# Overcoming gay and blind hatred to play video games

Category: Accessible Games

## Post 1 by kingettblue (Generic Zoner) on Thursday, 06-Feb-2014 0:34:01

Blind, disabled, and gay: How one game journalist deals with barriers and prejudice (interview)
http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/05/kingett-blind-gamer-disabilities-interview/view-all/

## Post 2 by UniqueOne (I'll have the last word, thank you!) on Saturday, 08-Feb-2014 21:18:09

Ok, really? It doesn't matter honestly what sexual preference you are because it doesn't take a sexual preference to play video games. Or, any kind of game. I just felt I had to say something.

## Post 3 by kithri (Help me, I'm stuck to my chair!) on Wednesday, 22-Oct-2014 20:06:56

Okay, who really cares if you are gay, straight, or whatever when you are playing a game? I mean, really unless you say right out to whoever you are playing with that you are whatever you are, no one knows and most of the time on MMO or MUD or RPG sites most people don't even play their own gender or sex anyway. Sexual preference has nothing to do with playing a video game, online game, RPG game, or card game or any other game at all.

## Post 4 by dale1982 (Veteran Zoner) on Thursday, 23-Oct-2014 8:19:05

It's like the 2 previous posters have stated. Who really cares about your sexual
orientation, or disability when you're playing a game. People will only know what you tell
them. It strikes me that this post is written by a person who will bring their sexual
orientation, or their disability to the forefront of any discussion or issue. Quite sad really.
Just my opinion.

## Post 5 by LeoGuardian (You mean there is something outside of this room with my computer in it?) on Thursday, 23-Oct-2014 9:53:35

Playing at MUDs or MMOs, an atheist has to play she or he is a theist and prostrates themselves to some gods. That isn't persecution either. Now, if you play as an atheist character, which I did once as an experiment, you will catch flack because others have more power over you based on magic powers and things. I personally found the experience stimulating and a good laugh. Although the other times I've been on a MUD I've played along with the god(s) fantasy just fine, the atheist character was just a fun little experiment.
But nobody "bullied," if you can even use that term on a game, me for being an atheist.
I've seen gay characters though, and they don't lose any access to powers for not going along with the magic part.
Take it as a fun little experiment, a parallel to society if you wish, or something else. But if you go into a game and do something other than the narrative, just like in real life, you get static. I had no problem with it, personally. I just thought it made the game kind of realistic to what I could run into in real life. And back then I was not out to anyone as an atheist.
Like others have said, though, most won't know what you really are, nor what your character is, unless you play them that way. If yu like to play unguilded, for instance, as a renegade, other characters won't trust you very well and you'll be treated the way freethinkers usually are treated in real life. If you go along, get guilded, move up and do all the right things, you get all the statist pats on the head like everyone does in real life when they do that. A good fantasy is, after all, realistic enough to reenact how people actually feel and actually respond to things. Even if it is set in a medieval or middle earth time frame. The human dynamics are all the same. And you don't have to play yourself, you can play as something else. I personally found it fun once to play as myself, and got ribbed, proseletyzed to a religion by a cleric, and so forth. It was just a laugh, because it's just a harmless little game, but also it was poignant enough to reflect real human emotional characteristics of people. Other times, I played at being a flying dragon or something, and that was a whole different experience, getting favors from magical entities for bringing them gold and things Again, it was just a game, and it was fun all the same.

## Post 6 by DevilishAnthony (Just go on and agree with me. You know you want to.) on Thursday, 23-Oct-2014 11:04:04

I only read a little bit of this article, but if I may be blunt here, you're pretty much being a shit salesman with a mouth full of samples. so they don't accept you very well. You figure the answer is to spout off a bunch of hate and put them down in return? Maybe the logic is that if you put them down enough, they'll stop putting you down and accept you? Maybe it's a case of, "Whoever has the best grammar wins." I don't know, but to me, this doesn't seem like a very good way to gain acceptance. I'm also gay. I'm not the all up in your face type. When you purposefully make a scene and force people to deal with you and treat you as special, then expect more than one type of reaction.

## Post 7 by Dentin (Veteran Zoner) on Thursday, 23-Oct-2014 13:12:09

Anthony, perhaps you should read the whole article. The guy being interviewed is hardly 'spouting off' at people.
People being jerks is a really, really big problem in gaming. My girlfriend won't play xbox or playstation games -at all-, because the harassment is so bad. If you think that victims 'bring it on themselves', you're fooling yourself. The fact of the matter is that these are really horrible communities, if you could even call them communities.
It's taken me years to clean up and kick the jerks off Alter Aeon, and dealing with them is still a daily fight.
Alter Aeon MUD

## Post 8 by DevilishAnthony (Just go on and agree with me. You know you want to.) on Thursday, 23-Oct-2014 13:40:15

My point is that people in that environment are jerks. Is your girlfriend gay? Maybe I'm making a mistake here, but I'm assuming not, and guess what? She got bullied too.

## Post 9 by LeoGuardian (You mean there is something outside of this room with my computer in it?) on Thursday, 23-Oct-2014 14:03:23

Well, Dentin, I will admit you'e an administrator, and I was a casual player, so your perspective trumps mine in this instance. There's a lot I don't know as a casual user.
Although how far does sensorship go, and how far does a person using the in-game tools like block and ignore go, I don't know. Of course, on Alter, I never experienced any problems but I also only played off and on over the past few years, so you may have cleaned things up a lot. And that wasn't the game where I played unaffiliated to gods.
You'd clearly see more than we do, as an admin, certainly.

## Post 10 by Remy (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Thursday, 23-Oct-2014 14:26:45

And this is why I stick to narrative-driven, single-player experiences. I'm all about immersion, and dealing with living people who break that immersion by being mangy scrotes is not worth my time. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy people on a social level, but if I'm going to play a game with someone it will be in person.:)

## Post 11 by DevilishAnthony (Just go on and agree with me. You know you want to.) on Thursday, 23-Oct-2014 14:32:06

I did go back and read the entire article, and the points about accessibility are quite good. Still, to me, it has nothing to do with being gay. Yes, you'll get gay haters, there are even a few here. trolls are trolls. They don't care who or what you are. They only want reactions. Even if it's just who you are, when you decide to be different and you're also up in people's faces about it, demanding to be dealt with, sure, they're gonna deal with you, and it might not always be in a good way. But if I'm playing a game, I don't walk in and say, "Hey there. I'm gay, and I'm gonna play this game with you."

## Post 12 by johndy (I just keep on posting!) on Friday, 24-Oct-2014 6:32:39

Haven't read the article so I admit ignorance as to its content. But I occasionally play AlterAeon; I'm Cleon on that game. I'm also gay. The two things are mutually exclusive. I don't even think the gay thing has come up once in all the time I've been playing the game. The only reason I bring up the two things here is for purposes of this discussion. I'm pretty out in my daily life, but I'm also hopefully appropriate and circumspect when I think my judgment calls for it. When I'm gaming, I'm interested in fulfilling quests, exploring new territory, amassing treasure and killing baddies, not getting dick or making a political statement. That's why I have to agree with Anthony that the whole gay issue might be overblown for purposes of playing MUDs or other games. You don't have to tell anyone on a MUD that you're gay unless you want to, and the MUDs that I've been on seem pretty accepting, so I haven't been afraid to bring up the fact. But really, about 98 percent of the time there's no reason even to bring up the issue at all. That's how separate the issue of gay politics is from gaming, at least in my opinion. Waving the rainbow flag seems somehow incongruous and anachronistic when you're trying to play a hero solving a quest and saving a kingdom from an evil dragon. What's the point in that context? I will say though, that I wish there were more gay themes in games, though I must say choiceofgames.com is pretty interesting and enlightened, because you can play a gay, bi or straight character, male or female. So, on a gay-friendly scale, I have to rate this site as extremely high.

## Post 13 by thezman (Veteran Zoner) on Friday, 24-Oct-2014 18:59:36

i think some people are starved for attenchen that they'll throw any idea or what ever just to get people talking it worked people are posting and talking

## Post 14 by chelslicious (like it or not, I'm gonna say what I mean. all the time.) on Friday, 24-Oct-2014 22:17:49

sexual orientation has nothing whatsoever to do with gaming, unless, as has been said, people bring it to the forefront.
ultimately, no one cares, not to mention, when you're there to play a game, that's what should be your focus, rather than blabbing your sexual orientation.