A history of LGBT content in videogames

[CardinalXimenez]

If you´re curious about what LGBT representation in videogames has been like the past three decades, Gamingbus has an exhaustive series of articles covering the various decades. She misses a few though, she lists Hana and Rain from "Fear Effect" as hinted at, but I thought their banter, not to mention the manual saying Hana´s "desired by many, but belonging only to one" made it perfectly clear they were a couple, and I also know that one of the female characters in "Jericho" is a lesbian, but she doesn´t get mentioned in the articles mention of that game. Either way, here´re the links:

The 80´es: http://www.gamingbus.com/2012/06/05/glbt-history-video-games-1980s/

The 90´es: http://www.gamingbus.com/2012/06/12/glbt-history-video-games-1990s/

The 2000s (part one): http://www.gamingbus.com/2012/06/19/glbt-history-in-video-games-2000s/

The 2000s (part two): http://www.gamingbus.com/2012/06/21/glbt-history-in-video-games-2000s-part-two/

The present day and beyond: http://www.gamingbus.com/2012/06/26/glbt-history-video-games-present-day/

[Sb20]

Pretty interesting read. Poison and Birdo I was already familiar with, but a lot of the rest was new to me. I confess I did get slightly hung up on the article using the SNES controller as the icon of "1980s" though. I get that they wanted 4 buttons on the face for their edits, but still, SNES will always be a 90s console to me.

[Areala]

I've got to say, she really did her homework. I'm doubly impressed that she caught Moonmist, since the insinuation there is VERY easy to overlook. I remember getting that particular path on one of my playthroughs when I was much, much younger (around 12-13) and not understanding Vivien's behavior at all (since best friends were usually very happy about their best friend getting engaged, not out to terrorize them). Of course, looking at it now is a different story.

*huggles*

Areala

[kitsunebi]

I know we were talking about Fear Effect a little while back, and I was going to add this to that thread, but this is a much more interesting thread worthy of revisiting (I'd never seen it before), so I'll put it here for a 4-years-old bump.

http://comicbook.com/2016/04/07/fear-effect-sedna-announced-/

[twiztor]

interesting read, even if i skimmed thru most of it.

i've never heard of "Poison", being familiar with Final Fight thru the SNES (and later, GBA) versions. didn't know there were censorship issues at hand. i do have to debate the line "Poison quickly shot to popularity and is arguably one of the most well-known fighting game characters in history" as i find that to be completely untrue. 'arguably' or not, there's no way that a character who didn't actually become playable until 2012, and only in two games (one of which is in an update pack, not part of the roster-at-large) could even be considered in the running.

no offense to her or anything, and if the article states that she's a trailblazer i'll certainly concede that, but that one quote is factually inaccurate.

[kitsunebi]

It's actually a bit surprising how under-the-radar Poison can seem to be until you realize what a vast presence she has on the internet. But I'll grant you, she's no Ryu or Chun-Li when it comes to "well-known" fighters.

What's interesting is the supposition that she was initially made transgender to get around Japanese censorship of violence towards women, whereas the US never had qualms about beating up women in videogames, so long as their clothes weren't too revealing...

[Sean697]

Checks article, no mention of the gay music teacher in Phantasy Star 2. Stops reading.

[kitsunebi]

Checks article, no mention of the gay music teacher in Phantasy Star 2. Stops reading.

From the article:

Still, there were cases where Sega nixed characters or settings that hinted at GLBT representations. For example, in the American port of Phantasy Star II, one musician’s sexuality was edited to the point where the only hint that he might be gay was that he charged male characters less for music lessons, which shouldn’t even qualify as a hint.

[Sean697]

From the article:

I missed that sentence.

[Sean697]

I missed that sentence.

Reading the last summary article, decrying LGBT characters being crazy or bi polar etc, I sometimes don't nessesarily think some interpretations are meant to be read this way, but rather in SOME cases they are portrayed as overly depressed and having problems due to living in an Unaccepting world.

[miketheratguy]

It's actually a bit surprising how under-the-radar Poison can seem to be until you realize what a vast presence she has on the internet. But I'll grant you, she's no Ryu or Chun-Li when it comes to "well-known" fighters.

What's interesting is the supposition that she was initially made transgender to get around Japanese censorship of violence towards women, whereas the US never had qualms about beating up women in videogames, so long as their clothes weren't too revealing...

See also: Their stance on graphic violence. It's okay to kill someone in cold blood as long as they don't bleed.

[kitsunebi]

See also: Their stance on graphic violence. It's okay to kill someone in cold blood as long as they don't bleed.

Well, as long as it's not red.

[miketheratguy]

Ah, touche.

[Data]

Maybe I'm wrong but I read the mention of Vice City, San Andreas and GTA IV but I did not see the reference to Asuka and Maria from Grand Theft Auto III.

After the hero leaves Portland Maine, he meets Maria who sends him on a quest to assassinate Salvatore Leone and prove his loyalty.  Meanwhile we hear suggestive language about "massagers" from another woman.

I remember this well from all the failed attempts at this mission.  I would respawn, hop in a Yakuza Stinger and just go barreling off the overpass onto Maria's parking lot letting the car explode.

 

[kitsunebi]

3 hours ago, Data said:

I remember this well from all the failed attempts at this mission. 

It's funny - I finished GTA III with 100%, but I have absolutely no recollection of these scenes.  Granted, that was years and years ago, but I'm surprised I didn't remember since really bad fake Japanese accents are a pet peeve of mine.