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designcontextsbh-blog · 7 years

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Response: The Representation of Sexuality and Relationships in Games

Games have a unique opportunity when creating characters because they don’t have to rely on physical acting so they can create a character to be any race or gender and find the voice actor that fits. The issue with this is that developers tend to create characters that appeal to what they believe is their largest audience, so straight white males are a popular character for games. It seems like deviating from the norm and introducing alternative character types opens up a world of fear that it will polarise too many players. For instance, 2013 was branded as the year of the female protagonist because there was a total of 3 big games announced that had a female protagonist: Tomb Raider, Bayonetta 2 and Beyond Two Souls, then Call of Duty decided they would include female characters in their upcoming multiplayer for Call of Duty: Ghosts. The industry and players rejoiced that finally there would be more females in games, well, the male ones did at least. It seems that people in the majority think that having one or two characters that fit into a minority automatically makes everything more diverse. A few gay characters here, a female protagonist there and maybe just for kicks they won’t all be white. That’s not how diversity works. Having one character in one game that fits into a minority doesn’t suddenly eradicate the massive amount of sexism, racism, homophobia or transphobia that exists. With realism and immersion becoming more popular we see some developers scrambling to implement romance systems and making the most stereotypical LBGTQ+ characters ever seen, like repeating the ‘year of the female protagonist’ with less effort. The problem is you can’t really get away with butchering things that we experience in real life without anyone noticing.

Developers don’t seem to know how to handle increasing the amount of LBGTQ+ characters in their games, instead of looking at the competition and standing out from the crowd they seem to rely on the same old character types. A lot of games work with a pre-made character, they tell the story of a character the studio has created that the player will follow on their journey. They tend to have a limited opportunity to express much in terms of sexuality and relationships due to the story taking priority over the few characters that the player interacts with. But it seems that they constantly waste the few opportunities they do have by choosing the majority over and over again. Even games with large casts with the option to pursue a relationship arc seem to struggle with sexuality. Take Bioware’s massive RPG franchises Mass Effect and Dragon Age, even though their romance subplots are a big draw for players, they still keep the homosexuality to the bare minimum. One gay option is available for each gender, one bisexual option and the rest are either straight or non- romanceable. It seems a wasted opportunity to have such a strong system and then limit the options for any players that want to create an LBGTQ+ character. As levels of realism in games increase, so should the diversity of the characters we play.

In an interview with games journalist Kate Gray, she highlighted how allowing players freedom and full immersion are important to players “If games want to have full immersion, and are already aimed at adults, I think it’s hugely important. I don’t think every game needs sexuality and relationships … but I also think that, if you’re going to include it, it should be done properly… Romance is so personal that it’s vital to have options that cover the majority of your players.” This is all very true, not every game you play should have you romancing everything that moves or trying to tackle the massive issue of sexuality but maybe some more should. If even one game this year attempts to portray such issues in a way we’ve never seen, we’d notice a huge difference in how we speak about it.

The intimacy of relationships may be hard to translate into a 40-hour game and not just feel like a lecture on how to they should work but a few developers appear to want to avoid even trying to portray something real. Bioware once again comes up short in the representation department. Simply pick the right options in conversation, do their loyalty mission and you will unlock the ultimate ‘prize’ for game relationships – sex. In the later entries in their two biggest franchises, Mass Effect and Dragon Age, there is an attempt to portray platonic relationships between the player and the NPC characters but it still seems to suggest it won’t take more to become more than friends. But as Gray pointed out, that’s not how it works “Friendship doesn’t have a “win state” like romance does - sex - and though I obviously disagree with sex being a “prize”, I can see how it’s easy to gamify. That doesn’t exist with friendship, which is more of a sliding scale.” But for games, the focus is always set on winning the prize in every category including relationships. There are varying degrees of these prizes of course: for Mass Effect, it is a sex scene while in Harvest Moon it is a baby. Even though it may seem odd to compare a SC-FI action RPG to a farming game, their idea of using “friendship as a step to romance” is always the same - do or say the right thing for a little while and you will win that prize every time. That may make perfect sense for games, they aren’t exactly the most realistic forms of entertainment, I can become the ultimate warrior or a highly skilled spy by sliding a disc into the tray but just because people want to escape when playing a game doesn’t mean they don’t want something real in it. Expressing ourselves is a massive part of life and games, we can customise the character’s hair, voice, clothes, skills – the list is endless really. Sometimes though, you may want to make a character that reflects you as a person and without something as basic as sexuality you won’t really ever get to have that choice.

There are so many players that are underrepresented in games today as developers still play into the white straight male-centric view that people have of the world. So many people are LBGTQ+ these days that the choice to exclude them makes no sense. Developers are missing out on strong characters, world building and storytelling because the fear of being boycotted by the loud minority of homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic and racists who will make it their mission to have your game tank is stronger than the need to represent people who will still pick up your game and play it.

Fable is a great example of a game that implements sexuality so subtly you might not even notice it. When you are walking around in any Fable RPG you might notice some hearts above NPC’s heads, they indicate that they are in love with you. Look closer and you will find some above both women and men, in the second and third instalment pulling the left trigger will bring up some more information and you will find that Albion is filled with gay, lesbian and bisexual people. It makes the world feel more real and although Fable doesn’t have a big focus on relationships, it allows the player the choice and that is the big difference. It is done in a way that you can completely ignore it and just focus on the main story or you can decide to start a family with whoever you choose.

In the past 50 years expressing yourself as an individual has slowly become an integral part of life, it allows people a freedom that was never explored before. Dye your hair, dress how you like, listen to whatever music you like, date who you want to. It has all become so common place that most people wouldn’t bat an eye at someone with neon blue hair walking down the street. However, we are still faced with bigotry in regards to race, gender and sexuality in a world that preaches acceptance. Where this acceptance has flourished is in the forms of escapism we live our lives surrounded in. TV, movies, music, the internet and games all offer a few hours of being cut off from the world, of experiencing new things and broadening our horizons through someone else’s eyes. Take RuPaul’s Drag Race as an example of a TV show that opened people up to the niche world of drag. It showed how much of a market there is for simple expression of self in a time where people are still attacked for who they love or how they dress. And since Hollywood and big TV companies crumble under the protests of close-minded people, wouldn’t games be the perfect place to allow someone to express themselves within a fictional world? To experience the struggles faced by people under attack for being themselves through the safety of a computer screen? It is sad to see such an amazing industry that can create entire fantasy universes shy away from problems faced by so many of their consumers.

That being said, games are a wonderful thing. They tell stories, create universes and let you escape into a fantasy at the push of a button. But they lack in an area that has become so important and so fundamental in the last few years that they are quickly coming under fire from their dedicated players. Representation is an overlooked issue in every entertainment industry these days that the excuses we hear are becoming so predictable it’s almost laughable. The highest rated TV shows and movies this year? Probably starring the same straight white guys we’ve been watching for years. The artists taking home the most awards at the big music events? I can name the top five of them without even trying to think about it. This year’s biggest games? Well hopefully in the industry that creates its own stars, maybe we’ll get to see a few surprises this time around. It isn’t that every game needs to have a gay, trans ethnic lead to be inclusive – far from it in fact - but maybe if just here and there we got something a little different than what we’ve seen a million times before, then we can be proud to say that we include people for who they are when everyone else is pretending there isn’t an issue.

References:

Please note that throughout this response I didn’t access outside material other than game names and my interview with Kate Gray. Therefore these references are purely games that I mentioned.

Tomb Raider. 2013. [computer game]. Crystal Dynamics

Bayonette 2. 2014. [computer game]. Wii U. Platinum Games

Beyond Two Souls. 2013 [computer game]. Quantic Dream

Call of Duty: Ghosts. 2013 [computer game]. Infinity Ward

Dragon Age. 2009. [computer game]. Bioware

Mass Effect. 2007. [computer game]. Bioware

Harvest Moon. 1996. [computer game]. Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Amccus

Fable. 2004. [computer game]. Xbox. Lionhead Studios

RuPaul’s Drag Race. 2009. [tv show]. World of Wonder

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designcontextsbh-blog · 7 years

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Alternative Introductions

Before I post my response, I wanted to post some of the variations on my introduction. You will see that they use some of the same sentences and points because I ended up cutting my favourite parts out of 3 or 4 drafts before putting them together and getting my final intro.

Draft 1:

Recently all entertainment industries have come under fire for their lacklustre representation of people of colour, sexuality and gender and the games industry is no exception. However, it is the rise of romance and sexuality in games that has caused most of the problems for this particular section of entertainment. The creation of games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age helped bring another layer of immersion to games by allowing the formation of relationships and some freedom of sexuality. Yet it is an issue that few developers want to tackle. It seems that whenever a studio releases a game that allows the main character to be anything other than heterosexual (especially a male character) then they are faced with huge backlash. It has left games skirting around a topic that fits perfectly with creating a character in a fictional world and that games could explore in a more in depth then TV and movies.

Draft 2:

Over the past 10 years’ sexuality and relationships have slowly become a bigger part of games, especially in RPGs. The creation of games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age helped bring another layer of immersion to games by allowing the formation of relationships and some freedom of sexuality. However, the representation of sexuality and relationships in video games is an issue that few developers want to tackle. It seems that whenever a studio releases a game that allows the main character to be anything other than heterosexual (especially a male character) then they are faced with huge backlash. It has left games skirting around a topic that fits perfectly with creating a character in a fictional world and that games could explore in a more in depth then TV and movies.

Draft 3:

For instance, 2013 was branded as the year of the female protagonist because there was a total of 4 big games announced that had a female protagonist: Tomb Raider, Bayonetta 2, Mirrors Edge 2 and Beyond Two Souls, then Call of Duty decided they would include female characters in their multiplayer. The industry and players rejoiced that finally there would be more females in games, well the male ones did at least. It seems that people in the majority think that having one or two characters that fit into a minority automatically makes everything more diverse. A few gay characters here, a female protagonist there and maybe just for kicks they won’t all be white. That’s not how diversity works. Having one character in one game that fits into a minority doesn’t suddenly eradicate the massive amount of sexism, racism, homophobia or transphobia that exists. With the rise of romance and sexuality in games it seems we are repeating the same issue that we saw in the ‘year of the female protagonist’ but with less of an effort.

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designcontextsbh-blog · 7 years

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Kate Gray’s Information

Here is the link to Kate Gray’s website. It was great to interview her on this topic as a few years ago she wrote an article in the Offical Xbox Magazine about something similar and that is what inspired me to write about sexuality and relationships in games. I think her articles are excellent and people should definitely check them out.

Website:

http://www.hownottodraw.com

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designcontextsbh-blog · 7 years

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Some research links for Mass Effect Critique

Links I used for information while writing the critique:

Mass Effect Wiki - http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_Effect_Wiki

Eurogamer articles:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-06-01-mass-effect-2-retrospective

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/mass-effect-2-review

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-analysis-mass-effect-2-article

Youtube Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uICaY2T1vUE (Review I watched while deciding on my topic)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEwEjl4Khkk (Playthrough I used to fins certain scenes)

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designcontextsbh-blog · 7 years

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Critique Two: Mass Effect 2

Glossary Terms used:

Location, Character, RPG, Third Person, Narrative-driven, Protagonist, Cut Scene, Single-player, Pace, Plot, Opening, Lead, Action Game, Face, NPC

Bioware are titans of the RPG genre, creating two of the biggest franchises in the industry: Mass Effect and Dragon Age. As of writing, there are seven games between the two series and although they are mostly considered very strong games, it is 2010’s Mass Effect 2 that is a real standout in their portfolio. The third person action game has roughly 35 hours of content in the single-player base game with seven DLC packs ranging between 30 minutes to 2 hours of content, although the plot and side missions alone provide a lot of interesting story arcs to follow across many amazing locations.

In the opening scene Commander Shepard, our lead protagonist, is shown in a cut scene dying in an attack from an unknown ship, roughly two years before the events of the game. They are revived by Cerberus’ Lazarus Project and upon waking you are thrown into a firefight after which you meet Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor, arguably the strongest and weakest squad mates respectively. The story follows you as assemble a team while preparing for a suicide mission to defeat the Collectors and the Reapers – the over arcing antagonists across the trilogy. The structure of the story itself gives you a sense of urgency without pushing you into following every mission as soon as you receive it. The pace feels as if it is given to the player in the sense that they can take their time and build up slowly or rush towards the end without compromising the immersion or narrative. This sense of pacing is helped by the cast of NPC characters that accompany you throughout the missions.

Mass Effect 2’s strong story, world and characters makes it one of the best RPGs to be released in the past 10 years. Even critics have to give credit to the excellent writing and strong cast of characters and although it certainly isn’t perfect it is definitely a game everyone should play at least once.

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designcontextsbh-blog · 7 years

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Mass Effect Essay Draft One

The characters are often a highlight of RPGs and Mass Effect has a reputation for its compelling characters, especially with the squad mates. Mass Effect 2 boasts 10 squad mates, up from the original 6 and introducing narrative-driven loyalty missions. While the majority of these characters are intriguing in their own right, a few of the most memorable are Miranda Lawson, Jack and the Geth unit Legion. Miranda is the second squad mate you meet within the opening mission a high-ranking Cerberus Officer who’s father manipulated her genes to make her perfect. Throughout the game as you learn more about her it becomes apparent that she joined the shady Cerberus organisation because they valued her for more than her genetics and face. Although at the beginning she is a strong believer in the values of Cerberus, in the end she cuts her ties which helps to progress her narrative. She is also a stark contrast to the other female characters, especially Jack, which makes gives her some more depth. Upon meeting Jack, she comes across as a cold, angry criminal who is only helping you because you broke her out of prison. However, perusing her loyalty mission helps to give this anger a reason, turning her into a well-rounded character that elicits sympathy from the player. The most surprising addition to the squad is Legion, due to the Geth being a main enemy faction in Mass Effect and then returning as a secondary enemy type in Mass Effect 2 and 3. Legion himself is a late addition however his loyalty mission is considered one of the best; as it allows you a small glimpse into one of the biggest battles in the lore, the war between the Geth and the Quarrians. It is a story line that is started well before you ever take on the role of Shepard and that you resolve in Mass Effect 3, giving the loyalty mission more weight than the others.

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designcontextsbh-blog · 7 years

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Mass Effect Crit Intoduction Draft

Bioware are titans of the RPG genre, creating two of the biggest franchises in the industry: Mass Effect and Dragon Age. As of writing, there are seven games between the two series, and although they are mostly considered very strong games it is 2010’s Mass Effect 2 that is the real standout in their portfolio. The single-player base game has roughly 35 hours of content with seven DLC packs ranging between 30 minutes to 2 hours of content, adding extra characters, weapons and locations to its already large world.

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designcontextsbh-blog · 7 years

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Second Critique Plan

For my second critique, I’ve decided to go for Mass Effect 2 (Bioware 2010) as I have recently played through the trilogy and I feel I can confidently talk about it.

The plan and structure I currently have is:

Intro

Main Story

Characters

Issues

Conclusion

A few other ideas I played around with were Mass Effect 1, Far Cry 3, Fable and Red Dead Redemption but ultimately I felt that Mass Effect 2 was the best choice.

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designcontextsbh-blog · 7 years

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Critique One: American Psycho

Glossary Terms used:

First Person, Protagonist, Non-clausal filler, Location, Perlocution,Third Person, Foreground, Plot, Semiotic, Focalization, Postmodern, Face, Character, Pace, Closing

One of the most controversial postmodern classic novels is American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. While the author argues it is a critical commentary of the 80s; many readers cannot get past the focalization on the extreme graphic scenes break up the mundane daily life of the central character. A lot of critics condemn it on our protagonist turned antagonist main character being flat and unlikable. However, the biggest question this novel holds is, did any of it actually happen?

This question immediately plants the seed of Patrick Bateman, our anti-hero, being an unreliable narrator as the novel is told primarily in the first person (with one third person chapter) from his point of view. There is evidence to support Bateman being unreliable such as the case of Paul Owen. Bateman believes he brutally murdered his colleague, however there are many times throughout the novel that suggest that he never did. For one, the private investigator who asks him about Owen said he had heard reports of him being spotted in London. And when Bateman returns to Owen’s home, the location he believes he is keeping his victims, a house realtor is selling the apartment with no evidence of bodies ever being kept there. Later in the novel, another character even informs Bateman that he had lunch with Owen in London where he now lives.

Although this does not mean he is completely unreliable, it could simply be his violent fantasies seeping into reality. He does inform the reader when he thinks he is hallucinating, like seeing a Cheerio being interviewed on The Patty Winters Show. It is mentioned that Owen is going to London around the time Bateman believes he killed him, suggesting that the murder only occurs in Bateman’s head because he wishes it could be the truth.

It is entirely possible that all of the murders and torture scenes within the book are purely playing out in Bateman’s head and he is just sharing them with the reader as if it is happening. It would explain why every other character ignores his actions and confessions, like his admission of guilt to his lawyer after a police chase through New York City. However, that could also just be the author highlighting the fact that many psychopaths get away with it for so long because nobody believes they could commit such crimes. Especially since Bateman is wealthy, attractive and intelligent so no one would ever suspect him – he’s too high class to be a psychopath.

This, of course, leads to the author’s explanation of why he wrote this story, that the novel is a commentary on materialism and self-obsession of the 80s. The majority of the novel is Bateman describing what himself or other people are wearing, what they eat, where they go and what they own. These paragraphs – often chapters – of descriptions pull to the foreground the idea that the characters live in a world where face and reputation are the only important things.

Ellis also uses different dialogue techniques, especially in regards to semiotics and perlocution, to convey Bateman’s psychosis and perhaps leaves hints of the reality of the crimes. For instance, Bateman speaks confidently and with certainty regarding most topics; he rarely uses non-clausal fillers in sentences except when presented with a situation he has no control or experience in.

In closing, it is extremely difficult to tell if Bateman did commit any crime at all. The novel itself is both a reflection of society’s self-obsessive nature and a psychopath’s ability to hide if they fit a high-class profile.

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designcontextsbh-blog · 7 years

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Interview Response

How important do you feel things like sexuality and relationships are in games that allow a creation of character? If games want to have full immersion, and are already aimed at adults, I think it's hugely important. I don't think every game needs sexuality and relationships - consider Animal Crossing, which does just fine without - but I also think that, if you're going to include it, it should be done properly. Harvest Moon lets you romance characters, but in this very chaste, very abstracted way, by giving them gifts and eventually a baby just... turns up. There aren't any gay relationships, either, which is a huge missing component. Romance is so personal that it's vital to have options that cover the majority of your players. Over the past few years, relationships have become more common in games, however they are also almost always romantic in nature. Do you feel that platonic relationships should have a place in games? I would love to see more platonic relationships in games. Friendship doesn't have a "win state" like romance does - sex - and though I obviously disagree with sex being a "prize", I can see how it's easy to gamify. That doesn't exist with friendship, which is more of a sliding scale. You can be friends, close friends, best friends, but then most games go "okay, well, the next stage is love, right?" like with the Sims, where friends can become lovers in just one flirt. I think games need to stop seeing friendship as a step to romance, and start prizing platonic love for the great thing it is. In Bioware’s Mass effect and Dragon Age series, the player has some degree of freedom sexuality. However, some people criticize them because you must get into a relationship to express this. Do you feel that games (and perhaps the industry itself) would benefit from expression of sexuality without romantic relationships? Yeah, i sort of agree - it can be frustrating to only have a sexuality in relation to the people you end up with. I'm not sure how else I would like to see it expressed, because Bioware has been pretty clumsy in the past with that sort of thing, but it would be nice to see more people tackle LGBT representation in non-sexual ways. It would be amazing for players to see themselves represented, and for players that perhaps aren't aware of LGBT issues to see them portrayed in different ways - to see people struggle with things like coming out to their parents, finding communities, the sort of things that happen in real life, in-between all the relationship stuff. Often in games, women who are romantic interests are oversexualised, for example Miranda Lawson in Mass Effect 2. Do you think that this effects how relationships are portrayed in games?

I have such an issue with Mass Effect's female characters. Their men can be weird-looking, like Garrus, but still attractive; their women are almost always just sexy human women in blue or green, with maybe some weird alien feature AS LONG AS it doesn't appear on their actual face. Sigh. I think there is this huge issue in the way games treat sex because they all assume their players are men, and it all becomes very male gaze-focused. Then, the issue is that they're perpetrating this image of hyper-sexualised women, ones which always say yes to you, which doesn't always match up with real women. And then those players resent women for not being these creatures ready and willing to have sex with them. At least with Mass Effect, though, the women have really strong personalities, too - which is important, again, for representing the realities of the world.

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designcontextsbh-blog · 7 years

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Interview for Response

For my response, I contacted journalist Kate Gray who agreed to answer a few questions for my essay. Here are the questions I sent to her:

How important do you feel things like sexuality and relationships are in games that allows a creation of character?

Over the past few years, relationships have become more common in games however, they are also almost always romantic in nature. Do you feel that platonic relationships should have a place in games?

In Bioware’s Mass Effect and Dragon Age series, the player has some degree of freedom in terms of sexuality. However, some people criticise them because you must get into a relationship to express this. Do you feel that games (and perhaps the industry itself) would benefit from the expression of sexuality without romantic relationships?

Often in games, women who are romantic interests are oversexualized, for example, Miranda Lawson in Mass Effect 2. Do you think that this affects how relationships are portrayed in games?

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designcontextsbh-blog · 7 years

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American Psycho Essay Draft One

One of the most controversial postmodern classic novels is American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. While the author argues it is a critical commentary of the 80s; many readers cannot get past the extreme graphic scenes that propel the plot forward. A lot of critics condemn it on our protagonist turned antagonist main character being flat and unlikable. However, the biggest question this novel holds is, did any of it actually happen?

This question immediately plants the seed of Patrick Bateman, our anti-hero, being an unreliable narrator as the novel is told primarily in first person (with one third person chapter) from his point of view. There is evidence to support Bateman being unreliable such as the case of one of the main victims in the book, Paul Owen. Bateman believes he brutally murdered one of his colleagues, however, there are many times throughout the novel that suggest that he never did. For one, the private investigator who asks him about Owen said he had heard reports of him being spotted in London. And when Bateman returns to Owen’s apartment where he believes he has been keeping all the bodies of his victims, a house realtor is selling the apartment and there is no evidence bodies ever being kept there. Later in the novel, another character even informs Bateman that he had lunch with Owen in London where he now lives. Although this does not mean he is completely unreliable, it could simply be his violent fantasies seeping into reality. He does inform the reader when he thinks he is hallucinating, like seeing a Cheerio being interviewed on The Patty Winters Show. As it is mentioned that Owen is going to London around the time Bateman believes he killed him, suggesting that the murder only occurs in Bateman’s head because he wishes it could be the truth.

It is entirely possible that all the brutal murders and torture scenes within the book are purely playing out in Bateman’s head and he is just sharing them with the reader as if it is happening. It would explain why every other character ignores his actions and confessions, like his admission of guilt to his lawyer after a police chase through New York city. However, that could also just be the author highlighting the fact that many psychopaths get away with it for so long because nobody believes they could commit such crimes. Especially since Bateman is wealthy, attractive and intelligent so no one would ever suspect him – he’s too high class to murder people.

Ellis also uses different dialogue techniques to convey Bateman’s psychosis and perhaps leaves hints of the reality of the crimes. For instance, Bateman speaks confidently and with certainty regarding most topics; he rarely uses non-clausal fillers in sentences except when presented with a situation he has no control or experience in.

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