The Gay Option

Some games that allow for romance also allow for homosexual romance. Do you like it? Do you think there's enough of it? Or maybe you wanna get controversial and say there's too much of it? :exdee: That said, what would you think about playing a game where the in-story romance not determined by the player (like in FF) was a gay one?

Personally, being straight, I don't feel it like I need a gay romance option in a game, but I really appreciate it when a game goes the extra mile and adds that, cause hell, I don't think there is such a thing as too much representation.

That said, I will sometimes take the gay route if it's well written (like, holy crap, Aigis' social link is so much better if you play Persona 3 as a girl). I also like to at least have the option - like, even though there was a valid gameplay reason to not allow gay pairings in FE: Awakening, I was so, so hurt that I couldn't get Stahl and Kellam, my OTP, together ;~;

I think it's not a matter of if, but when, when it comes to a gay romance in FF. For now all that's left for me, is to agree with Rantasmo - video games need more gay.

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Originally Posted by Fynn

Personally, being straight, I don't feel it like I need a gay romance option in a game

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literally 100% of the problem in one sentence right here

We absolutely need so many more compulsory gay times in game time its not even funny.

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Originally Posted by WildRaubtier

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Originally Posted by Fynn

Personally, being straight, I don't feel it like I need a gay romance option in a game

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literally 100% of the problem in one sentence right here

We absolutely need so many more compulsory gay times in game time its not even funny.

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Have you read the rest of my post?

Just because I don't personally need it for the game to match my personal orientation, doesn't mean I think we as a whole don't need it. Like I said later on, you can't have too much representation.

...this just made me realize that in all the romance-involving visual novels I've read, there's not even a single homosexual romance route. Christine Love's novels are kind of the exception as they have almost no heterosexual relationships, but even then it's never involving the POV character. That's kinda sad.

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Originally Posted by Karifean

...this just made me realize that in all the romance-involving visual novels I've read, there's not even a single homosexual romance route. Christine Love's novels are kind of the exception as they have almost no heterosexual relationships, but even then it's never involving the POV character. That's kinda sad.

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Huh. That's kind of surprising, to be honest. I expected a genre so focused on romance to at least occassionally have gay options.

Seriously, not even lesbian ones?

Kind of irrelevant? Point is most vidjas are aimed at the gamergater demographic - white, straight and male - to the absolute exclusion of anyone else. It should be fairly obvious to all and sundry by now just how damaging that homogenous targeting has been.

And what's their excuse? "I'm not [x,y,z], so it doesn't need to be there."

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Originally Posted by Fynn

Huh. That's kind of surprising, to be honest. I expected a genre so focused on romance to at least occassionally have gay options.

Seriously, not even lesbian ones?

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None. Well admittedly I can count the female-POV-character-novels I've read on one hand, but still.

I guess you could argue that in the Hate series you can *technically* have a lesbian relationship, but you never actually define your own gender in that series. It only comes up when one of the characters asks you what your gender is - and that character is the one you CAN'T romance if you say you're female.

In Bully I'm kind of a slut and will kiss anyone who will kiss me back, male or female, at any time in any place.

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Originally Posted by WildRaubtier

Kind of irrelevant? Point is most vidjas are aimed at the gamergater demographic - white, straight and male - to the absolute exclusion of anyone else. It should be fairly obvious to all and sundry by now just how damaging that homogenous targeting has been.

And what's their excuse? "I'm not [x,y,z], so it doesn't need to be there."

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But that was not my argument at all. I wholeheartedly agree that we need to extend the demographic of games. I used the rest of my post to point out how I think it's important regardless of my orientation and that I enjoy such options and really want them in my games. Please, don't twist my words into homophobic gibberish. I really do my best to support the LGBT community through my writing and I did my best to make my post positive about the gay option. So yes, to me it's relevant that you took one clause from my statement out of context to make me look problematic.

Let me spell it out clear now:

WE NEED GAY STUFF IN GAMES BECAUSE REPRESENTATION IS FRIGGING IMPORTANT.

I am kinda bias given the fact that I am gay. I would love to see a non-player control gay romance for the player-character. Partly because smurf YEAH and partly because I wanna see these "gamergate" guys, as Wild Raubtier puts it, trout themselves.

There is really lacking in in-depth gay romance options. Off the top of my head, I think the best are done by Bioware and even then it was only in later installments of their two big franchises that we saw any in-depth relationship. Otherwise, the gay characters are little more than tokens. They can be gay but they are usually single or the fact is often hidden or obscured. It doesn't help that Japan, because let's face it I play a lot of jRPGs and this is a FF board, is pretty behind when it comes to homosexuality, in general.

I would love a gay option in Harvest Moon because I want to be a lady and also marry a lady :(

I think it's important to have, yeah, for reasons already stated.

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Originally Posted by Fynn

such nagry

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Chill dude, I picked part of a sentence you wrote, stripped of context, and said "this is how some people think and it's a problem!" and that's literally it

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Originally Posted by WildRaubtier

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Originally Posted by Fynn

such nagry

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Chill dude, I picked part of a sentence you wrote, stripped of context, and said "this is how some people think and it's a problem!" and that's literally it

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Sorry :p I'm fine, I just got a bit sensitive over those issues lately.

EDIT: By the way, starting this whole topic reminded me of this:

I definitely remember reading several times way back when that Paul from Tekken was gay. I totally thought this was a thing until just now when I Googled it and found nothing. Have I been lied to my whole life :confused:

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Originally Posted by Old Manus

I definitely remember reading several times way back when that Paul from Tekken was gay. I totally thought this was a thing until just now when I Googled it and found nothing. Have I been lied to my whole life :confused:

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Maybe it's a case of Hide Your Gays? Although the example you mentioned isn't listed, sadly :/

I do want to see more inclusiveness in gaming, just not in a heavy-handed way, as that can really damage the credibility of the author in my eyes. I'm trying to think of any games that have walked that line skillfully. The only one coming to mind might be Caithe's storyline from Guild Wars 2.

That said, I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to see it. Obviously I don't care what anyone else does but I personally find the act of a man submitting to another man to be disheartening. That hasn't stopped me from being close with or very fond of gay people, especially over the years on this forum.

I find the idea that being penetrated is equilivant of submitting not only disheartening but an archaic view of sex and gender.

Alright boys, let's stay on the topic of heterosixism in games, okay?

The problem is that it is on topic. The very idea that somehow being penetrated means you are submitting is deeply rooted heteronormative ideas about gender roles and sexuality. The very notion that being penetrated is to submit to another's power is at the root of sexism and homophobia. So I feel it is very much on topic.

Part of me realizes it could just be a bad choice of words, yet still remains problematic discussing sexual acts as being acts of submissive or dominating in a non-BDSM context.

Okay, fair enough. I was just trying to avoid changing this into an EoEO-esque topic, but I guess you can't avoid these issues when touching on this particular topic.

So yeah, I agree. I often found it weird how whenever someone hears of gay people (at least here, in Poland, a very homophobic country), they start picturing them having anal sex. I don't get why people immediately start thinking of another person's sex life when they aren't straight and start making assumptions and judgments.

So coming back to video games, just because a guy (supposedly) likes to be penetrated from the back, that immediately means he's submissive and "womanly"? The problem of women being considered inferior aside (and oh boy, is that a topic for another thread or what), it literally boils down to a person's preferred sexual position disqualifying them from being a good video game character (not to mention not only gay men take joy in anal penetration, considering the male physiology and the existence of a little organ called the prostate, but I digress).

It's really disturbing how people can be so petty to not accept the existence of characters based purely on their sexuality. It's like Mat Pat said in the video - LGBT characters seem acceptable as the Other, the villain, despite straight, white, cis males being only part of the gaming demographic, even if it's so far the majority. The trend is mercifully changing (heck, the enhanced edition of BGII added two non-hetero romance options, so yay!) but the changes are slow, small, and I really hope this can change for the better.

I also have to say that, despite being a total trainwreck otherwise, FFXIII was really nice about the whole gender thing. Like her or hate her, Lightning is not written like a typical female protagonist, and Vanille and Fang are anything but subtle about the nature of their relationship. So I just hope that, if it isn't XV (not very likely at this point), some later FF will come out and they will have an openly gay character/couple and they will be awesome.

Most games can barely write coherent heterosexual relationships. I'd love to have a butchers of how well they can pull off this can of worms. Personally, if the game is well written, then I don't give much of a care about what sexual orientation you wish to peg the lead, side, villain. Admittedly, I am not much of an "issues" kind of person, well only when I am being Devils advocate for 'teh lulz'.

As we know; game companies these days work solely on the grounds of financial remuneration. I'm willing to guess that a game, with public knowledge of a gay storyline, may not sell as well...if we are going to get controversial and put a slightly different spin on the discussion. Implied but not stated seems to be the sort of "meeting halfway" agreement.

I expect more overt homosexual relationships, amongst the lead characters, will be the domain of the Indie community, especially if they are trying to portray a social message. Homosexuality in triple A games; the equivalent of Asians in Hollywood.

Only time will tell, for nothing is certain.

The games with gay options also usually let you choose a gender for the main character. I usually pick female so the gay option becomes a lesbian option for me. I've picked gay options when playing male characters too, though. It all depends on if I find any of the guys hot or not.

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Originally Posted by Leigh

Most games can barely write coherent heterosexual relationships. I'd love to have a butchers of how well they can pull off this can of worms. Personally, if the game is well written, then I don't give much of a care about what sexual orientation you wish to peg the lead, side, villain. Admittedly, I am not much of an "issues" kind of person, well only when I am being Devils advocate for 'teh lulz'.

As we know; game companies these days work solely on the grounds of financial remuneration. I'm willing to guess that a game, with public knowledge of a gay storyline, may not sell as well...if we are going to get controversial and put a slightly different spin on the discussion. Implied but not stated seems to be the sort of "meeting halfway" agreement.

I expect more overt homosexual relationships, amongst the lead characters, will be the domain of the Indie community, especially if they are trying to portray a social message. Homosexuality in triple A games; the equivalent of Asians in Hollywood.

Only time will tell, for nothing is certain.

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But that's kind of the whole point - there's this whole untapped market of women and non-straight people. Broadening the appeal of games seems really profitable, logically speaking.

I usually play gay female character, so I think it should be in most games that have romance options. That's not to say it should be like skyrim where any romanceable character will marry any regardless of gender, race, and so on. In real life people have preferences, and I like seeing that reflected in games. Dragon Age does this really well.

Im happy with anywhere between 2-10% of games featuring at least one non-straight character.

Found another cool video on the topic.

Do I need more, on a personal level? No, it is not important to my personal self.
Should there be more regardless? Yes, I recognise that such a thing would be beneficial to society. It's also important that it's done in the right way.

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Originally Posted by Leigh

Most games can barely write coherent heterosexual relationships.

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Well then, if they're crap at writing relationships, they shouldn't be afraid to write an incoherent homosexual one.

But I think some of the issue is the fear that the relationship they write won't be good enough, and they will be torn to pieces because they have butchered it. A heterosexual relationship will never be put under that much scrutiny, so to save some of their sanity, just play it safe.

yeah, if you're straight and writing a straight relationship, you could always just defend yourself with "no seriously guys, this is literally my last irl relationship"

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Originally Posted by Mirage

yeah, if you're straight and writing a straight relationship, you could always just defend yourself with "no seriously guys, this is literally my last irl relationship"

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Well, you could do the same with gay relationships and say "no seriously guys, this is literally my last irl relationship, only gender-flipped".

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Originally Posted by Mirage

yeah, if you're straight and writing a straight relationship, you could always just defend yourself with "no seriously guys, this is literally my last irl relationship"

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Dunno man, don't think that would work. Female characters in all media are way more heavily scrutinised when compared to their male counterparts, in a similar way to how I imagine that homosexual relationships would be, even though people probably know girls that fit the moulds.

I'm all for more homosexual relationships and better representation in games. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing more variety when it comes to how relationships are handled anyways. I'd like to see main characters who don't hook up with anyone or just have relationships that don't work out or things like that.

Personally, if I were writing the script for a game, I'd have more fun writing things that are more outside the norm or things that I may be less familiar with anyways.

I'm bisexual so I like bisexual characters.

Zevran and Leliana were the best, and everyone in DA2 was bi so that was also perfect.

I had a blast romancing Dorian in Dragon Age: Inquisition.

I like a gay option if it's there and if it's decently done (i.e., not just swapping in a male avatar by the game still plays like it's a female, a la the original Fable) but it doesn't really bother me or make a game any less enjoyable if it isn't.

Start with giving both genders equal attention. Fem Shep got shafted on who she could romance one too many times compared to her male counterpart. Even in 3 when you could gay it up.

At last, somebody who recognizes Fem Shep's romance options sucked.

But they did give male and female Shep's romance options equal attention. Everyone's romance options sucked in ME. :p

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Originally Posted by ToriJ

Start with giving both genders equal attention. Fem Shep got shafted on who she could romance one too many times compared to her male counterpart. Even in 3 when you could gay it up.

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Was it possible to romance Garrus as man Shep? It's cruel not to let Garrus be a romance option for everyone because Garrus is just the best.

Having said that I always picked Liara. She's a blue alien. I couldn't help myself.

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Originally Posted by DMKA

But they did give male and female Shep's romance options equal attention. Everyone's romance options sucked in ME. :p

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No, Male Shep had a lot more options to romance people than Fem Shep in the third game.

Picture showing the two romance options

It's stupidly flipped on the gay side of things, too. Quantity wise, anyway. Quality wise they both suck. Four lesbian options and you have like two that actually mean anything. Who the smurf cares about the news lady?

My point was they were all garbage, so who the hell cares? :p

It's like complaining that the guy at the table next to you has five different flavors of dog feces to sample while you only have two.