Gaming @lemmy.world

2w ago

Whine harder you assholes

221 comments

I dunno, most games the sexuality of the protagonist is completely irrelevant, and in those cases id tell both sides to stop whining or just play a different game
- This is a case of double standards.
  If you weren’t willing to call it out before when it was heavily one sided, you shouldn’t be calling it out now.
  You’re making it relevant by calling it out at the worst possible time.
  
  I'm calling it out right now because someone posted a meme and I'm replying to that post. I am not against more representation in video games, and I find people who whine about it to be annoying children.
- how dare you stating facts
- Also, nobody is forcing anybody to play a game. Every gamer already chooses to not play most of the games that exist. What's one more?

"The game is forcing me to fuck this man, repeatedly"
- What?! That's terrible! How?! How can I replicate that so that I don't accidentally do it?!
  
  I was personally upset that ME:A doesn't let you replay any sex scenes or romance anyone else after choosing one.
  You get one little like 2:00-long cutscene of some humping and caressing and then it's back to business as usual.
- Could I skip it? Yes, but I paid for this content so now I have to see it to get my money's worth. It's not my fault I'm doing it, it's the woke™!
- Aww I ruined the conversation I gotta save scum the assgfuck scene again

No one is forced to be straight... Most games don't even have romances.
Like you think Doom Guy is straight because he's clearly a Christian? When I control him, he's the gayest queen in Hell. 🤷‍♂️
- No one is forced to be straight…
  Virtually every JRPG has a straight romance subplot, typically staring the main character. Every FF since... six? Every Dragon Quest. Every Persona. Kingdom Hearts. Fucking Mario Brothers has a straight romance in it.
  Like you think Doom Guy is straight because he’s clearly a Christian?
  I think you can head-cannon that the two dudes in Time Crisis are having hard core steamy Special Agent on Special Agent lovemakings in between chapters. Fine and good.
  But when Arno & Elise kiss in Assassin's Creed Unity? I'm sorry, but nobody needs to see that heteronormative degenerate filth. Kids are playing that game. What are they going to grow up thinking?
  
  For Mario and Peach, Nintendo has had decades to do something and hasn't. They officially confirmed they're just friends I believe.
  For Kingdom Hearts, it's a similar thing with Sora and Kairi. There are some undertones and potentially attraction but they're just friends, and children besides. They haven't done so much as kiss. Plus with Birth by Sleep it's shown that Sora literally has had another dude inside him for years.
  
  I feel like your point about ACU is good, but I also feel like the Arno/Elise romance is a driving factor for his character. Sure, it's unfortunate it's yet another straight romance story, and I feel like an argument could be made that it almost should have been a gay romance between two boys who grew up together. Idk where I'm really going with this besides I think the romance in general is the point and not the fact that it's with Elise, a woman.
  
  nobody needs to see that heteronormative degenerate filth. Kids are playing that game.
  Wow, didn't expect someone speaking so loudly about same sex relationships to be so bigoted, but all walks of life, I guess. Either way, I seriously hope you have no interaction with anyone below the age of 30 personally or professionally.
  I'm not gonna even get into how romance is just a part of a story, and if you read anything that has romance in it, fanfic or not, it has just as much a right to exist.
  I will however rip into you pointing out franchises for 'heteronormative degenerate filth'. First, the game isn't about you. No game ever is, nor ever will be. If that is a moral failing of a game, I suggest you start making games yourself or stop playing them, because any other expectation is really stupid beyond compare.
  I will concede that games often lure you into self inserting yourself into the main character, as JRPGs tend to do. But at some point, the illusion has to break, and I can't really imagine how you'd get mad if you're self inserting into Zidane (FF IX protagonist) or even Leon or Cloud ( I hope you know enough about franchises you're trash talking to know who they are).
  Also, to complain about the Assassin's Creed franchise of all things is so braindead I have to question if you're a plant. You're saying children are playing a game whose whole premise is premediated murder, and the romance scenes are what you're up in arms about? That is honestly beneath anything that breathes to acknowledge, and really shows that critical thinking is a skill.
  Do note, however, that if children are playing a game with mature content in it? That's the parent's responsibility as an individual to care for their child. Games aren't obligated to include or exclude content to suit children, nor even whiny little shits like yourself.
- I feel moved! imagine a 6'7 monster like human, ripping apart monsters to save a rabbit, but its a total drag queen outside the outer space
- Doom Guy is canonically ace. But the story is still vague on wether he is panromantic or not.

I'd much rather play as a woman.
- I'm cis, my character in Saints row ended up trans because I wasn't a fan of dressing up a guy and wanted to dress up a woman.

Why do we still attention to tiny loud minority of Gamers^TM who whinge about "go woke go broke" and yet these still games sell like hotcakes? Just tell them that if they don't like the game, then don't buy the game.
- I prefer to clown on them relentlessly and let them be aware that everyone thinks their opinion is stupid and childish
  Allowing this to go unchecked or ignored is how we got here in the first place. "Just ignore the trolls" led to the trolls having actual societal inertia. It is no longer enough to just ignore them, they need pushback.
  
  I don't disagree. If they troll, troll them back harder. But the way the mainstream act is that these toxic Gamers^TM opinions have weight, when in reality their toxic views don't even make a dent to popular opinions and sales of game developers.
- Why do we still attention to tiny loud minority of Gamers^TM
  Because a lot of them are well-funded or have big far-right promoters behind them, affording their opinions a disproportionately large megaphone.
  Just tell them that if they don’t like the game, then don’t buy the game.
  They make money by complaining. This is their entire business model.

Never liked this lumping of everyone into oversimplified "gamers" as if it's anything different besides conservatives who happen to play games.
It is always conservatives. In any hobby.
- There’s a reason that particular cohort is mockingly referred to as capital-G Gamers^TM.
  
  Exactly.
- Not just any hobby, any country. You think this country still uses fax machines and are a bunch of racists? You think that country doesn't believe in vaccines and elected a moron? You think that country is committing a genocide?

In many cases, not even forced, just given the option to play as a non-straight character in a way that's mostly irrelevant to the actual game!
- I'm not aware of a single game that forces one to play as a homosexual. Anyone?
  
  Can't find any for explicitly homosexual male main characters, but Horizon Zero Dawn and The Last of Us both feature explicitly homosexual female main characters.

Would be nice if you could play a gay dude. It feels like most lbgtq representation is only women
- Yes! It’s that whole disgusting “two chicks at the same time” trope that allows them to get away with it more, I assume.
  
  Also sexism. Women can do it because they're silly creatures who don't know what they're doing without a man controlling them so obviously being a lesbian is acceptable. But a man choosing to do those things? He should know better

"forced" to play
because the path of the gamer isn't a choice™

Games are not about you and the purpose often is to give you an experience that you wouldn't have as yourself.
- Depends on the game. Many games let you create a custom character and the character is defined by their actions.
  Some games have zero character to the character you control.
  Some are story based with strong characters where it isn't about the player, sure, but those are less common than the ones that allow the player to either self insert or play a one dimensional archetype character.

Honest question, can anyone actually name a mainstream game where the main playable character is canonically and explicitly portrayed as gay?
I honestly can’t even think of one.
- last of us?
- Last of Us.
  Life is Strange games.
  
  Guild Wars 2
- Yes, Life is Strange and The Last of Us. Pretty major games
- Life is Strange series, Before the Storm. Not sure about the others.
- That's what makes it even more pathetic, literally just being given the option of a gay subplot is having it shoved down their throats.
  It's so ridiculous that I question how many of the complaints we see online are even sincere, because surely people aren't that dumb.
- A bunch of characters in Apex Legends are canonically gay, trans, nonbinary, bi, pansexual, and Mirage. As a hero shooter, I guess there’s no real “main” character as such.
  Aloy in Horizon is pretty much there if the Burning Shores DLC is any indication, although she seems to be a work in progress as a fully developed person.
  
  I remember when dinoflask did YTPs of Overwatch's lead designer, he poked fun at how, whenever the game needed a progressive image boost, they would retcon a character to be gay at random. He sentence-mixed something like "Our fans are always wondering who's going to be gay on our next update."
- FFXIV. Like the whole raid tier for Gia and Rynne.
- In baldurs gate 3 people of the same gender certainly hit on you. Basically all romancible characters have player characters as their sexual orientation
- Mainstream? No, but my character decided he was gay in Disco Elysium.
- I have an example that's not gay, but trans - one of the two protagonists of Tell Me Why is a trans guy. (The other protagonist is his cisgender twin sister.)
  
  Yuji Naka once said that NiGHTs gender was "up for interpretation", which I think makes them nonbinary. That's a pretty deep cut though.
- The MISSING: J J Macfield and the Island of Memories is a great one.
- I will ask a different question. In how many mainstream games can you actually confirm the main character is straight? Sure it may be more than the two examples of gay main characters, but still very few compared to where it just doesn't come up.
  
  Pretty much every GTA, Duke Nukem, the Witcher series, the God of War series, Yakuza, Unchartered, the Final Fantasy games, the Super Mario games (including Donkey Kong), even Pac-man... and that's just the ones I've played. Then you've got virtually everything featuring Disney characters, Star Wars, as well as most other TV and movie tie-in games (of which there are many).
  I think you just haven't thought very hard. That's the thing about defaultism, is you can play a straight character and not even remember you've done it because it's just the default. I'll bet you didn't even notice that Pac-man was canonically straight, and yet if Ms. Pac-man was instead called "Pacman's Husband Steve", suddenly Pac-man's one defining trait would be his sexuality.
  If nothing else, you've provided an object lesson in just how true OP's meme is.

Kojima's got this one right. Every game has at least one gay character. You, the player.

Transphobic dudes experiencing gender dysphoria playing as a woman

What's a straight character?
In Skyrim you can romance any of a wide variety of characters marked as "marriageable" in the game's files. That really just means the voice actor was willing to record the marriage ceremony lines. Since voice actors were reused, if a voice actor recorded their lines, most if not all of their characters would be marriageable. To marry a character, you complete a task for them that makes them call you a friend (typically a quest they give you when you first meet them). You then wear an amulet of Mara (the game's goddess of love) and speak to them. They ask if you fancy them, you say yes. They propose marriage, you go to the temple of Mara and be there the next day. During the ceremony you can say yes or no. And the game does not give two shits what your gender is. If you're a male character, you can freely marry any marriageable male character, and vice versa for females. I play female characters because I like to look at them. I'd rather look at a female than a male. And I always marry Mjoll the Lioness because she's trying to tear down the most fun guild in the game, so I move her out of town and make her a housewife. (Her quest is a lot of fun, too.)
In Fallout 4 you can romance maybe half a dozen characters? All of your companions who are not robotic or animal. One of the robots can be converted into an android you can hook up with. You can't marry any of them, and you can romance all of them. None of them care what your gender is. Many have quests you have to do, but even beyond that, you have to push up their approval rating of you, by doing things they approve of (e.g. Matt Mercer's character loves when you pick locks and steal) and by not doing things they don't like (e.g. there's a junkie girl who loves when you do drugs, until you cure her addiction, then she hates when you do drugs). Once they're romanced, you can take them to any bed for a fade-to-black sex scene (neither heard nor seen).
In Cyberpunk 2077, there are four characters you can romance and hook up with, but no marriage. Each one has a genital preference and a voice preference. So you can absolutely be trans in the game. You choose a body type (fem or masc) and a voice type (fem or masc). Depending on your choice, you get 2 people you can romance. The other two will not reach the romance stage with you no matter what.
I guess the characters in GTA are straight? I don't play bro shooters and such. Not my thing. Tomb Raider? Up in the air what Lara Croft prefers. You could take that either way. I love the Life is Strange games and those lean gay/lesbian. In the first one, Max can kiss both a girl and a guy, and it seems equal, but if you read her diary, she has no attraction to the guy, but she absolutely crushes on the girl. In the second one, the guy is absolutely gay, but the focus is on his little brother who is too young to have a sexual orientation (I think he's 8?). It's less obvious in the third one, but that girl definitely has lesbian vibes. And the fourth one is Max again.
- What you are describing is a concept of the mechanically bisexual. The options as given often allow players to choose in a sandbox game whether they experience the game as a completely non-queer experience or not. It sometimes creates queerness as an option rather than a core part of an experience which rep wise is considered a step better than when all romance options in games were mandatorily heterosexual but also kind of a cop out where player choice means all characters are often Shrodinger's bi. If you want to experience say Skyrim as an almost entirely queer free experience - you can. Your choices flip that representation on and off like a lightswitch so if you have queerphobic tendencies the game doth not offend much. No one ever hits on you first.
  Rep wise Gay characters are ones specifically ones where the queerness isn't optional, it's a part of the canon of the character. Straight characters often are so in fixed story narratives where they have hetero relationships and if they have brushes that look like same sex romance it's played for laughs and treated as not really an option. Since culture still sort of assumes straightness as a default if the character only ever is coded romantically by the frame of the game to be attracted to the opposite sex they can be termed a "straight character" because as a player the game's interfacing with that character's sexuality is mandatory. An example is the Prince of Persia games or the Final Fantasy series which have a romantically coded opposite sex paramours that you don't have an option not to interface with the character's sexuallity.
  This is way more common in older games and fixed story franchises.
  
  So outside of visual novels, are there good queer games where you get hit on first? I’m in if the story is good and the gameplay is engaging. I am straight but not narrow, and games are fictional.
  By making the player make the first move, they empower the player to choose.
  
  It sometimes creates queerness as an option rather than a core part of an experience
  Because, surprise surprise, most non-romance games don't have romance as significant part of the game. You don't get straight tailored experience in Skyrim either. Unless you believe killing bandits or mammoths is how you romance a straight person.
  kind of a cop out
  This mentality is why so many gamers outside the homophobic conservative circles are pissed at game developers and groups like Sweet Baby Inc. Not cramming gender politics into a game that has nothing to do with them is not a cop out. It is good game design. Skyrim is not a romance simulator and it shouldn't be turned into one just to "be more inclusive".

No one is forcing them to do anything. They can choose to play the game or to do anything else.
- Oh and buddy they will yell about how much they won’t play a game and how their boycott will kill it while the game does just fine.
  
  Yeah, remember Hogwarts Legacy... What a bunch of morons. Screaming about boycotts, and how they wont play the game...

This is why games should allow modding.
- I do love modding games.

I want to be something else when I play games. I don't understand this need to be the same thing I am every fucking day. Bring on other genders, sexes, races, species, colors, limbs, all of it. Let's be different. It's a fucking video game.
- Given the choice I'm almost never playing a human. The fuck would I want to be me for lmao
  
  Argonian or Dark Elf, almost literally every time.
- Looking at my game library, I seem to prefer blank slate player characters.
  In Factorio, you play as a humanoid in a jumpsuit. In Satisfactory, you play as a humanoid in a jumpsuit. Infinifactory you play as a humanoid in a space suit. Antichamber you play as some being that can hold a gun-like tool. Buckshot Roulette you play as...something that can fire a shotgun. In all Half-Life and Portal games you play as a series of named but barely characterized people. Return of the Obra Dinn you play as an investigator, each time you start the game it randomly chooses a male or female voice for the player character. In Subnautica, you play as a stuffed wetsuit.
- Get so weird slimey tentacled dozen limbed furry scaley shit going.

Feel like dudes who refuse to ever play as women or in simulated gay relationships are just depriving themselves of some quality content. I haven't gotten to this BG3 playthrough yet, but you can't tell me Ascended Astarion and Ambition Gale won't be the most toxic codependent enabling shit ever, and it is gonna be enthralling to watch that heat up and burn down.
- Stay away from Gale. The mechanics of romancing him are more toxic than the character themself. There is no indication of when he locks you out of other options. It's like playing "Set a Boundary Simulator". Least fulfilling romance imo. What a fucking weirdo.
  Definitely go full in, "I can fix him" with Astarion.
  Talking from many patches ago fwiw, maybe some of the mechanics were fixed.

That's nothing, I was forced to play a snake that was eating small dots and getting longer and longer.

I remember when I actually met Nazi’s in Kotakuinaction over on Reddit. And the mods banned me for pointing it out.
- Anytime I see anything from that sub in Google results I immediately skip it.
  I mean they worship Asmongold as some hero of masculinity, among others.
  
  I mean. They are all losers. You can smell it in the way they talk. None of them have ever had their dicks touched without over paying.

What game?
- Last of us part 2?
  
  Do people really complain about playing as a lesbian? That's like double the tits.
  I did hear whining about having to play as a trans character though, despite the fact that you don't. I can only imagine those people never played it and were just "hur dur big arms = man".
  
  Part 1 too but only addressed in DLC.
- Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
  Edit: it's optional, yet people still complain about it. I've even seen a forum post of someone who gleefully explained that he murdered an NPC because that NPC is canonically gay
  
  Disgusting

Most games don't bring the characters sexuality into it at all so I wouldn't consider 99.99% to be particularly accurate. That said I'd prefer if they left romance out of it all together. I'm equally annoyed by having to deal with it in a game regardless of which end of the spectrum it is. Just let me fight/build/solve puzzles/whatever. If I wanted to date someone I'd be doing it in real life.
- Bloodborne has the greatest romance story, even a lovely wedding ceremony.
- I'm dissapointed because video game romances are dull as fuck. You hit the correct dialogue choices, have sex, and then they're just nice to you for the rest of the game. Give me romances that go sideways - maybe they're so disgusted by you hitting on them they leave the party and re-emerge as a minor antagonist later on, maybe another party member gets jealous and straight on challenges you to a duel, maybe they're already boinking another party member, anything but the pansexual protagonist that everyone wants to fuck.
  
  I'm even less interested in dealing with "interesting" relationship stuff in a video game. Had more than enough of that in real life. I want escapism, not reminders of trauma.

I'm not even gay, but the first time I played Life is Strange (the first one) and when the option to...

I did learn a lot of modding with my commitment to play gay characters at least. Thanks compulsory heterosexuality for teaching me to Google things like “Carth gay”!
One of the first mods I tried to mess with was The Underground for Morrowind (which Skyrim’s Dawnguard is 100% a rip off of btw) because it forces you into a het relationship as part of the storyline. Unfortunately, it was such a crashy mess that just changing all the gender checks didn’t help.
People assume heterosexual is the default and get pissy at anything else, they’re completely spoiled. I can’t really think of any video games which force you to be a gay dude, unless you’re playing like Dream Daddy? The Last of Us Part 2 has you play as a lesbian, and I guess the usual crowd did have a meltdown over Abby not looking like a Princess.

My favourite characters are those who don't fit the 'norm'.
My Dune character is a bearded lady with purple hair. I've had my purple haired lass in multiple games now.
People complaining about representation in games... Most of the time we are playing as murder hobos, and inclusivity is their big whinge?
- Exactly... I'm all about stories that include all aspects of the human experience, especially ones that I'm not personally familiar with.

with the state of the gaming industry rn, that's gotta be the one stupidest things chuds complain about in games.

The best thing? To have no fucking preference. Oh the writers wamt me to be a gay main character? Bet.
Oh the writers want me to be a straight homicidal manic? Bet

I have no problems with life is strange
- Actually really enjoyed the first one. Haven't played the others, though.

there are surprising amount of incels in many games, and its the one that are trumpers or at least suppor tthem.
they do the same thing with movies and shows, constant complaining about race swapping, genders swapping, "traditional roles" not being adhered to.

Some of the negative reviews for Eternal Strands over on Steam are hilarious. Because the guys that don't outright hate being forced to play as a woman take issue with the lack of het romance options. Specifically with having to choose between the "bishie elf" or a "giant blue walrus-bear".
And they also feel that the walrus-bear romance is less emotionally impactful than the other options.

This
Also when people complain about a game protag being a normal looking woman

Making the straights uncomfortable is great fun. :D
- maybe the connotation behind this is, gay people making straight (homophobic) people uncomfortable.
  Because every other meaning would derive into a form of hatred one way or the other
  
  Yes, but unfortunately some people in this thread lack the reading comprehension to understand that. That's ok. I'm sure if they keep practicing, they'll get there eventually.
- Its working real well in America right now... Almost like being a prick to people for "great fun" had negative consequences or something... But lets imagine someone said "Making the gays uncomfortable is great fun. :D"... That would be bigotry, right? Yet for some weird reason, you feel totally fine and safe to say something like that... How odd...
  
  Get back to me when straight people start facing systematic oppression. Until then, kindly go fuck yourself.
  
  "They called me a fascist bigot, so I had to start acting like one!" is the argument you're accidentally making here.
  
  Did you just now blamed gay people for what's happening in US? For real?

This place is just turning into reddit.

I like to play games that let you customize your characters. I usually avoid all games that force me to play as anyone but myself in that universe. I think all games should let you choose who you want to be and who you want to be with if romance is an option.

The addition of romance options in game needs to just be removed. It’s incredibly cringy and rarely ever adds anything to the narrative aside from side-plot fodder.
Leave relationships to The Sims and quit wasting the time that’s better spent making the game more stable and bug free.
- Looks like someone's bitter he didn't get any alien tang in Mass Effect
  
  Seriously… What’s the deal with everyone here making psychological evaluations of one’s disposition based solely on assumptions made from a single comment? I see it everywhere. Is there some mandated requirement with Lemmy that people subscribe to the 2007 Internet Denizens Guidebook to Being Edgy?
  Dude, I’ve logged about 20 minutes of time in Mass Effect. I didn’t like it. So I have no idea what “alien tang” is.
  I simply voiced my opinion on the subject as everyone else has. If that’s not how things work here, then I can definitely see why the user count is diminishing.
- That's what I thought about it too but witcher 3 converted me.
  Bg3 is alright too... Nobody is forcing anyone do gay shit.
  I don't get the melt down. I never seen it being forced in vidiya unlike hollycreeps produced trash
- You must be a fun person /s
  
  I’m totally not! /s
  
  Tali seemed to think so
- Either get rid of it or make every romance option open to PCs regardless of character creation options.
  I dunno what you're saying about the Sims tho, the last time I did romance in the Sims I was killing all my spouses to collect types of death. Far more interesting than the average romance option in games.

Ah more of this Anti-Straight bigotry
- You know how it's not racist to point out others being racist because bigot isn't a protected class?
  
  Protected class is a legal status, probably want to make that point from an ethical basis rather than US law.
- You need to put a /s on there so that readers know you're not a colossal bellend

221 comments