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(+1)

Hi! Thanks for voicing your concerns with us.

We've removed some of the "limiting" language on the jam front page at the request of a dev on Twitter, so hopefully that reads a little better for you now as well. Let us know if there are other changes there that would make you feel more comfortable with the overall explanation of our focus with this jam.

Our goal here is simply to encourage some different representations. We all know that we can empathise with anyone—queer people have been empathising with hetero or cis characters in games forever—but it would be lovely for some underrepresented identities to see the spotlight. We definitely don't think gay folks are overrepresented when it comes to games in general, but they are in the existing queer games that are out there. If you're into stats, here are some. 300+ games with gay NPCs is no where near enough when it comes to all games that exist ever, but, for example, 1 intersex NPC is ridiculously low. We are just looking to boost those numbers too!

If you have any additional points you'd like to talk about, or info you'd like from us about why we're running this jam, just let us know.

(2 edits)

>We've removed someone the limited language



Yet here I am 32 days later making the exact same complaint.


Also I'd like some real stats, not some plain numbers, because I doubt that is true, I bet most of those counted as "gay" there are just player options and lacking any crafted storytelling. Again just so quick so assume and minimalize experience outside your own. I wonder how many of those games too are written by straight people who just use the laziest of tropes for praise too, or outright use us as punching bags (See Antony Birches job of creative lead in Borderlands 2, literally every gay character in the game is tortured, experimented on and killed (lets not even go down how scarily close that is to what has been a reality for mostly gay men in the past)) or worse known homophobes just profiting off tropes of us that streamers are using to have a big laugh about (Game Grumps/Dream Daddy).  Like all could be do better here, theres plenty of issues to go round.

It wouldn't have been hard to encourage all intersections to be part of it without making it sound like one is lesser and not adequate, but yet you failed even when a dev on twitter and people here have raised that concern with you.


Find it strange too how when talking about "overrepresented groups" yet mention not the highest number there, Lesbians are the highest number, thats a very strange choice, guess gay males are lower in your opinion then gay women so even lower numbers is still too much of us.....



Edit: Looked into the database...so much false information there.

Dragon Age? Player choice, not a gay protagonist, you might as well list head canons.

Devil May Cry...he's implied Bi, not gay.

GTA Series? First off..a DLC of single game (a game which had a dating website mini game by funnily enough you pick any of the gay men they aren't available). And the actual protagonist you play isn't Gay Tony, it's a complete heterosexual guy named luis. Aside from that? Oh the camp male hairdresser is really a champion for representation, and the real protagonist.

Technomancer...again headcanons do not account for true representation, though you can count Lucky, since you can't play as female so rules out "playersexuality", but he's not the protagonist.

Persona....you even state in the text it turns out he was straight all along.

And WOW...WoW? Really? The game that intermittently bans gay guilds under their "exclusionary guild" rules? That has no "protagonist" to begin with, oh a minigame where hearts appears over heads of unnamed npcs...thank you brave progressive blizzard for offering us peasants your scraps off your might straight table.

Funny how all these bars have been set low so you can justify you gatekeeping and dismissive language.  I see you. Far to frequent deliberate fully of dishonest, disingenuous to be considered accidentally, even when pointed out you seem to just double down on doing it. And why is it, when someone labels themselves an intersection of two particular things, they always seem to do so to shout loudly over those othered experiences and be so hateful to a large part of that experience...its almost like clockwork at this point, see it far too often.


You've taken something I should have felt joy for, should have been for representation, for equation for intersectionality, for inclusion and made it hateful, ugly, dismissive and just all round vile.