Gayme Over?
So, on the latest Life's A Game Podcast our very own Ric came up with the idea for a new webseries looking at Game protagonists and seeing whether they're more likely to save a prince than a princess.
I actually want to see this series made because I think it'd be amazing, or at least piss off some fanboys somewhere.
You can pledge stuff at the following web address thingy.
http://www.indiegogo.com/gayme-over
Loooool I get it! GAY and GAME combined to make Gayme. Clever.
I dunno man. I keep seeing tweets about mysogyny, homophobia and a bunch of other things when it comes to games and it just reminds me why I hate stories in games. The best game story wouldn't even make a passable movie plot. Fact. Mass Effect: The Movie? It'd star Ray Li-fucking-otta. I want to shoot people be they straight, gay, alien or fucking cyborg. The only time I want a story is when I've beaten the final boss and it tells me why Scorpion lost his fucking face.
And you know what? Fuck GTA. GTA stopped being good as soon as they turned it into a straight to fucking VHS movie. GTA3? GTACUNT more like. GTA: Vice City? GTA: Quite Shitty mer like.
Any point in a game where I'm not actively playing is shit. I play with the sound down these days so I can listen to people on party chat or fucking listen to anything other than Nolan fucking North grumbling about his dead cop partner or whatever fucking plot he's phoning in that day.
I played Asura's Wrath. The fucking thing - which was a game by cunts - was like 90% story. And it was Japanese which meant it was a bunch of incomprehensible cock about demons and feelings or something. Yap yap yap fucking yap. I barely played the cunt and yet I completed it.
I couldn't give fuck number one if the protaganist had been Freddie Mercury gobbling up AIDS pills in a maze while avoiding cocks. Infact that sounds good because it has playing in it.
In fact there was a game in the 80s about the two-fifths gay Frankie Goes To Hollywood on the Spectrum and it was fucking WONDERFUL. I don't even know what the story was. Some guy got murdered and now I'm spitting at Mikael Gorbachev. BRILLIANT.
People moaning about various social inequalities in game stories are missing the point. Games shouldn't have stories. Although I concede there should definitely be more bum fun in them.
Just get Ric to post that ^
Job fucking done.
I'll look at this when I'm home although I find the concept a little odd but thats from just reading that paragraph.Originally Posted by Jokesound
I like stories in games, they allow me to assume the mantle of a person I will never be (I'm not likely to be racing around in a spaceship or killing dragons anytime soon), however self-deluding that may be. I play games to escape into other existences, others play for the action and hate story (preferring to watch a film for that itch), that's cool too. I like a bit of balance, a cutscene every now and again is welcome if it helps flesh stuff out and if after seeing it once I can skip it immediately on a replay.
The only games that generally have any real character depth, for me, are RPGs - in no way do I ever feel a connection with Soap McTavish or FPS Hero #47 or whoever. My favourite Street Fighter was Guille, why? because I could do his moves, couldn't give a monkeys about Charlie or whatever his backstory was. Although the storyline might be moderately interesting I have about as litte interest in the protagonist as I do in eating a plate of raw brussels sprouts.
When I get to make choices that impact the game, such as a good RPG, that is when I get invested. Could I care any less about the sexual orientation? Peobably not. My Shepard is always a lesbian, as was my Dragon Age character, etc. Why? Well why the hell not, it's something to the usual drivel in films, books and other games. However I care a lot more about being able to choose to play a female avatar then its sexuality or even getting to shag around. With free pr0n all over the net it'd be a baffling scenario if you are playing 20 hours of a game just to get your rocks off to a 30second 'steamy' scene with no actual nudity apart from maybe a backside. Even more baffling is the attention such same-sex scenes achieve.
Ultimately, for me, there is already too much emphasis put on sexuality on the games industry, be it from the hard times females reportedly get breaking into and surviving the industry through to female leads that are sexual stereotypes, etc. Funny that no-one seems to comment on the identikit male torso & 6-pack but every game with breasts in a bra is decried as a slate against women everywhere. I'm in no way saying it isn't tough for females, it probably is but not being one and only loosely being affiliated with 'the industry' I couldn't possibly pass any reasonably backed up comments.
I digress - point is - it's an interesting topic that might get a few laughs out of contriving some MW scene to be an homage to gay men but as a series focussed solely on that single topic I think it'd struggle. Sexuality is the new violence in terms of generating noise for the media and for flamers/trolls, for that reason alone I'll choose to sidestep a lot of that noise until people can talk about it with a modicum of common sense.
If I ever happen to be involved in the creation of an RPG, i'd make sure that sex, sexuality, race and all the other stuff are random. You can make up your beard and hair or whatever but the core stuff all random.
Id make sexuality random and you don't find out until you are about 25 - 50% through the game and then never reference it. Maybe once if your character happened to be checking someone and the following expertly written dialogue happens. "Hey, what about her? She's pretty hot." "Nah. I'm gay." That would be the only line in the game that referenced sexuality and the only one that I would also randomise to match the rest of the character.
People put too much thought into this shit now days. If it's not people complaining about games being too sexual, it's the violence in a game based around killing folk. If you don't like it don't play it. Better yet don't play anything. Leave games to the adults.
Not my finest hour, I know, but it was suitably stupid enough for the exercise.
The original idea behind this was to come up with something that would piss off as many people as possible, and a mate of mine had suggested one time that I write him an essay on how Cole from Gears is potentially gay, so I sorta just threw the two together to make this. And then I started making the IndieGoGo page, and well, one thing led to another...
I personally don't have a problem with most linear story-based games having a straight main character, after all it's pretty much industry standard, and as soon as you start throwing homosexuality into the mix, suddenly there's a big hoo-hah and people start seeing the game/film/book/whatever piece of media you like as some kind of comment on gay people or whatever. I doubt any game designer would make a game with an incidentally gay character because some people would just be like "OMG WUT HE LIKES MEN THIS IS SO WRONG". Which is dumb, but there you go.
The plan wasn't to dive into a game and use typical cliches to call someone out as gay ("Vincent in Catherine wears a pink t-shirt - must be a woofter!"), but more put forward the idea that they -could- be gay. It's still a pretty stupid idea, and if I was really seriously into doing it then I wouldn't have started a Kickstarter-type-thing and I'd just forge ahead and do it. But then hey free money!
If nothing else it's been a fun little project to work on, since we're still making the video for the page (although when that'll be finished I don't know).
Just thought I'd throw that out there in case anyone thought I was being deadly serious!
Whoever thought I'd end years of dejected loneliness/Making hot keyboard love at 2.4kBps?
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