LGBTs branch into gaming world

LGBTs branch into gaming world

It looked just like any other great Pride event: packed dance floor, fierce fashion show and a parade stuffed with colorful and creative floats. Proudmoore Pride took five months of planning, and the celebration’s fifth year was its most highly-attended to date, with every deck, dock and roof of Booty Bay covered in partiers.

Despite the elaborate festivities and huge crowds, clean-up after the event was a snap. That’s because it all happened online.

Proudmoore_311279939.jpgProudmoore Pride is a tradition within World of Warcraft (WoW), the world’s largest online role-playing game with more than 11 million subscribers. So many of them attended Proudmoore Pride that it caused temporary game performance issues.
Those wall-to-wall crowds are a far cry from WoW’s early days, when Blizzard, the company behind WoW, prevented a transgender player from advertising. That’s according to Ben Hardin, one of the Pride event organizers. Hardin said Blizzard did reverse their policy on that issue.

Since then, through his LGBT-friendly WoW guild, “The Spreading Taint,” Hardin and other gay gamers have been working hard to make sure gay and lesbian gamers have places to play online, where they can feel comfortable and have fun.

The concept of “safe spaces” for LGBTs is nothing new, but now energy is devoted to carving out those spaces within the virtual world. When it comes to homophobic speech and attitudes, online gaming has a poor reputation.

“Most of our [guild] members say they were tired of getting online every day, hearing ‘fag this’ and ‘gay that,’” said Hardin.

The use of hate speech is so prevalent online that the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is hosting a panel discussion with representatives from various tech companies, in an effort to solve the widespread problem. GLAAD’s Director of Digital Media, Justin Cole, is in charge of the project. He will moderate that panel, which is set for later this month in San Francisco.

Up to this point, solutions have been lackluster, with XBox Live serving as a key cautionary tale. The online multiplayer gaming service, owned and operated by Microsoft, does not allow any words related to sexual orientation to appear in players’ profiles. That policy came under scrutiny earlier this year when Xbox Live banned someone with the gamertag “theGAYERgamer” from participating in the service. Shortly after, a player named Teresa said she was harassed and reported by other players for self-identifying as a lesbian on Xbox Live, which then suspended her account.

However, Microsoft apparently doesn’t have a problem using the word “gay” in a game title. This fall, Rockstar Games will release The Ballad of Gay Tony, an expansion episode of the wildly popular Grand Theft Auto IV containing downloadable content for the Xbox 360. 

When asked about gamertags and The Ballad of Gay Tony, Microsoft would only go on record with the following statement:
“With Xbox Live, we’re committed to providing fun and entertainment in a safe and respectful environment. We’re always looking for ways to improve and are exploring the best ways to allow Xbox Live members to express themselves.”

However, Cole said he’s been in regular contact with the company.

“Everyone knows the history of Rockstar Games and their controversial material, and as soon as I heard about The Ballad of Gay Tony, I reached out to them,” he said. “I wanted them to know that if the game advocates harming or killing LGBT people, that is not acceptable.”

Producers told Cole the game was still in storyboard and that they’d keep him and GLAAD as a resource. They plan to meet after GLAAD’s panel discussion to discuss the game further.

As for current solutions, Cole thinks old-fashioned tattling will go a long way.

“Facebook and MySpace have it more under control because they prohibit hate speech and have mechanisms in place to report it,” he said. “On Xbox Live, ifjcole_444907369.jpg someone uses epithets that are not acceptable, other players can report it, but there’s no way to record it, no proof. A lot of Xbox Live stuff is problematic because it’s the number one system in world, there’s a large user base, and people know can get away with certain things. So they do.”

Orlando resident Jeremy Indomenico, who has been on Xbox Live for about two and a half years, said Cole is right.
“I’ve been hearing [gay slurs] since I was growing up, and I’m used to it, but that doesn’t make it right,” he said. “It would help if more people were monitoring Xbox Live, then kick them off a week if they get caught, and kick them off for good if they keep doing it.”

Cole also said a common complaint is that the repercussions aren’t public, so gamers reporting problems feel like nothing happens, even though industry representatives tell him every single complaint is reviewed and acted upon.

Little is know about the gaming industry’s support of LGBTs behind the scenes. Due to confidentiality restrictions, Electronic Arts Tiburon in Maitland, which employs hundreds, would not comment on company culture as it pertains to individual gay and lesbian game developers. However, the company has offered strong employee benefits to LGBTs and their partners for years, according to Craig Hagan, who runs the company’s government affairs.

And despite the challenges faced by Cole and other activists, LGBT safe spaces do exist in the world of video games.

The Sims, an award-winning series of life-simulation games, has allowed its characters to fall in love with same sex characters since its release in 2000, but art imitated life, because gay couples could only live together, but straight couples could get married. That changed with the release of The Sims 3 last month, when gay marriage became a reality within that virtual world. There are a number of gay-gaming-focused online communities where LGBT gamers can meet, socialize and commiserate, such as GayGamer.net and LesbianGamers.com.

In any event, the feedback from Proudmoore Pride has been so positive that Hardin said they’re already talking about plans for next year.

“Since we are spread out all over North America, one of the cool things is that it lets folks in more rural areas that don’t celebrate a Pride have something close to a fun, affirming experience. For some folks, this was the only Pride celebration of any kind they could attend,” he said.

Cole also cast a hopeful eye on the future of LGBT gaming, and said that conversations like these are the beginning of a revolution in how we communicate online.

“If LGBTs can be the group that helps move us forward in a dialogue toward safe spaces online, we might be able to push the entire generation forward,” he said.

Here are the panel members for the July 18 “Homophobia and Virtual Commmunities” discussion in Redwood City, CA:

  • Flynn DeMarco (Alias: Fruite Brute), Founder of GayGamer.net
  • Dan Hewitt, Senior Director of Communications & Industry Affairs for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA)
  • Caryl Shaw, Senior Producer in the Maxis Studio (Electronic Arts, Inc.) 
  • Cyn Skyberg, VP of Customer Relations at Linden Lab
  • Stephen Toulouse (Gamertag: stepto), Program Manager for Policy and Enforcement on Microsoft’s XBox LIVE
  • Moderator: Justin Cole, Director of Digital & Online Media, GLAAD

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