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I found a game with a third gender option that treats gays like normal people

Discussion in 'Entertainment and Technology' started by Ludos Luna, Jul 16, 2017.

  1. Ludos Luna

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    You all know the gender options in games. It's always the same picture. Boy or girl. Man or woman. I had it in Splatoon, in Pokémon and you can probably name countless other games with this binary kind of choice. I'm kind of tired of it. If there's a gender neutral character like in Undertale, you don't have a choice in the first place. So I wondered, why can't they just combine the two? To my surprise, I found a small indie game called "Disobey Me" (it's currently only a demo. You can find it on Youtube) that offers all three possibilities. This is the first thing you see, when you start a new game:

    genderSelectionSmall.png

    It's so simple. I can't wrap my head around why larger companies can't do that. Doesn't take much work. Maybe it's the fear of backlash from conservatives. Anyway, after two "do the opposite" levels there's like a dating sim with your imaginary friend. Again, it allows you to freely pick a gender for your love interest (the lion may not be the best neutral choice though. At least it has pigtails):

    loveGenderSelectionSmall.png

    It doesn't seem to make any judgemental statement. When I tried a lesbian couple, it just said "You'd probably be a cute couple". The choice didn't seem to change what is said during the conversation (at least I didn't notice anything so far). I hope the same goes for the rest of the story when the full game is out. I remember reading an article about homosexuals in video games and in most cases they follow stereotypes, especially for gays. Pink clothing, specific "gay" movement and talk, etc. It has gotten better in recent years though. Extra Credits (awesome Youtube channel, check it out) made a video about a gay character in Persona 5. I don't know much about the series (I prefer short / competitive games) but apparently it was handled in a nice way. Preferably, I want to see LGBT-characters to be shown like any other normal character. It's like game companies feel obligated to make a big deal out of every homosexual character they us, lik "oh, he has to keep his love a secret or else he will be an outcast" or it's used for all kinds of comedic purposes (happens rather often in anime). I'd like to see things like "Hi, that's Maria and Lisa. They are a couple." and leave it at that. Just like the normal thing it is. And that's where I get back to Disobey Me:

    During the dating sim you can talk about Bronies (that's adults who enjoy watching My Little Pony, in case you didn't know). When the bunny states you don't look like a Brony and you question what it has to do with looks, this is his response:

    looks1small.png

    looks2small.png

    He says it, like it's a known fact, that homosexuals don't look any different (man, I wished more kids would see stuff like this in games. That could reduce some of the prejudices towards the LGBT community in our society). It's used as an argument that doesn't need any further explanation and I guess this little sentence kind of made me a fan of the game (as if you couldn't tell by the wall of text, lol). The gameplay is decent, has a nice idea with its revese psychology levels, but overall it's far from perfect. It's really the messaging and the humor that got me. Has anyone of you played it or even heard of it? What do you think of it?
    (If you haven't, the trailer on Youtube has a link to the demo. Lemme look for it real quick... there it is: TRAILER)
     
  2. Dollop

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    never heard of this game but its great to see what the team behind the game are seemingly trying to bring down the walls in society with LGBT themes. Its a start I would like to say this maybe the start of more games doing this, but I think for it to become common in the gaming community there would need to be a mainstream game pick up on this....
     
  3. Ludos Luna

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    Yes, that's the main problem :frowning2: Mainstream game companies don't want to take any risks. That's why we see sequel numbers getting so high. I guess right now, Indie games are the only chance at seeing a normalization of LGBT-related topics.
     
  4. Lazuri

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    Sims 4 updated the game to let you customize your gender. It's let's you pick feminine or masculine body type, female or masculine voice and expression, let's you use whatever clothes you want and let's you tick boxes for "Can get pregnant," "can make others pregnant" and "neither." It essentially let's you make ciswomen, cismen, transwomen, transmen or just gender neutral. Really great move on EA's part, I feel.
     
  5. Limoriden

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    While I do have mixed emotions on this, I suppose its progressive
     
  6. Ludos Luna

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    Oh, has Sims finally reached that point? That's awesome :slight_smile: I only played the first two years back. So that's the first main stream game I know of, that allows more than two gender types. It's a start.
     
  7. RedTrekkie95

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    This game is really good. It has a really good aim to it, I can't wait for the full game to come out.
     
  8. Wolfwing

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    Isnt your ingame character's sex supposed to be based off your sex? So why do you view everything as gender when some of these things come down to your biological sex, not your identity?
     
  9. tranonymous

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    Escapism is one of the reasons many people play video games, and allowing players to chose their gender is a part of that. For example I always play as a woman if the game will let me, why would I make a character that keeps reminding me that I'm in the wrong body?
    Video games are a way for me to live out the part of my identity that society and biology try to deny me, and I'm glad that some games are starting to extend this to people who don't fit into the male/female binary.

    Also the upcoming game "Pyre" by my favorite developers Supergiant Games (who also made Bastion and Transistor, which are amazing games) allows you to be a gender neutral character.
     
  10. Ludos Luna

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    It does? Neat, another one :slight_smile:
    Now there's just the thing that you can't change the gender after selecting one. But I guess that would be asking for too much in games at this point. Though I'd like to switch between female and neutral every once in a while.
     
  11. Lazuri

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    Because video game characters are always cis and hence are always treated as the gender typically assigned to their sex. It breaks some people's immersion and/or escapism to be referred to as 'he' or 'she' throughout the entire game.
     
  12. BadassFrost

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    The main game I play these days is Guild Wars 2, kinda popular mmorpg, and two of the major story characters are a lesbian couple ( + a number of other lgbt characters found in the game, including a trans person) And they even didn't have to come out and other characters never talk about their different sexuality, because in the game's world it is just completely normal and the sexual orientation is the last thing on character's minds.
    And also one of the playable races, the Sylvari, is completely asexual (but not aromantic.. and I think there are more same sex couples than straight couples among their npc, but I'm not sure).
     
  13. Ludos Luna

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    sigh, it would be nice if this wasn't only the case in the fictional world. ...ehm, but that's a different topic.
    Has anyone else tried Disobey Me by now? I really can't find much about it online (I just cannot figure out how to get more points in the dating sim. Can't get past 4).
    But I like this track of the OST

    It's probably not the best idea to listen to sad music all the time but I kind of enjoy it.
     
    #13 Ludos Luna, Jul 25, 2017
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2017
  14. Souleater

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    Its not true that mainstream games stereotype gay people. Just take a look at skyrim or Dragon Age.

    Skyrim treats every couple the same no matter the sexual orientation. (However they have no actual gay characters, the player can choose to pick any male or any female they want to marry) In fact the entire TES universe has a fairly neutral stance towards homosexuality. They dont comment it all but there are still gay people in this universe.

    Dragon Age has a very well written gay character in it. His names Dorian and he really doesnt have gay stereotypes, at least it seems like that to me. I think he also has problem with his parents because of he sexual orientation and the likes.

    I dont know that many more, but most games I play dont comment on sexuality at all.
     
  15. Ludos Luna

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    Is that so? I guess I have played very different games then. Well, I definitely haven't played Skyrim or Dragon Age. They aren't my genre.
     
  16. Souleater

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    RPGs in general tend to treat sexuality with a very mature approach. They have to convey a living breathing world with its own rules. And most of the time, these worlds have to face such a great evil that stuff like sexuality really is secondary to the mindset of the virtual people living in these worlds. But these are just my experiences with the genre.
     
  17. Lazuri

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    Dorian is one of the best written gay characters in a video game ever.

    It's the result of a gay writer who had previously only been tasked with writing straight or bisexual characters, so when he was tasked with writing a fully gay man in Inquisition, he was basically like "YES! THIS IS MY MOMENT!" and he nailed it.
     
  18. Bakemono

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  19. tranonymous

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    Pyre is out now, and it does let you change your gender mid-game (although you have to go into the menu to do it, so it took me over half the game before I realized that it was an option).