Are gay characters becoming a 'non-troversy'?

I can think of a way you could make a character gay that didn't "show" homosexuality.

In any of the shooting sims, have the characters look at pictures of their "sweethearts" back home and discuss how much they miss them. If one of them happens to be male looking at a male, would it really bother you that much if midway through the story you found out the jarhead that was your character had a male life partner?

@51
If I was playing a game and it turned out the character I was playing was gay, I'd be extremely pissed off (as would most, which is why it will never happen in a major title) but I'd keep playing unless they actually tried to sneak in some homo kissing, at which point I'd vomit and turn the game off.

@52:
So, it's your religious beliefs that give you that opinion rather than being a 'homophobe'. Right, so your religious beliefs would make you vomit if you saw two guys kissing?

Do you also vomit when people do other things against your religion? Like, if they work on Sundays, or take the Lord's name in vain?

I always thought the guy-on-guy kissing in Bully was a glitch. After all, there's only about 3 guys you can actually kiss (or so I've heard), and you need flowers to do it.

I think the comments here are all the proof we need that the issue of sexual orientation is still far from a "non-troversy" in our society, whether in video games or elsewhere.

@54
So far boy on boy kissing has resulted from A:Kissing being enabled and B: giving each character a gender code would be an insane hassle for very little reward (hours of coding so that guys can't kiss other guys in the game). A program doesn't know it has a gender unless you code it in, and so far game devs haven't been willing to do it. I really wish they would, because in games like Fable where men run up to my character with hearts over their heads and they begin to flirt with me, I get nauseous.

If you think about it, 10% of everyone (estimated, who knows for sure) is gay, and maybe 10% of that 10% plays video games. 10% of 10% isn't enough for there to be a serious market for homosexual-themed games. Atleast, not for big budget blockbuster games (such as Halo, Grand Theft Auto, etc) It's just not going to happen.

BTW josh.....I did see the movie and I also go to college and that is not what we call a theme. That was not what drove the movie.
Even though I've never/will never see Brokback Mountain...the theme in that movie was gay.
In V the Government had become too controlling and intrusive in the day to day lives of it's people so one man decided to rebel.
The theme is not about protecting gay rights but about protecting human rights.

@Anonymous

Actually from a programming perspective it would probably be rather simple given most things are object oriented now. Just add a property called Sex and then just add a line above the "love" code that says if obj1.sex == obj2.sex then cancel "love"

My point, which was obviously missed by some, is that straight people have a parade EVERY DAY. To mix metaphors, if you are IN the parade, you don't see the rest of the forest. Gay people are subjected to the "straight agenda" all day, every day, to the point that we end up defining ourselves according to it. It baffles me as to why we should be fighting to be accepted by society under its own narrow terms. Whenever local news covers a Pride event, it's the same thing -- various shots of outrageous drag queens, and interviews with lesbians and their kids in tow saying "We want everyone to see we're just like everybody else!".

Well, I'm not like everybody else, and there is no shortage of reminders (like some of these comments) which make me quite thankful for that. You need to have your beliefs challenged in order to realize what your beliefs really are, and straight, white people never really get the opportunity to have that happen. When it DOES happen, they go running for the hills ("Eew! Guys kissing! Women voting! Blacks drinking from the same fountain! I feel all oogy! Mommy, make it STOP!").

Maybe you should quit paying attention to the talkin' picture box telling you how to define yourself.

Most of the comments here make me weep for the future. In this day and age people are still that uncomfortable with anything that seems to 'threaten' their way of life? Fear not! Gay gamers will NOT rape your sons while playing World of Warcraft!

As a gamer who happens to be gay, I don't feel I need to necessarily have gay characters in games but I do feel it should be okay if there are. The same way I'd like to see more minority characters who are NOT in a gang or smacking about hookers. It's not agenda pushing. Everyone likes playing with someone they could possibly identify with now and then. This is part of the reason why The Sims is popular. All in all I really don't care how someone identifies their sexuality in game and out (tee hee).

As Harriet the poodle in Animal Crossing: Wild World said to me just before I gave my character a girl's hair cut: "An open mind is important to personal growth."

I know just as many gay people that play videogames as straight people. I know a lot of gay people that enjoy beating up other gay people in GTA, they enjoy cs, bf2, halo. Would ff7 be any different if cloud was gay? I mean he went on a date with Barret, and seduced DonMega, that makes him pretty gay to me, it doesn't make ff7 any worse of a game though.

People that are homophobic need to wake up and realize that 10% of people are gay. The average friends list on XBL is 22, so it's likely that 2 people on your list is gay, and I bet you'd never know it if you met them.

The other thing is why do you assume a character is straight till he's proven gay? Is there evidence that gordon freeman is straight, or that Lara croft is straight. Why would you need to make a character gay?

There is a 90% chance that they are straight, and it is my 100% belief that they are. Some people name Link, Link when they play a Zelda game. Others name him lance and imagine he has Bishonen hair and facial features.

@54:

"I always thought the guy-on-guy kissing in Bully was a glitch."

It seemed pretty deliberate, to me. There is one boy and one girl in each clique which Jimmy could kiss. There's full voice-over for the same-sex kissing animations: "Ever been kissed by a rich boy before?"

Kirby, the 'kissable' jock, and Trent, the 'kissable' bully are shown going to the movie theater together during a cutscene. When Jimmy points them out, Kirby gets very defensive and runs away. Classy, running away from a date like that. :[

I think that when a game allows you to have a relationship with another character of your choosing, a homosexual choice should be included. When their are only heterosexual choices, it doesn't necessarily leave out gay gamers, but it kind of sucks to not be represented or even thought of when the game is made.

This hasn't become a full "non-troversy" yet, but hopefully soon there can be homosexuality in games and no picket lines to follow.

Hmmm. Well, I wouldn't play a game with a gay main character. Guys in games like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy get enough fangirls to put them together in gay relationships anyway; I'd hate to actually have a canon one.

Well, clearly you're entitled to your own opinion, Nino (#66), be it narrow-minded and idiotic.

I would play any game in the world without caring about the protagonist's sex, gender, sexuality, age, religion, color, nationality, etc., as long as the game was FUN.

Does that make me weird?

Its a non issue anymore. I mean come on, Jade empire for the xbox, Knights of the Old Republic, The Sims, Fable,Bully, even the game Desperate Housewives for the pc (sorry I had to mention that one), all give you the choice to play it straight or gay. I don't remember if Knights of the old republic 2 had that choice in there. Who wants to bet that Mass Effect or Fable 2 won't have those choices? Player immersion in games is dependant on choice. Choice is good for business. Me personally I don't care, if it's in there it's in there. The only thing I care about is how good the game is.

u idiot he was being sarcastic about straight people holding hands and whatever else to prove a point that gay people dont moan about straight people showing there love in public so why should straight people moan about gay people holding hands in public as if they do it just to shove it in there faces, cant believe u didnt pick up on that! anyway in most games u never know if there straight or what, dont matter half the time, apprantly about 1 in 10 people are gay so suppose same should be said for game characters, it dont need to be advertised but if its there let it be, im sure plenty of gay guys have weilded a sword or shot a gun in real life so im sure they can in a game. think its great that u can marry a man in fable and kiss a guy in bully, stop making a deal it just looks like u fear something in yourself when u go on about it. and if you find it against your religious beliefs then i dont think playing vilolant games agrees with them either, u cant pick and choose just to suit what u like.

last comment was to 49/50 by the way :)

id say the point on only 10% of the 10% of gay people playing games is bull cos im gay and play games, im a pretty straight acting lad and so are a lot of the other gay lads ive met and most of them had a console, plus there will be alot of lads out there who live and act straight due to the fact that they dont wanna get sterotyped into being camp and mincing around, i know cos i dont really relate to camp people, i just like to do normal lad things like play games and stuff and play sports and to see the odd gay character in a game would be cool just to make people have a normal veiw on gay people, alot of people think we prance about and giggle like gilrs just cos its thouse types of gay people that shout it out and make a song and dance about it.

I humbly think the gay issue goes far beyond the attitude or stereotypes characters are made with. For an instance, the characters of Final Fantasy XII, or Tingle, which many claim to be homosexual, do NEVER actually give any real proof of being gay.
Homosexuality is not a matter of behaviour, but simply about whom do you chose to love; in that sense just some few (if any game at all) have actually touched the subject.
However it is important to consider the fact that games are mainly intended to be fun to play, not to actually reflect the real characteristics of society. Now, on the other hand, there're those videogames in which you are intended to deeply identify with the characters, RPG's for example, and i have to mention here that being a mexican I don't need to play a mexican or mexican-esque character to identify mysef with; just as many women don't need to play as a female character to have fun.
So I think, and as many people before me on the forum have stated, the point it's not about introducing stories or games revolving about gay characters; but about simply bring good, interesting games, and if they happen to have gay (In the real sense of the word) characters, people would simply not mind.