EA Admits Games Can Do Better For The LGBT Community
EVAN NARCISSE
Saturday March 9, 2013 2:30 PM
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/03/ea-admits-games-can-do-better-for-the-lgbt-community/ (http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/03/ea-admits-games-can-do-better-for-the-lgbt-community/)
Yesterday, in New York City, Electronic Arts held a special event focused on queer issues in gaming. And it happened mostly because the company itself was willing to face its own stumbles in presenting gay characters in its video games.
According to VP of corporate communications Jeff Brown, it was the intensity and volume of the response that made EA decide to hold a forum where LGBT issues in both the creation and playing of games could be discussed.
Brown's colleague Craig Hagen was one of the organisers of Full Spectrum.
....
"I was involved with the development of the transgender policy that EA adopted," Hagen continued. "I was around when Sims [included] same gender content. I saw all of that. Then when something like Mass Effect or the latest episode of Star Wars occurs, I just stand back and go, even as progressive as EA is, we still make mistakes and we still have a long way to go."
"I think you have to demonstrate to them...by the encouragement and the continual development of additional LGBT storylines in our products. "
It's not an "it gets better kind of message" then, I posited. It's a matter of actively making it better?
"Yeah," Hagen said. "When we make a mistake let's learn from it and let's get better."
For the most part, LGBT people don't exist in video games. Except the occasional Yaoi or yuri fanservice moments in japanese games, videogames as a genre have a very heteronormative, cissexist outlook.
I think the issue won't be changing the tone of the treatment of LGBT people in video games, it will be including them AT ALL. Now, I'm sure there are examples in western video games I'm not aware of, but by and large, the games on the market are written by straight men for other straight men...I think if EA really wants to change how they treat LGBT people, they shouldn't have big, self-congratulatory press-confrences, they should fund indie devs from the LGBT community, so we get a sense of their voices and vision.
Really interesting article. In case y'all don't know, BioWare is currently owned by EA. The Dragon Age and Mass Effect series have both featured bisexual, gay, and lesbian characters as love interests/important characters in their games, and they were actually fully developed characters rather than just stereotypes of queer people. I'd be interested in seeing whether they include any trans characters in new games. I found the discussion in that other article linked on the page of it being a political vs. marketing decision pretty interesting. (It seems like the writers are the ones making the 'political' comments.)
The comment about Mass Effect in the article is likely related to the first and second games, where lesbian romance options are available, but gay ones are not, despite originally being in the game files. In the third game in the series, there is a bisexual male character (the one who was supposed to be romance-able in the first game) and a gay male character who you can romance.
This is an interesting read (actually more current, was updated last November).
http://transgamersociologist.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/a-brief-history-of-transgender-characters-in-video-games/ (http://transgamersociologist.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/a-brief-history-of-transgender-characters-in-video-games/)
Quote from: CybilB on March 09, 2013, 09:36:47 AM
For the most part, LGBT people don't exist in video games.
I think the issue won't be changing the tone of the treatment of LGBT people in video games, it will be including them AT ALL.
I don't think I've ever seen a game that has a transgendered character in it. I don't count Birdo or characters who have unofficial gender confusion because of bad translations from Japanese. I'm talking about real transgendered characters who are presented as transgender in-game.
Poison is a trans character!
...because beating up cis women was not allowed, so. easy fix.
I first heard about this whilst browsing the C&VG website, the comments from some gamers about Trans people annoyed me to the point of creating an account to enter the discussion/argument, my final response sums up how the argument went:
OK Nefarious this is likely to be my final response on this topic as you've now provided a textbook example of the problems that trans people have to deal with from small minded people.
You originally responded to this comment:
I've still never understood why T is lumped in with L, G or B
with this highly ignorant comment:
I've always thought this too, kind of annoys me to be lumped in with people who can't decide what genitals they want.
I pointed out that no-one chooses to be trans, it's how we were born. Many trans people such as myself try to find a balance in our lives so we don't have to transition as the price for this is often very high (loss of job, family, friends & sometimes even life), unfortunately many of us reach a point where suicide seems preferable to continuing with a life in the wrong body for our brains (which as i've previously stated are formed as male or female before birth). I indeed reached the point of suicide so my choice wasn't what genitals I wanted but a choice to live or die.
You have now clearly stated:
if you were born a man, and are attracted to women, just because you choose to emulate what you think a woman should be like does not make you a 'lesbian'.
I suspected this would be your view & you walked right into the trap I laid for you by bringing up the point about a MTF being in a relationship with a woman is actually in a lesbian relationship as the brain IS female, it is the brain that defines us, makes us who & what we are. By your definition I would be gay if I settled down to make a life with a man, not true, that is heterosexual.
For this point you were trying to reinforce your previous statement about a MTF being with a woman is not a lesbian:
how you act and dress does not define your gender.
This statement is true but not in the way you intended it, how you dress & act does not define your gender, your brains layout defines your gender, not your clothes, not your mannerisms & not your genitalia.
It's all about the brain (something you obviously need to exercise)
The final quote from you which came early in the discussion gives away your real issue:
Being lumped with Transgender only reinforces the stereotype of effeminate and womanly gays
All I can say in response to that is Graham Norton? Alan Carr? Larry Grayson? (if you're old enough to remember him).
I've met plenty of effeminate & womanly gays (your words not mine), television has plenty of effeminate gay men that reinforce this stereotype that you have an issue with. If trans people disappeared from the face of the earth today then this stereotype would still exist due to the fact that there are effeminate gay men in the world & on our TV screens.
So not only do you have an issue with trans people you also have an issue with many gay men, I think you need to re-evaluate your views on Homophobia & Transphobia as you suffer from both of these phobias.
Feel free to try & dig yourself out of this hole but i'm off to concentrate my time on this site on gaming issues not your issues.
Take care, hugs & kisses
Xbox Jayne
The comments were from a bisexual man by the way, they sum up the attitude of many gamers, so I feel that the games industry should try to use their influence to change public opinion, hats off to EA for at least thinking about this topic