LGBT Communities Impact on Social Gaming
Video games are never just about pastimes. When we try to observe it, we can found that people can cast a different perspective: there is a perspective on culture, and a perspective on technology; There may also be a perspective about the person who plays the game, and a perspective about the person who develope the game; There is even a perspective on media, and a perspective on the industry; There's also a perspective on social change and game history. They are like an indispensable two-voice, playing a cultural piece of music called Recreation.
Remembered when I first installed the Internet at home, I played a bunch of mini-games online, then I bought some PC games from a few shops. Among my favorite games were Plants vs. Zombies, Gold Miner Vegas, The Sims 3 and 4, Adventure Quest, and Chinese MMORPG 倾世情缘(Qing Shi Qing Yuan). In the past, I used to play games to pass time. And as time grew, I found that knowledge is also increasing through these games, it could also affect our minds. For example, some story-based games can actually reflect the problems happening in our modern society. By playing games, not only can increase interpersonal relationships but also refresh our perspective on life. Maybe by this, I became more open-minded.
In the 1980s and 1990s, influenced by feminist and LBGT movement, many mainstream media forms, such as TV series, movies, music, etc., were more or less affected by the queer style. They began to try out the temperament of non-heterosexual Gender in their perform, fashion, or storyline design. For example, ‘Sex and the City’ appeared a gay friend, Stanford of the first heroine, Carrie, later appeared in the TV series ‘Will and Grace’ and ‘Queer as Folk’ on the theme of urban gay and lesbian.
Now in the 21st century, some popular idols have coming out publicly, and under the influence of fanart or fanfiction, fans are willing to take the initiative to participate in the idol's behaviors into their desire of LGBT, imaging their idols becoming a same-sex couple with another. So, is there any LGBT element in the game world? I think there are few, but still are. It can be seen that in recent years, with the social trend and the development of the LGBT affirmative movement, the number of LGBTQ characters in video games has gradually increased, as has the number of LGBTQ-friendly players.
Last week, I found an online video game called 'A Gay's Life', An independent Chinese role-playing game about a Beijing gay teenage boy, Ling Hao (凌浩), navigating everyday life illustrates the "harsh realities" of the dating scene, judgments, family pressure, and discrimination against LGBTQ people in China.(Huang, 2018).The game was designed by 27-year-old Gaole Huang and established as a hobby with the support of a team of gaming enthusiasts, influenced by his own experiences as a gay man who grew up in the region of Shandong before moving to Beijing.
Below will be some pictures and GIFs of the game’s screenshots.
(Game’s splash screen)
(When he first come out to his best friend.)
(When he get married to a women he doesn’t want to.)
(He feels excluded in society as a part of LGBT communities.)
Ling Hao: “My Grandma said, must wear a red scarf in wedding, looks festivity“
“I hope through an easy-to-read, immersive, emotional, and interesting interactive story, I’ve created concrete figures to show some of the awkward situations that gay people around me still face in today’s society,” Huang said.
Most of the comments for the game A Gay's Life are positive. On Weibo, one of the most highly rated words on the game was "real", and most of these comments came from LGBT communities. As for heterosexuals, a 30 years old author stated, he played to the end of the game, and his strongest feeling is: "as a heterosexual, I seem to get these things easily, but it is so difficult to get it here."
A comment from a straight man, the game gave him the information which is different from what he thought in the past. For example, he used to think that the LGBT community itself is very complicated, they don't want to have a fixed relationships, but after he played and he found that it is because the resistance is very large when "homosexual" been together, their love is not accepted by the mainstream, which makes their feelings to be more fragile.
Another example, he felt that as long as its real love, it doesn't matter if the state allows the marriage or not. After playing the game, he found that marriage can play a certain role in protecting the interests of partners, such as the partner can obtain benefits when they purchase a house. But "gays" cannot marry, means that there is no way to enjoy the protection and welfare brought by marriage, this is also a form of implicit discrimination of the society.
After I played A Gay’s Life, it gave me a better layer of understanding of the LGBT group's psychological. In its several endings, some of them make me touched, some make my heart breaks. Our country, Malaysia, is not legally recognized for LGBT, the same as China. Malaysia, in fact, there are groups of LGBTQ people, but to protect themselves, most of them won't coming out to the public, some not even dare to tell their families, because these groups easily receive a peculiar look from others. Some of them might be despised, judged, scolded, bullied, they can't even do something they like or love someone they want, they seem like a criminal in others' eyes, feeling the groups of people are disgusting, weird, sinfull. I was really disappointed to see these phenomena, I'm not sure how can I help them, and I think now all I can do is to mentally support them as I can. And I hope the people who don't like LGBT groups of people, they can at least respect them. However, through many positive reviews that I saw in the game’s forum, I can feel that the societies of the younger generation are slowly accepting LGBT communities. By the way, this is a very good game to play.
"As in real life, having a variety of characters and their personalities and backgrounds helps to build a richer and broader overall fictional universe," Steven Choo, a spokesman of Blizzard Entertainment, told The Post's Comic Riffs (Cavna, 2016)
In recent years, the LGBT community displayed in the game might become less popular, they become more ordinary, just like the passers-by who pass by in our life. But because of the injection of these characters, it makes the whole game to be more complete and real.
Reference List Cavna, M. (2016). The wildly popular ‘Overwatch’ says a main character is gay. Will this be a step forward for video games?. Retrieved 3 December 2019, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/12/23/the-wildly-popular-overwatch-says-a-main-character-is-gay-will-this-be-a-step-forward-for-video-games/
Huang, Z. (2018). Indie game offers stark insights into gay life in China. Retrieved 3 December 2019, from https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/2178329/gays-life-indie-web-game-offers-glimpse-harsh-realities-faced-lgbt
Wilkie, A. (2018). Video game ‘A Gay’s Life’ provides insights into life of LGBTI people in China - Star Observer. Retrieved 5 December 2019, from https://www.starobserver.com.au/news/international-news-news/video-game-a-gays-life-provides-insights-into-life-of-lgbti-people-in-china/174616
Yijun, Y. (2018). The Indie Game Decoding the Gay Male Reality. Retrieved 2 December 2019, from http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003330/the-indie-game-decoding-the-gay-male-reality-












