian femshep because i'm straight & male? Of course i can. Learn to moderate your own viewing... An frannkly that does not require a gay gamer convention, any more then my dislike of sports game requires a no-sports-game gamer convention.
You do not have a rational grasp on what sexuality means. Nobody's saying that you cannot enjoy playing a character of a different sexuality than yours. If that was the case, there wouldn't be any LGBT gamers at all because most characters are straight. What this con is saying is that we exist too and making characters of diverse sexualities (and being more egalitarian with the depiction of sexuality in games) is financially justifiable.
Sports are not a marketing selling point for games (other than sports games). No game (other than sports games) constantly shove sports in your face. No game has their characters comment on sports all the time. No game has characters inexplicably dressed in sports outfits for no discernible reason.
matthew_lane said:
Bullshit. Because Kratos is buff and shirtless because the are trying to downplay his buffness. In that case, i've got a bridge i'd like to sell you.
Do you get good looks of his ass? Do we get bulge emphasis? Do we even get a clear look of his body? No, because he's wearing a kilt (or long loincloth) and he's covered in ash and warpaint.
This is sexualised dude armour, not Kratos's mere shirtlessness:
Oh? Do tell! Because I'm quite sure I can come up with 3 or 4 games (or more, even) with a white male protagonist for every protagonist of colour you can find.
matthew_lane said:
When it happens which is not often & when it is its usually an optional plot thread & quite often the choice is given to romance a member of the same gender.
Wow. So games never mention that a male character has a wife, girlfriend or imply that they slept with a woman? Because I recall one of the Gears of War games (according to Yahtzee) had a murdered wife. Because I assure you, there are many games that outright state your male character has a wife (Alan Wake), has a girlfriend (Catherine), a lover (the Prince of Persia series), casual sex with women (the GTA series), or simply flirts with women (the Devil May Cry series).
This one actually made me laugh. Same deal with the protagonist of colour above. I will find you at least five games that highly sexualise women and put them in revealing outfits for each and every single one that you can name that doesn't (and in some cases, like Mass Effect, I will use the same game as an example, because just because Shepard can have a full body-covering suit doesn't mean there aren't half-naked asari in that game!).
matthew_lane said:
But even if everything you said was true, which it wasn't, they still doesn't require a gay game convention.
At the end of the day a gay gamer convention is absent of justification. We already have game conventions open to everyone, including men, women, hetrosexuals, homosexual, furries & annyoing otaku people you want to smack in the head for walking around butchering pigeon japanese because they think it makes them cool.
Nobody's saying that this con exists because we're not allowed to go to regular cons. This con exists because the industry is convinced we don't exist. It might also have to do with the general homophobia of the industry and the desire to have a safe space to meet where that homophobia doesn't exist.
matthew_lane said:
An frankly it smacks of a serious double standard: For years people have complained about geeks not being inclusive (even though we've always been inclusive) & then this kind of crap pops up. Lame.
Let me make this as clear as possible: you don't get to decide what is or is not inclusive. If you're part of the majority or privileged group, you are automatically included. That means that the only people who can actually TELL if something is or is not inclusive are the ones that are part of the minorities or oppressed groups. The only way you have of telling if gamer culture is inclusive or not is listening to those who aren't white straight males. They are the ones who know if gamer culture is inclusive or not.
matthew_lane said:
This is the same nonsense we got when women complained that men were keeping them out of convention events, that it was some sort of boys club & then they turned around and created all female cliques like the Frag Dolls. So totally lame.
Yes. Yes, I do wonder whatever possessed women who repeatedly complained that they felt excluded to form a space where they didn't feel excluded. Boggles the mind.
This is the same nonsense we got when women complained that men were keeping them out of convention events, that it was some sort of boys club & then they turned around and created all female cliques like the Frag Dolls. So totally lame.
How many marginalised groups need to tell you that your cons and your culture are exclusionary and not safe-places for minorities before you'll consider that the problem might not be with the minorities?
EDIT:
Darken12 said:
Yes. Yes, I do wonder whatever possessed women who repeatedly complained that they felt excluded to form a space where they didn't feel excluded. Boggles the mind.
*looks at a comic comparing Communist oppression of a section of religious central Asians (an entire country too btw) to a straight person asking why gays are so insecure that they have to give into tribalism and section off their own little meet up against a culture they're supposedly trying to gain acceptance into.*
Sigh...
Also ridiculous was the last panel demonstrating a supposed male centric desire that absolutely no male in existence has ever expressed before said panel. But hey, most of The Escapist is full of Misandry. So keep on keepin' on you sexist diamonds.
No, you came up with a list of how there are properties containing hetrosexuality. How are you hard done by by the existance of these things? Again this is like demanding that there be an atheist gamer convention because obviously games are all slated towards theists, since titles like god of war exist.
Its silly. i know its silly, you know it silly: Lets all stop being silly.
Not in the sense of a gay-by-default character, the closest examples I can think of are custom protagonists where you can choose for them to be gay at various points in the plot, a la Mass Effect / Dragon Age.
I can't think of a protagonist that was simply gay as part of their innate character, though I'm loathe to suggest that it's the result of intentional discrimination. I think the gaming industry just knows their target audience enough not to risk it.
Fable, Skyrim, Mass Effect and Dragon Age let you play a straight, bisexual, gay or asexual character.
Other than that, you have this list: LGBT Characters In Games [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBT_characters_in_video_games], though there is sadly a great dearth of protagonists in that list.
An i disagree with that too, on exactly the same grounds as why i disagree with the having a gay gamer convention. Because it is completely without justification... Because just like sexuality or gender, gaming is not about religious affiliations.
Instead of actually being inclusive, thats just segregation for segregations sake. Whats next, black gaming conventions? white heterosexual men who still live with their parents & have an unrequited crush on the best female friend you had in highschool, even though she thinks of you just as a friend so you keep on "being there" for her, instead of getting on with your own life, gaming conventions?
i mean where does it end?
After all, isn't the point of gaming.... Well, games?
By that metric why have a gaming convention at all when you could just go to a pop-culture convention?
For that matter, why have a pop-culture convention when you could just live in regular society?
An since gay =/= gay men, but actually equals gay men & women, an if we've agreed that sex sells (to everyone); then by extension wouldn't the lesbians want to be sold the sexy female characters & the gay men sold the sexy male characters, how is that at all different then selling those same characters to a hetrosexual crowd?
It's different because it's not happening for two of the three groups that you list, gay men and lesbian women. Games are marketed overwhelmingly (to put it mildly) to a straight male audience.
I'm a woman and I like women, but I am keenly aware that the people who are making video games are not thinking of me when they dress the scenery with lots of attractive women. I cannot pretend that I'm the target audience when Miranda Lawson in Mass Effect 2 is introduced to me ass-first. There's a cinematic concept called male gaze, which is the understood implication that such camera angles which pan lovingly along the body features of beautiful women are implying that the camera (as a surrogate for the audience) is looking at the subject matter the way they expect a straight man would.
Missing the point entirely here. Question: do redheads have to actively worry about being verbally or physically accosted at cons because they are redheads? Do they have to endure a culture where some derogatory term offensive to redheads is bandied about casually without any thought? Is there an unwelcoming atmosphere in general for red heads in gaming? No there's not. But unfortunately, that's the case with homophobia in gaming culture.
Having personally experienced each and every example you listed there (admittedly while at school, which I would argue is worse as at least with a convention or gaming you have a choice as to whether you wish to participate!), I rather disagree with you. Daily, weekly, I received plenty of crap just because of how I was born - so in this regard I have a lot of empathy.
Do you know how much bullshit I had to put up with, thanks to that episode of South Park?
Perhaps redheads are left alone where you come from, but where I was a kid - and still in the UK today - redheads get a hard time for something as banal as the colour of their hair.
If they'd held gaming conventions 15-20 years ago where I was a kid, sure, I'd worry about everything you listed. Well, no, I never worried about it even though the threat was real - I just never let it bother me.
EDIT:
Just read this in the paper now: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2258343/Mans-jaw-broken-attack-Birmingham-pizza-shop-red-hair.html
Personally I think we should spend less time forming exclusive groups within the gaming community and making the entire medium more inclusive to everyone. While I don't understand why these people want their own Con, they are more then welcome to do so. I don't think it actually does much to further their goal of being included, when all their really doing is excluding others.
I'd rather we don't start forming cliques based on sexuality, race, religion, or anything else. It just splinters us and gives people a reason to say, "Well they have THEIR group, so WE'RE going to make OUR group."
But, in the end I doubt having their Gaymer-Con will do any bad. So it doesn't really matter if it's around or not.
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