General Anticipation, Speculation & Recommendation Thread

Well, if we didn't get Alexios we'd never have gay m/m content in Assassin's creed, so I for one am glad it worked out the way it did.

Tell me about it... It's crazy how just POINTING OUT that queer men (hell, with protagonists like Shepard, also men of color!) are looking to these characters as empowering, as representation, as the kind of power fantasy that aren't available elsewhere can get you labelled "misogynistic" or even "lesbophobic." Like, I'm speaking from experience here - I've made comments on Tumblr that say "hey, there are non cis-straight white men who are getting empowerment from Shepard, so can we please put the 'female Shepard is the only valid Shepard' joke to bed, it actually can be exclusionary in the same way that the "Shepard can't be a FEEEEEEEEEEE-MALE" crowd are, and gotten called a violently lesbophobic misogynist. 

I get that male privilege is very much a thing, of course. But so's straight-privilege, which is what all these people who are trying to dismiss the importance of queer protagonists are clearly indulging in.

Dont twist it dear lmao I know by far the system sucks and that is a big problem beyond fixing. But I am personally criticising the hypocrisy of bashing a MLM protagonist just to idolize Kassandra, THERE ARE PEOPLE LIKE THAT OUT THERE, we all saw it LOL, it happened with male Shep, it happened with Technomancer in this forum, it happened with Alexios and I'm sure it will happen with that new male viking protag.

You are not going to see me whine over Aloy not being a gay man for example. Praise and Protect BOTH OR GO I'd say to those who bash Alexios. 

Edit. And to clarify just in case this becomes again in a stupid drama, I was criticizing people who shit on Alexios to praise Kassandra EXCLUSIVELY, Kass is awesome and I think we are in the same page regarding having more set protagonist who are gay, bi, trans, female, poc etc, but I thought that went without saying???? This forum is not BSN LMAO 

The “female protagonists don’t sell video games” is a self fulfilling prophecy. You spend decades advertising games for boys with male protags, and nurture a toxic culture of straight male dominated “gamers” and emphasize competitive aspects of gaming (which intersects with our cultural obsession with male sports but not female). You then underfund the advertising of a female led game, write her terribly, and rush the development of the game and then act shocked when the game didn’t do well. Or worse yet you don’t even try and cry failure preemptively.

It sucks for sure and higher ups in the industry are psychoticly obsessed with generic male protags.

That said we need more RPGs with control over your protag. Period. Because that’s the only way some identities have any hope to be represented in big games. If we do have Pre determined female protags likely it means she won’t be say a woman of color or canonically gay. Or even just non white male protags. Sure a vast number of people will make a cis, white straight male PC but if you give people choices then you can get quite a lot of representation.

But like if you’re designing a story driven game that you want to tell a specific person’s story a la a movie, definitely need more female protags in those. But by there very nature such products are not “inclusive” any more than Disney having periphery lgbtq characters in their blockbuster movies is inclusive. You’re just widening the zoom on the camera but you are still myopically obsessed with generic white protags and telling the same story with a thin coat of new paint.

RPG style PC choice is like so powerful and the only reason I play video games because I can put the people I want into a story instead of sitting through another brunette straight white person mumbling their way through a multi million dollar role in a movie.

That's pretty cool actually! Still not digging into the hype and I dodged a bullet ACO and its dlc fiasco   but the main characters look pretty rad


also think about it, romancing every girl with the female viking and every guy with the male viking 

Not sure what I’m twisting exactly? My only point is that by now we should have both a set female and a gay male protagonist, and instead we have neither. And that’s completely fucked. And not something I have the patience to deal with in the games industry any more.

I’m not denying that sometimes people can be dismissive of Alexios or any other male protagonist without thinking of the gay male players who appreciate them. I’ve seen it, I’ve also seen it go the other way. I’m only pointing out the fact that if people who actually say things like “women don’t sell” are allowed to stay propped up in their positions, then no one is going to be happy.

All it does is force people into this bickering match, because their feelings are rightfully hurt over the whole situation. But until the industry changes the way it acts and what it prioritizes we will be forever stuck taking out our frustrations on each other.

Yeah, but no one had said that we were against Kassandra having a game. That was never what was brought up. What we were discussing were the people who have used the female PCs they have been given as weapons to shut down queer men in fandoms, in the conversation, who dismiss the importance of queer male protagonists while they are raising up the female ones. Who basically treat female PCs as the only way that underrepresented identities can be lifted up, rather than even acknowledge that there are underrepresented men out there as well - again, there's that long-standing "joke" about "FemShep is the only valid Shep." There was the immediate reaction of "Sara Ryder spent her childhood rescuing her hapless idiot of a twin brother, she's so great and he's so dumb" when the Ryder twins were unveiled. There's the people who, when others bring up the ways that Shepard as a male character mattered to them individually and why they personally prefer male Shepard, not as a condemnation of female Shepard, just a statement of personal preference, will shut the conversation down as that person being "misogynistic," or even trying being "lesbophobic," as if being a male who wants to romance other males is wrong on the basis of not having anything to do with women.

Of course this is a systematic problem with a lot of serious root causes and this is just one more symptom. But we were discussing the symptom. The root cause needs to be addressed as well, but the symptoms have their own damage and impact that we can and should discuss. Right now, the case is that homophobic practices breed a homophobic fandom. Just in safety's sake, if absolutely nothing else, we want to excise the homophobia in the fandom so that we have the safe space, so we can discuss this, and be able to mobilize and demand better. But unless that symptom is dealt with as much as the cause, then we can't even get room. We can't get our foot in the door to explain and justify what is wrong - we're being dismissed, in much the same way that people try the "you got SOMETHING, can't you be happy with that, god, you just want so MUCH!" excuse when we complain about unequal distributions of romance or romance content.

We've been told to sit down, because there was "something" in Mass Effect, after all, Liara was a romance option for FemShep, and FemShep could basically acknowledge being a lesbian, so that was "good enough." Despite the fact that the previous BioWare title had same-sex romances for both genders. We got told off because we got Kaidan "made" bi, are we happy now? Even though ME3's romances are notoriously on the short side, and that there are cuts to the romance - the "I love you" of the base game was cut out of the M!Shep version, we only got one in the Extended Cut. ANYONE who had a criticism of Dorian has spent years being shouted down, no matter what, as if the only reason - even from gay people - for being dissatisfied with his story is homophobia, and not being exhausted of queer pain in media. Discovery of countless straight romances having cut same-sex romances are shut down as "well, you can't have everything," the ones for The Old Republic getting excuses of "well maybe they'll add it later," as if a two minute cutscene after dozens of hours of playtime makes up for the absence in all that time before. And those cuts KEEP. HAPPENING. Kaidan and Ashley had their bisexuality cut before Mass Effect was released in 2007. Ten years later, in 2017, Jaal has his bisexuality cut before Mass Effect Andromeda is released. And I haven't even STARTED counting the characters who had it cut in that time. 

Yes, we're upset at the studios who do this. But we're also upset at the people who make the fandom a place we don't feel safe to discuss this, don't feel safe to engage with the conversations about characters we love and the experiences we've had as queer people, the ways that these games let us down, unless we have carved out a space - like this board - to be able to discuss our experiences as queer fans, loving these games that explicitly don't love us. Look at how often members here complain about the BSN feeling hostile to the members who go there and want to discuss their experiences, how there are people who "don't feel comfortable" with Kaidan being "made" bisexual. 

These are two different conversations we can have simultaneously. Homophobia in fandom is very real, and just because it gets exacerbated by the failure of video games to represent us at all, and that decision is paired up with the lack of representing women as protagonists, that doesn't lessen the homophobia fandom is responsible for, as its own, separate issue. We were talking about THAT. So by saying "blame the system, not the people who wanted Kassandra to have her own game," that's goalpost shifting, because while similar, while having ties to one another, these aren't the same conversations. 

You quoted me, why are you asking what we are discussing? I literally just responded to your direct quote? Am I not allowed to do that? Should I just pretend you didn't open your response to me in a super condescending way? "Don't twist it dear lmao" ? I don't understand why you jump to the conclusion that all of my posts are somehow calling you specifically out? If I wanted to say something about you or to you I would just quote you, or tag you. I'm a pretty direct person, and I can 100% say you literally didn't even cross my mind when I made that post.

I'm not telling you to do shit, you can be mad at whoever the fuck you want, especially if they were being rude to you. Have at it. I don't care. I will only point out that there is big difference in impact from some rando asshole on the internet being fucking weird and an actual game company exec oppressing your identity. If someone is being an asshole about m/m protags to you, then yeah they are an asshole obviously, but nothing about my post was directed at anyone. Nor was is trying to defend any kind of behavior? I don't know why you are assuming it was.

This was my first actual post in months, and you responded with immediate attitude. And now you are accusing me of, what, trying to drama bait? You think I care enough about what happened months ago to hold onto it this long and try to start something? I was just posting to post, to start to be back. You're the one that brought it up, you're the one that direct quoted me. If you want an example of toxic bs on this forum look no further than what you just did.

I known you guys feel like you're invisible, but I can't help be envious of you to some extent, because well...

I am not aware of a single AAA trans protag, whether it's trans woman or a trans man. So I'd take the gay men quantity any day.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention I am a trans woman, hi!
Have I come to make a shitpost because I found the response to AP ridiculous? Maybe, possibly, certainly, yes. Have a great day.

Don't bother responding either, I won't show up again.