// Playing Outside Your Stereotype
By now, you may have heard that there has been some protest against the romantic options included in BioWare’s Dragon Age 2. There’s a sufficient amount of, shall we say, homosexually-oriented content involved. And “exotic” sexual content, whatever that means. So much so, that apparently some gamers feel like the “Straight Male Gamer” is being ignored. Others feel like the homosexual content is being misrepresented, and that it should have been pared back. While I can’t really speak for the game’s mechanics, I’d at least like us all to talk about how we as gamers explore sexual archetypes, and what it means to think outside the [sex]box.
Let’s dig in.
Since when does being straight, male, and a gamer preclude interest in how other relationships work? It’s not like we’re any more homogenous in our interests than any other demographic. And we should strive not to be. Why can’t we look at other relationships outside our regular spheres of experience and try to gain insight into their workings? I’m not just talking about the physical aspect, but also the psychological forces involved.
It’s a shame that homosexuality and other gender/sexuality issues still carry such stigmas for some gamers. Members of our culture who discriminate this way are increasingly a minority, but still extremely vocal about their likes and dislikes. They’re the ones who have made playing Halo online a brutal, dehumanizing experience.
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1 Comment to Playing Outside Your Stereotype
by Mat
On April 2, 2011 at 4:21 pm
My favourite part of the post is when he starts using Bioware’s marketing as a straw man to justify his argument, that it’s somehow a bad idea to build and market a game’s “sexual content” as broadly and equally as possible. That somehow, the “straight male gamer” is more privileged than everyone else simply because he is in the majority.
The only argument that holds any water (at least from what I’m reading here) is that by focusing on creating as many different relationships as they did, they may have, overall, created a weaker cast than in Dragon Age: Origins. This seems like a valid complaint, but using it to prop-up his argument that “his demographic” (what he really means is he himself) was ignored is just bad. Especially after he admits that he finds homosexuality to be “disgusting” or that he finds the straight female romantic choices to be “exotic” choices.
Given all this, it sounds like he’s just a gay-bashing racist who didn’t have a game by a big developer catered to his every need. Boo-hoo.