Our Gamer Panel Discusses Gay 'Warcraft' Guilds and Glamming Up 'Rock Band'

Are there games that gay gamers tend to play?

Casey Caston, Gamers Experimentations Board
Most of the gay gamers I know don’t play a lot of sports games, but there are definite exceptions to that rule. Besides which, there’s sometimes an argument by ‘hardcore’ gamers who say that sports games are designed more for the ‘casual’ gamer.

Flynn DeMarco, a.k.a. Fruit Brute, Editor-in-Chief, gaygamer.net
Judging from the things I hear around our site, I would say that RPGs are an extremely popular genre for the gays. It really seems to be a common thread for a lot of them.

JT from SF
I play Rainbow Six Vegas on Xbox 360 with 13 year olds that sound like Clay Aiken with a clothes-pin on their nose. I can’t really tell who is gay and who isn’t. But, I don’t think that there are specific types of games we tend to play. Some of us homos actually ARE into racing and sports….

Rhys Cordelle, New Zealand
I guess gay gamers might tend towards ‘cuter’ games more than straight guys. Pokemon, for example, is pretty popular with people on these boards, but I don’t know how big it is with straight men of a certain age and over.

How does being gay inform the way you play? Does it inform your choice of games or choice of songs on Guitar Hero?

Leafcatcher, Ontario, Canada
My being gay informs the way I play my preferred genre of games hugely. From all the leeway that was fully allowed the player in Fable, to all that I have to keep locked in my imagination while playing Oblivion. Oblivion does not allow for sexuality of the characters, but I know my character is queer. I know that he prefers Nords. I know that the only houses he’d use for “entertaining” his viking guests are those in certain cities.

Flynn DeMarco, a.k.a. Fruit Brute, Editor-in-Chief, gaygamer.net
Well, I suppose a prime example of this would be the game Bully. In it you can choose to have your character make-out with other boys and you can bet I do it whenever possible.

Rhys Cordelle, New Zealand
I tend to choose female characters if given the chance. I’m not transgender, not a crossdresser, nor have I ever felt that I should have been born female, but I’m drawn to strong female characters. There’s something satisfying about beating the crap out of Jin with little Xiayou in Tekken, or soloing the bosses of Final Fantasy VII with Tifa Lockheart.

Also, I only play Grand Theft Auto so that I can drive around the scenic areas listening to the 80s radio station.

Casey Caston, Gamers Experimentations Board
When the developers spend more time with the physics programming of bouncing tits than they spend on dialogue… well, that’s just too cheesy for words. (On the other hand, all those games that let you make your character a shirtless hunk, like the skateboarding and snowboarding games? Thank you very much, your check is in the mail.)

SuedeHeadSpike, Hayward CA
I really am more likely to pick Glam Rock and Girl Rock in Rock Band and/or Guitar Hero than any of my (mostly-straight) friends. So watch out, I can let loose a mean ‘Ballroom Blitz.’

My avatar of choice in Halo is an alien creature in hot-pink armour with an emblem of a flaming ninja. But when you’re in the middle of a firefight, you don’t always find time to discuss your lovelife.

Have you ever experienced gay-related harassment online? If so, what happened.

Casey Caston, Gamers Experimentations Board
Mostly it’s just the odd comments in online games. “Oh god that’s gay” and “Don’t be such a fag.” Most times I just let those things go. Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad. The only thing I’ve personally experienced like that was at a “pride march” with the World of Warcraft guild “The Spreading Taint.” We dressed our characters in pink and lavender and marched across the continent, and had a dance party afterwards. The one I attended had at least one member of the opposite “faction” make rude gestures, attack any characters they could, etc. I mean, you’re one guy facing 100 people and you’re threatening to attack them because they’re the gay guild? That’s not just homophobic, that’s *stupid*.

One of our board members was also censored by Blizzard for advertising for an LGBT friendly guild, and she went on to escalate the fight via an email string you can read here.

Giusseppe P., Los Angeles
Oh lord yes. I am a guild leader for the first LGBT friendly guild in the Nagafen server for EQ2. We are called the Rainbow Mafia. Whenever I try to load up our “advertisement,” I get the “What does being gay have anything to do with it u noob ghey suxxxorz!!” I usually get allies to support me and defend me (yep straight ones too) or put them on my /ignore list.

Flynn DeMarco, a.k.a. Fruit Brute, Editor-in-Chief, gaygamer.net
I did an interview with Trixie from Xbox.com and it was a terrific interview. Then I was gone to Japan for the Tokyo Game Show and when I returned, my Xbox LIVE mailbox was overflowing with messages. for the most part they were very positive, but there were some that were downright horrible. Everything for “faggot” to a long rambling one form a guy who claimed I was “Bringing my gay filth on to his son’s Xbox and his internet. I didn’t know anyone owned the internet…