A few weeks ago, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) announced a new project to fight homophobia in virtual communities, including gaming communities. Three months ago, I was invited to participate in a conference call with GLAAD so they could gather views and opinions about homophobia in gaming from regular gamers to prepare for an outreach initiative to…
Tag: homophobia
Vexation
After I started my new job at ArenaNet a few months ago, I was going to respond immediately to the bigoted, ignorant, and narrow-minded views of several people in various gaming communities. Since then I’ve been busy at work and at home, and frankly I haven’t been in much of a mood to blog, nor have I been able to…
“STFU and GTFO”
Priceless quote from a commenter on a recent Joystiq post about Gaymer.org (emphasis mine): I’m sick of hearing about gay gamers and female gamers. When 90% of their audience is straight men, why would any developer care about any of you? I know that trying to segregate yourselves is a lame attempt at getting a bit of love from devs,…
Real World Matters In-Game
There has been much heated discussion about the recent Blizzard PR debacle stemming from an incident in which a player was reprimanded by a GM for advertising for her gay-friendly guild in a general chat channel. The discussion expanded to debate the “visibility” of a player’s and/or a character’s sexual orientation in-game. The debate has been frustrating at times. Particularly…
TN Boffins Ask Blizzard for Public Statement on Harassment Policy
Several of the Terra Nova folk have written an open letter to Blizzard. They ask the publisher of World of Warcraft for a formal statement saying that their Game Master was wrong to sanction player Sara Andrews for recruiting for her gay-friendly guild in WOW‘s public chat channels. They also ask that Blizzard make a public statement about the issues…