Kierkegaard

I still have not shot at a single cop in Watch Dogs. I have, however, made a lot of their cars explode. I tried to stealth all the time, but you can't sleeper-hold everyone in every scenario. Aiden does kill, sometimes indiscriminately. His entire traffic pattern control power is built around mimicking the horrible attack on Lena. Countless motorists will have died regardless of how well you drive.

Yes, the sidequests are redeemable. Personally, I made every human trafficker kneel before shooting them in the head. The game still considered them civilians. That's, like, really dark for me as a player. But that human sex trade thing was so fucked I didn't see the law as justice.

But that does not change the fact that Aiden's entire revenge scheme is poorly thought out and ultimately only helps people besides him by accident. He kills OLD IRISH GUY (who is poorly characterized no matter his real name) because he wants to, not because he really cares about anyone besides himself. His original choice to continue to endanger himself and his family by trying to find Lena's killer is the wrong move. Hundreds of deaths and wanton destruction are his fault.

He tries to use corruption to fight corruption. Christ, Aiden, maybe before all of that become a super white-hat hacker for the city, work with the cops (who have corrupt elements but are not corrupt by nature in the game), and take out CTOS and Blume from a position of ethical power.

I dunno, little rant. Honestly love the mechanics of the game and its multiplayer is seriously engaging and brilliant, but the character is a dick like the Joker pretending to be a hero like Batman.

Of course, the "you" there is you, not a universal "you." I agree, though, because any game where you generate the full facial features, attributes, and personalities of a character is clearly allowing you to create a new "you". It might be wildly different from who you are, but it is certainly a representation of who you are in the context of that game.

Also, I wish I could identify with Ratchet. Because I want a gun that turns monsters into exploding giant chickens. And a cute robot sidekick. And to freak the fuck out of my cat.

@brodehouse: Nah, I'm interested in putting gay empathy into idiots. Immolate is just a cool word I hadn't used recently. And homophobes bug the shit out of me.

@sweep: That would be awesome! Games should definitely try to model this more specific response to appearances, be that positive or negative. Having social circles based on scarification or width of eyes rather than our traditional differences and signifiers could be a great way to examine or lampoon are own "traditional" values of attractiveness.

@extomar: There is value in considering every realm of thought about any topic. It's critical thinking. It's a good thing. You proved that with your reference to the otherness idea. This whole thread proves there is worth here.

@jadegl: Interesting how most male respondents on here are gung ho for playing as women while you're looking for more identification. Speaking personally, I'm probably spoiled with my gender as the norm, making my choosing to play as a woman feel revolutionary. When do you create women to play as, do you have them reflect your appearance, sexuality, and ethics, or do you play around with differences like many of these male players appear to?

@icemael: Oh it's certainly got some academic fluff in there, but this discussion has gone far more interesting places in terms of the diversity of reasonings and purposes than Voorhees did, so consider it a springboard. And having an English and Philosophy degree, I'm even more deeply aware of the dangers of academia. I think Voorhees is clearly than you're giving him credit for, though.

@bacongames: You're awesome. Let's be friends. Your categorization of responses appears accurate to me, especially from the sample I've read so far here. Thank you for the thoughtful critical response and your personal experience. Amazing how you aim for self but end up with slightly different other purely because games are still bad at delineating race. Cheers

@mithical: It seems like the point is if a rather large population of male players are enacting a queer experience, that means the heteronormativity of the gaming community may have a very clear weak point--our own predilections for experimentation and exploration of gender and sexuality.

@fattony12000: Yes, it could have been a poll. Oversight, honestly. But, I do like how people have to state their opinion and explain. Plus, I would not have created all the categories people have said.

@dark_lord_spam: Ha, I sidestepped that in Skyrim by working with my partner to choose our potential spouse. She actually went based off of race and gender, not even his appearance. Boedica is now married to a revolutionary Argonian from Windhelm.

@icemo: Huh, that protectiveness of female enemies combined with your desire to kill as a woman is certainly an odd combo. I'd think you'd want to protect all women from violence in general. Personally, as long as the women aren't innocents like Kratos likes to murder (or males--any innocents really), I don't have too many moral hang ups about killing any necessary adversary in games. If there's a non-lethal option, though, I'll usually take it. I did execute every "civilian" who was a part of the human trafficking in Watch Dogs....

@hunterob: Great real world example! So, in her case at least, the ability to experience a gender identity in Dragon Age 2 helped her transition into her own. Cool.

@zeik: Terms, right? Drag seems like an accepted social term from my understanding, but everything can have different connotations. You are right that transgender is off. This persona playing makes me think of drag queens and kings, but it is also simply a thing we all do. We're all different personae in different contexts, though playing with gender in our personae is still something against mainstream society, so noting it as something else may be worthwhile to fight the acculturation of a steady gender persona? There is no exact way to be MAN or WOMAN, and maybe how we play around with gender in games is part of proving that.

@bizzama: Thank you for the thoughtful reply! And there's quite a lot of great thought in here even if I didn't start off being pretty hands in in responses. Makes me proud of many of the people here--not for agreeing with me, but for putting critical thought into their ideas and opinions, demonstrating that doing so is virtuous.

Thank you for the clarification and lesson in your understanding of the word! Mostly, I appropriated it as it was used in the essay, but, as you can see, I changed the thread title in light of hearing your perspective. People are people. My understanding is that there is some fear, though, in refusing to identify as a part of a culture you can lose the positives of that culture. Maybe someone is Guatemalan, American, Latino, Gay, and a man, and removing any of those identifying groups would take away rather than help his identity.

It's hard, right? If you become a "we" you can become targeted, an other, as you said. But maybe you also have a common language, culture, and/or history that strengthens you, even if individuals are still quite unique?

Okay, thanks for clarifying. You can see how that kind of negative language could make me assume things about your respect for others.

See, when I do what you're describing in enacting a character, I think of that as a form of embodiment. I'm taking on being that character. I'm trying to think what they would do and why, and enacting that. Transgender is a definition, so it may not be the best word. Perhaps thinking of it as taking on a different persona, dressing in drag or something, may work better.

In either case, you and I seem to have different conclusions based on similar actions. And games are distinctly different from TV shows. You are defining actions. Some part of you, even if it's not the you you generally are, is in the character you play. Even if it's totally different from you, it's a reaction to you, so there is an aspect of anti-embodiment there. At least as I see it.

I think The Last of Us managed to make its mechanics and story cohere brilliantly, and that's the point. The world feels freaking desperate. The clickers are scary. The humans feel intelligent and dangerous. Joel is both brutal and old, but still very, very competent at killing. Ellie is extremely competent, and, eventually, just as competent at killing if not more so (her knife, man...). The environmental storytelling that Bioshock made mainstream feels powerful here, without feeling as contrived.

The game plays just like it wants you to feel. The characters do what it makes sense for them to do based on the narrative. It's that combination that, for me at least, makes it defining, or, perhaps, culminating.

Like, if someone asks you what single-player games were about from 2006-2014, The Last of Us would hit all the aspects and exemplify them.

It is not perfect. It has some glaring issues in there, and some poorly designed bits, but it is defining, according to my definition.

I don't think so either! I do think when a person who is or pretends to be actively against or ignorant of queer relationships realizes they are probably enacting something like them by playing games, that may help them realize their mistake?

Or they'll self-immolate.

Okay, you're basically me. Hi! Also, it may be closer to drag, taking on a different gender in looks and even persona. You're right. It's less a full transformation into the person you truly are than it is a persona shift. Of course, drag queens and kings are sometimes transgender, but not always.

Assumptions are bad, dog. You make, like, four of them in two sentences. Jeez.

I think that's totally possible. I read it less as an argument that ALL players are actually doing this intentionally, and more as a possibility that all players could be doing this, and that reformats the queerness in games discussion if there is something inherently queer about this action. Or, maybe that's the conclusion I'd make if I rewrote his essay.

Just to clarify, the thread title is mean to ask if that is a queer action, not if doing so makes the player a queer person. I like how queer is being used now. It's a uniting term for any person who is not cisgender and/or hetero. That can become too simple and all that, but the word does work here.

Still, "transgender" may be the more accurate term for the title. Not sure why this all makes you grumpy. Thinking about these things does no harm. If a player asks themselves, and truly asks themselves, hmm, why do I play as a different gender? Having this answer as a possibility is not an attack, but an interesting mindset. It's not that minute of a thing--if transgender play is actually common, then perhaps violence and attacks on transgender people will be lessened through logic and more empathy.

Why is enacting a transgender movement an accusation? Doesn't that imply being transgender is bad? Your mode of play sounds like it actively avoids considering gender. Why? How can one possibly shape/experience a story without considering all aspects of the character you are shaping/experiencing?

Thank you for your thoughtful response! Okay, so empathy versus embodiment. You go for the former. Arguably, though, games are different than literature. I can't become Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird because she is extant. I can't become Laura Croft because she is her own person. I think that is about empathy. Understanding things from her perspective because I learn why she is and does.

But surely self-directed role playing games where you create a character are different! You are choosing to place yourself not only into the perspective of a person with a different race, gender, sexuality, ability, age, or ethic than you but also into that body, to literally move its limbs. You are choosing what that person says and does. How can that possibly be only empathic? That's not a derisive question! I just don't understand how embodiment does not exist there, inherently.

@corruptedevil: Cool! So you're striving for an enactment of the character who best portrays the role. Got it.

@video_game_king: Yeah, Went a bit Yoda there. Sorry about that. Clearly writing a lot and hoping people read it does not get a 100, or ever 50% success rate based on this post, but some people will read your long essay. Maybe break it up with pictures?

It may just add other way to see that relationship between avatar and player, which certainly isn't pointless. Looking out at the stars of gender and play and putting together a thesis about transgender play can do nothing except make the conversation more interesting.

Okay, got it. What that makes me think is that you play as men in stereotypical ways, making them strong and powerful. And, while you play that way with women, you do so to create a character that you would want to have sex with, both because of her body and because of her strong actions and personality. So you are defining your character based on your relationship to them.

Relationship not as in the player and the avatar are different, but as in the player becomes the avatar, a transgender action if the avatar is a different gender. It seems totally not silly if many posters on here are focused on sexual characteristics. The writer is certainly, perhaps more so than the player, putting himself into the mind and body of that female protagonist in order to deeply consider her motivations and actions and reactions right? That's gotta be a queer, in this case transgender, move.

Did you read the question in the post, or the essay? I think that'd help. If nothing else, consider the implications of what those people are saying. If the only relationship we want to have with characters of the gender we are attracted to is sexual, that's kinda fucked right? Isn't putting ourselves into their shoes or trying to learn something from it far more useful and positive? And way less creepy? Your use of female characters for aesthetics or rocket launchers is quite simple. This essay is getting into whether there could be something more complex going on here. Something worth considering, even if you reject it.

A fuckin' men brother.

Huh, interesting. Your talking about "making" her into something rather than being something yourself, but you're still making her something strong and badass in your eyes. Interesting that sexy is required. Do you make male characters you create sexy or do sexy things?

Videogameking helped a bit, but hey, sir, if you want to know what Queer means, look it up. Try "queer culture" etc. Self education is good! And you're clearly thoughtful and open to people doing different stuff, so take the step and dive into some good lit!

Ha, a fair conclusion. On your blog on here is this essay?

That's only PC right? Grr. Mac and PS4 gaming. It is a burden. That's a really interesting reason I didn't even consider--you chose your character based on performance of her voice. So it was seeing her as a non-embodied character who wanted the best actor portraying, so you chose Hale because she was better? I'd love to hear more!

The thing about budgetary concerns and all that is that it's all about choices. If a game chooses to let you choose gender, or be a different gender, or references gender, it is has to respectful toward that. Including it as an option but not fleshing out that inclusion is not worse than non-inclusion, but it does feel like tokenism. It feels like, here, 50% of the population, here's your option, but we're not going to put too much thought into the differentiation of gender because we don't really care.

Creating art is a hard collection of responsibilities.

Just read this heady but interesting essay on the question above: http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/identification-or-desire/

Should be read in its entirety, but it does wrap its point around difficult terminology, so I'll summarize best I can.

The point is essentially that while traditionally academics, and many players, have considered playing as characters in games to be about identification, seeing ourselves in those characters, or non-identification, completely separating ourselves from characters unlike us, this may not be accurate.

Instead, Voorhees argues that both people who identify as men playing as women avatars and people who identify as women playing as man avatars are enacting a queer relationship. A man playing as a woman is enacting a transgender-like experience, placing himself into the context of a woman's perspective.

Of course, being transgender is not a playground or a choice, but a realization, or at least actualization, of the gender you feel yourself to be, a gender that you were not assumed to be by society up to that point. So it's not the same.

Voorhees and the discussant at the bottom do go into how if it is true that playing as someone different creates a queer embodiment, then that may result in people uncomfortable with that idea pushing back with less exploration or more vitriol, something the discussant compares to men acting more heteronormative when in homosocial situations, like everyone being unclothed in a locker room.

The point of all of this is is: A study referenced in the article shows most males playing as female avatars do so to gaze and control them, a domineering relationship. Do you, in general, feel that you embody the character you are playing, becoming a different or similar person to yourself, be that in race, gender, sexuality, ethics, or personality? Or do you only identify with similar characters to you? Or do you choose a character to gawk at? Or is it a more complicated mix?

Personally, I try to create a cooler version of myself in sports games since it's living a fantasy. In role playing games, I want to play as something other. I try to embody, for instance, a female avatar as if I were her. I find it frustrating when something like Skyrim does not so much let me be a woman or a man, but removes most gendered existence from the world, making the character an it with a gendered pronoun. More active commentary and use of both positive and negative gendered experiences may be something essays like this one can help us encourage in those who write games. Portal 2 is very gendered. It uses some seriously negative gender tropes in Glados' insults, but it does have some major moments that would not work with a male Chell.

Thanks for reading and possibly responding.