Online Kombat

[templar1138a]

My contribution to this discussion:

I quite like egg salad, but I've been gaining weight lately, so I've had to cut back on it among other things.

 

[RJ 17]

See Also: People that "don't care" about Anita Sarkeesian

Also See Also: People that "don't care" about GamerGate.

 

[Lightknight]

Is he stereotypically gay? How is he identified as such in the game?

They really don't draw much attention to it. This is the only reference to it in game.

That's it?

Ok... then great. I'm not sure why anyone would have a problem or particularly care. For all someone playing the game knows, he's in love with the Dojo master's daughter or something. So people can remain oblivious if they wish.

It's also kind of nice that they decided to portray him like a regular person rather than really "gaying" him up. Means that he is X character with Y abilities rather than just "that gay one" had they tried to make it a defining quality like so many stories fall folly to.

I have to ask though, has someone actually announced that he is in-fact gay? Or are we assuming it? It's just subtle enough to not know without outside knowledge.

 

[Adultratedhydra]

I have to ask though, has someone actually announced that he is in-fact gay? Or are we assuming it? It's just subtle enough to not know without outside knowledge.

It was confirmed by Netherrealm and then, mysteriously, the alleged "Outrage" erupted. Ofcourse these days people see a mean comment and automatically think "Oh people are really like this." Whereas afew months ago it would have been handwaved into the garbage with the rest of the trolls.

 

[scotth266]

Having seen the cutscene on Youtube, it's pretty well-handled. You want to include a gay character? This is how you do it, with some fucking subtlety and grace. Me gusta. If I actually played fighting games I would be interested in the new Mortal Combat now because it looks like the writers know their shit (and idiot that I am, I play fighters for the plot).

---

I've seen more people smugly saying "HAH BET PEOPLE WILL LOSE THEIR SHIT" than people actually losing their shit. It's starting to get really obnoxious.

 

[RJ Dalton]

"I just don't want to expose children to that sort of behavior."

That made my day. Thank you.

For my part, I actually don't give a fuck, not because I'm totally deaf to the gay rights movement, but because I really don't care about Mortal Kombat. It's a game where it's chief appeal has always been its over the top violence and, given the state of modern gaming, the novelty of that sort of wore off, oh, about ten years ago.

But writing a two thousand word post about something you don't give a fuck about? Totally know how that goes. Sometimes, you find yourself having a very complex opinion about things you didn't think you cared about. And sometimes you just rant for the fun of it.

 

[Adultratedhydra]

People really have no right to complain about the inclusion of a homosexual character in a fighting game.

After all, playing a gay character is a choice.

To be fair. Noone is complaining. in this very thread noone is complaining about it. Theres alot of people claiming that theres people outraged over this but it seems like something one would have to go pretty far out of their way to find.

Suprised theres less focus on the Vastly improved female character designs. Sonya actually looks like special forces now rather than army costumed hooker.

 

[The Material Sheep]

My only concern when I heard about it was them bandying that aspect of him like it was a trophy, or worse him being 'Faaaaaabulous' or the like.

Watching the cutscene, and it merely being confirmed via the developer, I see nothing to be mad about. The character happens to be gay, it's important to the character's motivations and backstory, and it isn't trounced around like it's some big thing for the sake of publicity.

Gold stars from me.

With the incredible campy nature of Mortal Kombat I don't really see how a faaaaaaaaabulous character would be out of place. Regardless I don't see what the big deal is. I don't think he was added just for brownie points, which is a lot of my past problems with seemingly token gay characters being added to games. Kind of sucks that people are just so hyper reactionary due to the current environment in gaming.

 

[Areloch]

My only concern when I heard about it was them bandying that aspect of him like it was a trophy, or worse him being 'Faaaaaabulous' or the like.

Watching the cutscene, and it merely being confirmed via the developer, I see nothing to be mad about. The character happens to be gay, it's important to the character's motivations and backstory, and it isn't trounced around like it's some big thing for the sake of publicity.

Gold stars from me.

With the incredible campy nature of Mortal Kombat I don't really see how a faaaaaaaaabulous character would be out of place. Regardless I don't see what the big deal is. I don't think he was added just for brownie points, which is a lot of my past problems with seemingly token gay characters being added to games. Kind of sucks that people are just so hyper reactionary due to the current environment in gaming.

Yeah, that's probably true, though MK feels like it's gravitated more towards 'supr srs' rather than camp of late. I haven't played X though, so maybe that's just the veneer of the marketing getting in the way. Of course, you could also imagine the internet firestorm that would happen from the hyper-reactionaries if they did go full faaaaaaaabulous too. This is probably the least painful way to get the character in right now for the devs.

 

[Andy Shandy]

The [HEADING=1]GAYTALITY![/HEADING] where he tears off male characters' clothes off and sucks them like a vacuum cleaner might've been a bit much for some people though.

Seriously though, it's good to see Netherrealm handle the characterization well, both in-game and out.

 

[Grahav]

Ah, so that was what Raiden and Jin were talking about.

Here I was thinking he was a pedophile; or a furry.

People really have no right to complain about the inclusion of a homosexual character in a fighting game.

After all, playing a gay character is a choice.

To be fair. Noone is complaining. in this very thread noone is complaining about it. Theres alot of people claiming that theres people outraged over this but it seems like something one would have to go pretty far out of their way to find.

Suprised theres less focus on the Vastly improved female character designs. Sonya actually looks like special forces now rather than army costumed hooker.

There is stripper cowboys, but it is totally okay right?

As for the gay thing. Well, it may be a novelty in games but the presentation is old news in media. It is pure propaganda that falls in two camps for gays:

1: Gays are evil things with rotten blood that sacrifice children for the satanic being xuxumagafababah that lives in the Dark Dimension,

A: Gays are the bestest, nicest and coolest people ever and all their problems are caused by you, you mean, meany society.

Both have been done to death already. They teach nothing and serve only to earn cookie points from a side.

 

[delroland]

Having seen the cutscene on Youtube, it's pretty well-handled. You want to include a gay character? This is how you do it, with some fucking subtlety and grace. Me gusta. If I actually played fighting games I would be interested in the new Mortal Combat now because it looks like the writers know their shit (and idiot that I am, I play fighters for the plot).

---

I've seen more people smugly saying "HAH BET PEOPLE WILL LOSE THEIR SHIT" than people actually losing their shit. It's starting to get really obnoxious.

Except you fail to consider the social context. This is a country in which there are states and counties in which it is still legal to discriminate against gay people for being gay:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/17/us/michigan-business-bans-openly-gay-people/index.html

As such, the only way to eliminate the deep-seated bigotry within this nation is to challenge it, and while MKX does so in a very small way, each step towards equality and inclusion is a positive and important one.

 

[VanQ]

Is he stereotypically gay? How is he identified as such in the game?

He probably isn't. He's probably a well written character. What likely happened was that the writer disclosed to the internet that the well written character happens to be gay and that may have influenced their actions in the story in some way.

 

[scotth266]

As such, the only way to eliminate the deep-seated bigotry within this nation is to challenge it, and while MKX does so in a very small way, each step towards equality and inclusion is a positive and important one.

I already said that I like the gay character and the way they introduce him. I'm more annoyed by people preening about it, because (in case you didn't already notice) the sort of people that are going to play Mortal Combat are not the same sort of people as that one car dealer in Michigan. Mortal Combat is preaching to the choir, not making some drastic social statement. It's a chorus with a good message, but it gets a bit tiring repeatedly hearing shouted declarations of "AMEN, HALLELUJAH MY BROTHER."

Come to think of it the whole hubbub surrounding gay/minority characters largely reminds me of the more energetic churches out there - loud and fervent with tons of hymnals. I'm a more subtle sort of guy that prefers song-less ceremonies - constant noise just gives me a headache.

Also, if you're at the point where you can buy your own copies of Mortal Combat and haven't learned that gay people aren't Satan Incarnate, you're probably not going to realize it period. My two cents.

 

[Karadalis]

Yeah... im calling BS on the Unicorn thing...

Im able to play gay characters in any bioware game but i have yet to be able to play as a unicorn...

WE NEED MORE DIVERSITY!

 

[Gorrath]

I've got mixed feelings on the whole tokenism debate. On the one hand, I would like to see more fleshing out of a character dealing with their sexuality. On the other hand...do they always need to? I mean there are black characters in fighting games and they don't exactly flesh out their race and any experiences related to their race. Why not just let them have a gay character who just happens to be gay, end of story? We have plenty of characters who just happen to be heterosexual, end of story, why not the other way around?

That's the thing about tokenism though, people have started to equate it with things that are pretty plainly not tokenism. In this case, if Jin was just a "gay" re-skin of another character who got none of the same backstory treatment and the like, that would be tokenism. Take Balrog from Street Fighter. He's a unique character with his own moveset, his own story and his own character design. Now imagine if Balrog was a black re-skin of Ryu with maybe a tiny adjustment to his moveset, no backstory or given motivation of his own. That would be tokensim. Jin is given the same treatment as the other characters, so even if his sexual orientation is only a blurb that hardly comes up, he isn't a "token-gay" he's just another character who happens to be gay.

 

[Erttheking]

I've got mixed feelings on the whole tokenism debate. On the one hand, I would like to see more fleshing out of a character dealing with their sexuality. On the other hand...do they always need to? I mean there are black characters in fighting games and they don't exactly flesh out their race and any experiences related to their race. Why not just let them have a gay character who just happens to be gay, end of story? We have plenty of characters who just happen to be heterosexual, end of story, why not the other way around?

That's the thing about tokenism though, people have started to equate it with things that are pretty plainly not tokenism. In this case, if Jin was just a "gay" re-skin of another character who got none of the same backstory treatment and the like, that would be tokenism. Take Balrog from Street Fighter. He's a unique character with his own moveset, his own story and his own character design. Now imagine if Balrog was a black re-skin of Ryu with maybe a tiny adjustment to his moveset, no backstory or given motivation of his own. That would be tokensim. Jin is given the same treatment as the other characters, so even if his sexual orientation is only a blurb that hardly comes up, he isn't a "token-gay" he's just another character who happens to be gay.

Good point.

I'm a little hesitant to say this but I feel like I lot of the pushback against him that I'm seeing on the web is the result of something I like to call "Diet-homophobia". People who don't say that they're homophobic, but they don't want it "shoved down their throats". Reminds me of when there was a Borderlands 2 thread way back when and people said that they were getting homosexuality shoved down their throats because Sir Hammerlock off handily mentioned that he had an ex-boyfriend. Either that or it was just tokenism.

 

[Gorrath]

I've got mixed feelings on the whole tokenism debate. On the one hand, I would like to see more fleshing out of a character dealing with their sexuality. On the other hand...do they always need to? I mean there are black characters in fighting games and they don't exactly flesh out their race and any experiences related to their race. Why not just let them have a gay character who just happens to be gay, end of story? We have plenty of characters who just happen to be heterosexual, end of story, why not the other way around?

That's the thing about tokenism though, people have started to equate it with things that are pretty plainly not tokenism. In this case, if Jin was just a "gay" re-skin of another character who got none of the same backstory treatment and the like, that would be tokenism. Take Balrog from Street Fighter. He's a unique character with his own moveset, his own story and his own character design. Now imagine if Balrog was a black re-skin of Ryu with maybe a tiny adjustment to his moveset, no backstory or given motivation of his own. That would be tokensim. Jin is given the same treatment as the other characters, so even if his sexual orientation is only a blurb that hardly comes up, he isn't a "token-gay" he's just another character who happens to be gay.

Good point.

I'm a little hesitant to say this but I feel like I lot of the pushback against him that I'm seeing on the web is the result of something I like to call "Diet-homophobia". People who don't say that they're homophobic, but they don't want it "shoved down their throats". Reminds me of when there was a Borderlands 2 thread way back when and people said that they were getting homosexuality shoved down their throats because Sir Hammerlock off handily mentioned that he had an ex-boyfriend. Either that or it was just tokenism.

Well I'm not huge on the term "homophobia" in most senses anyway, but that's a semantic quibble. I agree with the heart of what you're saying here. The notion of, "Gay people are fine, I just don't ever want to have to see them represented in anything!" smacks of bigotry in the same way, "Black people are fine, I just don't want one of them living next to me. " does. What galls me are those that use that, "shoved down our throats" line in the case of homosexual imagery/ story but then go on to defend the right of artists to sexy up female characters.

I for one stand on the, "Let the artist do what they want side." Sexy female character? Awesome, love me some sexy female characters! Character who bangs on about being gay every ten seconds? Awesome, bet someone's really into that too! Character who's sexuality is totally unimportant and isn't even mentioned? Awesome, get to make up whatever I want to in my head! I support these and every shade in between.

 

[DerangedHobo]

Wait wait wait, a gay character in a game about you pummeling someone's face in? Unless it's going to have A. a romance sub plot, B. a sex scene or C. the ability to use my dick as a weapon this is nonsensical. Wait, Mortal Kombat had a story? Colour me surprised.

I was under the impression that the whole "having gay characters" in a game was meant to be a minor thing, easter egg levels even. How often does sexuality come up in most video games anyway? This really does feel like shoe-horning racially diverse characters in at the last second to sell more copies, fucking failing industry.

 

[Lufia Erim]

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.

Maybe because we already know Guilty Gear is from Japan, the most people said "ehhh, whatever, I saw worst from Japan". Also Vemon isn't only gay, but also a children lover [if I remember right].
What would happen if you had this kind of character in MK? CHAOS!!!!!! RAGEEEEE!!!!!! CCCOOOMMEENTSSSSS!!!!! TTHHHRREEEAAADDSSSS!!!!!!

The sad this is. That makes a lot of sense. Is that why no one bats an eye when the japanese hav gay tran animal jello characters?