Xbox Gay Week

[Sheffield Wednesday]

There's a very good sale on the MS digital store at the moment where you can discover inclusive games selected by LGBTQI+ community members. Some excellent games and excellent deals, including The Walking Dead. All the proceeds are going to AIDS research, I heard, but not seen that confirmed yet.

[Zetetic]

Discover inclusive games like:
- Fable Anniversary
- Fable II
- Fable III
- Borderlands
- Borderlands 3
- Borderlands 3 - Deluxe Edition
- Borderlands 3 - Super Deluxe Edition

(I'm pleased by Life is Strange and Before the Storm being so prominently featured... but that's also kind of sad, given that it's mostly written by men. Straight men, I think.)







They've hidden their "Say it loud! Say it proud!" sale quite well on the Microsoft Store at least.

[Zetetic]

All the proceeds are going to AIDS research, I heard, but not seen that confirmed yet.

No evidence of this in their press release, which mentions a single trivial amount.

It's nice that they're making the noises, but it's a such a weird contrast to Itch.io raising $8 million for BLM (and in the process selling a lot of games actually by LGBT+ people).

[bgmnts]

Should be called Gays with Gold.

[ImmaculateClump]

That's it there, I think - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/collections/PrideFY20/XBOX

It's not much of a sale. Only a few of the games are discounted and it's by really weak, token amounts. That can't be it, surely.

Surprised to see Stardew Valley on there. I played as a lass and gave that alcoholic bus-driver woman a bottle of my home-made wine every day and it got me absolutely nowhere.
I put all my eggs in one basket as well, just ended up getting a cat instead.

looking at the wiki, turns out she isn't an eligible bachelorette for some reason. Would be nice if she'd mentioned that after the 6th bottle or something "Oh, just so you know, I'm not really into lasses, or marriage at all, even. I mean, I know you're not expecting anything in return but-"
"Oh, don't be silly, I just like to see you happy. I'd just be pouring this bottled piss straight down the sink if your greedy toilet mouth wasn't so handy. You frigid old bitch"

[Kelvin]

Gay people are so completely different from straight people, so alien, so foreign, that it's hard to imagine what a game enjoyed by them might be like. Certainly not the sort of thing that a straight person might enjoy. Will it even be controlled with analogue sticks?

[madhair60]

that seems a strange comment given this is highlighting games with inclusive content and LGBT themes rather than "here are the gay games, the rest are not for you"

[Kelvin]

It's more that I find the idea of games "chosen by gay people" a bit patronising (to LGBT people), as if their tastes are so different from everyone else. But I agree that highlighting games with LGBT themes is, in of itself, a good thing. 

[Zetetic]

that seems a strange comment given this is highlighting games with inclusive content and LGBT themes

It's not really doing that. A half-hearted press release can't substantially reframe the fifty or so games, some which happen to briefly depict homosexuals.

[Sheffield Wednesday]

My favourite LGBTQI+ game is Espgaluda, the transgender Cave shoot em up.

You select your character, normally the young woman, and then she changes into a bookish young man! Or vice versa with another character! It is a message that underneath are clothes we are all the same human mulch.

[evilcommiedictator]

This wasn't the 20 year anniversary of voice being available in Xbox live, allowing every American to slur and abuse people with homophobic language whilst playing Halo? Shame

[madhair60]

It's not really doing that. A half-hearted press release can't substantially reframe the fifty or so games, some which happen to briefly depict homosexuals.

it is the only thing it's doing

[Zetetic]

I think it's also meant to drum up sales for some games, regardless of how substantial their "inclusive content" is, and burnish Microsoft's image (albeit very cautiously).

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Gay people are so completely different from straight people, so alien, so foreign, that it's hard to imagine what a game enjoyed by them might be like. Certainly not the sort of thing that a straight person might enjoy. Will it even be controlled with analogue sticks?

Most likely some kind of handheld dildos. They love dildos, the gays.

[Kryton]

It's more that I find the idea of games "chosen by gay people" a bit patronising (to LGBT people), as if their tastes are so different from everyone else. But I agree that highlighting games with LGBT themes is, in of itself, a good thing.

You might have a point, but I think it's fairly cool that it's becoming a common thing, it shows progress. I know how it might be considered patronising, but this better than absolutely nothing and companies being silent and not supporting LGQBT rights? More gay characters in games, hell, more and more games (and media in general edging out of those ancient stereotyoes) Cyber Punk 2077 is going down the open gender route.

I dunno, but I've been playing games for decades and it's good to see this, no matter how shallow.

[Kryton]

But at the end of the day it's a business designed to make money, but isn't it better to have this rather than non-inclusive bigotry? What's the answer?

[Zetetic]

Don't wang on about "bringing visibility" when you bury it in a tiny box on a subpage on the Microsoft Store while promoting different games in five different massive boxes on the front page. (And then the link to http://aka.ms/xpride for any context doesn't actually work. You're supposed to type into a browser yourself, for some reason.)

Don't donate a fixed trivial amount of money, particularly in the context of two campaigns by far, far smaller companies raising far, far more money for a cause by actually revenue-donating.

Don't pick a bunch of games where "inclusive content" amounts to either "I think we joked one of these characters was gay in a sequel" or "we didn't actively patch out same-sex relationships" or "whoops, a coding error meant there were more possible same-sex relationships than was intended".

Focus on games where LGBT+ relationships are a substantial part of the narrative (which granted a small number of their selection are), and of those perhaps some where LGBT+ people were the writers, producers or directors.

Some things end up tending towards the insulting if you do them half-heartedly enough.

[Delete Delete Delete]

Isn't this just more of "Corprate" Pride Month. An attempt to commercalize Pride, so brands can appear to be on the right side without actually having to do anything that to help the cause.

[Chedney Honks]

The Walking Dead. All the proceeds are going to AIDS research

Gotta imagine this is a very unpleasant joke

[madhair60]

Don't pick a bunch of games where "inclusive content" amounts to either "I think we joked one of these characters was gay in a sequel" or "we didn't actively patch out same-sex relationships" or "whoops, a coding error meant there were more possible same-sex relationships than was intended".

Which games were the coding error/not patched out ones?

[Zetetic]

Fable, for example.

It's nice, as far as it goes, that some people ultimately didn't spend the time and energy to enforce heterosexual relationships.

[madhair60]

Which was the one where it was a joke?

[Zetetic]

Borderlands falls into that box IIRC.

[madhair60]

Hahaha, this is quite enlightening. I looked up Borderlands because I was sure I remembered Axton being bisexual, but it turns out that was initially a coding error, too. Yikes

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Imagine Xbox Gay Week in 2002

"Xbox Gay Week, hurhurhurh......that's gay"
"Hurhurhur"

In fact as an early adopter (of Xbox not homosexuality) I can imagine I may even have received some homophobic abuse at school for owning an Xbox once the fact it was quite large (Xbox not my penis) got boring.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

The original Xbox never struck me as being particularly gay. It looked a bit like a radiator, and they're not gay at all.

[madhair60]

The original Xbox never struck me as being particularly gay. It looked a bit like a radiator, and they're not gay at all.

except for the gaydiator

[Mister Six]

Hahaha, this is quite enlightening. I looked up Borderlands because I was sure I remembered Axton being bisexual, but it turns out that was initially a coding error, too. Yikes

They made the Siren in the second game asexual, which got some applause. As did having the big fat lass be confident and sexually alluring to the raiders, although that latter bit just felt like a joke to me.