I like to think of ideas @ EA like little flash mobs. Someone IMs someone else their brilliant idea and if it’s shared between more than 8 or 9 people it is magically approved.

Online games + LGBT = OMFGDRAMA!!!

That said, they actually expect to change the 13-20 something male community??. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAhahaaaahaaah.

There im done. LOL its shorter but it doesnt fully express my feelings in the subjet.

People, you couldnt change the teens and 20-somethings in the real world, much less in a world where they are Anonymous if they choose (which they do, A LOT).

About the booth babes thing, that convention its going to be the greatest concentration of black eyes, kicks to the balls and lawsuits in the history. For the really, really few women that are enough desperate and/or misinformed to be a booth babe in that particular circunstance, of course. Either that or one of the biggest gang-rapes, if the lamers that participate in that contest win. Both options of course are “bad”, Sherlock.

My other opinion in the subject? geldon nailed them. Thats why all the workers in the industry that we, as gamers deserve its overweight, 30+ guys. So far that hasnt changed.

No.

@Trey Ratcliff

Maybe you could convince Scott to do it if he could wear a Zorro mask with matching sombrero.

@Gx1080
“People, you couldnt change the teens and 20-somethings in the real world, much less in a world where they are Anonymous if they choose (which they do, A LOT).”

I’m getting to the point where I’m thinking, “hey kids, you like shooting at stuff like there’s no tomorrow? You know there’s a place where you get to do that, and they even give you a nice little uniform for free? The catch is that once you’re dead, you don’t respawn.”

Maybe that’ll teach them a lesson or two.

This just in – sex sells & EA wants your money.

@Vetarnias
Even the lamest basement dweller has basic instincts of survival. Thats why plans like that doesnt work. Well, theres also the parents that dont want their bastards to die, but they are perfecly happy with allowing the entertaiment industry to be the babysitters.

And a counter contest would be a cool idea if it werent because a)Nobody wants to do that if you are the only one and b)Booth babes are NOT damisels in distress. A lot of guys would learn that the hard way.

Just like the entire convention, it would be fun to watch, but…its bad, you know. Although all the You Tube videos of the conflict are going to be epic (hint).

I don’t think its a good idea because it would be hard to implement beyond existing policies anyways. How can a game developer combat “rampant homophobia” beyond what they do already, provide blacklisting tools and moderation through GMs?

Also, how can you provide safe spaces beyond what was already objectionable behavior by existing ToS, like in the youtube examples? If GLAAD wants to act as a supplemental moderator so long as it is legitimate (no banning Christians because they believe the religion is homophobic, for example) more power to them, overworked GMs can use the help. But if they expect game developers to act as an advocacy arm to combat what they see as homophobia in general culture, well that’s a bit much, and it will probably be impossible to do without measures that make DRM seem even-handed.

The irony is, for all the 18-20 year old idiocy decried here, that generation unlike any before has been raised to treat homosexuality as a valid lifestyle choice. It’s not for lack of trying, really, and I’m not sure what else could be done without creating the backlash mentioned.

@Dblade:

Please don’t say “lifestyle choice.” It’s not one, and while I give wide latitude to “PC speech requests,” that’s not an accurate way to describe sexual orientation any more than saying your presumed heterosexuality is a “choice.”

“Nobody forced them to take a job being live wankfodder for Comic Book Guy.”

Yeah boothbabes deserve to be groped. Fucking idiot.

There’s no research at all in the first place. When did you decide you were going to be straight? Did you weigh the pros and cons of being sexually interested in men, eventually deciding that it wasn’t for you and that you’d go back to being with girls? Ofcourse not, yet people still insist it’s a decision.

Why would I, and this is really not a rhetorical question, “decide” to be gay with all the opposition and harassment and ostracism that comes along with that? Why would I electively choose to be unable to get married, to be unable to visit my spouse if he’s in the hospital, to be unable to donate blood, ineligible to work in certain positions, unable to adopt children from numerous agencies, on and on and on. What am I getting from deciding to be gay that outweighs all of that? It would certainly be a hell of a lot easier to be straight, if it was something I could flip a switch for.

There’s no real studies into “where” sexual orientation comes from at all, but all indications are that it is biological. Animals exhibit homosexual behavior in the wild constantly, this is well documented. Any study that finds the “gay gene” is going to be followed up with a mad dash, financed by Christian evangelical organizations, to cure it. We’re probably better off with no conclusive proof either way.

So lets see… after YEARS of demeaning women at cons (I’m sure we all remember game devs dressed up in catholic schoolgirl outfits, exotic dancers as booth babes, lesbian pron on the jumbotron, etc) are we now pretending that we actually care? I mean what happened here.. did we all get older or something or has the demeaning misogyny reached a pivotal point because EA is now advocating the harassment of the sexual objects they put in front of geekdom to taunt them into buying in the first place?

Sorry Lum for the derail.

Joshua, I’ll post my response on my linked blog. If you want to reply to it, do so there, or I’ll reply on yours. My response to the original subject is here, but this has little to do anymore with it.

Freakazoid — it is possible that those hired by EA knew (since someone had to agree to dinner out) though we wouldn’t necessarily hear about it if they did not. I think it is quite unlikely that those NOT hired by EA knew though — and the ‘quest’ makes it clear that the targets don’t have to work for EA.

Plus, if you’ve been to Comic-con, you’d probably remember seeing lots of women in professional-quality costumes who may or may not have been working for anyone. “Booth babe” gets to be a pretty fuzzy distinction.

Should I Ask My World Of Warcraft Wife If She’s Really a Dude?

At the risk of second-guessing a famous “Basterd,” my answer would be something along the lines of, “if you’ve yet to determined this definitively yet, your marriage is either a sham or you a married a hermaphrodite.”

As an example: Geldon, the prefered term is ‘intersexed’. I would appreciate it if you did not mock those with a biological condition beyond their control by equating them in a derogatory fashion with people hiding behind their anonymity. Thank you.

I’m not.

What does nobody care about/what are we being oversensitive about?

Gx1080:

*snort* Nice try, dude.

Gx1080:

I dealt with a lot of that in the second link Lum posted above. I also am having a bit of deja vu that I’ve discussed this same thing with you here as well, but maybe I’m wrong. No, being gay doesn’t have anything to do with games really, unless the game designers choose to make it relevant somehow. But WoW is a social game, and social games have actual people in them. This isn’t a single player RPG where you follow the linear path set out by the writers and that’s that. There’s communication and sharing and identities relevant to the players who play the games. Being gay has nothing to do with the game itself any more than learning about what you and your girlfriend had for dinner last week, what sports teams you like or where you live in the world, but nobody pitches a fit demanding that the latter doesn’t get shared.

My issue with GLAAD is that they’ve only touched the LGBT aspect of this when there’s a lot more to it than that. Gay players aren’t the only ones harassed, minorities have to put up with it too and the way females are treated is abhorrently disgusting. I was playing yesterday and stopped in a city to put some stuff in my bank and walked in on trade chat on fire with some bozos saying that the only girls who play WoW are fat ugly ones who can’t get dates anyway. A couple of girls took offense to that and by saying “Well I don’t think I’m ugly and I am successful in real life but I still play” the direction of conversation went to lewd comments propositioning them for sex. At some point in all of that I said something to the effect of “If I was a girl I would never say so here, I can only imagine the messages the ones who just did got whispered if public chat is any indication.” Every one of them sent me a message thanking me for that and expressing how grossed out they felt.

GLAAD isn’t coercing Blizzard to do anything; Blizzard already has policies in place that make this sort of thing, whether it’s sexually harassing female characters or making fag jokes, against the rules. Telling people to report is extremely ineffectual because it never results in punishment. I report abusive players all the time, knowing that confronting them is usually the response they want. I have never once seen a player get punished for it, even when they’re so horrendously over the line that there can be no way to say “Ah, this wasn’t so bad.” The trolls don’t take reporting seriously, so they’re not going to stop being asshats with the fear of that in mind. And if players don’t feel that reporting abuse accomplishes anything, they’re less likely to report.

I don’t think the way GLAAD is going about this is the best idea, but I do think you’re grossly reading into what you think their goal is. I also think you’re downplaying the effect this sort of behavior has. And at the end of the day even if it’s just about playing a game that doesn’t in any way excuse abusive speech or make it fair to punish a player that doesn’t want to be subjected to it. LGBT players spend the same amount of money each month on the subscription as straight players do, so homophobic asshats don’t get a monopoly on what speech can fly.

When you’re coming to this from the perspective of “attention whores,” I don’t really know what to tell you. Someone isn’t an attention whore because they want to play a game in an environment where they don’t feel harassed. How do you think we get equality to begin with? It’s because people fight for it, whether they’re picketing politicians who are passing legislation to restrict rights, or they’re writing letters to media organizations that portray a minority in a negative light. It is as much a cultural battle as a legal one, and it’s easier to win the culture aspect before the laws start getting passed.

I have a feeling you didn’t read any of the links, especially starting with GLAAD’s own press release. I’m hardly a spokesperson for them, nor do I necessarily agree with their intentions, but they aren’t “attacking” anyone. They invited Blizzard, along with several other companies including EA and Linden Lab, to discuss these things and those companies voluntarily sent representatives out to talk about these issues. WoW has the population of several large cities, the gay contingent of that is not a handful of people by any means.

You’re still stuck on the gay aspect of this; it’s just as inappropriate for people to sit in trade chat screaming that they don’t want niggers playing this game, it’s just as inappropriate for people to glorify Nazism and make disparaging comments about Jewish people, it’s just as inappropriate the way female gamers are treated. No minorities should have to put up with that, and no one should have to choose between ignoring nasty comments that make them uncomfortable or speaking out against it and getting attacked for doing so.

I don’t agree that most of this is meant to be hateful; I think it’s largely attention-whoring on the part of trolls who giggle to themselves when they say something nasty and get an uproar. It’s hard to separate that from the actual bigots though, and either way such comments still empower the hatred all the same. The biggest thing GLAAD has asked for is greater visibility of tools to report players who break the rules along with more transparency with their policing to ensure that players know if they report someone, action was taken. GLAAD is asking this on behalf of LGBT players, but that will benefit all minorities as well.

As to improving the situation, asshats will be asshats. I agree with you, you can’t get rid of them entirely. You don’t need to get rid of them entirely, because if the majority of them get punished they will eventually get a hint and grow up and the rest of the community will do the policing for them. There is a lot to be said though for feeling like the community cares about it; as it is right now if I see someone cracking a fag joke in trade, rare is it I see anyone say “That’s not cool, be respectful.” Most comments go along with it. If more players spoke up against it, more players would feel safe to do so as well.

Saying that I or anyone else needs to just accept it because that’s how gamers are is irresponsible. I’m a gamer, I don’t resemble this behavior at all, and I don’t appreciate allowing racist, homophobic and sexist asshats to get the privilege of being the spokesperson for my hobby.

@Ratman_tf

You don’t get the point. What EA is proposing, with that silly contest of theirs, is illegal. Worse still, they’re not limiting it to one of their booth babes — it can be any company’s. Sexual harassment is still illegal; and if it isn’t sexual harassment — if you could convince me that those “booth babes” are somehow consenting to be groped, or that a sleazeball of an attorney could pull out some magic trick that would make such a work contract legal — it is sexual behaviour in a public place, for money. Not sure that authorities would tolerate that, especially if minors are allowed into such a place as Comic Con.

And, like the very concept of the “booth babe”, it is rife with misogyny.

This is going to get worse before it gets better.

@Joshua Meadows
First, you are the one that isnt reading. Im not talking about you wanting to be accepted or whatever, im talking about the guys and gals that always talk about their sexual liasons that, just for the shocking factor, are with people of the same sex.

And this discussion, the discussion that appears every time that LGBT subjects are touched, its really, really tiring.

We do not care of what you do in your time, really, its just that hearing your many, many complains about how you arent accepted its tiring. You are heard pretty well in the real world, but people that play games do not want to think in the real world(And yes, i would say this if this were about religion or politics or whatever trying to get into games)

And the changes that you want to see will not happen until at least another 20 years of Hollywood education, sorry.

Gx1080, that’s the double standard, and that’s the ridiculous part. It’s perfectly fine for you to talk about what you and your girlfriend did last night, but if I casually say “Hey guys I have to go, my boyfriend wants to get dinner,” then suddenly it’s all about sexual liaisons and what I do in the bedroom etc.

That’s complete bullshit. And I hate to break it to you, but people DO care. Part of the reason I no longer live in the United States is because people care enough to the point that it’s not possible for me to marry my boyfriend who is from Australia, and he has no way to live with me in the US. Australia has laxer attitudes on this though, so that’s why I am here.

Nevertheless I am really torn up inside that I ruined your day by saying that I don’t want to have to put up with fag jokes in a game I pay for. No really, I’m sobbing here.