Online Kombat

[The Lunatic]

I didn't notice he was gay, honestly. I haven't played the game, but, I've watched a person or two playing bits and pieces of the story mode.

Just took him for a regular fighting guy.

So, that's neat. Admittedly, the whole "I don't know if they'll accept me" is a bit cliche. But, whatever, at least they didn't take "The Bioware approach".

However, I find in a lot of instances, complaint about people complaining about this kinda thing tend to be very trumped up.

It's kinda like with the "Black Stormtrooper" thing that the media got in a tizzy about not long ago. I never saw anyone complaining about it, and I looked pretty hard. But a news site said there were people complaining about it, so, a bunch of other sites agreed there must have been too.

 

[Aerith]

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

It should have been called "Kritical Miss".

0/10

 

[Jake Martinez]

Guilty gear. venom. Comon guys. Gay people have been in videogames a long time. This isn't news. I'm not say anymore about the subject because i know how quote happy people are.

For a long time, but in very small numbers, and playable ones are pretty rare. If it wasn't news people wouldn't complain about it so very much (not saying that's what you're doing).

Video games may be one thing, but don't you think that maybe gay people are over represented in most forms of media? After all, our best estimates are that they only make up somewhere around 3-4% of the population (although technically that's not even true because about half of those people self identify as bisexual)

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with this, as truly I don't care (unless it gets to the point of absurdity) but I would postulate that most writers and creators make characters who are ones that they feel they can relate to and if you look at demographics, the vast, vast, vast majority of those people would be heterosexual, hence the preponderance of heterosexual characters.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if every single gay writer decided that they would only write about gay characters, we'd still only have a small percentage of gay characters without heterosexual people deciding to write them.

In light of that, it's not terribly surprising that there would be very few gay characters in video games. It's also not nefarious in the least, or something that people ought to be concerned about. I'd be more worried if gay people were being excluded from the industry, or if writers were being told directly to NOT make gay characters.

 

[StreamerDarkly]

This is a thing now? Trumpeting a trait of a character that doesn't really apply to gameplay in the grand scheme of things?

Well written characters are rare. Well written gay characters even more so. People are happy with a dev for managing it.

So y u mad, bro?

Please, for the love of god, let the people making comments about how they don't care be doing it in jest.

I see what's going on here. Couldn't find anyone in the thread that fit the angry homophobe stereotype as depicted in the comic, so let's see if we can bait a moderate.

While I can understand how it would be rewarding for comic artists to provoke the exact type of behavior they're mocking (relevance and all), you don't often see them take to the comments section to achieve it. The odor of tryhard is strong.

On the plus side, assuming you're not above self-mockery, you've inadvertently developed some fresh material for a new comic.

 

[WhiteNachos]

Question: Is there any romance or sex in Mortal Kombat involving the new gay character?

 

[Machine Man 1992]

I'm all for inclusiveness... but... unless there's a sex mini-game, how would we even know they were gay, or why should it be relevant in the least? I mean, do we know for sure Chun-Li isn't gay? That Scorpion doesn't like dudes? Would it even matter, in the least?

Each character has a back-story that explains their background and motivation for fighting, to add some flavour to the game. One of those characters happens to be gay as part of their back-story, like another character has a wife and kid, that's it pretty much. It shouldn't be a big deal, unfortunately a lot of people on the Internet seem determined to make it otherwise >.>

Like the progressive games journalists who can not shut up about things like this.

 

[kajinking]

Ok after watching a video showing all the characters and their fatalities I still can't tell who it is. The fact that it's not being boradcast with giant neon signs over whoever it is means I don't care.

 

[JCAll]

Question: Is there any romance or sex in Mortal Kombat involving the new gay character?

Not at the moment. He is just a character who happens to be, which is why he was afraid to join the White Lotus seemingly because Liu Kang, his cousin and the White Lotus champion, couldn't accept who he was.

So who are the fans going to ship Kung Jin with? I'll guess Rain.

 

[Silvanus]

Video games may be one thing, but don't you think that maybe gay people are over represented in most forms of media? After all, our best estimates are that they only make up somewhere around 3-4% of the population (although technically that's not even true because about half of those people self identify as bisexual)

Some estimates, yes, though others are higher. Perhaps more significantly, remember too that younger people are more likely to identify as non-straight, and also more likely to play video games, which is another reason using a national survey stat such as that isn't too useful.

That aside, I certainly don't feel gay characters are over-represented. I still have a damn hard time finding gay protagonists, and I've looked pretty hard.

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with this, as truly I don't care (unless it gets to the point of absurdity) but I would postulate that most writers and creators make characters who are ones that they feel they can relate to and if you look at demographics, the vast, vast, vast majority of those people would be heterosexual, hence the preponderance of heterosexual characters.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if every single gay writer decided that they would only write about gay characters, we'd still only have a small percentage of gay characters without heterosexual people deciding to write them.

In light of that, it's not terribly surprising that there would be very few gay characters in video games. It's also not nefarious in the least, or something that people ought to be concerned about. I'd be more worried if gay people were being excluded from the industry, or if writers were being told directly to NOT make gay characters.

Population proportions account for part of it, but not all. After all, a number of straight authors have proven themselves more than capable of writing gay characters capably. Plus, even when a gay creator creates a gay character (as in the case of DA:I), they're still accused of pandering, so it's unavoidable.

My complaint is that creators are being told just that, by a subset of the fanbase-- a subset which vocally complain about how it shouldn't matter, that it's pandering (regardless of how it's done), that it's politically correct.

The MKX case is an example. The complainants have not had anything taken away from them (as there are still countless straight characters, which are not under any threat), but would prefer to take something away from others. They don't want others to get what they themselves have taken for granted all along. It's just simple dismissiveness.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm not accusing you of any of the above. You seem level-headed.

 

[Sanderpower]

Guilty gear. venom. Comon guys. Gay people have been in videogames a long time. This isn't news. I'm not say anymore about the subject because i know how quote happy people are.

For a long time, but in very small numbers, and playable ones are pretty rare. If it wasn't news people wouldn't complain about it so very much (not saying that's what you're doing).

Video games may be one thing, but don't you think that maybe gay people are over represented in most forms of media? After all, our best estimates are that they only make up somewhere around 3-4% of the population (although technically that's not even true because about half of those people self identify as bisexual)

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with this, as truly I don't care (unless it gets to the point of absurdity) but I would postulate that most writers and creators make characters who are ones that they feel they can relate to and if you look at demographics, the vast, vast, vast majority of those people would be heterosexual, hence the preponderance of heterosexual characters.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if every single gay writer decided that they would only write about gay characters, we'd still only have a small percentage of gay characters without heterosexual people deciding to write them.

In light of that, it's not terribly surprising that there would be very few gay characters in video games. It's also not nefarious in the least, or something that people ought to be concerned about. I'd be more worried if gay people were being excluded from the industry, or if writers were being told directly to NOT make gay characters.

Well if we wrote based on population demographics, then white characters should be far more rare and the vast majority should be Asians. Also we should have far more religious devout characters, far less tall characters, more illiterate characters, etc.

I understanding where your coming from, but it's flawed because the truth of the matter is that mass media by it's nature doesn't represent the average, it represents the "interesting".

 

[Thorn14]

I wonder if the blowback is due to all the discussion about it? No one cared that Venom was gay in Guilty Gear.

I dunno. I don't mind that he's gay, no idea why others would.

And since it was brought up, I saw no one on GG care either way also, only "complaints" I saw were shitposting on /v/ on 4chan.

 

[DayDark]

It's depressing and disgusting to see the developers of mortal kombat x, now allow for the player to directly participate in the beating and mutilation of gay people. *

Spoiler

Sarcasm*

Edit: wait, not Sarcasm as in its awesome, more like I'm just kidding... Wait, I mean I'm not KIDDING kidding, violence again gay people is no laughing matter, I'm just saying I don't mean what I just wrote... No I mean what I just wrote OUTSIDE the spoiler tag-uuugh fuck it.

 

[scbunchy]

Every character in the Tekken games is gay right? Except obviously Tetsujin and Mokujin who can go either way.