From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
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I don't know if this is a hot take, but I think allowing straight and cis people to identify as such is appropriate, because the alternative assumes that we live in a state of default heteronormativity.
If anything, I want to live in a world where homophobes get mad that if they want to be assumed to be straight online they have to identify like anyone else. No one gets assumed to be straight any more. That's better imo.
as an almost maximally privileged person (cis straight etc), i want my whining fellows to shut the fuck up. Just stop. Stop taking up all the god damn space. Just be quiet. It's okay not to be included in every scene all the time.
Your point about not assuming people are straight by default is valid. But I mostly just want some cis-het folks to stop embarrassing me by being fucking insufferable.
The default should be "I'm horny" but unless I specify you have to guess who I'm horny for.
Maybe one day we can get there, but right now it might be better for a lot of folks if the default was "I'm not horny".
But I'm with you on the dream.
Wow such asexual-phobia! (/s but only a little) Not everyone is "horny".
No shade to my Ace friends intended. Totally possible to be horny for art or rock collecting or whatever. Doesn't have to be a sexy thing. I'm horny for none of the above is totally valid.
Nothing I enjoy more than asking a good ol' boy his pronouns.
Uh, maybe I will have to specify myself, too. Never tought like that.
The quotation marks are a nice touch. Quality trolling.
I think a question mark in parentheses would also do the trick
Finally, representation for gay people who are into irony.
Brooo you can get the title of shithead? Why would you wana be labeled as straight when you could be shithead instead? lol. That's what I would go for haha
Yeah I'd much rather take that over any sexuality. It's a much deeper insight into my personality than just "straight".
Wait... This is an entire game? I've seen memes of it and I thought it was about an update to Animal Crossing.
It's very fun, feels like a return to simple web chatroom type games that I've really been longing for. It's real enjoyable if the idea of casual fishing with some random people seems appealing to you!
Obviously that steam guy was probably coming from a place of bad faith, but the response is maybe imperfect no? This would look pretty bad if the roles were reversed I think. (genuine question I am hoping I am told why this may not be the case; I have nowhere else to ask)
It's okay to take context into account and not just look at it as a math problem. Targeting a minority isn't the same as doing it to people who make up 90% of society but are whiny.
I totally agree that an unacceptable proportion of straight people are whiny about any manner of minority representation, but doesn't this also affect straight people who are normal about this? Maybe it'd be more fitting to give a demeaning title to homophobes, eg. the steam complainer, but provide regular title to everyone else somehow? Thanks for taking the time!
I mean, are straight people who are normal about it clamoring for the title to begin with? This seems like a problem invented basically entirely by the whiners. You could just as easily say it affects gay people who want an ironic title, or straight trans people, but for obvious reasons the whiners don’t really care about that.
All that said I have no idea what the price tag means in terms of gameplay time to acquire it. If it’s unachievable without 10 hours of grinding or something that’s a little mean, but not enough that I really care.
(Edit: accidentally a word)
Yeah a title in some fishing game definitely seems like a really strange thing to be upset about (and yeah you're totally right that this doesn't just affect cis straight people). I'm just saying that the presence of only that title for people who would like a regular version or don't care about titles and just see it in passing might feel unwelcome through no fault of their own y'know? (Though obviously feeling unwelcome would be a little ironic)
I’m just saying that the presence of only that title for people who would like a regular version or don’t care about titles and just see it in passing might feel unwelcome through no fault of their own y’know?
I completely agree with this. For example, they don't currently have a gender fluid title. Most gender fluid folks may not be clamoring for them to add the title but if they joined the game and saw that the gender fluid tag was harder to obtain for no discernible reason, was in air quotes, and had the description "mhm" I think they would feel pretty unwelcome. Also - a lot of people won't know the context that there were people complaining about the lack of the title.
Obviously that steam guy was probably coming from a place of bad faith
The Steam forums actively encourage this kind of bad faith behavior:
when a post gets a new reply it's moved to the top of the forums. So as long as people are engaging with a post, even if it's just to make fun of a bigot, it keeps getting pushed back to the top.
Users can "award" posts for various things (helpfull, cool, funny, etc) and users have taken to giving 'Clown' awards as a way of making fun of posts. Whenever one of your posts gets an award, you are given Steampoints you can use in the Steam cosmetics store.
This results in every game having bad faith posts "complaining" about wokeness so that people will make fun of them with Clown awards as a way to farm Steampoints. The developer bringing attention to it just helps them get more.
I don't think its ethical to portray straight people in video games at all.
Bioware is well ahead of you. Haven't most of their romanceable NPCs been bisexual for ages now?
Any game that doesn't make all NPCs "opportunistically bisexual" pisses me off. Quit locking content behind my character's pronouns.
I'm sort of the opposite. Give characters sexualities! Make them people! Give them criteria by which they will or won't find my character attractive! I feel gross when every NPC is pansexual and aggressively attracted to the main character for no reason. Then again, I'm acespec, so.
You can do that while still not locking any content behind gender though.
How can you make a character not attracted to men and simultaneously make their relationship not locked for characters who are men?
If it were me, I'd do something like not really focus on what their actual "real" sexuality is unless it is somehow relevant to the plot. Then if it is so something like make them a 1 or a 5 on the Kinsey scale instead of a 0 or a 6.
I don't think games should be required to do, I'm not trying to force some sort of universal bi/pan agenda. I'm just saying it personally annoys me when I am locked out of pursuing a character just because of the gender I happen to be playing as because I typically don't play games multiple times. It also annoys me when games don't allow you to pursue all characters. Like in BG3, as far as I know, all characters are bi/pan but not all are poly. The game forced me to pick between Astarion and Karlach, for example. I put 100 hours or so into the game before I quit. I'm not willing to put over 100 more hours into it just to see what would've been different. It's just a waste of my time.
An alternative approach is only having "sex scene" type content gated behind gender, but everything else can still be seen by friends. E.g., anything a character would eventually tell a lover they still tell close friends. Which is still sort of annoying but not really as bad because you can easily just look up a sex scene, but experiencing things like dialogue and special quests in game isn't comparable to looking it up on YouTube.
I understand your perspective but I guess I just fundamentally disagree. I'd be annoyed, in the same vein as you, if every character was poly (unless they were actually poly and they had other lovers and referenced your other lovers and it was genuinely part of their identity) or if a relationship with them wasn't different from a close friendship, besides having sex (because sex isn't the only thing separating a close friendship from a relationship).
I guess, the way I approach the kind of game that we're both talking about is just different. I'm not interested in exploring 100% of all the content possible, but rather having a rich experience in the content that I do explore. I'll take an authentically written gay man and an authentically written straight girl who both won't explore a relationship with me, over the opportunity to have more content that's shallower. But yeah, again, thats just a different approach we both have to games.
I'm not interested in exploring 100% of content either, but I hate when games artificially block content off. For narrative reasons, I don't care. I don't mind the idea of mutually exclusive companions based on choices in game. But something as minor as gender at character creation? Come on now!
For my part I didn't mind that so much in Cyberpunk 2077, I just played it multiple times with different V characters.
But then I can see that it's a big time investment and not good for everyone.
Yeah, I'm usually only playing games once. I don't want to be forced to replay just to see content like that.
I DEMAND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY OBJECTIFICATION IN VIDEO GAMES
NO /S
Except some aces here and there, for the homies to talk about books with.
I still think asexual characters should be "romanceable". Like, there shouldn't be increased-friendship related content behind gender.
Still salty about Tali and Visas.
The roles are not reversed, though (quite the opposite), so no need to worry about that:
If a community was fighting over something so trivial like this I'd consider leaving the game entirely.
Then you should probably leave every game, because you can probably find some dumbfucks that argue about this everywhere. There are less than 30 people posting on this Steam discussion linked.
Game for everyone is a game for no one.
I had not heard of the game, bought it and it's awesome. Spent my whole afternoon playing it