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Originally posted by: Bill Aurion
The whole "sexual" issue is pretty retarded...Any game that has a love story or innuendo can be considered "sexual" and that has never been challenged in the past...What's the difference between a male character hitting on a female character and a male character hitting on a male character? ABSOLUTELY...NOTHING...
I already talked about doing this. FOR EXAMPLE:
This is an example of a non-sexualized videogame. Zelda (DESPITE Bill's claims of "innuendo") is quite non-sexual. I'll use the first game in the series. First, the hero is not solely driven to rescue Princess Zelda, nor even primarily driven to do so. The main object is to save Hyrule because it is being destroyed. When this is completed, Zelda says "thanks a lot, you are the hero of Hyrule, call you when we need you." Credits roll. All sexual verbage and whatever is stricty avoided as well as quasi-sexual imagery. Link is assumed to be heterosexual. While there is no "proof," but there does not HAVE to be any as the assumption is at least 90% accurate. Metroid even more so. Samus is 100% totally focused on the job, no time for anything else, and no opportunity either. She is assumed to be heterosexual, too. Again 90%. This is the norm, accepted without discussion or debate, automatically.
Now an exampled of a sexualized game. Here is Mario, he quests, usually and primarily, to save Princess Peach. The reason FOR Mario's quest is usually Peach Herself. Mario seems to not care much about the total liberation of the Mushroom Kingdom, as he is quite fond of skipping whole worlds in order to reach Bowser's Castle quicker and slap him on the noggin and toss him into lava. After this, Peach routinely gives Mario a peck on the nose or cheek and the fan-artists take over from there. Here, there is, of course, the assumption that Mario is heterosexual, but now there is "proof." However this is only lightly displayed in the game itself, all people do not necessarily believe it goes further than just a gratuitous kiss, and it is the norm across all cultures. Now replace all the "Princess Peach"'s in the previous paragraph with "Donkey Kong" and you'll see a problem. Because of the "deviancy" (and by deviancy I mean just the difference to the accepted norm) of the act of Donkey Kong pressing ape lips on Mario's face, the train of thought tends to go much further than that (fan-artists unfortunately take over from HERE, too)
To successfully make a homosexual game character de-sexualized they need to avoid Mario's method at all costs. Zelda is good, Metroid is better. Bascially do not bring it up, ever. HOWEVER, like I said before, without bringing up ANY sexuality whatsoever, there will be the 90% assumption. This results in a mis-label and destroys the intent. There must be proof to the minority, and that proof is either having the guy pop butts in the game, having somebody SAY "This guy pops butts," or simply just saying the man is homosexual in the manual or something. But right there sexuality is brought up again. This is a definite "chicken or the egg" problem.
Furthermore it is quite illogcial to specifically go after the at most 10% hoomosexual dollar at the expense of the rest of the at least 90% heteresexual dollar. I mean it's not like their children will appreciate the progressive thinking of some game companies and also spend their dollars there, too. They won't have any children. Their adopted children might, but they might not be homosexual themselves. Even if the percentages were equal it still would not be wise to go after the homosexual dollar. After one generation, all of the 50% of homosexual consumers will be gone for good, while the 50% heterosexual consumers will have children and will enter the market soon enough.
My brain hurts.
Topic: (i cant put this word in my post) survey (Read 9317 times)
