It's time for straight men to step up and support their fellow queer gamers. (see staff post)

[Phellps]

Look, the thread has a great purpose, but we need to be educational when someone asks us for more information. No one was born progressive. We all had to learn and change our views on social issues. Telling people to figure it out on their own won't help.

For anyone willing to take more action, it's incredibly important that you do that on your daily life. We need to react more to the normalization of discrimination. People say all kinds of shit on the internet and sometimes, they just don't know better. Be educational as well. Pass on what you've learned. Try to change someone's views. Have a conversation.
When someone is being an intentional bigot, push back. Reply. Report the tweet, post, video, whatever. Report to the authorities if discrimination is a crime in your state/country.
Engage with news that report on social issues in specific games, because the marketing team of that game is paying attention. Help us make a crowd and be heard.
When publishers and devs realize that quite enough people care and that they might be losing player base, they will go back to the drawing board. Sincere or not, what matters is that they change their ways.

This goes to any sort of discrimination, so take this to all possible scenarios. Being a true ally means joining the fight.

 

[Hours Left]

"If you need to be told an exact thing to say, you're not giving it nearly enough thought."

That's kind of what that felt like. See it now?

Honestly if you make a thread calling for people to stand up and take action, you should expect them to ask what they can do...because even if they support the idea it's probably not something they're super familiar with so they won't HAVE any immediate ideas. And no, telling them to 'take 5 fucking seconds to google it' isn't really helpful, nor likely to inspire them to help.

Click to shrink...

I don't see it, no. Have you read the whole conversation between myself and SweetBellic? I think doing so would help you see why I don't understand where this outrage is coming from.

And I have given suggestions in this thread, multiple times already.

P.S. The google thing also wasn't me, though I don't disagree with the idea. Doing independent research is a great option.

 

[Resilient]

The easiest way is to vote with your wallet - just don't buy games that are hateful.

At the end of the day, devs are gonna make what they want to make. If they don't want to make progressive games...they probably never will. So fuck em and don't buy their shit.

 

[RpgN]

It's aggressive because it needs to be. There is no cruelty or malice at play here, just the fact that straight people need to do better at making sure the world is a better place for everyone, including regarding something as "insignificant" as gaming. Put your privilege to work for the better good.

P.S. The only thing condescending is your post, as if you're too good to get involved.

Click to shrink...

involved? Do that same thing here. We all have it within ourselves to be productive, and proactive.

Letting ourselves get bogged down by complacency is just another way to forgo responsibility.

Click to shrink...

I know you've had enough replies. I will try and focus on a different angle that I feel is incredibly important to your cause or any cause someone wants to fight for.

The way you talk makes you sound like anyone should help out by default, whether it's a cause they're involved with or not. 'Making a better world for everyone' is the motivation you mentioned that should be enough for others to want to help.

When people ask for guidance or mention that their time is limited is BECAUSE time costs money. Time is more valuable than money to many (myself included). Do you have kids? Do you need to have a job and take care of the house on your own? Do you study at the same time? Do you have obligations?

It's easy to say just google stuff, but for many it's not worth it because they need the time to get basic needs met. Now you're passionate about this particular subject and you want others to use their time to help out. When people offer to help (whether they don't have the time or are clueless where to start), the least you can do is try and make the process as easy as possible.

This way of thinking is basic etiquette with any cause you want to fight for. For instance, you often see organisations who ask for donation or action, take the time to make informative texts, videos, offer links to sign or leave a comment etc.

The ones who are not as involved might not get as much out of it as you do. They might not get anything out of it. Why should they use their time to help out? Again, I or others do not say this to spite you. It's how many would think about subjects (any) that they don't personally care about.

Maybe you're tired from explaining. Or maybe being in Era and preaching to the choir has given you the impression that everyone here should care or do stuff by default.

 

[Aaronrules380]

The easiest way is to vote with your wallet - just don't buy games that are hateful.

At the end of the day, devs are gonna make what they want to make. If they don't want to make progressive games...they probably never will. So fuck em and don't buy their shit.

Click to shrink...

I think this advice over simplifies, because there are plenty of grey areas besides just homophobic and good representation. Sometimes a game is trying to improve it's representation but the developers just didn't have the awareness or connections to properly consult with members of the community they were trying to represent. I think in cases like these, boycotts do more harm than good since they might encourage devs to just avoid the issue entirely rather than try to improve but potentially fail again and cause another controversy. Voting with your wallet is a good option in some scenarios, but it's not the only option and it's not always the best option.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

And no, telling them to 'take 5 fucking seconds to google it' isn't really helpful, nor likely to inspire them to help.

Click to shrink...

Sure it is. All of the yall want to have the fucking answer before even pondering the question. Google will give you that answer far faster than the time it has taken several of you to have a back and forth because you don't like the OPs tone. You have to actually think about it for some level of time before you can even claim to be lost. It's such a horseshit answer to pin it back on the opening to tell you what to do. Do you need to be provided with trivial "send emails", "phone a dev", "start a petition" to make the conversation flow?

 

[BigDes]

The easiest way is to vote with your wallet - just don't buy games that are hateful.

At the end of the day, devs are gonna make what they want to make. If they don't want to make progressive games...they probably never will. So fuck em and don't buy their shit.

Click to shrink...

Voting with your wallet is only part of it. Devs aren't going to magically know that you didn't buy the game because of whatever hateful messages their game will have, especially when there are potentially thousands of reasons why x game doesn't sell.

Finding a way to vote with your wallet while providing feedback to the devs that no actually I would have bought your game in an instant if not for the bigoted nastiness it contained is going to have more of an impact, even if it doesn't lead them to changing.

 

[Menx64]

Gaming is not an island unfortunately. We live in times where politicians and religious leaders call xenophobia and homophobia freedom of speech.
I will call homophobic people when possible, but oh boy it is sad how many people I love who are assholes about gender topics.

 

[JayC3]

Everyone, please focus on constructive suggestions on this important topic and move on from metacommentary on other users. Thank you.

 

[Hours Left]

I know you've had enough replies. I will try and focus on a different angle that I feel is incredibly important to your cause or any cause someone wants to fight for.

The way you talk makes you sound like anyone should help out by default, whether it's a cause they're involved with or not. 'Making a better world for everyone' is the motivation you mentioned that should be enough for others to want to help.

When people ask for guidance or mention that their time is limited is BECAUSE time costs money. Time is more valuable than money to many (myself included). Do you have kids? Do you need to have a job and take care of the house on your own? Do you study at the same time? Do you have obligations?

It's easy to say just google stuff, but for many it's not worth it because they need the time to get basic needs met. Now you're passionate about this particular subject and you want others to use their time to help out. When people offer to help (whether they don't have the time or are clueless where to start), the least you can do is try and make the process as easy as possible.

This way of thinking is basic etiquette with any cause you want to fight for. For instance, you often see organisations who ask for donation or action, take the time to make informative texts, videos, offer links to sign or leave a comment etc.

The ones who are not as involved might not get as much out of it as you do. They might not get anything out of it. Why should they use their time to help out? Again, I or others do not say this to spite you. It's how many would think about subjects (any) that they don't personally care about.

Maybe you're tired from explaining. Or maybe being in Era and preaching to the choir has given you the impression that everyone here should care or do stuff by default.[

Click to shrink...

To start at the end, I definitely don't think I'm preaching to the choir. Despite ERA's reputation for being a more tolerant gaming forum, which it is comparatively, it's still not the enlightened haven many make it out to be.

To keep it short, I'd expect people to care because it's the right thing to do. If they're on this forum, more than likely they are interested in video games, so by extension, you'd hope/expect them to support diversity in games, even if it doesn't affect them personally. Because that's what good people do.

As Gotdatmoney just said, it is a bit hard to believe people who claim to be allies, but can't do the most basic of things on their own without direction. I feel like many times people make excuses for their own complacency, then try to shift the blame to absolve themselves of any guilt. That's not always the case, but judging by some of the extreme reactions in this thread, you can tell that I hit a nerve with some people by not handling them with kid gloves. (And this is not in reference to the person the original "damning" post was in response to, in which we both had an ultimately amicable conversation.)

Edit: Thanks JayC3

 

[Vern]

I'm all for supporting better representation but I don't really agree with people saying 'vote with your wallet' ... there are a lot of reasons to buy or not buy a game. It's impossible for devs and pubs to know why you did or didn't buy the game unless you do tweet or email or whatever.

I used to be a huge fan of Fire Emblem but I stopped buying as it got more anime waifu bullshit, my decision to not buy has nothing to do with gay representation (I don't want any romancing options gay or straight tbh), but Nintendo will never know this by my simply refusing to buy the game.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

People who want to know what they can do. The next time a major developer has an AMA on reddit, ask them about LGBT relationships in their game. If there are any and if not, why. There you go, easy direct action.

 

[Pirate Bae]

People who want to know what they can do. The next time a major developer has an AMA on reddit, ask them about LGBT relationships in their game. If there are any and if not, why. There you go, easy direct action.

Click to shrink...

This is really good advice honestly.

The louder the voice, the more likely devs will take action.

 

[Hours Left]

People who want to know what they can do. The next time a major developer has an AMA on reddit, ask them about LGBT relationships in their game. If there are any and if not, why. There you go, easy direct action.

Click to shrink...

Does Nintendo ever do AMAs?

 

[Hilarious_Bearious]

People who want to know what they can do. The next time a major developer has an AMA on reddit, ask them about LGBT relationships in their game. If there are any and if not, why. There you go, easy direct action.

Click to shrink...

I like this, it's simple and to the point. If enough people ask and they still don't answer, it's pretty damning.

I think calling other gamers out for homophobic (or racial, sexist etc) slurs in voice chat would be a good idea. If one guy calls somebody a "f****t" and then ten other dudes tell him to quit his homophobic bullshit, he'll probably stop (or go away). And if one person is being offensive and another person stands up to them, don't tell them to both shut up. One person is in the wrong there, show some backbone.

 

[Pirate Bae]

Tbh I think "voting with your wallet" only goes so far. The reality is that millions of other people are going to buy it regardless, so I think it is unlikely that devs will care and want to change.

I think the best thing to do is to speak up. Ask questions, and when able, take surveys. Get news outlets on board; the louder we are, and the more vocal we are about why LGBT representation matters, the more devs will listen and go, "maybe we should think about this more seriously".

And I don't just mean within the gaming sphere; games are a reflection of society. So be vocal in your everyday life, too. Rally against the injustices of LGBT people around the globe. Be active in your community. Talk to your state representatives. Small steps go a long way!

 

[Gotdatmoney]

This is really good advice honestly.

The louder the voice, the more likely devs will take action.

Click to shrink...

That's the hope anyway.

Does Nintendo ever do AMAs?

Click to shrink...

Honestly don't think I have ever seen them participate in one. But someone else more in tune with Nintendo may know.

I like this, it's simple and to the point. If enough people ask and they still don't answer, it's pretty damning.

Click to shrink...

People asking puts it on their minds. That's the main thing I think.

 

[Tagg]

I think the best argument you could possibly give to a publisher or development team would be telling them how many customers they've missed out on by not including some form of LGBT representation in their game. Nothing is going to motivate a company to change faster than hearing about money they could be making. I guess the problem with this is that the number of individuals who identify as queer is a relative minority (something like 5% of the population)?

 

[Hours Left]

I think media articles, particularly if they go viral, can have a large impact.

I know we have a bunch of game journalists lurking here. It would be great to get it into more public spaces, and that's an easy way for people to help out, by sharing the article.

 

[Resilient]

Voting with your wallet remains the easiest way.

Direct communication will definitely be more effective. It's case by case though. I just don't know WTF Nintendo were thinking with FE:3H; it really comes across as a specific design decision considering they had a lot of same-sex female relationship trees and only 1 same-sex male relationship tree. Something like that deserves to be boycotted and I reckon they will feel the repercussions of it.

When I say case by case - in the case of Catherine: Full Body, the devs just really don't give a fuck and wanted to tell that story. Nothing will get through to that type of mentality.

 

[Dalik]

If allies really want to help then they should start asking for lgbtq characters/relationship in most rpg games for starter.
They should also condemn clear awful homophobic displays such as persona 5 and actually having their opinion on the game influenced by that.
Till you won't at least consider it a negative, there is no point in even believing you want to help.

Maybe start asking about lgbtq representation in a interview, or an ama, or any other kind of feedback and survey.

And we desperately need more media coverage on the topic.

 

[Yukari]

The real main problem pretty much is That The Devs didn't want to do representation LGBTQ people in the first place not because they don't understand.

Male same-sex Choice on Three House shows that they sarcastic people who want the representation.

I mean Many Fujoshi play Fire Emblem too. It's not hard to make all of them look Ikemen.

 

[EVA UNIT 01]

I totally support them.
Just recently I got called a White knight faggot for telling a bigot to shut his mouth.

 

[kirbyfan407]

Does Nintendo ever do AMAs?

Click to shrink...

Nope. Nintendo is a bit harder to get in contact with than other developers.

The best channels I'd say would be:

• Sending letters to NOA, NOE, and NCL.
• Potentially using customer service channels (I think you can send feedback via one of those channels?).
• Reaching out on social media (technically, Nintendo Minute and Nintendo Power Podcast do ask for and read submissions, but they're generally asking for responses to specific prompts). In Japan, some developers might have social media accounts, but we'd have to be careful about targeted communication and harassment; communication would also need to be sent in Japanese.
• Honestly probably the biggest one: getting major websites to cover it (e.g., see how we finally got a comment on Joy-Con drift after websites posted articles).

 

[Blackie]

You have my sword/axe/controller. I vote with my wallet every day, am more than willing to advertise (I have multiple pride shirts) and talk to anyone in real life who needs to hear about inclusivity. Also literally voting at the ballot box :)

 

[Poltergust]

I still can't believe how badly Three Houses botched gay male relationships. You can only S rank 3 people and only one of those is actually romantic. I expect to see a huge backlash over people who previously avoided spoilers getting baited into the platonic S ranks when there was no indication that such a thing even existed. From what I read in the other thread, Fire Emblem never had S ranks that were nonromantic before.

It's just so poorly handled. My word...

 

[Mooksoup]

I'm gay and i want more gay relationships in games, and them to be handled much better... but I feel weird demanding my western values be reflected in foreign media. Seems an oddly colonial of me to think.. these are my morals, if other cultures differ they are wrong and must be corrected, I'm the enlightened one here.

I'd be genuinely happy for this to change in general Japanese games, but i feel like i want that push to come from Japanese players and game makers, not me? If that makes sense..
How this issue is discussed in Japan?, is it a movement at all? Is Fire Emblem getting backlash in Japan about this?

 

[Yukari]

Also, I don't know China GOV ban same-sex romance in-game content or not.
But Nintendo and Tencent just work together to sales Switch in China.

 

[Stop It]

The industry is dominated by straight cis men.

You find that places that haven't made the efforts to employ more people of the LGBT community, women or the BME community simply have no idea how to include these groups in the games without tokenism or negative stereotypes.

So you get games made by straight men, for straight men. And until recently the industry was downright hostile to others joining it. There are positive exceptions now like EA and games like The Sims 4 are a light in the dark but more needs to be done.

We need to advocate for the industry to be inclusive from bottom to top, and encourage everyone from LGBT people to women and BME communities to feel welcome and wanted, so they can help create experiences for all. At the end of the day that will help everyone, cis white men included.

As the OP noted there's too much hesitation to embrace these communities and support their cause for inclusion and representation and it's shameful that such a request needs to even be made, let alone be met with hostility. We should be supportive of gaming for all, and yes I say that as a cis straight white guy.

 

[sweetmini]

It's why I promptly removed Catherine Full Body from my Steam wishlist and advised against the buy from a friend.
Bigotry is bigotry, directed towards me or not.

Click to shrink...

The extra route exposes atlus past behaviour through Vincent reaction (well, actual behaviour) but shows at least effort to overcome it. And yeah, Vincent does see the light even if he has always been a jerk. It ultimately fails to be fully tactful , but it s better and at least a try (I think).

Spoiler

the base thing about the new route is that the trans character is an accomplished artist, and vincent gets to like them and even get a crush on them.
They are not trying to hide anything and vincent happens to be a reactive jerk when the "reveal" happen (big huge jerk; i bet my friends would just cut there).
But he sees that was stupid acting, that it changes nothing the way he deeply feels about Rine and tries hard to try to reach to them. He is devastated at the idea of losing them.
there is something stupid happening by the end though...
but they get to be together, as two persons in love, without anyone around them judging.

 

[Siggy-P]

The easiest way is to vote with your wallet - just don't buy games that are hateful.

At the end of the day, devs are gonna make what they want to make. If they don't want to make progressive games...they probably never will. So fuck em and don't buy their shit.

Click to shrink...

Might be the easiest way, but it's also one of the worst and least effective ways.

Voting with your wallet changes nothing. Criticising a game might cause one or two of the developers to at least consider a change.

 

[Stop It]

I'm gay and i want more gay relationships in games, and them to be handled much better... but I feel weird demanding my western values be reflected in foreign media. Seems an oddly colonial of me to think.. these are my morals, if other cultures differ they are wrong and must be corrected, I'm the enlightened one here.

I'd be genuinely happy for this to change in general Japanese games, but i feel like i want that push to come from Japanese players and game makers, not me? If that makes sense..
How this issue is discussed in Japan?, is it a movement at all? Is Fire Emblem getting backlash in Japan about this?

Click to shrink...

Fighting for human rights isn't colonialism and the LGBT community in Japan would appreciate the solidarity, rather than think badly of it, seriously.

The fact that LGBT rights and the community are suppressed in other countries is not something to be respected, but opposed. There is not a country without a LGBT community and these people should not be hurt by the tyranny of a majority who would want them to not exist.

 

[Ferrs]

Voting with your wallet remains the easiest way.

Direct communication will definitely be more effective. It's case by case though. I just don't know WTF Nintendo were thinking with FE:3H; it really comes across as a specific design decision considering they had a lot of same-sex female relationship trees and only 1 same-sex male relationship tree. Something like that deserves to be boycotted and I reckon they will feel the repercussions of it.

When I say case by case - in the case of Catherine: Full Body, the devs just really don't give a fuck and wanted to tell that story. Nothing will get through to that type of mentality.

Click to shrink...

Voting with your wallet doesn't solve anything. The dev doesn't know why you didn't bought a game, hell doesn't know if you even did. Direct feedback is the only thing that works, twitter, AMA, interviews (need the press to ask proper questions for that..)

I'm gay and i want more gay relationships in games, and them to be handled much better... but I feel weird demanding my western values be reflected in foreign media. Seems an oddly colonial of me to think.. these are my morals, if other cultures differ they are wrong and must be corrected, I'm the enlightened one here.

I'd be genuinely happy for this to change in general Japanese games, but i feel like i want that push to come from Japanese players and game makers, not me? If that makes sense..
How this issue is discussed in Japan?, is it a movement at all? Is Fire Emblem getting backlash in Japan about this?

Click to shrink...

We are talking about human rights not imposing a culture over another. Don't you think there's japanese LGTBI people that want the same?

 

[Mooksoup]

Fighting for human rights isn't colonialism and the LGBT community in Japan would appreciate the solidarity, rather than think badly of it, seriously.

The fact that LGBT rights and the community are suppressed in other countries is not something to be respected, but opposed. There is not a country without a LGBT community and these people should not be hurt by the tyranny of a majority who would want them to not exist.

Click to shrink...

We are talking about human rights not imposing a culture over another. Don't you think there's japanese LGTBI people that want the same?

Click to shrink...

Of course i'd support Japanese rights activists in a push for better representation. That was really my point.

I was just trying to point out my unease, hopefully understandably, of me, a white cis guy telling other countries their cultural values in their media are not the correct ones.
I'm not sure the quality of gay relationships in Fire Emblem quite treads into human rights territory though, but that's just my opinion, I may well be very wrong.

 

[Renna Hazel]

To start at the end, I definitely don't think I'm preaching to the choir. Despite ERA's reputation for being a more tolerant gaming forum, which it is comparatively, it's still not the enlightened haven many make it out to be.

To keep it short, I'd expect people to care because it's the right thing to do. If they're on this forum, more than likely they are interested in video games, so by extension, you'd hope/expect them to support diversity in games, even if it doesn't affect them personally. Because that's what good people do.

As Gotdatmoney just said, it is a bit hard to believe people who claim to be allies, but can't do the most basic of things on their own without direction. I feel like many times people make excuses for their own complacency, then try to shift the blame to absolve themselves of any guilt. That's not always the case, but judging by some of the extreme reactions in this thread, you can tell that I hit a nerve with some people by not handling them with kid gloves. (And this is not in reference to the person the original "damning" post was in response to, in which we both had an ultimately amicable conversation.)

Edit: Thanks JayC3

Click to shrink...

I do think that a lot of people are doing the most basic of things and are asking what else can be done. I'd also say I've learned more talking with my gay friends than I have using Google, which is why it might make sense to ask how we can make real, meaningful impact. None of my friends have ever mentioned video games when it comes to discrimination so I would be curious what people think we can do to make a real difference.

This isn't me asking you, as I've read the thread, I'm just trying to maybe give some context to these type of questions, because I have them as well, and it's not due to lack of caring or trying to figure it out. This is part of the attempt to education and figure things out.

 

[DjDeathCool]

We are talking about human rights not imposing a culture over another. Don't you think there's japanese LGTBI people that want the same?

Click to shrink...

I mean, we're talking about representation in video games... that sounds more like culture than human rights to me.

That being said I do believe a culture can carry immoral or unethical baggage and should be called out for their shit when they're fucking up... and in this regard, I definitely think Japan, as a culture, is fucking up and deserves to be called out.

 

[Stop It]

Of course i'd support Japanese rights activists in a push for better representation. That was really my point.

I was just trying to point out my unease, hopefully understandably, of me, a white cis guy telling other countries their cultural values in their media are not the correct ones.
I'm not sure the quality of gay relationships in Fire Emblem quite treads into human rights territory though, but that's just my opinion, I may well be very wrong.

Click to shrink...

It does.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Japan

While there is support for more LGBT rights among the population, Gay marriage is a long way off, and gay couples do not get the rights straight couples do. Representation in media is a step towards normalisation of LGBT communities and part of the push to gain equality for all.

So yes, making gay relationships normal in the context of a game that utilises relationships as a game mechanic is something to encourage, and again the LGBT community in Japan would appreciate the solidarity.

 

[Glass Arrows]

In practical terms, a company cannot know why you did or did not buy something, unless you were to say catch their attention by messaging them somehow, but in that case the message was the more impactful part, not your decision to buy something or not. Executives can make up all kinds of excuses based on their assumptions about why a movie, videogame, etc failed to do well, even if it has no basis in reality.

And beyond that, there are things that are basically guaranteed to sell no matter how problematic or poorly considered they are. I never had any illusions about say, a boycott of Dr. Strange based on the Ancient One casting doing much to cut into Marvel's profit margins, because Marvel movies will print money no matter what. I think the various thinkpieces and messages to Marvel have done way more to alert them of the problem than the loss of sales tickets that were basically a drop in the bucket.

This isn't to say that voting with your wallet is pointless or can never make an impact, just generally that I think it's more about the person and whether they feel comfortable partaking in something or not. And that's totally valid, but we all have different wildly varying thresholds between "this is something i enjoy that has some problematic elements" and "i do not want to support this anymore". The important thing is just to try and be a part of the conversation (in a positive, supportive way towards LGBT+ people) regardless of what you do, because that will make a bigger difference in the end.

 

[Ferrs]

I'm not sure the quality of gay relationships in Fire Emblem quite treads into human rights territory though, but that's just my opinion, I may well be very wrong.

Click to shrink...

I wasn't talking about games in a vacuum. The acceptance and normalization of LGTBI into a country reflects into the the media they produce. The more issues it is with acceptance and normalization, the less representation and the more problematic is.

 

[Deleted member 8852]

I'm not at all interested in relationship related content in games to begin with (queer or otherwise) and think it is often a detriment to the overall quality of a game, so I'm the wrong person to ask.

 

[texhnolyze]

We live in the age of social media. Everything is social media, even your consoles. If you see news about certain game with problematic LGBTQ views, you can share the link to your favorite platform(s). The more followers you have, the better. Even if you only have a few, it'll still be better than doing nothing. Maybe one of your followers is an influencer, and they might share the news to a much bigger audience. Other than that, we also have big gaming boards like Era and Reddit where you can also share the news there. Basically, to get the news spread as much as possible, which hopefully will reach the devs' ears eventually. I believe that's the least that we can do to support the cause.

That said, I think there's a more basic and easier way that everyone can do in this matter. Instead of defending your favorite games/developers/companies, it's better to stay silent and not to say anything when a discussion surrounding this issue arises (like in that FE Three Houses thread example in the OP).

 

[Lord Vatek]

I get more and more angry every day at the treatment (or lack) of same-sex relationships in games. I've completely sworn off Atlus products as a result but it's far bigger than just them and I wish I could do more.

 

[Yukari]

I'm gay and i want more gay relationships in games, and them to be handled much better... but I feel weird demanding my western values be reflected in foreign media. Seems an oddly colonial of me to think.. these are my morals, if other cultures differ they are wrong and must be corrected, I'm the enlightened one here.

Click to shrink...

Nothing wrong to critics game that handled bad representation of LGBTQ people or wants LGBTQ Characters to appear in the next game.

But the representation should be done by the developer purpose, not because of forcing them to do which could lead to bad representation.

Like I said above. Male same-sex relationships Choice in FE Three Houses pretty much FU from devs to people who want it (devs: hey make it are you happy now!!!)

 

[Resilient]

Voting with your wallet doesn't solve anything. The dev doesn't know why you didn't bought a game, hell doesn't know if you even did. Direct feedback is the only thing that works, twitter, AMA, interviews (need the press to ask proper questions for that..)



We are talking about human rights not imposing a culture over another. Don't you think there's japanese LGTBI people that want the same?

Click to shrink...

It's almost like you ...didn't read...the rest...of my post...

And fact is, not buying games in protest IS the easiest way. Considering there are a lot of people in here shrugging their shoulders and saying "what should I do?!?" - they can start with that.

 

[Rabalder.]

I'm out here with the blicky ready to defend my gay brothers and sisters.

 

[shuno]

How about Persona 5? The only gay characters are portrayed as predatory rapists.

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Well, people here love it. Same with the fourth.

 

[Kyuuji]

I'm gay and i want more gay relationships in games, and them to be handled much better... but I feel weird demanding my western values be reflected in foreign media. Seems an oddly colonial of me to think.. these are my morals, if other cultures differ they are wrong and must be corrected, I'm the enlightened one here.

I'd be genuinely happy for this to change in general Japanese games, but i feel like i want that push to come from Japanese players and game makers, not me? If that makes sense..
How this issue is discussed in Japan?, is it a movement at all? Is Fire Emblem getting backlash in Japan about this?

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Of course i'd support Japanese rights activists in a push for better representation. That was really my point.

I was just trying to point out my unease, hopefully understandably, of me, a white cis guy telling other countries their cultural values in their media are not the correct ones.
I'm not sure the quality of gay relationships in Fire Emblem quite treads into human rights territory though, but that's just my opinion, I may well be very wrong.

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If you're not willing to challenge shitty opinions of LGBTQ+ 'because Japan' then you have to question to what extent you actually consider yourself involved in the fight. There's zero understandable unease behind demanding better from Japanese developers when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues and representation. You're more concerned with the feelings of Japanese game developers than the Japanese LGBTQ+ community and I have no idea why as a gay person yourself.

Do you also feel this way about Poland?

 

[Datrael]

I just wan't to say I'm sorry as a Straight male that I'm generally very oblivious of taking into consideration how my fellow Queer human beings may feel about things that I don't usually even notice.

Having said that, I will try to be more mindful and identify possible ways for me to help from now on. I will never stop trying to be a better and more inclusive person.

I can completely understand how you feel, Hours Left

Also, I don't think wanting more and better representation is a matter of imposing such wishes on foreign media. I think it's a basic human need (and right, as long as you're not an asshole or something) to feel included, accepted and represented. Just think about all the times you felt a character in a game/movie you enjoy represented you.... how you felt you could closely relate and how that feeling enriched the movie/game for you. I think (no, I know) that LGBTQ+ people have not had nearly the same representation and thus have not been able to feel this way about characters nearly as much/often as the rest of us.

 

[Mooksoup]

If you're not willing to challenge shitty opinions of LGBTQ+ 'because Japan' then you have to question to what extent you actually consider yourself an ally. There's zero understandable unease behind demanding better from Japanese developers when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues and representation.

Do you also feel this way about Poland?

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I'm a gay guy who wants more and better queer relationships in games.
I'm also a western guy who doesn't like the idea of me personally telling other cultures that my culture is the morally correct one.
Sorry I can feel those two things at the same time.

 

[Kyuuji]

I'm a gay guy who wants more and better queer relationships in games.
I'm also a western guy who doesn't like the idea of me personally telling other cultures that my culture is the morally correct one.
Sorry I can feel those two things at the same time.

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Once again; do you feel the same way about Poland as you do Japan?

More concerned with the feelings of Japanese game developers than the Japanese LGBTQ+ community.