Here's a weirdly specific issue I've had with this video player - whenever I use the chrome keyboard commands to jump to another tab (command + 1-9) the video player will interpret that as just hitting 1-9 and jump to that part of the video. It's really disorienting and basically makes me paranoid to ever have the video player in focus so I never use the keyboard shortcuts.
I don't know if this affects others (I'm on Chrome on a Mac, if that helps) or if its even an issue on your end but I figured I'd bring it up now.
@halexandra64 Thanks for taking the time to actively participate in the comments!
I'll agree that developers who are representing marginalized groups in their games would do well to take a close look at their own company's hiring practices as well. If you make the effort to be inclusive in your product, it only makes sense to make that same effort within your real world business. It is, afterall, a real world issue and merely talking about it might be, as you say, necessary, but at some point might be hypocritical.
But this actually applies to any developer, regardless of what characters, if any, they put in their games. I do believe that restricting jobs responsible for creating said characters to the real people who are being represented is the wrong way to go. It's a golden opportunity, perhaps, but at the same time there's a very real risk of hiring token-employees for your token-characters.
If anything, I think you should aim higher. Cis-people can portray LGBTQ-people in writing, acting, modelling, coding, whatever. Just as LGBTQ's can do the same and reverse. That also applies to race, religion, culture or whatever the reason for your marginalization might be. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. The issue is that the latter isn't happening enough.
And that's the standard we should aspire to. Don't settle for LGBTQ jobs when there's just jobs. Having freaks represent freaks isn't our win condition, having people represent people is. I might be a straight white male, but I'm also a writer, a teacher, a philosopher, a liberal, a christian, a smoker, a dutchman, a biker, a fatty, a singer, a gamer, single, lazy, intellectually gifted, tall, empathic... I can only imagine I know for a fact LGBTQ people could make similar lists. Until only the criteria that actually matter enter the equation in any given situation we as a society still have ways to go.
While having a trans character be created by cis people might be a missed opportunity, I do believe it's the wrong fight to pick. And if the end result is something profound, I think it's a win rather than a loss.
I'm pretty much in agreement with all of this. Would it be great if we had a greater amount of LGBTQ people making high-profile, important games? Yes! Is it a good thing that we can also have cis people who are able to include stories about LGBTQ people that are sympathetic and increase visibility? Also yes!
While I agree with everything Heather is saying about the importance of allowing more diverse viewpoints in game development - I think rejecting something good because its not something great can only lead to less active pushes for diverse representation.
@gregalor: I conflated the What Is Firewatch jokes with the stories of the giant Firefall booth at PAX and somehow thought it was the same thing (apparently Firefall also came out like two years ago so I'm just an idiot). I actually remember when this game was announced but could never remember what its name was. Needless to say, this day has been a real rollercoaster for me.
ShinyTan's comments