Gaming, while not usually purposefully going out and reaching for alternative audiences like the LGBT community – has done itself pretty well. There are a lot of places on the web for LGBT gamers to hang out and read gaming news and socialize with other gamers like them. There are guilds in most MMOs that call themselves "gay-friendly", even some that run PRIDE events in-game. There are surveys and resources for gay gamers and education to the community that they exist.
But what about for the game developers and companies? What do you do if you want to make your game and company LGBT-friendly? Here is a short list of my quick thoughts on the matter:
Educate your staff members
There are an incredible amount of resources on the web to learn about the gay community and what you can do to be an "ally" to them. One of my favorite websites is Straight For Equality, which is ran by PFLAG, and teachs how to support and encourage equality even if you're a straight-identifying individual. It's important to tell your staff members that your game is LGBT-friendly, and make sure they realize what exactly that means.
Adopt LGBT friendly culture and company policies in the workplace
The first part about reaching out and accepting the gay, lesbian, and transgender culture in your product is to adopt it within your company. There are so many things your company can do to show support for LGBT staff members and to portray a message to the community that you believe in equality for all. Here are just a few things you can do:
- Read up on the policies and make sure that you really *are* an Equal Opportunity Employer.
- Does your Workplace Discrimination Policy include gays and lesbians? How about transgendered employees? As a company, you can adopt policies that your state might not give you automatically. (For example, only a few states have laws that include the transgendered in discrimination policies)
- Consider going the extra step and starting a Diversity Program. This includes everything from community outreach, to gender transition guidelines, to diversity training for all employees.
- Do you know what your company's healthcare policies are around transgendered individuals? Did you know that surgeries and hormone treatment are not typically covered under health plans? If you are in charge of picking a health plan for your company – do your research and negotiate to remove all limitations on transgender employees and their family.
- Consider LGBT holidays in your company's plan. Gay Pride Month and the Transgender Day of Rememberance are two.
- Do not make stereotypes and snap judgements about your employee's family members.
Reach out and support LGBTQ events in your game
If your community has a healthy amount of GLBT users, you might see them start to gather around events like PRIDE and marriages. Instead of just letting them happen, support them! Promote them like you'd promote any other event, give them the additional resources they need to run a successful event. You can even encourage them to happen by scheduling the events, providing the art they want for parties, and making sure that staff shows up for the event as well. It's important to have events for all races, religions, nationalities, and sexual orientations.
Do not build gender stereotypes into your design
This is a major one. Most people have trained themselves to see traditional separations between males and females, and on a binary scale. One example is having ponies for the girl characters and war beasts for the boy characters. Another might be feminizing all names in a random name generator. There's plenty to watch out for here, and it can make for a challenging endeavor if you decide to go this route.
- Is your female clothing all dresses, and your male clothing all pants?
- Are all your females in your game flirtatious towards male characters only?
- Do you presume that female gamers will want cutesy pink flowery areas and design separations in content to appeal to them?
- Why can we only choose male or female?
Do not make assumptions about family roles
A good example of a company supporting this is Dreams of Mirror Online, that recently made a PR splash with their support of gay marriages in their game. There are many things you can do to encourage non-traditional family roles, such as:
- Supporting and encouraging same sex marriages in your game
- Not always having a mom, a dad, and a little child. Switch it up a bit, be creative!
- Include some openly gay characters! Users will stick to your game if there are characters they can identify with.
Police derogatory terms as you would profanity
Your game probably already has policies written around sexual harassment of players, profanity, and disruptive behavior. Does it include derogatory terms and phrases like "that's so gay" or "fag"? 9 out of 10 LGBT high school students say that they are mocked and made fun of for their sexual orientation or gender identity – if it's disallowed in games it sets a precedent that it is cruel and rude and hurts people's feelings. Consider adding any sort of harassment of gay individuals to your policies BEFORE they happen.
Consider making "hangouts" that promote equality and the full spectrum of users
Users love to bond with each other over similar interests, and connecting with a community of likeminded users is important for the growth and longevity of your game. While you don't necessarily have to open "Gay Dance Club" on the corner of your fantasy-themed world, consider having social spaces that promote equality and diversity. It's okay to have a LGBT themed hangout in your game, but make sure to include the straight folks too! It's important to not exclude any segment of your players from having a good time, but make sure your LGBT community feels accepted, supported, and like they belong.
Learn your terms
There is a lot of confusion about what terms are appropriate. For example, did you know that a lot of LGBT people find the term "homosexual" offensive? Considering that it basically means "has sex with people of the same sex", it's a lot of information in one word that classifies people. Generally, they prefer to be called what they are! Gay, lesbian. Did you know that using the word "lifestyle" is implying that being gay is a choice, therefore offensive as well? There a whole bunch of terms like this that people might not even know are offensive, read GLAAD's list to find out more.
Talk to your users
Often times, people tiptoe around the situ
ation and try to be "hush hush" about it. In fact, you CAN communicate with your LGBT community! This is not only a great way to promote their visibility and let you know they exist and you want to support them, but also is the best way to find out what you can do to improve your game for them. You should do things like focus tests, and open forums to chat with all of your users about the kind of features they need!
Consider allowing gender changes
MMOs sometimes let you change your hairstyle or your face. Sometimes they'll let you change a name for a fee. But what about changing your gender? In the real life, it's an enormous struggle – make a statement by allowing gender fluidity in your game. It will definitely get you PR.
Have a variety of body shapes and types
Not all women are thin, and not all women are brawny – but that's not even the half of it! Think about other traditional body differences! Some women aren't broad shouldered, aren't curvy, and don't shake their rear end when they walk. Some men are slight, might use hand gestures, might walk with a lighter step, some have more body hair, some don't have any. Experiment with different kinds of people – we're not all the same!
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I have plans for this to evolve into a larger project, but I thought I'd kick it off with my own thoughts and open up for discussion from other people for suggestions and corrections. It feels to me like there is room to grow and expand this into a real educational project for the industry, something similar to what GLAAD does for print, movies, and television. If anyone has any ideas and would like to brainstorm with me, please email me. (cuppycake at this domain)
Please comment and let me know your thoughts.
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
It all starts at the employer and employee level.
Workplace diversity is a prerequisite of in-game diversity. Otherwise, experience suggests you end up with games implementing well-meaning stereotypes instead of insulting stereotypes, or the absence of anything LGBT. Especially in games that rely on audiences of minors, marketing will pitch fits – even if the workplace accepts it, they'll insist the target demographic, ie. those miserable XBL bile-spewing adolescents, won't, and your company will be LGBT-friendly but broke.
Quality moderation requires active moderation, which is expensive even to large developers – what can small devs do to enforce the difference between a derogatory “you're so gay” and an informative “my gay-friendly guild”? Profanity filters either allow both or neither; passive moderation either flags both or neither.
And even where devs can afford active moderation, you get the WoW guilds banned for promoting being LGBT-friendly because the dev says that makes them a target, and they don't want to spend the resources to protect them from the inevitable onslaught. Even if the policies are changed, the damage is done, and the dev has proven to be unfriendly.
Change the devs, change the games. But even then, you have to hope the gaming consumer goes along with it. LGBTs are a minority, even if marketers love their consumption habits – be too accepting of LGBTs and the mass market, sad as it is, could rebel. If your game doesn't hit the stone-hearted sales targets, marketing will blame homophobes, and it all goes back to square one.
It'll get better, but I think it'll take time. That's no excuse to avoid getting things in order at your shop, but I as solid as your ideas are, I don't think they'll be implemented until they're also more marketable outside LGBT communities.
Perhaps the first monster I saw taken down in the demo can gain those varieties of Runes of Magic money.
Isn't the key to LGBT friendlyness to just not make a fuz about it? One way or the other that is.
Just like any minority group really. I mean, what does it really matter if you're gay, straight or really prefer small furrt rodents. We're all just people here. By trying so hard to enforce “mainstream” acceptence you singfle yourself out and make yourself a target. How often do you think I enter a room to say “Hi, I'm Belsameth and I'm straight” Yet it seems gay people often have to draw attention to the fact that they're gay.
It just doesn't matter what you are. Stop whining about it already!
This is by no means intended as a gay unfriendly post by the way. Just my views on it. A couple of things you say are really good points. To include them in anti descrimination policies for instance is a given and should go without saying. As are, within limits, healthcare plans. But planning special holidays and such? Come on….
Totally valid response Belsameth, thank you for your feedback.
However, you don't get anywhere by being quiet and not making a fuss about it. It's unfortunate, but the amount of discrimination in the gay community is still so rampant, even in the gaming world. That's how positive civil rights actions have moved forward in women's rights, african american rights, and so on. It's unfortunate that just “staying quiet” doesn't encourage forward movement, but true. =/
You see games holding events for national events (like 4th of July) and religious events (like Easter egg hunts), why not Black History events? Why not civil rights issues? Games are more powerful than people think, and social communities are social communities regardless if they're online or offline (and good opportunities for education).
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Not to be rude, but frankly, your post kind of misses the entire point. Your attitude is to homosexuals what radical black panthers are to the black community. You set it back by demanding basically that everything be “infiltrated” in essence by sex, and yes dear, that's what a SEXUAL ORIENTATION is. Some games don't want to be bothered with mentioning sex at all, but you not only want them to mention it, but transgendered and homosexual couples as well.
All while just ignoring the fact that homosexuals make up less than 5% of the population. It's akin to squawking that Eskimos are not accurately represented in games.
Tolerance is not about liking something, tolerance is not about applying it to every aspect of your life. Tolerance is about letting people be, regardless of whether or not what they do upsets you. The ironic thing is, your entire post is the most intolerant thing I've read in weeks.
You have to consider the market. Games afterall at the end of the day are still businesses. Is it profitable to alienate a chunk of their audience in order to cater to another extremely small segment of it? No, that's how companies go out of business. What's gained from potentially appealing to one or two crossdressers that happens to be interested in a korean grindfest, when it alienates hundreds of girls who like wearing their frilly dresses, and men who already feel their own sexual identity is being repressed?
Further, there's the remarkably bigoted assertion your view makes; that homosexuals would care more about wether or not they're represented than whether or not the game is GOOD. Most of the ones I know couldn't give two shits over how many homosexual NPCs are in a game, many don't play as their own gender or as themselves. You kind of seem totally oblivious to the escapism aspect of these games, or do you think people are actually undead, orcs, and elves?
And you speak of “traditional” roles as if they're something meaningless that hasn't been around longer than 70 years. They're referred to as traditional because IT'S ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY, it's how we've evolved. 95% of couples fall into this “traditional” state you refer to.
In essence, your entire post reeks of trying too hard, and is a slap in the face to well, basically everyone. To homosexuals, to businesses, to kids and their parents paying 12 bucks a month so their kid can shoot spells at Goblins, hopefully without the intrusion of sex-themed parades.