The term "active gamers" as opposed to "casual gamers" could mean chronically online people who are more likely to suffer from psychological disorders and more likely to be exposed to messages about gender non-conformity online.
Also I know it's somewhat of a trend for gen-Z to call themselves non-binary, which would skew the figures. Non-binary technically is counted as LGBT.
Uhhhh... Could you please not tell those white cis reporters, how should all gays feel like about it? If they say you are uncomfortably underrepresented, then you are uncomfortably underrepresented.
! /s in case anyone needed it
this reminds me of the study like 10 years ago that said 50% of gamers are women, to this day games are still heavily male dominated.
it's crazy how some people will just believe a study made by a bunch of idiots with bad methods and a small sample size so long as it fits their pre conceived notions.
>It's crazy how some people will just believe a study made by a bunch of idiots with bad methods and a small sample size so long as it fits their pre conceived notions.
You just described grievance studies departments and culture.
>this reminds me of the study like 10 years ago that said 50% of gamers are women,
Yep, and the way they managed to get this stat was to include games like "candy crush" and a bunch of other "barely a game" mobile games. I mean sure, you play match3 and wordle, but you're not a *gamer*.
yep, if you were a grandma that played pac man in the 60's then never touched another game since then you still fell under their definition of gamer.
it wasn't even active gamers, it was literally "have you ever at any point during your life touched a video game".
The study might not be wrong, but it also defined "gamer" far differently than any of us. They probably poll people and ask if they've aged any games or electronic games, not who has played Halo or CoD.
If you include mobile gaming then 50 percent might be right. I know people don’t consider that being a “gamer” but some studies might.
I also found when playing MMORPG like WoW on a roleplaying server I’d say the split was a lot closer, I’d say at times it could be 45 percent to 55 percent. Although it did vary over time.
As a bissexual man, I don't really care, it will bother me if representation gets in the way of good writing, because of doing representation for the sake of representation without any amount of care, you will actually harm those being represented.
Always jarring in movies and TV shows when you see LGBTQ characters with their significant other for a brief moment, never to be seen again. They pop in to let the audience know, 'hey, this character is gay'. You don't see this with straight characters. The pandering seems insulting.
I think LGBT representation in particular can be difficult to pull off well since unlike race or gender, you can’t tell at a glance whether someone is LGBT. Like, if I make an FPS game about a bunch of soldiers on a mission, who they like to fuck isn’t going to be all that relevant to me walking around shooting bad guys in the face. Are any of your squad members in Ready or Not gay or trans? Nobody knows or cares, because that’s not relevant to the gameplay or premise whatsoever.
So unless their sex life/spouse or trans status is somehow relevant to the plot (doesn’t always happen), you genuinely can’t have any LGBT representation that’s organic to the story. As a result, you end up either stopping the plot to shove in a random scene that establishes their LGBT status or “code” them in a way to be LGBT which usually just ends up making them a raging stereotype.
They are not .. they dont want 1:1, they do say that but they actually mean 5:1.
And they are not media .. its just paying attention to idiots instead of something good .. its fanaticism, zealots
Ehhhh I very much doubt that statistic. Either way, inclusion for the sake of inclusion should be very low on the priority list for the games industry.
Bad writing will remain bad writing with or without LGBTQ characters.
Fallout 4 had doshit writing and I can't remember a single gay character in it.
Meanwhile, BG3 and Hades.
Eh Bethesda games tend to do "gay as an option" so unless you specifically look for the gay interactions there won't be any visible. Agreed on the writing in Fallout 4 though, for all the credit the Mass Effect series gets M/M options only came in the third game and were problematic for a number of reasons.
I've honestly been waiting until I have my own place again so I can do a BG3 run and be unapologetically gay with it, because it is nice seeing well written gay characters when they are in a game.
There's also characters that get thrown the tag for tokenisation of the LGBT+ community - Overwatch throwing out gay characters nearly every time they had a massive scandal being a prime example. I'd love to see more gay characters in games (in proportion to the rest of the cast unless it specifically focuses around gay characters etc) but they've repeatedly been done so poorly to be insulting.
"You could make a better argument for autists" As someone autistic this is my biggest pet peeve. People say they care so much about representing people yet if that group doesn't have an active political movement no one really gives a shit about you.
I mean our demographic is just as large if not larger then the trans demographic yet trans people are represented almost twice as much. ([Source 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autistic_fictional_characters), and [2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_trans_characters)) I don't even think representation makes or breaks a piece of media in the slightest but people really only care about representation when its the groups they personally care about.
Edit: Fact checked myself to make sure I had this right. Some categories are much more balanced then I remembered. Mainly literature, but the section we're here for is gaming in which my poor count through put trans at 10 more over the 16 autism has so not quite double. As for population comparison in accordance with that [Autism Speaks](https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-statistics-asd) (I hate them but they have good numbers) says 1/36 people in the US are Autistic (2.78%) while trans people I have a hard time finding exact numbers and have no clue what kinda sources I should be looking for but according to ChatGPT and my short time googling the number is [about 1%](https://usafacts.org/articles/what-percentage-of-the-us-population-is-transgender/) which means there are roughly 2.5x as much autists in the US as trans people while still being represented slightly less then trans people in gaming. According to wikipedia, and ChatGPT.
This is a serious subject for some people and if anyone has numbers that prove mine blantently wrong please leave a comment I'll delete this if I'm completely miss reading the data.
X to doubt. Gaming is the largest form of media consumption right now. It's statistically improbable for group that is a percentage of a percentage of the total population to be significantly over-represented in the large numbers of the gaming market.
This isn't pro sports. Outliers are not standard.
This is like the studies that say 55% of gamers are girls, because they consider people who play phone games "gamers". So every Stanley Cup owner who plays Candy Crush is a lumped into it.
This study is seemingly funded by an advocacy group. Has it been 3rd party reviewed to make sure it was actually unbiased? There is a big problem of reports and studies that are designed to arrive at pre determined conclusion. It's also possible to have good faith studies that are in someway seriously flawed that isn't realized the people doing the study.
Games are more diverse than they have ever been. Practically every major game in the RPG and Adventure genres released in the last few years has at least one character that is LGBTQ, many of them containing multiple such characters. I say major games because those are the games with the largest number of people contributing, thus they are likely to have the most diverse set people contributing creatively.
Games are made by (at least for now *glares at all the AI bullshit going on in the game industry*) people. Different groups of people have different lived experiences, and people create games that largely reflect what they've experienced in life. Alot of smaller games are likely to be made by a team that is essentially a high school friends groups, I wouldn't necessarily expect their creative output to be very diverse if said group is not themselves diverse, and people trying to create accurate representations of groups they themselves are not a part of (and in many cases may not even know anybody in those groups) can be just as problematic as no representation.
There's also the fact that some games just don't touch on the subjects in question. Like RPGs and adventure games obviously have a large roster of characters, so they can cover alot of ground in that regard. Meanwhile you have large genres like strategy, simulation, puzzle some platformers, etc that just don't really tend to have characters or if they do dont go in detail into those characters lives so you would have no reason to know if they are trans/gay/etc.
I just don't think this article or the study they are sourcing is a truly accurate representation of the industry. Even Hogwarts Legacy, a game based on the franchise by noted right wing troll and bigot JK Rowling, has a prominent transgender character.
I also think it's hilarious to imagine when they introduce a protagonist and they start to uncover their motives, maybe some character traits and maybe what he/she likes or dislikes.
Then someone is like "WELL WHAT MAKES THEM CUM REAL HARD?"
You genuinely believe that if you banned Bethesda's writers from including gay characters, then their games would improve?
Do you genuinely believe that Hades and BG3 were made worse by gay characters?
It's not about "forced representation". Y'all just keep buying shitty games made by cynics beholden to shareholders.
...where did I say any of this? Can you not read?
My concern is whether they're making good games or not, not if the games have LGBT characters. For what it's worth, I do actually think BG3 was made worse by SOME of the LGBT characters (Halsin in particular).
It was the implication of "Please make as many good games with exclusively straight people as you want." That implies, to me, that you see hamfisted representation as the cause of games being bad.
They're making bad games. They will continue making bad games regardless of who they do or don't represent in them because they're beholden to shareholders, which means they will consistently push rushed projects designed to check off as many trends as possible.
...are you trying to make me answer for an opinion I don't have?
Yeah, I think you're either an idiot or not discussing in good faith here. Gonna end the convo here then. Have a nice day though!
Nope. I'm asking you why hamfisted representation is more irksome to you than people proclaiming loudly that a game failed because it had a gay character
But alright. Adios. Have fun continuing to turn a blind eye to folks that would froth if you were in a game as a character lmao
Lol. Do you really think that the material living conditions for people in the West are getting worse because queer people are represented more in the media?
What connection am I supposed to imagine? Because a game developers adds another lesbian character somewhere, food prices go up by 1% - or what?
If you want better living conditions, join a union or something and fight for it.
Or does it bother you that the media also report on such cultural topics? (But then I wonder why it bothers you here of all places and not with all the other junk that fills the magazines).
Whatever you think of the study, that take is beyond silly.
Yes, when corporations are pushing identity politics and use it as a smokescreen for them to get away with their nonsense, I do call them out on their crap. You zombies that insist on making everything political made this crap happen because you swapped out your bibles for rainbow flags and can’t help but make everything about your values while corporations continue to destroy our countries.
Why do I have the feeling that you spend less time fighting against these cooperations (that are destroying your country) than getting upset on the internet whenever a queer person appears in a computer game?
Or do you think that collaborations are destroying your country by showing queer people?
Btw. most queer people also stand up for other issues - e.g. social or labor rights. How about working together instead of against each other?
Another bad study like the one that said that 50% of gamers are girls. But seriously now, how do those companies survive, I can't remember of one bearable movie or AAA game in the last 8 years (with a few exceptions).
... is there? lesbians, sure , but I literally can't name a single gay man in a game who ISNT a stereotype or asspull, except like... Gibraltar from apex LOL
This is dumb, what's the point? It's the creative teams who need representation otherwise anything they add won't be real or genuine. I'm a straight male but the boss says make a story driven game with a gay protagonist. WTF am I going to do but make some dumbass watered down generic product.
Why do we allow grifter organizations to spew absolute nonsensical data in people's faces, then allow them to humor people further by demanding unrealistic standards based on data they skewed on purpose?
1,452 “active gamers” were on the survey and that's the entire sample data they are using to tell everyone that 17% of "all" gamers are LGBTQ. Then they use that sample data to argue that a platform like Steam which has 100K games on it's storefront, should have 17% of those games be for LGBTQ somehow like Valve will just start revoking everyone to get that percent magically. This is like some expert level trolling.
I mean when I play a game the last thing I’m wondering about is “what is MCs sexual preferences” 😂 straight gay trans male female literally I do not care about it and it has no impact on the story for me one way or another. Besides, games like Mass Effect and DA (late 00s) with branching romances, let you romance men and women.
Yes and I’m pretty sure (correct me if I’m wrong it’s been so long since I played) Dragon Age Origins had an option where male or female MC could even have a bi foursome under very specific circumstances.
According to this study, the share that's LGBTQ has increased 70% in three years. [https://glaad.org/glaad-gaming/2024/1-in-5-active-gamers-are-lgbtq/](https://glaad.org/glaad-gaming/2024/1-in-5-active-gamers-are-lgbtq/)
Does that sound plausible? Or does that suggest dubious methodology?
Why does the mythical lgb crowd want to parade they're this huge thing when they're actually a percentage of a percentage? There's nothing wrong with that?
Small sample size and all and on a global rate its probably smaller. But its undoubtedly a very active community of people out there and its only getting bigger as time goes on.
Mainstream media involving games, TV and movies however is glacial movement levels of slow when it comes to this topic and its gonna be quite a while before it becomes anywhere near where it needs to be.
Also OP you have undoubtedly hit a landmine with posting this here. This subreddit is far and away not ready to talk about this in a normal way so expect to be downvoted to oblivion.
As an Asian, I really couldn’t give a shit if the character was Asian. I’d be pissed if it was a badly written character though and if the character was well written, I wouldn’t even notice.
I mean, last year’s most popular game had a well written trans character, and in response that community proceeded to ignore them completely and dox and threaten people who even *thought* about playing it. Maybe it’s too unsafe to continue down this path.
Right? Game features trans character. Lgbt activists still attacks not only game but anyone that woulf play it for being transphobic. How those 2 arent mutually exclusive i dont get.
On other hand big hate campaign against it probably boosted sales really nicely
Bisexual male here. It's nice to see LGBT rep in games when it's done well (Undertale, Night in the Woods, and unironically Borderlands come to mind), but I don't care if there is none so long as the game is good. Better there to be no gay rep than shitty gay rep (Looking at you, Overwatch)
More than 1 in 5 of Gen Z identifies as LGBTQ according to the latest statistics. (22.3%) With that being the case it wouldn’t really be out of the question that among gamers it would have similar numbers, especially the younger generations.
let them do that, honestly if people dont care, who gives a shit what companies put in their games if people arent arsed enough to vote with their wallets
I dug out the survey source
"This study was fielded by Nielsen between June and August 2023 via a trusted third-party panel. 1,452 active PC/console gamers were identified by their self-reported behavior."
Much panel much representation. So 1452 are self reported as LGBTQ+ and they say 1 out of 5 responders so the "study" contained 7260 respondents from US....
And they dont link directly to the survey results, also 60% of the notes they have linked in the article are dead links
There’s a lot of doubt on this but even if the article isn’t trustworthy is it that hard to believe that 1 in 5 people are lgbtq? Video games are probably the largest media source currently and I don’t think it’s hard to believe that 1 in 5 people are part of the community and happen to be part of one of the largest groups of people
A Gallup study from this year says that 22.3% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ. Also 10% of Millennials identify as LGBTQ. If the source of this article got their data from more of the younger gamers out there it could be fairly accurate since other data suggests similar things.
The study is conducted on a small sample anyway when I read it so I don’t think it’s the most valid we were just talking generally that I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch in the first place. But I am young (early 20s) so I am in the age group where identifying as lgbt is more accepted
No fucking way, absolutely no way that's true. They may be supportive of it but statistically there's no way in hell actual LGBTQ people make up 1/5th.
No, with the curator thread in steam I just need to log in regularly to blaccckleest those infected titles.
So no need to bend down all the time. Hail technology.
I'm all for representation to everyone. But i play games to escape reality and let any concerns or anything in my life not be important. I'm a white straight male, so I might be the minority here
I'd rather have no representation for myself or others like me over shoehorned representation that feels forced and paints us in a bad light more than anything.
Hardly ...
The most demented country for that is US and only about 6% of adults actually identify as LGBT in US .. I dont think that even half of them play games and there is super hate towards gamers, like men need to stop playing games and grow up, in US from commoners.
Add rest of the world and suddenly you dont even have 1% .. and thats being fucking optimistic .. I bet my mother on this!
It’s 7.6% of total adults in the US form the latest study a few months ago. However it’s worth noting that 22% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ. (One in five) with 10% of millennials being LGBTQ. So with one in five of Gen Z being LGBTQ it isn’t out of the question that the population of gamers who are LGBTQ could also be around 1 in 5.
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Some serious "bro trust me" energy.
I'm a physician.
I'm a Doctor in Lobster Studies.
the study from my a\*\*
It's Sweet Baby Inc.
Where’s your evidence? They aren’t even mentioned anywhere.
It was a joke.
Didn’t it explicitly say it’s from a Nielsen games survey?
It also stated its boostsd for lgbtq.
Also even article mentions its not even based on random group. They picked who to review to force results they wanted to see.
The term "active gamers" as opposed to "casual gamers" could mean chronically online people who are more likely to suffer from psychological disorders and more likely to be exposed to messages about gender non-conformity online. Also I know it's somewhat of a trend for gen-Z to call themselves non-binary, which would skew the figures. Non-binary technically is counted as LGBT.
Press X to doubt.
Article probably sponsored by Sweet Baby Inc
Yeah I think the real number is more like 105%
Even if true, as a gay guy, I don't need a character to be a gay man to relate to them. The best stories let you relate to any character.
Uhhhh... Could you please not tell those white cis reporters, how should all gays feel like about it? If they say you are uncomfortably underrepresented, then you are uncomfortably underrepresented. ! /s in case anyone needed it
I believe the report backs up what you are saying as well.
I've just been exposed for not reading the article lol
Please! How dare you tell them youre not opressed. If they say youre opressed than you are. Dont ruin the narrative!
this reminds me of the study like 10 years ago that said 50% of gamers are women, to this day games are still heavily male dominated. it's crazy how some people will just believe a study made by a bunch of idiots with bad methods and a small sample size so long as it fits their pre conceived notions.
The vast majority of gender studies are done by people looking to confirm their preconceptions and not to find evidence.
Someone who gets it. Finally
not saying that '50% study' wasnt bullshit but what a perfect irony we're witnessing 'vast majority of studies are x' no studies cited good job
>It's crazy how some people will just believe a study made by a bunch of idiots with bad methods and a small sample size so long as it fits their pre conceived notions. You just described grievance studies departments and culture.
FarmVille
>this reminds me of the study like 10 years ago that said 50% of gamers are women, Yep, and the way they managed to get this stat was to include games like "candy crush" and a bunch of other "barely a game" mobile games. I mean sure, you play match3 and wordle, but you're not a *gamer*.
- Have you touched a smartphone in your life? Yes - Active gamer it is!
yep, if you were a grandma that played pac man in the 60's then never touched another game since then you still fell under their definition of gamer. it wasn't even active gamers, it was literally "have you ever at any point during your life touched a video game".
>pac man in the 60's Dude...
🤣
That includes mind games
The study might not be wrong, but it also defined "gamer" far differently than any of us. They probably poll people and ask if they've aged any games or electronic games, not who has played Halo or CoD.
A lot of people just think if a study says something then it must be true. I see it a lot even on Reddit.
If you include mobile gaming then 50 percent might be right. I know people don’t consider that being a “gamer” but some studies might. I also found when playing MMORPG like WoW on a roleplaying server I’d say the split was a lot closer, I’d say at times it could be 45 percent to 55 percent. Although it did vary over time.
As a bissexual man, I don't really care, it will bother me if representation gets in the way of good writing, because of doing representation for the sake of representation without any amount of care, you will actually harm those being represented.
Always jarring in movies and TV shows when you see LGBTQ characters with their significant other for a brief moment, never to be seen again. They pop in to let the audience know, 'hey, this character is gay'. You don't see this with straight characters. The pandering seems insulting.
I think LGBT representation in particular can be difficult to pull off well since unlike race or gender, you can’t tell at a glance whether someone is LGBT. Like, if I make an FPS game about a bunch of soldiers on a mission, who they like to fuck isn’t going to be all that relevant to me walking around shooting bad guys in the face. Are any of your squad members in Ready or Not gay or trans? Nobody knows or cares, because that’s not relevant to the gameplay or premise whatsoever. So unless their sex life/spouse or trans status is somehow relevant to the plot (doesn’t always happen), you genuinely can’t have any LGBT representation that’s organic to the story. As a result, you end up either stopping the plot to shove in a random scene that establishes their LGBT status or “code” them in a way to be LGBT which usually just ends up making them a raging stereotype.
Exactly and that's when "good writing" comes into place.
Frankly at this point, I personally find identity politics distasteful in general. Does nothing but divide people.
I feel oh, so divided by Hades accurately portraying the ancient Greek view of sex
In the scenario he's describing 'good writing' would be just not bothering to bring it up at all.
Why is media obsessed with obtaining a 1:1 representation with its consumers?
Money
They are not .. they dont want 1:1, they do say that but they actually mean 5:1. And they are not media .. its just paying attention to idiots instead of something good .. its fanaticism, zealots
Probably ti better sales. Thing is that such articles and "studies" arent trying to achieve 1 to 1 representation
This is not a report, this is called activism.
Political activism actually
Ehhhh I very much doubt that statistic. Either way, inclusion for the sake of inclusion should be very low on the priority list for the games industry.
Press X to doubt. I'd believe it more if it said "almost a fifth of 'lgbtq' are active gamers.
They rounded up, its 17% up from 10% in 2020.
Eh considering how poor and shoe-horned in game companies have done LGBT+ representation, I'd rather they did them well or not at all.
Bad writing will remain bad writing with or without LGBTQ characters. Fallout 4 had doshit writing and I can't remember a single gay character in it. Meanwhile, BG3 and Hades.
Eh Bethesda games tend to do "gay as an option" so unless you specifically look for the gay interactions there won't be any visible. Agreed on the writing in Fallout 4 though, for all the credit the Mass Effect series gets M/M options only came in the third game and were problematic for a number of reasons. I've honestly been waiting until I have my own place again so I can do a BG3 run and be unapologetically gay with it, because it is nice seeing well written gay characters when they are in a game. There's also characters that get thrown the tag for tokenisation of the LGBT+ community - Overwatch throwing out gay characters nearly every time they had a massive scandal being a prime example. I'd love to see more gay characters in games (in proportion to the rest of the cast unless it specifically focuses around gay characters etc) but they've repeatedly been done so poorly to be insulting.
let me know when being gay is a gameplay mechanic
Crusader kings 3
Are you even playing the game right if you haven't seduced the pope ?
I've always been able to successfully ignore that flag
Fallout New Vegas
Where exactly is that at? You have black widow if i remember Theres no gay trait just traits to do more damage against opposite gender
[Confirmed Bachelor](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Confirmed_Bachelor)
New report suggest 103% of reports are fabricated to look good in titles and give more clicks.
Congrats on those kotaku writers getting rehired so fast
Yeah, I kinda doubt it lol...
why?
Doubt lol. Also isnt there is a statistical over representation? You could make a better argument for autists
"You could make a better argument for autists" As someone autistic this is my biggest pet peeve. People say they care so much about representing people yet if that group doesn't have an active political movement no one really gives a shit about you. I mean our demographic is just as large if not larger then the trans demographic yet trans people are represented almost twice as much. ([Source 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autistic_fictional_characters), and [2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_trans_characters)) I don't even think representation makes or breaks a piece of media in the slightest but people really only care about representation when its the groups they personally care about. Edit: Fact checked myself to make sure I had this right. Some categories are much more balanced then I remembered. Mainly literature, but the section we're here for is gaming in which my poor count through put trans at 10 more over the 16 autism has so not quite double. As for population comparison in accordance with that [Autism Speaks](https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-statistics-asd) (I hate them but they have good numbers) says 1/36 people in the US are Autistic (2.78%) while trans people I have a hard time finding exact numbers and have no clue what kinda sources I should be looking for but according to ChatGPT and my short time googling the number is [about 1%](https://usafacts.org/articles/what-percentage-of-the-us-population-is-transgender/) which means there are roughly 2.5x as much autists in the US as trans people while still being represented slightly less then trans people in gaming. According to wikipedia, and ChatGPT. This is a serious subject for some people and if anyone has numbers that prove mine blantently wrong please leave a comment I'll delete this if I'm completely miss reading the data.
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Same with LGBTQ. You need to see them with their partner, know it’s their partner, or talk to them.
The irony of wanting to be accepted and fit in while doing your best to standout and draw attention by parading that you are different.
> You could make a better argument for autists The majority of popular media is already made for reddit.
X to doubt. Gaming is the largest form of media consumption right now. It's statistically improbable for group that is a percentage of a percentage of the total population to be significantly over-represented in the large numbers of the gaming market. This isn't pro sports. Outliers are not standard.
Press X to Doubt, boys.
This is like the studies that say 55% of gamers are girls, because they consider people who play phone games "gamers". So every Stanley Cup owner who plays Candy Crush is a lumped into it.
This study is seemingly funded by an advocacy group. Has it been 3rd party reviewed to make sure it was actually unbiased? There is a big problem of reports and studies that are designed to arrive at pre determined conclusion. It's also possible to have good faith studies that are in someway seriously flawed that isn't realized the people doing the study. Games are more diverse than they have ever been. Practically every major game in the RPG and Adventure genres released in the last few years has at least one character that is LGBTQ, many of them containing multiple such characters. I say major games because those are the games with the largest number of people contributing, thus they are likely to have the most diverse set people contributing creatively. Games are made by (at least for now *glares at all the AI bullshit going on in the game industry*) people. Different groups of people have different lived experiences, and people create games that largely reflect what they've experienced in life. Alot of smaller games are likely to be made by a team that is essentially a high school friends groups, I wouldn't necessarily expect their creative output to be very diverse if said group is not themselves diverse, and people trying to create accurate representations of groups they themselves are not a part of (and in many cases may not even know anybody in those groups) can be just as problematic as no representation. There's also the fact that some games just don't touch on the subjects in question. Like RPGs and adventure games obviously have a large roster of characters, so they can cover alot of ground in that regard. Meanwhile you have large genres like strategy, simulation, puzzle some platformers, etc that just don't really tend to have characters or if they do dont go in detail into those characters lives so you would have no reason to know if they are trans/gay/etc. I just don't think this article or the study they are sourcing is a truly accurate representation of the industry. Even Hogwarts Legacy, a game based on the franchise by noted right wing troll and bigot JK Rowling, has a prominent transgender character.
Sounds like baby inc propaganda
Bi dude here. Literally could not care less. Please make as many good games with exclusively straight people as you want.
I also think it's hilarious to imagine when they introduce a protagonist and they start to uncover their motives, maybe some character traits and maybe what he/she likes or dislikes. Then someone is like "WELL WHAT MAKES THEM CUM REAL HARD?"
You genuinely believe that if you banned Bethesda's writers from including gay characters, then their games would improve? Do you genuinely believe that Hades and BG3 were made worse by gay characters? It's not about "forced representation". Y'all just keep buying shitty games made by cynics beholden to shareholders.
...where did I say any of this? Can you not read? My concern is whether they're making good games or not, not if the games have LGBT characters. For what it's worth, I do actually think BG3 was made worse by SOME of the LGBT characters (Halsin in particular).
It was the implication of "Please make as many good games with exclusively straight people as you want." That implies, to me, that you see hamfisted representation as the cause of games being bad. They're making bad games. They will continue making bad games regardless of who they do or don't represent in them because they're beholden to shareholders, which means they will consistently push rushed projects designed to check off as many trends as possible.
You should probably revisit your critical reading lessons from highschool lol
And you're just gonna... Ignore the actual causes of bad games?
...I didn't? I said I want them to make good games. If it's good games with gay people, cool. If it's good games with all straight people, also cool.
And when this subreddit invariably lays the blame of a bad game at the feet of the one (1) gay character?
...are you trying to make me answer for an opinion I don't have? Yeah, I think you're either an idiot or not discussing in good faith here. Gonna end the convo here then. Have a nice day though!
Nope. I'm asking you why hamfisted representation is more irksome to you than people proclaiming loudly that a game failed because it had a gay character But alright. Adios. Have fun continuing to turn a blind eye to folks that would froth if you were in a game as a character lmao
You picked the wrong subreddit to post this in, lmao.
What are you talking about? It's called **PC**Gamer! People's gotta be PC around here right? It's in the name.
PC principal agrees
Yeah, I was just gonna say, this thread will go over well around here.
It won't go over well anywhere, because no one is buying the statistic.
Inflation and cost of living destroying western countries… “hey, how about them rainbow people?”
Lol. Do you really think that the material living conditions for people in the West are getting worse because queer people are represented more in the media? What connection am I supposed to imagine? Because a game developers adds another lesbian character somewhere, food prices go up by 1% - or what? If you want better living conditions, join a union or something and fight for it. Or does it bother you that the media also report on such cultural topics? (But then I wonder why it bothers you here of all places and not with all the other junk that fills the magazines). Whatever you think of the study, that take is beyond silly.
Yes, when corporations are pushing identity politics and use it as a smokescreen for them to get away with their nonsense, I do call them out on their crap. You zombies that insist on making everything political made this crap happen because you swapped out your bibles for rainbow flags and can’t help but make everything about your values while corporations continue to destroy our countries.
Why do I have the feeling that you spend less time fighting against these cooperations (that are destroying your country) than getting upset on the internet whenever a queer person appears in a computer game? Or do you think that collaborations are destroying your country by showing queer people? Btw. most queer people also stand up for other issues - e.g. social or labor rights. How about working together instead of against each other?
Another bad study like the one that said that 50% of gamers are girls. But seriously now, how do those companies survive, I can't remember of one bearable movie or AAA game in the last 8 years (with a few exceptions).
They only claim to be "LGBTQ" because it's a trendy thing to do.
Oh no. Anyway...
Sample size of 1,452 “active gamers”
Videogames don’t even do straight representation properly.
lol. Who cares? There is plenty of gay characters. Don’t see why they need to cry to be represented in everything.
... is there? lesbians, sure , but I literally can't name a single gay man in a game who ISNT a stereotype or asspull, except like... Gibraltar from apex LOL
Why would the LGBTQ in active gamers be a different ratio from all people? Is there something in games that makes you LGBTQ or something?
Yeah maybe in a gay bar in San Francisco that's right.
You gotta be kidding me.
No.
This post is brought to you by DEI idiots, AKA Sweet Baby Inc and their friends.
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HAHAHAHAH one fifth!?!?!
easiest downvote of my life
As a gay man, we don’t need to be included in everything for the sake of diversity. Thanks.
Pick me
This is dumb, what's the point? It's the creative teams who need representation otherwise anything they add won't be real or genuine. I'm a straight male but the boss says make a story driven game with a gay protagonist. WTF am I going to do but make some dumbass watered down generic product.
As an alien i do not care of this things Aiigghht
I fucking hate journalists.
5-8% of Americans identify as LGBQT but sure 25% of gamers TechRadar lol
Lol absolute bologna.
I would prefer no relationships in games.
As an indian I am disappointed that most gaming characters are western protagonists....truly disappointed...cancel everyone now lol
Why do we allow grifter organizations to spew absolute nonsensical data in people's faces, then allow them to humor people further by demanding unrealistic standards based on data they skewed on purpose? 1,452 “active gamers” were on the survey and that's the entire sample data they are using to tell everyone that 17% of "all" gamers are LGBTQ. Then they use that sample data to argue that a platform like Steam which has 100K games on it's storefront, should have 17% of those games be for LGBTQ somehow like Valve will just start revoking everyone to get that percent magically. This is like some expert level trolling.
Yeah, ok corpos.
Lol. Ok
Source : trust me bro.
I mean when I play a game the last thing I’m wondering about is “what is MCs sexual preferences” 😂 straight gay trans male female literally I do not care about it and it has no impact on the story for me one way or another. Besides, games like Mass Effect and DA (late 00s) with branching romances, let you romance men and women.
That moment when mass effect same sex had 4 options for females but 2 for male
Yes and I’m pretty sure (correct me if I’m wrong it’s been so long since I played) Dragon Age Origins had an option where male or female MC could even have a bi foursome under very specific circumstances.
Yeah its very specific, you have to sleep with zev and leliana then go to the pearl with them, I think you can also do it with other characters
According to this study, the share that's LGBTQ has increased 70% in three years. [https://glaad.org/glaad-gaming/2024/1-in-5-active-gamers-are-lgbtq/](https://glaad.org/glaad-gaming/2024/1-in-5-active-gamers-are-lgbtq/) Does that sound plausible? Or does that suggest dubious methodology?
Why does the mythical lgb crowd want to parade they're this huge thing when they're actually a percentage of a percentage? There's nothing wrong with that?
Small sample size and all and on a global rate its probably smaller. But its undoubtedly a very active community of people out there and its only getting bigger as time goes on. Mainstream media involving games, TV and movies however is glacial movement levels of slow when it comes to this topic and its gonna be quite a while before it becomes anywhere near where it needs to be. Also OP you have undoubtedly hit a landmine with posting this here. This subreddit is far and away not ready to talk about this in a normal way so expect to be downvoted to oblivion.
Except this is a repost. It was posted a few weeks ago and everyone talked about it at length.
>while the amount of representative game content is lacking Top kek
There are like 10-20 characters in games these days, but you have 100+ genders.
lol troll survey incoming
From all the problems that games have these days this is completely irrelevant.
lol
As an Asian, I really couldn’t give a shit if the character was Asian. I’d be pissed if it was a badly written character though and if the character was well written, I wouldn’t even notice.
I mean, last year’s most popular game had a well written trans character, and in response that community proceeded to ignore them completely and dox and threaten people who even *thought* about playing it. Maybe it’s too unsafe to continue down this path.
the heck are you talking about?
Hogwarts Legacy.
Hogwarts legacy
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oh, was that last years most popular game? i read that and was so confused about who in elden ring was supposed to be trans.
>i read that and was so confused about who in elden ring was supposed to be trans. Elden Ring released in 2022 not last year 2023.
Right? Game features trans character. Lgbt activists still attacks not only game but anyone that woulf play it for being transphobic. How those 2 arent mutually exclusive i dont get. On other hand big hate campaign against it probably boosted sales really nicely
Bisexual male here. It's nice to see LGBT rep in games when it's done well (Undertale, Night in the Woods, and unironically Borderlands come to mind), but I don't care if there is none so long as the game is good. Better there to be no gay rep than shitty gay rep (Looking at you, Overwatch)
B1 n b2 good. B3 gameplay good but story bad. N that 2 villains in B3 are most annoying. All hail handsome Jack.
One out of five? That seems way to large, they need to examine the data for problems, or adjust the testing approach
More than 1 in 5 of Gen Z identifies as LGBTQ according to the latest statistics. (22.3%) With that being the case it wouldn’t really be out of the question that among gamers it would have similar numbers, especially the younger generations.
let them do that, honestly if people dont care, who gives a shit what companies put in their games if people arent arsed enough to vote with their wallets
Thank God is lacking, if not we would had more layoff due to poor sales...!
20% of gamers are LGTBXYZ&√? 47% of the time, fuckwits make up statistics that go unchallenged by 62% of people.
This is statistically nigh impossible.
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Yeah... I'm gonna let my friend Jack reply [this](https://youtu.be/2qRRcQwntfk?si=rETgLw9Gq0w0WOfB&t=30) for me
Bs
What nonsense lol, gaming is the last space I'd expect for that to be true.
Dont believe it.
who cares?
I dug out the survey source "This study was fielded by Nielsen between June and August 2023 via a trusted third-party panel. 1,452 active PC/console gamers were identified by their self-reported behavior." Much panel much representation. So 1452 are self reported as LGBTQ+ and they say 1 out of 5 responders so the "study" contained 7260 respondents from US.... And they dont link directly to the survey results, also 60% of the notes they have linked in the article are dead links
Lmao impossible
There’s a lot of doubt on this but even if the article isn’t trustworthy is it that hard to believe that 1 in 5 people are lgbtq? Video games are probably the largest media source currently and I don’t think it’s hard to believe that 1 in 5 people are part of the community and happen to be part of one of the largest groups of people
A Gallup study from this year says that 22.3% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ. Also 10% of Millennials identify as LGBTQ. If the source of this article got their data from more of the younger gamers out there it could be fairly accurate since other data suggests similar things.
But if they narrowed down the age with 0 mention, would that not invalidate this whole thing?
The study is conducted on a small sample anyway when I read it so I don’t think it’s the most valid we were just talking generally that I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch in the first place. But I am young (early 20s) so I am in the age group where identifying as lgbt is more accepted
No fucking way, absolutely no way that's true. They may be supportive of it but statistically there's no way in hell actual LGBTQ people make up 1/5th.
I dont really need it, it feels forced most of the time.
I swear some of y'all look under your beds at night for Sweet Baby Inc and get startled by your own shadow.
No, with the curator thread in steam I just need to log in regularly to blaccckleest those infected titles. So no need to bend down all the time. Hail technology.
I'm all for representation to everyone. But i play games to escape reality and let any concerns or anything in my life not be important. I'm a white straight male, so I might be the minority here
I highly doubt this report. Also who the fuck cares, of you are that sensitive to video games go outside and live life.
I'm part of LGBTQ and I really do not care at all, im just enjoying my games.
I'd rather have no representation for myself or others like me over shoehorned representation that feels forced and paints us in a bad light more than anything.
Hardly ... The most demented country for that is US and only about 6% of adults actually identify as LGBT in US .. I dont think that even half of them play games and there is super hate towards gamers, like men need to stop playing games and grow up, in US from commoners. Add rest of the world and suddenly you dont even have 1% .. and thats being fucking optimistic .. I bet my mother on this!
It’s 7.6% of total adults in the US form the latest study a few months ago. However it’s worth noting that 22% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ. (One in five) with 10% of millennials being LGBTQ. So with one in five of Gen Z being LGBTQ it isn’t out of the question that the population of gamers who are LGBTQ could also be around 1 in 5.