Okay, I’d also sign up for the story where Reggie realizes his feelings for Dilton…

Congrats to Jeff for the brilliant bit of media manipulation.

The idea, at least, is genius. Hopefully it’ll play better than the tightrope walking game on Wii Fit.

And, of course, I’m swooning of the possibility of the idea being taken to Project Natal…

In August, Kotaku noticed a ten month-old ad meant to discourage use of “That’s so gay” that included posters substituting “gay” with other hurtful stereotypes. The comment contained the expected cries of “Political correctness!”, “Censorship!” and “Oversensitive!” Or, to sum it up differently, Kotaku readers were hurt to hear stereotypes about gamers brought up but don’t see the big deal of saying “That’s so gay.”

And, now, Kotaku and Joystiq have noticed “The New Gaymer Survey“, which first showed up in August and means to find out more about what gay gamers look for in a game. Kotaku’s doesn’t have the most shameful history when it comes to gay topics or, at least, I wasn’t expecting to see heterosexism to show up in the body of the post.

As for the survey’s motivation, I find myself a bit conflicted. I’ve just never thought of gaming as a pastime that sexual orientation figures into. Nowak makes a valid point about the industry’s stumbling first attempts at reaching a female audience, but are homosexual gamers that much different from everyone else that they need to be catered to specifically?

Indeed, sexual orientation does not figure into games.

Donkey Kong: Mario finds love for rescuing the damsel

Not at all.

Those wedding bells keep ringing in Phantasy Star III

Obviously these are just niche games inspired by those naughty Playaround games.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City, apparently the Custer's Revenge of the 21st century

It’s pretty much the definition of straight privilege when you see as video games’ long history of opposite-sex romance as uninteresting while treating gay relationships the same way is seen as “catering”.

I won’t try to explain why gay representation in video games is important to gay gamers or the power of video games since mixvio did it so well. But as great as inclusive games like Bully and Fable may be, it occurs to me that these are all games where inclusiveness means being open to the possibility that the player might see their character as gay.

You know what would be daring? I’d like to see a major game producer create a game where the lead character is gay and has a love life. Straight gamers have yet to play a game where they’re forced to connect with a queer POV, the experience gay gamers are expected to accept in the vast majority of games.