the games press has been really excited about this game called a closed world, a game about the experience of being “LGBTQ” and dealing with oppression! of course, christine love, robert yang, stephen lavelle and i have been making games about being queer for YEARS. why does a closed world get the big press?
… a site like gamasutra can post about this game, then rest its little head and drift off to the sound sleep of one who has done their duty to ensure that videogame culture is a safer, more inclusive place to be lesbian gay bisexual transgendered queer, instead of having to think about the ways in which the corporate and player cultures of videogames are hostile to queers, to take any responsibility for trying to change that, or to acknowledge or give press time to the incredibly personal works that queer game designers are making every day.
Anna Anthropy is pretty much the smartest person in the room when it comes to queer game-making, and her criticism here are emphatically worth reading entirely on its own. I’m sure it’s pretty obvious what I’m responding to here, though.
She calls me out by name as someone who makes games about being queer but am tragically ignored by the mainstream press; I don’t want to speak for anyone else here, and it sucks to say it, but I have to call bullshit. I mean, I don’t make games about being queer. Sure, I’m a lesbian, and I certainly make games that aren’t hostile to women like me, and you know, that’s pretty important. But there’s a pretty big line between making a game like Digital which was written with an audience like me in mind, and making a game that’s actually about being queer. A lesbian can play it and feel like she’s not being ignored—and that’s a big thing—but it’s sure not going to teach any straight dude about that experience. (As I’ve unpleasantly found out.)
Meanwhile, A Closed World is certainly about queerness, and even if the point it’s trying to make is trite, it’s at least bloody well trying to make one. Not an interesting one, not a meaningful one, but it’s trying; I can’t claim the same thing. Anna calls out the gaming press for not paying attention to me, but frankly, she should be calling me out for not making anything worth giving that attention to. (I’m speaking for myself here; she also mentions, for instance, Stephen Lavelle, who definitely is worth paying attention to as a queer game-maker.) This isn’t me being hard on myself: she says it herself, even explaining systems of oppression is bloody complicated, let alone proposing solutions. Of course it’s easier to just bash together some JRPG mechanics and present homophobia as a monster to be killed. It offers easy answers, and frankly, answers are one thing that I don’t have.
What’s my point here? Clearly the mainstream press is interested in talking about queerness, but they have to turn to some trite nonsense designed by committee to find something they can approach. If she wants someone like me to get that attention instead, well, it’s my own damn fault for not having anything that fills that role to actually pay attention to! That sure sounds like a more worthy target of being called out to me.
