EA signs on to attend GaymerCon

Brenna just banned me for homophobia!

I wouldn’t say all that, but who gives a fuck about gay people playing video games? If you like games like heterosexuals you like games. Did other events block gays from attending? I don’t think so….So I don’t understand all of this segregation.

@2 better be careful. You will be branded a Homophob if you ask questions like that.

Could you promote the same kind of conference (StraightCon) without getting destroyed by the media?

Presumably gay people are given a lot of shit during online play and at events I guess. I have no beef with this event as long as straight people are welcome too…

@2 Its not about leaving straight people out, it’s about creating a friendly enviroment among people with same interests. I would really like to go to a conference and meet other gay gamers and interact with companies that stands with us. And I think it’s great for visibility too, when talking about minorities in general, it’s very import to acknowledge them.

@4 That kind of argument is so childish, and kind of boring, it’s not the same, and you should know it.

^ Whatever you say man , but personally i think sexual orientation has nothing to do with video games (the same thing about race,religion,sex etc..)

@7 Glad I’m not the only one.

Sure there’s people online that say “omg gay” or “get back in the kitchen” but there’s also people who will just blatantly insult “fucking c**t bla bla” The fact is people can’t seem to take things on the chin and just move on, instead they make a big fuss then they just feed the trolls.

The ignorance of most of the commenters so far would be hilarious if it wasn’t so disgusting and close minded.

@7 I think it has everything to do with it, there are few good games that you can roleplay as gay, lots of developers don’t take gays into account, and some that do, do it offensivelly. If they see it as a trending market, maybe they’ll think more about it.
As for race, religion, sex, etc, those are completely relevant to games, sexism in games (read some good articles about it in vg247), discrimination, they all matter and they all have some impact in culture. On that note, I would see no problem with a “catholic con” promoting games and gamers with their values, if it were not about excluding, but including people.

I think we need StarightCom ….

It is kinda funny that the homosexuals themselves simply seperate themselves from the now open minded society. In the past they called for equality and once they started to have it, they wanted to be treated in a special way as if they aren’t an accepted part of the community.

No hate intended, just stating my opinion.

Am I the only straight guy here not threatened by this?

As for how accepting society is, I’d say all you’d have to do is look at the BioWare forums, where people threw a giant shitfit over the gay choices in Dragon Age 2 to know that we, as gamers, have not exactly been the most accepting lot.

If gay people want to get together and have a friendly environment, where they don’t have to worry about some 12 year old making fudge packing jokes, I don’t see why we should have a problem with it.

@10: I had a similar debate with a Japanese friend of mine recently about the “Okamas” in One Piece. My friend reckoned that Bon Chan and Iva were kind of heroes, and were therefore giving a positive image for gay people, but I think that their peculiar brand of Japanese “gay”ness is seen by most Japanese as funny because they basically ridicule them, and I don’t think it does anything to promote the normality of being gay to the general public. On the contrary, it says “Look how strange they are!” in a kind of derogatory way.

That’s why the few gay Japanese people I have met work hard to hide it. Maybe it’s different in Tokyo, I dunno…

Sorry, stream of consciousness there.

@12: Not to worry man, I’m not threatened either. I’m just generally against exclusionary events. I say have gay people and non-gay people, and try to bridge the gap between those two groups until they are just gamers… If that’s off the table, well, whatcha gonna do.

It’s kinda like the gay group on EG, you don’t need to be gay to join it as far as I know…

@13, you don’t need to be gay to go to this event either. It doesn’t exclude straight people, it’s just not aimed at them. Like #6 said, it’s about creating a friendly environment for people with the same interests. It’s just that one of the main interests is being gay, which will automatically make a lot of straight people uninterested and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I think the growing exclusion of women in most games is a far worse and worrying problem that we should be addressing. But yay EA, good on you for your free publicity, whatever.

I think this idea is stupid to be honest, it just gives people a target to throw their bile filled hate at. You can’t force people to accept things.

As I said before, never really had any problems at my LAN events in the UK, so this seems irrelevant for me personally. I suppose in other countries it’s probably worse though, and I can understand the need to find a comfortable climate and possibly new friends.

LOL!! StraightCon ftw! Anyway, I love your comments guys! Except Michaela’s of course. She’s being the same ignorant b***h that we’re used to.

I agree that the general gaming public (especially online) can be angry, homophobic, everythingphobic people, but gaming EVENTS host some of the most wonderfully open, friendly and welcoming people I’ve ever met.

@15
Could you provide some data supporting your claim?
I think i’ve seen more female characters now than ever in games!

Hi, I’m a straight, white male breezing through life without being discriminated against. If I don’t identify myself by sex, sexual orientation or race, neither should anyone else. Also, YOU are the bigots, because

- Everyone here

@19 Okay, so you can observe. What exactly is your point?

I don’t think it would be irritating people as much if it was actually a games convention where the primary reasoning was the sharing and love of games. Like PAX for example.

Its not though, games have been shunted back into second place and used as an excuse to create a homosexual convention.

So why not just create a homosexual convention and video games there? Why the pretension to being an actual games con?

Theres an anime and manga convention called yoai-con, its bascially about gay anime and manga, now that was set up for everyone regardless of sexual preference to share and enjoy the media that they like. Theres nothing political about yoai-con and there was no up-roar about it within the anime community at large. Gaymer con seems to the opposite, well at least its being portrayed as such.

@20 Are you kidding me?

“Hi, I’m a straight, white male breezing through life without being discriminated against. If I don’t identify myself by sex, sexual orientation or race, neither should anyone else. Also, YOU are the bigots, because”

VIDEO GAMES!

I don’t see how anyone would receive abuse online for being gay, unless they volunteered this information into the public domain.

If you’re self-obsessed enough to go around shouting out your sexual preference during a game of CoD, then you’re sort of asking for it, in the same way as if you called all the other players fuckwits or kept stating how you love a good game of tiddlywinks.

IMO, gaming (as with many other hobbies) transcends race, sexual orientation, gender, etc. There will always be people who hate others for their personal life choices. Humans can be disgusting creatures. And how these people think a Gay-centric event like this will help change how things are I have no idea.

Let them go for it though. Good luck to them. It just shouldn’t be the focal point imo.

Gay and Lesbian Cinema festivals, LGBT book conventions, yaoi-con. All of those appeared after the things that they celebrate and no one has a problem with them, the media relating to these minorities came out gradually and naturally from the mediums that they are a part of.

Right now there are no such genres in video gaming which is why it feels to me that this con is somehow trying to force devs into creating a sub-genre that would have best been left to emerge by itself.

Fly Lesbian Seagulls!

@22 Are you not able to answer the question?

@27 Let’s leave it to the people who feel discriminated against to define whether or not it is a problem. And if they want to bring attention to it, let them. I can’t believe I needed to spell that out.