LGBT gaming market demographic

[The_Professor]

Wow ! obviously there is an untapped (pun lol) market for games catering to a specific, neglected demographic. I cant see this being "cool" on consoles but on PC this can begin now.

Props to the devs, the audience for buying, the support and open mindedness from everyone etc... Its good to see this even if its not my cup of tea.

As an outsider I am curious to hear from this audience. What types/ kinds of LGBT games would you be interested playing specifically? More details are better if possible

If I had to guess I would say:
- Gender identity exploration simulators or behavior modeling experimentation without real world consequences
- Dad date sims but for women or those who do not identify a specif gender male/ female
- LGBT relationships focused version of popular EA game "the sims"
- Education / Awareness oriented "message" or "experiential" games
- idk rly just guessing here

I appreciate any and all feedback!

Cheers

[Clown Reemus]

robomagon eredeti hozzászólása:

WorldsaStage eredeti hozzászólása:

Double post but I just saw this and wanted to make sure you got a chance to, Coming Out on Top got the steam greenlight before valve stopped doing the greenlight as they did so we are going to get a gay dating sim that isn't so sexless on here.

Not actually gay myself, but that's great. Always nice to see more games on Steam for a broader audience of gamers. Valve seems to be getting a lot more permissive about sexual content these days. Albeit a lot of such games still require an off-site patch to enable the good stuff. But hey, baby steps.

I am thankfully no one too, but seeing this game a success is joyful. We can now make many schemes exploitaiting the rainbow pride and make low-value games for high-prices. A golden-goose, so to say.

[Rabid Urko]

Not a swipe at this game itself, but what happened to the days when games were games based around non real world setups, too many of these "games" trying to be reallife sims instead of being a game.

[robomagon]

RabidUrko eredeti hozzászólása:

Not a swipe at this game itself, but what happened to the days when games were games based around non real world setups, too many of these "games" trying to be reallife sims instead of being a game.

What do you mean? Video games started out with ping pong / tennis and have always had representations of real life activities.

[Five Guys Burgers and Fries]

Do you realize people only bought this because it's a joke game from Game Grumps and not because it's a game targeted at gays?

[Bug]

Chef Domino eredeti hozzászólása:

Do you realize people only bought this because it's a joke game from Game Grumps and not because it's a game targeted at gays?

That is radically untrue. It's not a "joke" game, the people who made it were very genuine and most of the people I know currently playing it fall on the LGBT spectrum. Maybe conceptually it started off as a joke (who knows) but if you actually bothered to play it you could tell it's very genuine.

(Also I'm trans and gay, unless that means I don't count as "people" to you)

[Five Guys Burgers and Fries]

Bug eredeti hozzászólása:

Chef Domino eredeti hozzászólása:

Do you realize people only bought this because it's a joke game from Game Grumps and not because it's a game targeted at gays?

That is radically untrue. It's not a "joke" game, the people who made it were very genuine and most of the people I know currently playing it fall on the LGBT spectrum. Maybe conceptually it started off as a joke (who knows) but if you actually bothered to play it you could tell it's very genuine.

(Also I'm trans and gay, unless that means I don't count as "people" to you)

wow, some LGBT people bought the game because they thought it was a game aimed at them? what a surprise!. Guess what, it's a joke VN game the same way Hatoful Boyfriend is a joke VN game.

[Panic! at the Costco]

Benedickt Wholesome eredeti hozzászólása:

WorldsaStage eredeti hozzászólása:

See, yeah, but sometimes you want to play something hot like Coming Out on Top, where gay and nominally bi studs screwing is pretty much the whole point.

Well, no, I don't. I don't know why you explicitly addressed me, as I've never had any desire to play such games...
I'm guessing you mean, "I want to play something hot," and not "you want to play something hot." In which case, go for it, but I won't support your point at all.

Man this post is old but:

They didn't mean YOU SPECIFICALLY want sexy bump uglies games, they meant that sometimes people want a break from serious/realistic and just..play something else.

I want to play games where I happen to be as gay as possible but the game isn't about that and it's fun, and sometimes I want to play a game where being gay is the entire point. And sometimes I want something sexy. ╮(︶▽︶)╭ Other people feel the same way, so basically they're saying that we* want the super inclusive happen-to-be-gay-but-not-the-point games, and we also want the straight up sexy VNs that are basically about screwing each others brains out.

*We being..some of us. Not all of us. But a lot of us! We want options.

[Bug]

Chef Domino eredeti hozzászólása:

Bug eredeti hozzászólása:

That is radically untrue. It's not a "joke" game, the people who made it were very genuine and most of the people I know currently playing it fall on the LGBT spectrum. Maybe conceptually it started off as a joke (who knows) but if you actually bothered to play it you could tell it's very genuine.

(Also I'm trans and gay, unless that means I don't count as "people" to you)

wow, some LGBT people bought the game because they thought it was a game aimed at them? what a surprise!. Guess what, it's a joke VN game the same way Hatoful Boyfriend is a joke VN game.

I'm not gonna engage with further with what is an obvious troll, but in the off chance that someone is reading this and might believe them:

Queer people worked on this game. One of the two lead creators is completely gay. The game is a little light on content but so genuine in it's heart.

[robomagon]

Bug eredeti hozzászólása:

Chef Domino eredeti hozzászólása:

Do you realize people only bought this because it's a joke game from Game Grumps and not because it's a game targeted at gays?

That is radically untrue. It's not a "joke" game, the people who made it were very genuine and most of the people I know currently playing it fall on the LGBT spectrum. Maybe conceptually it started off as a joke (who knows) but if you actually bothered to play it you could tell it's very genuine.

(Also I'm trans and gay, unless that means I don't count as "people" to you)

I think it's both actually. It's kind of a youtube fodder game in that any random youtuber can play it on their channel or twitch stream for 'the lulz', but it also had genuine effort put into it to cater to the homosexual audience that it appears to be aimed at. And they took care not to be offensive about it like you'd normally expect from a youtube fodder game. So I think it targets both audiences without alienating either. Which is good marketing on their part.

[Tommie]

As I said before. Inclusion is the key. If you are going to have gay characters in your game, then it needs to be done in a way where it doesn't feel like its forced.

Personally, I don't go out of my way to advertise my sexuality. Being gay is just that, being gay. It isn't an excuse to be abscent of a personality or to build your life around just being gay. Its a minor trait.

If you are going to have gay characters, their sexuality should probably be a minor addition to who they are.

[Iantos]

Games with LGBT+ themes are cool, but no theme should ever overshadow gameplay. Even in something like this, a dating sim, the gameplay aspect is the most important. I don't really know what sort of interest there'd be for some sort of gender experimentation style game or whatever, and Education/Awareness raising ones would have to be handled *very* carefully - if it ♥♥♥♥♥ up the message, or is too blunt with it, or mishandles the gameplay, it's not going to do anything.

Realistically, I think most LGBT+ people are just interested in games where they can be themselves, or at least aren't only depicted in ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ways (if you're going to have Pete the Effeminate Fashionista, balance it out). Take Persona 5 for an example of how to screw it up - good game mechanically with a decent story, but about 9 waifus and Atlus is too cheap to shell out for a husbando, and the only depiction of gay people in the game are predatory stereotypes...in a game that's literally all about being true to yourself. Essentailly, if romance is a part of the game, and there's no romance options, it feels like you either have to play a gender you may not be interested in (eg. Mass Effect 1 and 2), or just miss out on that gameplay (which sometimes has extra stuff attached to it aside from story), and neither option is particularly fun. Additionally, never force a player to be something specific if the player is intended to be making their own character in an RPG. If you're playing something like Uncharted, yeah, sure, give Drake female love interests - you're playing Drake. But in Fallout 4, don't give the player character an opposite sex spouse at the start of the game when they have control over every other aspect of them, and put a lesbian couple across the street as an extra '♥♥♥♥ you'; don't force stuff on a player like that. Options = good.

Gay people are basically gamers like everyone else. We want fun games first and foremost, and if the dev is doing stuff where inclusion would make sense, it'd be awesome if it was there. Obviously if the focus of a game is 'woo the chicks as a guy', there doesn't need to be any sort of inclusion in that, which is why games like this have a place, as a 'balancing out' sort of thing.

[thanatos101b]

I rather enjoy dating sims. "Coming Out on Top" pretty much is the gold standard for gay games. It is witty and fun and funny and gives you everything you might want from a game. If you strip them down to their cores, one of the things about Bioware games is that they are just massive dating sims.

Gay people are always forced to identify with heterosexual people in video games. Basically always. Being able to pursue our own romantic and sexual interests for a change is quite liberating. As much as I love Kain from Dreamfall Chapters I found the fact that he identified as gay, but never actually pursued a relationship with another man to be disappointing (and the fact that he keeps getting the option to kiss Anna to be downright puzzling design decision).

Though I would be quite interested in a "save the prince" gay game in the vain of Mario or Zelda.

LGBT characters in video games are great, but actually engaging with romantic and sexual desires is even better.

[Dreamsicle]

Personally I would love just having more gay romance options in games. In particular I would love to see a Harvest Moon style game that gives players the option to marry the same sex as the player character. I've heard that it's possible in Stardew Valley (as well as accidentally in the case of one of the mobile Harvet Moon games)

But I enjoy games for their own sake first and foremost, so what I look for is a good game that is LGBT inclusive or open, not so much where it's all about LGBT identity. I don't like strictly narrative games in general though. I really liked Loren the Amazon Princess because it gave you romance options, but you could just as easily ignore the game's romance aspect if you just wanted to play it for its strategic turn based battle system, which was simple, but well executed.

So gameplay first. It doesn't need to be unique or innovative, just so long as it's fun and functions well. For instance, I recently started replaying Neverwinter Nights 1, and it's really fun and very satisfying even though the game came out in the early 2000s, but I feel like the lack of LGBT inclusion really dates the game culturally. New games that want to focus on giving players the ability to roleplay their characters should all allow for LGBT romance options, even if it never culminates in anything more than a few lines of "I love you," before you face off against the big bad boss at the end of the game.

[Chaotic_Gay92]

thanatos101b eredeti hozzászólása:

As much as I love Kain from Dreamfall Chapters I found the fact that he identified as gay, but never actually pursued a relationship with another man to be disappointing

You can have an ending where Kain ends up with a guy if you make the right choices :)

[thanatos101b]

Sir Calix eredeti hozzászólása:

thanatos101b eredeti hozzászólása:

As much as I love Kain from Dreamfall Chapters I found the fact that he identified as gay, but never actually pursued a relationship with another man to be disappointing

You can have an ending where Kain ends up with a guy if you make the right choices :)

I am assuming you are refering to Likho? He doesn't "wind up" with Kian so much as they (and the future Lady Alvane head off together. They aren't a couple and certainly nothing sexual or romantic happens between them besides a long talk on a ship.