Giant Bomb Presents: The Bumpy Road Towards Games for Everyone

Because nobody says abilitease with a straight face. Not everything needs to be a thing, and 'gamer' is an objectionable label to begin with.

More on topic: will listen to this when I get the chance later, curious if they touch on the skipping PAX business this year.

It's extremely arrogant to purport the notion that marginalized peoples should have to shape their vocabulary in a manner that pleases those marginalizing them. If your argument is that you would have entirely ignored MLK's March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom if it were called something like "March for Mad Money Madness", then your ignorance on a social problem is pretty much readily apparent to anybody glancing at the comment section of this article. It doesn't matter what somebody calls themselves. What matters is who they are.

No, I'm relating the marginalization of African-Americans with marginalization of the Gender and Sexual Minority community. And considering the prevalence of both racial epithets AND homophobic slurs in the gaming community, it would seem completely fair to do so. Being obtuse won't help anything.

Finally gotten a chance to listen excellent interview conversation

Wow that's a terrible panel title.

Also everyone should play Gone Home.

Yeah I don't really like with the title of the panel either but it wouldn't stop me listening to the interview.

Wow, this interview was absolutely fascinating and really eye opening. When Samantha talked about "sympathy generating" games and imagining seeing yourself as a women (if you are a man), or in a wheelchair etc using the Oculus Rift, I thought "that would be so cool." I don't know why that possibility never even crossed my mind, but I hope a developer out there would make a game like that. I'm just really glad the games industry is having these conversations about the queer games scene and making games that are more inclusionary. Once again, fantastic interview.

Having been a data manager for social science research for a bit, I've definitely had the conversation about how to code the Gender variable.

@samanthazero: Thanks for responding.

1. I can respect that, and perhaps I was jumping to conclusions with the agenda accusation. It's just that twisted examples lead me down that path, when really I should put more consideration into the fact that it was probably just earnestly misunderstood. Most things are misunderstandings.
2. This is a generalization, and this is what I take issue with. Again, I believe you are misunderstanding what a large portion of people actually take issue with. As I said, I agree that there are people who dislike LGBT for whatever reason, but there are also people who hated that aspect of the game for entirely technical reasons. There are assumptions that can be made of either side, but we shouldn't argue that either side is so completely set to liking or disliking. Some people liked it and some people didn't, and both of those groups of people reside within heteronormative and LGBT camps equally, not respectively, and for their own individual reasons.
3. I don't think anything of value was discussed or accomplished with this interview. It taught me more about you, which is fine, but I was more interested in the broader compliment of this "culture", for which we really only touched on that it was fragmented, in the same way that feminism or Android is. Something being unimportant doesn't necessarily invalidate it. Everything I've ever posted on the Internet has been largely unimportant. They are just opinions and discussions. It can be worthwhile to discuss them, but that does not make it more important. I would argue that Gone Home is important, even though I think it completely bastardizes the interactive medium as a whole, and relegates the majority of story-telling to linearity you could experience within a book, but it has a personal and topical story in it that is adventurous for this medium. As you can see, importance does not necessarily equate validity or quality.

If you want to discuss a greater problem with any of this movement, I feel it has a lot to do with labels. You mentioned a bit about identity and playing a game about a block that found color and moved away from the other blocks. Identity is something that can be difficult to cope with, especially when growing up. It's easy to understand when you're like everyone else in a certain ways, but when you feel differently, there aren't a whole lot of people to help you. Understanding one's identity is a lot easier when there's a community full of people who identify similarly.

This seems to be why we have all of these labels. Labels to itemize sex, gender, gender expression, and sexuality. Then to top it off, we offer sliders between all of those items to further muddle concepts of the old guard such as male or female (which does have its place).

It's good to upset the nature of how one thinks about humanity, in that it is so incredibly diverse, but it gets to a point where these labels seize the movement and people get locked into identity. Should we really get upset when someone says women have vaginas?

Further, I hate the term "gamer". No, not "gaymer" with a "y", "gamer". The need to label oneself in such a way is as absurd to me as any label, especially because there are so many different kinds of people within this community. The answer isn't to branch out and create more labels, so that we can all fit into our individual molds. For me, I just say, "I love video games". Communicates exactly what I mean, and doesn't stuff me into a box with everything that goes with it.

We're all humans and we're all different, and using all these labels doesn't make it easier to identify oneself. It fits you into a mold so that someone can objectify you as that item, and sometimes some people need that, especially when trying to find an identity, but eventually you have to be that little colored block and move away from it all.

I wonder if queer targeted games will ever get beyond the level of recent games that are interesting to a certain group, but cost more than the average person would be willing to pay? It seems like they're likely to fall into that indie category of games that
don't have as much "gameplay" as ones that don't have to focus so much on what seems like a minor aspect to me. It'll be interesting to see what comes along.

This lady's voice sounds like Lana Wachowski's voice, and I figured she was transgendered before she said so. Will queer games be able to use stereotypical traits that seem to be borne out by evidence, or will they be blasted for being stereotypical?

I'm a straight white male, and I'm currently playing as a woman with big knockers and Nolan North's voice in Saints Row 4, because those are things I like, not anything to do with who I actually am. I've never felt left out playing Lara Croft or another non-white or non-male, and can't really identify with the need to see myself portrayed in a game, but that could just be because most of the time I am the type you see in games and movies, so a change is nice.

The argument as I understand it is for "AAA" games to spend time/money on making games for everyone, as opposed to one specific but broad demographic. I feel like, by definition, these games must appeal to the largest possible demographic (Samantha's "young white males" [not sure if that's a direct quote or not]). If next year's Call of Duty featured a young psychological female who is biologically male, midway through gender the reassignment procedure that is sexually attracted to dominating lesbians it'd be written off as a publicity stunt. I predict the CoD players who won't want to play that game are likely to outnumber the people who would want to play it. It'd be a fun experiment, and I'd totally play that game, but I doubt Activision wants to roll that particular set of dice.

If we go down a peg to major RPGs, I feel like it's slowly being addressed. Bioware's modern games (except maybe SWTOR? I'm not 100% on that) allow for non-hetronormative relationships to varying degrees. Skyrim allowed for same-sex marriages. Should other western RPGs follow suit? Totally. I'd wager it's being done.

Other games have a linear narrative that they follow, which often include a romantic relationship. I don't feel like a writer should be compelled to compromise their vision in order to hit all of the gender text field combinations. Samantha is involved in game development, and they (I'm not sure which pronoun is correct) are capable of making games that carry out their vision. I'll probably buy a copy to see how it comes out (assuming GB tells me when it's released) - but I won't endorse their vision being pushed on someone else's project. The people who are interested in hearing differing perspectives are capable of finding them.

Finally, not all games are made/played in America. Cultures across the globe have differing attitudes on gender identification and sexuality. As Hollywood will tell you, a block buster must appeal to people across cultures. In game development, the bets are even bigger. Should the world agree that people can be whatever they are and love whoever they love? Sure. Does it? Not so much.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone. If I am speaking from ignorance, please educate me.

(not sure why that's red. WYSIWYG editors are dumb i'd rather just have some markup that i can actually understand)

anyway, I disagree with that point (that it bastardizes the medium) -- I think a lot of why it works so well (for me) is that the story is uncovered and discovered by the player organically, and exploring an interesting and well-crafted space has it's own story. I don't think it would have worked nearly as well if the story were just presented linearly.

e: apparently the WYSIWYG editor didn't even work, it only make the first sentence of the quote a link, for some unknown reason.

Something about "inclusionary" rubs me the wrong way. I guess these sort of discussions just aren't for me.

As for sympathy generating games; I'm handicapped, but I have no need to try and make people feel what it's like to be paralysed and in constant pain. That just seems cruel, and I'm not the kind of person who likes to push my personal misery on others.

Just offhand, insincere pandering, stereotypes, 'rainbow coalition' casts with little to no understanding of the actual culture (think of old cartoon's token characters from every nationality.)

and

most importantly

Content Isn't Free

As someone whose been in this business for a while, someone who saw what 'branching options' for different choices did to stuff like Mass Effect and Walking Dead's scope, and the tricks and slight of hand they had to do to make it work in the end. Imagine now trying to 'make more options for everyone' across the whole gender scale (something that's far larger then most people know) and imagine what that does to a game budget.

The idea that every game can be made for everyone is inversely possible to the amount of defined character and storytelling is available in said game. Better to have games made for all sorts of different people across the board, without all of this 'jump the fence into a game made for someone else and beat them about the head until you're included."

Also I think bioware's treatment of homosexuality in games is terrible, they just make the men a conquest as well as the women. That's fine I guess, they are both terrible.

I'm glad you enjoyed the interview and that you see the reason behind wanting video gaming culture to be more inclusive to others so I'm hoping you might be willing to recognize the possibility that (even if you don't agree) some times the content/design of a game (or any piece of media) can be exclusionary to certain groups. And more often than not its the trend of that content/design rather than its place an an individual game, like seeing the same tropes over and over or having the active/passive characters always be from certain groups etc.

People aren't complaining about games to bring the industry down, they hope/think/want it to do better - for lots of different kinds of people.

Well first, you always refer to someone by their preferred pronoun, so she's a y'know, "she", it's super-easy. The idea isn't that all games must be changed to fit into a mold full of tolerance, but rather that more games implement these things or that they become a bigger focus. Games are an amazing thing, they're pretty much the only kind of media that so directly lets you put yourself in someone else's shoes. To exclusively have those shoes be those of a straight, white male is an incredible waste of potential. It's not a demand that EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE FOREVER, but rather that we work harder to make games that touch upon a broader spectrum of experience.

You mention Call Of Duty, in Black Ops 2 there is a Spec Ops mission that only appears if you make certain decisions in the story, but in the second half of it you can play as "Karma"(the female hacker). And even though pretty much the only real differences were a changed character model in First Person and a few different lines of combat dialogue. It, for me, made the whole experience a lot more interesting.

And you say that people would feel uncomfortable playing as a transsexual, but that's the great thing about games, there's no reason that has to be weird. Did you ever feel extremely uncomfortable playing as a Smoker in Left 4 Dead? Probably not, right? So why would you ever feel uncomfortable playing a game as a person who's only difference from you is their sexual orientation or gender.

You're probably right about how something that sweeping would be perceived, but you know what Call of Duty has done that is an important change? Allowing you to play as women in multiplayer in Call of Duty: Ghosts. That's huge, and even though I couldn't care less about the Call of Duty series, they deserve enormous props for making steps in the right direction, and what appears to be one their audience demanded, too. Hard to not be happy about that.

ok but isnt that going to be (im generalizing here) any sort of "art" will always draw ire from a group?

like what if that content/design in a game is intentional? what if the writer uses those tropes cause that is generally how he wanted his story to roll cause at the end of the day it still helps tell a cohesive narrative? im all for expecting more, but at what point does the internet mob angry mentality on this stuff just becomes too excessive?

yes its good that there are options and things that cater to what are arguably minority groups no doubt, but i also believe in letting the game developer make the game they want to make without scrutiny, at what point are we being too politically correct/"critical" to where it stifles creativity/the ability to let people make what they want?,

and yes the complaining comes from a good mind, but the "tone" in those writings and the "tone" in videos about these subjects is godawful, its makes these people sound like bloody politicians with a secret censorship agenda,

thats why when the actual positive intent behind the complaining is more surfaced in the topic title and description and the complaining aspect of the content is more in the background, it would equal more people listening vs looking at the title and generalizing and being like "oh its another sexism story, ill pass", at least thats what i think.

again rambling a lot here, i do genuinely appreciate the positive tone you took with your comment.

I am with you there in some respects. Tethering "romance" options to an achievement is gross.

@riboflavin: Books and film are both equally capable of doing this organic discovery.

It's presented strangely here because you're wandering around the house as the character you're playing discovering everything about the family, which she wouldn't do. She would try to find out what happened this past year, but you're spending quite a lot of time learning everything about about this family, which the player character will know.

It compromises its atmosphere in the first few minutes by having the invoice from the movers sitting right at the front door. It does this so that you the player have a grasp of time, but the player character already should know this. The sense you should get from that invoice being left out like that is that they died immediately after they moved in. You might assume that they are lazy somehow, but everything else in the house is so meticulously placed that that's an impossible conclusion.

That is just one of many inorganic moments where the interactivity actively works against the experience. It could easily have been portrayed in a book or on film. I would love to see a ten minute short film with the girl walking through the house and discovering things in the same way. I think it would be a better overall experience.

If you want to talk about organic discovery, Portal was much better at this. Demon's Souls is incredible with that sort of organic discovery. The environments and the items all tell their tale. Even the boss battles with their unique presentation and defeat methods tie directly into the organic story. These games work with their interactivity, with their "game" elements, to convey the story without segmenting it solely to cutscenes, audio logs, etc.

Man, now I really want to play through Demon's Souls again. What a good fucking game.

@havelava said:

Duder, I don't know. I never said I would be uncomfortable. In fact, I said I'd be interested in playing games that take radical shifts from typical narratives. You're arguing against the hypothetical opinion of a demographic. Please be careful with that pronoun, it can come off as accusatory.

Why they would be uncomfortable is anyone's guess. Ignorance, insecurity, bigotry, or maybe it's just not an experience they're interested in. I am fairly sure there are more of them than us and at the end of the day that's what matters in "AAA" games.

To all the people saying that the title of the panel bothers you. Why? I'm seriously, just curious why you feel that the title is problematic.

this might be my favorite comment ive seen all year, i agree with you 1000%

I think the title of the panel is a bit inappropriate in the sense that it creates the immediate reaction of labeling people as different. In my eyes, I feel that it's a bit of a hypocrisy to say that we are progressive and accepting, but on the other hand, You are labeling people as gaymers and gamers. There shouldn't be more of a stratification or subculture for homosexuals, in my eyes. And I just think that things of this nature generates more harm than good, in creating social acceptance or even social integration. There shouldn't be terms like "homosexual" or "queer". I don't care how PC you're trying to be, it's fucking weird. Stop using terms. We're all gamers. We're all people.

That being said, I think Samantha has some incredibly insightful viewpoints and I wholeheartedly support the notion that there should be a wider birth of content within the games space.I applaud you Patrick for doing more of these kinds of interviews, I just feel like the next time, they should take their naming conventions into consideration.

@goldanas: fair points, I played it much less analytically than you I suppose, so it seemed very natural and most of the story issues that come up when you think of the player character didn't occur to me. Very much enjoyed the experience. I also very much agree about Demon's Souls, the implicit storytelling in that game was phenomenal.

Thanks, enjoyed this. The queer games scene is really interesting.

Well, that doesn't mean we shouldn't make an effort to change that though. You're totally right in that maybe the majority wouldn't be comfortable with a game's protagonist differing that much from the norm. We're probably just not there culturally yet, but still, that doesn't mean we can't put effort into changing things. Wii Sports and Saints Row 2-4 are great examples of games allowing people to craft their own identity into the world. Now, obviously not every game can allow that level of customizability, but if you don't think a game can sell with a certain protagonist, than change the supporting cast, if you think a story can't support that, change the story.

And I'm sorry if I came off accusative, that really wasn't my intention.

Now this is back to one of my core points: if someone is writing a story that they want to tell a certain way, why should they change it? The obvious retort is that it'd make the story better, but that's a subjective assessment. Does our desire for novelty and new perspectives trump that person's desire to tell a story their way?

Again, I'm all for Samantha making a game with all sorts of interesting sexuality questions. I want to play that game - but not at the expense of Joe Activision's ability to make their game. I think Samantha's game will contribute to a culture that will grow, and through it's own merits, will inspire Joe Activision to present their point of view. Or maybe Samantha's game will be an indie darling and gain enough attention that Joe Activision will become Samantha Activision.

@christaran: @patrickklepek: Games are already homogenized (at least those that have big budgets and high production values)...you should really look up the definition of a word before you use it. Also this is about having different experiences for different kinds of people which is the polar opposite of homogenization.

Nope.

I don't see how games aren't already inclusive. Except for the handicapped, and I'm all for giving options for the blind, deaf, amputees and etcetera to play. But in a game, just playing as a man, or woman doesn't matter, unless you have a hang-up that has nothing to do with the game. Not that Samantha isn't free to make her game, but I find this whole topic of discussion to be very perfunctory.

I know exactly what the word means (just looked it up, yep, I was right!) and I stand by my use.

And after reading a bunch of the comments here it does seem like this is worth listening to, so I'll be doing that tonight.

Looking forward to what Samantha has to say.

I don't think there is a gamer community nor was there ever. Groups of people get together and play games usually with others in their own group or at least others they feel compatible with. There is no real group, movement, no community that really links the various and diverse types of people who happen to play games. Nor should there be. Trying to create one just forms yet another smaller group that ignorantly and falsely claims to speak for all the other groups.

It might be the quasi-Orwellian overtones.

Guess who buys games.

Its just a shit title. Gamer vs Gaymer just makes me think they are trying to make an awful pun on Kramer vs Kramer. Plus it sounds like they are about to do battle which is the last image people need to invoke in this debate. I am all for more diverse writing etc in games but this is just an awful clumsy title. Just call it Queers in Gaming and have done with it.

This bizarre need that some people have for fictional characters to look, act, and think like they do, and even share their own sexual characteristics of all things seems so strange and foreign to me. Not once have I ever thought, "If the protagonist in this game isn't like me, then I'm not playing it!" I can't understand that perspective at all.

The main character in a game can be a man, a woman, something in between, an animal, an alien, or a colorful geometric shape. It makes no difference to me as long as the game is enjoyable.

@leebmx said:

Yeah, it just sounds exclusionary, like people who play games and are gay are a separate group. Also, "gaymers" is just a really stupid buzzword like "Web 2.0" or something.

Are you a straight man? If so then the reason that thought has never crossed your mind is because the vast majority of game protagonists are if not male, then exclusively straight (I can't think of a gay one anyway - unless you play your character gay in Mass Effect, but the game won't acknowledge it).

Its not that people want every character to be gay or have the same sexuality as them, its just that if you have a medium which hardly ever represents what you feel you are it is quite easy to feel left out. I don't know your background but suppose you are a white straight man and that every game released has a black lesbian protagonist. How would that make you feel? Probably that these games weren't meant for you. I think that is the dilemma that faces gay people and to a lesser extent women and racial groups other than white. Its just about making games feel as if they are for everyone, not about excluding any particular group.

I don't think it sounds exclusionary, it just sounds like a crap pun and gaymers is a bit of a cringeworthy word.

Read my post again. I specifically say that I DON'T need every (or any) character to be like me.

@patrickklepek: To play devil's advocate in regards to Dragon Age 2, I think you could argue in a way that the "romance" options in the game are kind of lazy. While I appreciate the sentiment of letting the player be with whoever they want, I personally would much rather see characters with an actual detailed sexuality, not just a blank state that's down to fuck whoever. Sexuality can be an interesting and important part of a character and if you asked me if I'd rather have the ability to have sex with anyone in a game or actual, well-written gay and transsexual characters, I would choose the later every time. There's some real good examples of this in Dragon Age: Origins (one of my absolute favorite games) where the sexuality of characters like Zevran and Leilana are ingrained in their backstory and help to flesh out the characters in a more meaningful way.

On top of that, Dragon Age 2 features a a pretty offensive transgender character who's sole purpose is to be played up for laughs. As you can probably tell by now, I REALLY do not for this game in the slightest for a whole multitude of reasons.

Regardless of all that, great interview. I'm really glad you're bringing this conversation more into the limelight.

Ugh. Going in to this, I can tell I am not going to like it.

I recognize the still used. Dys4ia. Anna Anthropy (AKA Miss Anthropy. So clever and cute). Perhaps it's unfair, but after the recent debacle and her rather entitled demands for the game to cease to be because of a rape scenario in the upcoming Hotline Miami 2 (Beating people to death is fine tho), I just really don't care to hear anything from her.