the other thing that really upsets me about the wholesome/violent game dichotomy is how the former is heavily associated with feminine/"LGBTQ- friendly" when i've always been very into Doom/retro FPS games and desperately want more of a framing of those that ISN'T late 90's adolescent masculinity - ThreadSky

ellaguro.bsky.social • 135 days ago

the other thing that really upsets me about the wholesome/violent game dichotomy is how the former is heavily associated with feminine/"LGBTQ- friendly" when i've always been very into Doom/retro FPS games and desperately want more of a framing of those that ISN'T late 90's adolescent masculinity

Comments

fragdemented.bsky.social•135 days ago

The games industry doesn’t understand how that works because they’ve never seen a successful example ( feel free to tell me if I’m wrong ). Violence in video games was born from 90’s adolescent boys that realized they could literally make whatever sounds cool.

helloemilykitty.bsky.social•134 days ago

Absolutely!Doom and retro FPS games have somuch more depth thanjust their‘adolescent masculinity’reputation. Framing them through a lens that embraces creativity, community,and individuality could open themup to so many morepeople who love thesegames but don’t feel represented by that old stereotype

friendlybot9000.bsky.social•135 days ago

Hades

doogie2k.bsky.social•135 days ago

What's your take on Supplice, if you've played it? It does seem to eschew shitty masculine framings while still being a Doom clone-ass Doom clone (affectionate), but I also (genuinely) don't know if it's enough that the PC and deuteragonist are both women.

ellaguro.bsky.social•135 days ago

there's plenty of stuff out there that doesn't perpetuate that, my point is that the binary framing kind of implies that it isn't more complex or complicated and kind of cedes a lot of space to the reactionaries

doogie2k.bsky.social•135 days ago

Gotcha. And agreed.

saintstranger.bsky.social•135 days ago

I didn't watch 80s-90s action movies for a long time because I associated them with the worst kind of dudebros. When I finally started watching them I was shocked how critical they were of the status quo.

t3hdow.bsky.social•135 days ago

I remember James Stephanie Sterling stating that about the machismo flexing military in both Aliens and the 1st Predator. Their loud bravado very quickly died once they encountered their alien foes in each movie, and they turned into scared children.

A LOT of people missed the subtext.

dirtydeeds.bsky.social•135 days ago

first blood is a very good example of this (every subsequent film is a complete 180 though lmao)

ellaguro.bsky.social•135 days ago

yeah Verhoeven and John Carpenter movies in particular, a lot of people just missed the subversive aspects of those films completely

devilrei.bsky.social•135 days ago

There’s a really big push towards cute/wholesome/“unproblematic” media in women’s and queer spaces in the last decade or so. It deliberately ignores the transgressive, boundary-wrecking nature of past creators in these spaces and it suuuuuucks

baronessofbara.bsky.social•135 days ago

Where is my fps guts n blood shooter where I play as a transfemme butch lesbian with a gay lil AI dude as my companion 😔

jtsres.bsky.social•135 days ago

There are plenty of those

baronessofbara.bsky.social•135 days ago

Names?

faethyra.bsky.social•135 days ago

Yeah, I feel like we are going back into the "girls games" epidemic that the DS era had. Like no guys wtf

harveyhallows.bsky.social•135 days ago

Ultrakill with the cat femboys has entered the chat

awoovery.bsky.social•135 days ago

Have you tried ultrakill, it's my favourite single player game ever. It's kinda like doom but with a good story, very fast movement and high skill cap. Also the community is incredibly gay

oseka39.on.computer•135 days ago

that's one reason Mass Effect is so cool

missingminutes.bsky.social•135 days ago

Genuine question, what would be exciting for you to play? My mind jumped to like a Sailor Moon aesthetic but with enemies blood-exploding like Shin Kamen Rider. That would be fun in my mind but I don't know if that's still too far into what you're describing

avianaddy.bsky.social•135 days ago

Oh boy, do I have a recommendation for you!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2610650/Incolatus_Dont_Stop_Girlypop/

joemcspider.bsky.social•135 days ago

I want to play gay Doom.

winesteed.bsky.social•135 days ago

Consider: a mod for Doom that lets you play as a woman. You design your own little facial sprite, pick out her voice, and everything else is the same. I'd fight a bear to hear a badass masc lesbian say "Hail to the King, baby." And then go fight demons.

hyacatto.bsky.social•135 days ago

There's also potential in mixing those things. A lot of people, queer or otherwise, like both wholesome and violent games. But why is it that feminine=LGBTQ friendly? Where is wholesome queer violence? Might not be making sense, I'm tipsy, but as a writer I've been thinking about this topic.

gulagsquidanomics.bsky.social•135 days ago

It’s frustrating and sad because people consume the lowest common denominator of games just because it’s marketed towards them. Gacha games should be wiped off the face of the planet.

lastyearsmodel.bsky.social•135 days ago

this is weird to me in general because, in the music scene at least, i associate queers and trans women in particular with the weirdest and most violent avant garde shit in the scene. Folks doing the musical equivalent of a Richard Kern film.

actuallythemoon.bsky.social•135 days ago

There's a specific type of pop rock band, fronted by a (usually) bi cis woman; slightly uptempo ballads; sounds like a The Beths with less talent for pop melodies; There's a hundred of them and they're always opener 1 for american emo/punk acts touring the UK

That's the queer cozy games of music

actuallythemoon.bsky.social•135 days ago

(and just like cozy games they can be completely good and enjoyable, but the template is extremely meme-able on)

ellaguro.bsky.social•135 days ago

i think in reality what you're saying is more true, but there are def people in marketing on both sides who are very invested in perpetuating the idea that one kind of approach or aesthetic is like more "friendly" and "accepting" and the other one is "anti-woke" or whatever

lastyearsmodel.bsky.social•135 days ago

yeah part of it is that the weird stuff is harder to find - thinking about it now, the first times i saw games made from trans perspectives being written about they were all weird left field experiments, with the exception of maybe christine love. now they're buried on itch.

lastyearsmodel.bsky.social•135 days ago

but i agree that your point about capitalism co-opting it is the underlying cause all around. queerness is inherently disruptive until it isn't - and in video games at least it seems we've gone from Kenneth Anger to Will & Grace a lot faster than most mediums.

michaelklein.io•135 days ago

I want a super violent and wholesome game please

xanainternet.bsky.social•135 days ago

Frankly, it's gotten me to the opposite. That cutesy stuff just reminds me of commercials and assimilationists. I want to destroy it all

koboldcommando.bsky.social•135 days ago

Yes! Once something crosses a certain "cute threshold" I can't shake the feeling of an ulterior motive and keep thinking "ok what's it going to try to sell me". Cute anime characters tend to be particularly bad about it.

xanainternet.bsky.social•135 days ago

ok actually cute anime i like, but it's context-dependent

ellaguro.bsky.social•135 days ago

this is true for most people i know imo, i'm not sure the marketing labels trying to push these kinds of binaries are really working for a lot of people but there sure are a lot of forces trying to perpetuate it

xanainternet.bsky.social•135 days ago

I just hate what i call 'aesthetic determinism'. That any art and media's message or theme or politics can be determined from its aesthetic style

Especially when "objective quality" finds a way to join in

ellaguro.bsky.social•135 days ago

absolutely - i think this has always been a problem with semi arbitrary genre labels perpetuating how people approach art, but it's become even more perpetuated in the social media age when everything is so much sold on its surface aesthetic

sphen.bsky.social•135 days ago

more 👏 girl 👏 rage 👏 representation 👏

metalwolfchaos.bsky.social•135 days ago

Still just learning how to gamedev, but litterally one of the things I want to make is a stardew-like set in the middle of a war and with some horror/hyperviolent FPS segments.

ernest-e.bsky.social•135 days ago

This sounds amazing!!

faezombie.bsky.social•135 days ago

I want more definitively gay characters, not just press button for gay options.

sidremus.bsky.social•135 days ago

so wait, you're a trans lesbian and Doom is a cozy game already, what then are the violent games you feel are not coded for you?

midnyghtsabre.bsky.social•135 days ago

Doomguy tried to be wholesome, but then some jerk-ass demon went and killed his pet bunny...

hcmjmagic.com•135 days ago

I think a lot of this binary is being created by writers.. I mean what about Riven? Balatro? This whole “if you play Animal Crossing you’re a fascist” argument is so wildly far away from the reality of actually playing/enjoying a game and all about social media politics imo

hcmjmagic.com•135 days ago

In my experience irl and online, non-violent games have a diverse fan base. We get it in our head that everything is a certain way, but I used to play FFXI with retired women, men deployed in the army, gay people, dnd nerds… I’m so exhausted by the us vs them, good gamer vs bad gamer. Let’s try love

ellaguro.bsky.social•135 days ago

it's created by marketers and perpetuated by a lot of writers/content creators i'd say (because the critical ecosystem has been decimated and is built towards just repeating ad copy)

hcmjmagic.com•135 days ago

Agree 100% about the sickness of the critical ecosystem. I really do appreciate your work I’m not talking about you here - but I’ve seen this idea in music too, that “listening for enjoyment” is capitulation to all the horrors of the earth - it’s a perspective that really bugs me

droningg.bsky.social•135 days ago

my original cozy comfort game:

fluffwyrm.bsky.social•135 days ago

Yeah, I struggle to keep up with "relaxing" sim games, I prefer action shooters and RPGs but I also make it as gay as possible because that's what I enjoy. Playing Rogue Trader, a WARHAMMER video game, and making my character queer as all hell because that's the vibes I go for

andrea.dahnberg.se•135 days ago

... i feel like we should make a game together because agreed

blastharbour.bsky.social•135 days ago

i am very glad the fighting game community is extremely gay

demonicdonut.bsky.social•135 days ago

I'd love a fem fps hero

ottonymos.bsky.social•135 days ago

I've seen a handful of boomshoots with fem/non-masc protagonists in recent years. Far from parity and still mostly binary, but here are the ones in my Steam library:
Beyond Sunset
Hedon
Ion Fury
The Last Exterminator
Nightmare Reaper
Selaco
Supplice
Wrought Flesh

demonicdonut.bsky.social•135 days ago

Ion furry is the only one I have heard of. I'm going to have to check out the others. Thank you

korean-dumbass.bsky.social•135 days ago

Yeah! Give us more stuff like ULTRAKILL

slowbroissuperior.bsky.social•135 days ago

people always wanna do boys vs girls with everything like they're still in kindergarten, it's so exhausting. just let people be themselves

sleepy-choom.bsky.social•135 days ago

That’s what I’m sayin!!! I will never understand how people can’t accept inclusivity in gaming lol like you’re over here flying through SPACE in SPACESHIP WITH FTL TRAVEL and you’re worried about how the main character identifies???? They just want the same macho bulshit

reikiricardo.bsky.social•135 days ago

Every queer game is like “what if animal crossing had LESS conflict” but what I actually want is a game where i hunt rats with broken glass bottles

baro.bsky.social•135 days ago

Are there mutant rats to hunt in New Vegas? There's a great queer game!

dahairygobbo.bsky.social•135 days ago

There needs to be more acceptance of pastel peeps picking up a Berserk pack to turn Imps into marinara, and also of big burly truckers playing something soft and cushier.
But then, I'm also playing into some pre-existing stereotypes there when people are much more complicated.

possum.seeks.quest•135 days ago

I want an gritty action game where you're defending a queer leftist utopia from an outside fascist aggressor (this is the premise of my main tabletop setting).

religionforbirds.bsky.social•135 days ago

That's why I'm out here trying to come up with games that look really wholesome and friendly...on the surface. So once the viewer is locked in I unleash the horrific, violent stuff. We need more games like that.

jackeroni216.bsky.social•135 days ago

We need the opposite as well I think. Duke Nukem Dog Trainer.

ellaguro.bsky.social•135 days ago

like as a trans lesbian i already really hate binaries in general and the idea we're buying into one aesthetic or idea as more fundamentally feminine or friendly and we're just giving up/attributing sci fi action games as all just embodying a hateful and reactionary misogyny really bothers me

ellaguro.bsky.social•135 days ago

i already really worry about our overall social understanding of the world increasingly breaking down into stereotypes and binaries in order to feed algorithmic biases that further perpetuates dominant societal biases and any market stuff that seems to directly play into that really bugs me

curtmcdirt.bsky.social•135 days ago

Uh. Holy platitudes. Good luck dealing with everything. Don’t forget to tip your therapist this season.

ellaguro.bsky.social•135 days ago

we should be expanding the ideas and themes people are willing to explore in games, not just either be an "ape 90's retro action games" or "ape Animal Crossing/Stardew Valley" space that a lot of stuff is increasingly moving towards

rockerfox.bsky.social•135 days ago

Honestly I kind of miss when people were willing to take a chance on stuff like “This War of Mine”, “Papers Please” and oddball side projects like Laws of War for Arma 3.

Now it feels like there is a million and one “_____ Simulator” games that just all follow the same formula coming out.

mobutt.bsky.social•135 days ago

Games like those still come out (1000x, Mouthwashing)!

rockerfox.bsky.social•135 days ago

They still do but I def feel like a lot would not get the attention they do without a big push from fans and creators.

Thank fuck for people like Casey Explosion and people willing to make content about some absolute gems.

rockerfox.bsky.social•135 days ago

I definitely feel like part of the problem is that people are only willing to back “safe” projects on the investor side and if something doesn’t fit into a specific box it falls to the wayside.

baro.bsky.social•135 days ago

Luckily we do have a massive indie industry constantly pumping out interesting and creative projects. They don't always hit, and often even good ideas turn out lackluster due to the low budgets and indie nature, but there's some real gems out there too!

johnpthornton.bsky.social•135 days ago

I routinely bounce back and forth between a bit of the old ultra violence and planting an adorable orchard in a quaint village. Gendering games is weird and people should play what they like.

annabellemoos.bsky.social•135 days ago

trans Doom girl, but instead of demons, its transphobes.

ernest-e.bsky.social•135 days ago

There was a canonically queer COD zombies character and they straight-washed him in black ops 6.
I am. Not. Over. It. Obviously.

spheromancy.bsky.social•135 days ago

ultrakill is gay sex what r we talkin about here

spheromancy.bsky.social•135 days ago

my bad a bunch of ppl already said this 😔🤚

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