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high rated
I can't help but laugh a little about all this "immersion when playing as a male/female gay/lesbian etc." stuff. I played games as a robot, a dog, a roach, an dwarf, an earthworm, a rabbit, a dragon, a chicken, an elf, an antropomorphic dog (in a unclear relationship with a lagomorph), a number of lego figurines, various aliens, a werewolf, a mimic, a vampire, a clone, a mutant and gods know what else. How bro-centric is all that I wonder?
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dtgreene: Can you name 3 games where you can play as an Asian character? (One requirement: The character's skin must not be white.)
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227: Jade Empire
Sleeping Dogs
Shadow Warrior
Saiyuki: Journey West
Knights of the Old Republic.
Oblivion
Skyrim (and every other game with a custom character creator)
Mark of the Ninja (you're whiter than white, but that's because of the art style)
Dead Island
Tekken

And I only mentioned games that I own and that I could remember off the top of my head (just as you did it too).

I think there are quite some games where you can play as an Asian (not white, although lots of Asians out there are white) character. The only "inappropriately white" Asian character I can think of is the Prince of Persia. Usually people in these regions aren't middle European white (the PoP guy is).



@topic
I think you don't have to hide your sexual preferences in the gaming industry (or anywhere else, except professional "men's" team sports maybe) anymore. By now, everyone (at least) knows someone who's homosexual - I'd guess most people even have homosexual friends (= people who you spend your free time with). Just be careful not to end up as the "token gay" for the Twitter crowd - "Look, we have a gay dev, we're awesome!"

I think it's still a big problem for trans people... They're still not perceived as normal (because "normal" is only what you see often). And then there's the problem that you can see that "something's wrong" with them. Homosexual men and women look like straight men and women, but most trans people don't exactly look like a man or a woman. I knew a post-op FTM once and... Well, he looked like a 14 or 15 years old boy (was in his late twenties)! That's just something our brains can't process. Especially since there are so few transgender people (How many do you see? One a year? Two?). It's sad, but I think they'll have an even longer and harder way to acceptance than homosexuals.

LGBT in games? Well... No, please not. Not yet. Not that I don't want "NO FAGGOTS IN MAH GAMEZZZZ", but... Most developers still fail horribly in character writing in general. I just don't think they're able to write LGBT characters who don't look like useless "Look, look, look, I'm gay!!!" characters xP I mean... Just look at BioWare -.- They're constantly praised by media for "gay alien sex" ( ;P ), but... I just think their "Choose the right answers and get two and a half seconds of underwear sex" system sucks. BioWare allows a meaningless cutscene, but no real relationship. Allowing gay sex scenes even saves them some development time (I think that's the main reason why they're doing this... less work AND media praises them), because they don't have to program anything that checks if your character is male or female.

No, Bioware's dateable characters aren't straight, bi, gay, lesbian or anything. Their sexuality is best described with something between "indifferent" and "asexual". I don't need such a tacked on sexuality in my games. Put some more effort into it or just don't do it at all. The only "good" gay character I ever saw in a game was the shuttle pilot in Mass Effect 3 (a BioWare game - oh the irony). He was just a normal guy who suddenly started to talk about his husband on Earth. They didn't make a fuss about it and didn't mention it every two or three seconds. He just said husband instead of wife. And this little detail gave you the right perspective for the dialogues he had with another character (Vega, the manliest man alive) regularly. Perfect! If more LGBT in games means more of this, I'd be happy to have more LGBT characters. But sadly it'll only mean more brainless BioWare dating dolls -.-



ps. Loved this quote from the article:
"I hang out with the bear community."
Everyone here does ;P
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Atlantico: Bioware has good storytelling, well now I've heard everything.

Just between you, me and all the rest of the forum, whoever taught you this word was punkin' you.
It's like someone calling you "rantallion" thinking it an insult.

Why you rantallion!
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TStael: Oh, the krona has dropped, or what! ;-) Comes with the baggage, being a Finn, and all. But I like it, because it is word charmingly old fashioned, and a word indicative of what is equalitarian of Scandinavia.

Glad u found it, but it was nothing but bit of an amiable provo, because I am bit idealistic of Icelanders. But if you felt ever offended, then I shall gladly apologize. :-D

And let us not be distracted from the fact that you went pedantic about the OP, without bothering to say yea or nay about inclusive storytelling and characterising.

But also ever so slightly implying the OP was irrelevant in his/her post, oozing that slight negativity...

I cannot fault OP for starting the topic for irrelevance, nor harshness in style. If you actually wanted to state an actual opinion as to seeing LGTB as entitled as gamers as any of us, or maybe not - it cannot be that hard, eh?
Well, the question was what we think about the article. I didn't think much of it, as I mentioned. Since I don't identify with being the character I am playing, I don't care what gender or sexuality is being portrayed.

I feel assuming so is a little too close to walking into "computer games cause violence" territory. You have a gun and are shooting people, therefore you want to get a gun and shoot people in real life. We know that to be false.

They can be preachy and I may not agree with the characters and storyline I'm being pushed through, but if it is made well and is interesting and engaging, then it doesn't matter.

Ultima IV preaches certain moralities, for instance. It makes the player seek to embrace, understand and accept these moralities - and it is vital to the progression. Let's say I do not subscribe to the moralities being espoused, in part or at all, but the game is fun to me.

Which is ultimately what is important to a game, not what it is preaching or saying or implying... so fill a game with an agenda, but if the game sucks, the game: sucks. I'm looking at you DA:I and I'm looking at you Gone Home.

Sadly a lot of LBGT messaging and preaching was put in those very bad games. Not because I care one iota where people put their preaching, but because these were bad games and get way more positive reinforcement because of the messaging and are not punished for being goddam trash games.

I'll play the gayest and transsexual game ever, if it is good. But if they suck, well I won't be silent about it just because they were pushing a message that people want to see or hear.

I despise bro-centric games, not because they're bro-centric, but because they're universally bad. I despise the politically correct trash like DA:I or Gone Home, not because they're PC, but because they're bad.
Post edited September 18, 2015 by Atlantico
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Shadowstalker16: 1.Alien movie franchise: it has a female lead character but it is a cult classic most people enjoyed because people were able to relate to the protagonist's characteristics. The emphasis being the fact that the protagonist could've very easily been someone with the personality characteristics Ada Wong or Jill from the RE movies, hence still be of the same gender but wouldn't have created the same emotion as the original character.
The interesting thing about Alien is that the characters in the original film were written to be unisex - the producers were free to swap the gender of anyone they wanted without worrying about it having a major impact on the story. They eventually decided Ripley (note that none of the characters have anything beyond surnames) should be a woman.
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Shadowstalker16: 1.Alien movie franchise: it has a female lead character but it is a cult classic most people enjoyed because people were able to relate to the protagonist's characteristics. The emphasis being the fact that the protagonist could've very easily been someone with the personality characteristics Ada Wong or Jill from the RE movies, hence still be of the same gender but wouldn't have created the same emotion as the original character.
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andysheets1975: The interesting thing about Alien is that the characters in the original film were written to be unisex - the producers were free to swap the gender of anyone they wanted without worrying about it having a major impact on the story. They eventually decided Ripley (note that none of the characters have anything beyond surnames) should be a woman.
Wow didn't know that. Thanks for the factoid! Wonder how Hollywood is now...........
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011284mm: For me I struggle when people say that they can only play as female/queer/LGBT/black/asia/other in a game.
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dtgreene: It's not wanting to always play as female/queer/LGBT/black/asia/other; it is wanting the option to be able to do so in some games.

Can you name 3 games where you can play as an Asian character? (One requirement: The character's skin must not be white.)
Let's exclude all the build your own characters shall we.
Age of Empires - Mongolans
Yakuza - Main character, just gathering dust
Tekken 3 - Ling Xiaoyu
Sleeping Dogs - Wei Shen

So now for you:
Name 3 games where you can play as a non-anthromorphic animal.
Regarding the article...

It sounds like several people within the industry, who happen to fall somewhere in the alphabet soup melting pot of something other than sexually 'straight', had some apprehensions about working in the industry and then found out people are generally just fine with them and the thing(s) that make them different from other people in the room.

In other words, it's the same thing every one of us has dealt with at some point or another in our lives to a greater or lesser degree: some people accept / like you and some don't.

Shocker!

LGBT is "the thing" right now, so I suppose it's expected to see articles that try to single out their experiences even though they generally fall under the category of Life.

/shrug
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Breja: I can't help but laugh a little about all this "immersion when playing as a male/female gay/lesbian etc." stuff. I played games as a robot, a dog, a roach, an dwarf, an earthworm, a rabbit, a dragon, a chicken, an elf, an antropomorphic dog (in a unclear relationship with a lagomorph), a number of lego figurines, various aliens, a werewolf, a mimic, a vampire, a clone, a mutant and gods know what else. How bro-centric is all that I wonder?
I don't know if its still appropriate to refer to elves and dwarves as a completely alien thing when one is us with pointy ears and the other is a smaller man. I mean Link is still a male person.
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Breja: I can't help but laugh a little about all this "immersion when playing as a male/female gay/lesbian etc." stuff. I played games as a robot, a dog, a roach, an dwarf, an earthworm, a rabbit, a dragon, a chicken, an elf, an antropomorphic dog (in a unclear relationship with a lagomorph), a number of lego figurines, various aliens, a werewolf, a mimic, a vampire, a clone, a mutant and gods know what else. How bro-centric is all that I wonder?
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Elmofongo: I don't know if its still appropriate to refer to elves and dwarves as a completely alien thing when one is us with pointy ears and the other is a smaller man. I mean Link is still a male person.
My point is the diversity of protagonists in games is, and pretty much always has been insane. Hell, in Ultima III you could play a transsexual Ewok jester. So the whole "bro-centric" thing sounds pretty silly to me.
Post edited September 19, 2015 by Breja
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Gengar78: LGBT?

Meh, I prefer BLT
I'm more of a VTL man myself.
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dtgreene: Just wondering what everyone thinks of this article I found.
Personally I have always found all the whole "more diversity will makes games stories better" argument to be extremely silly.

No, more diversity doesn't make games stories any better; better writing does and the quality of writing depends of the writers talent (or lack of) and not of his/her/their gender, sexual orientation or skin color.

If anything better stories will come by giving more creative freedom to writers, not by forcing them to check as many boxes on the diversity checklist.

If writers wants to include more "diverse" characters in their stories, great, they should be able to do it, but on the other side if they don't then they should be free to do it too without being called racist, sexists, homophobist ‎, dentist or whatever ...ist or ...phobe ending words is currently popular.
Post edited September 19, 2015 by Gersen
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011284mm: Name 3 games where you can play as a non-anthromorphic animal.
Does Okami/Okamiden count?
high rated
I am of the opinion that if someone wants media to reflect their values, they ought to create it. Using peer pressure to force people into creating what you desire is not nice. People should make the stuff they want to make.
If we make it less Brother-Centric, what should we make it instead?

Sister-Centric?
Father-Centric?
Mother-Centric?
Aunt-Centric?
Uncle-Centric?
Nephew-Centric?
Niece-Centric?
Cosin-Centric?

These are tough questions man!
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Sabin_Stargem: I am of the opinion that if someone wants media to reflect their values, they ought to create it. Using peer pressure to force people into creating what you desire is not nice. People should make the stuff they want to make.
I so agree,(+1) in this day and age isn't it just about as easy as it's going to be to create what whoever wants with the engines that are available