Why are there so many HGs genderlocked to male?

Hmm, guess instead of borrowing expressions I should have said the only change the gender choice makes is just the pronouns? Bc that’s all I meant in my question.

No, I definitely think it makes a difference. The more details you allow the MC to have, the more distinct and personable they become. In other words, the Main Character actually gains character.

Also, I think even simply having the option of gender over not stating it at all generally improves the experience of playing the game when you role play as that character and don’t consider it a self insert. :thinking:

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(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

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A little off topic:
I’ve noticed that most people on here are complaining about cis straight males in the media and how it relates to gender locked Male choice games
but i respectfully disagree, how many of those games or other forms of media actually have straight and/or cis Male main characters? in most gender locked Male interactive games on here you can choose to be bisexual or gay and it doesn’t really say your cis. In other forms of media it doesn’t say or left ambiguous, even in media where the Male main character goes out with a female character he might be bisexual.

Now back on topic:
I’m pretty much for gender choice whenever it’s available but I’m not against the idea of a interactive game not mentioning gender. I usually just assume the main character is non binary if gender not mentioned, which I don’t think there is a nonbinary locked hosted/choice or wip game on here.

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It was flagged because the post was rehashing points made before in this thread and not advancing the conversation. People have already explained at length why it matters to them so this post saying “why does it matter” or “it doesn’t matter” was (I think rightly) flagged.

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Nath, if a mainstream game lets you be anything but hetero they usually make quite a bit of a deal out of it. Dont you think they’d make as much a deal out of trans chars?

Not to mention… kindly cut it out with the “it’s not said it’s not there either, so it’s totally representation” rhetoric.

Representation that isn’t visible in the thing is not representation

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@RETowers the new plaza thread don’t let me post there. So I will post here. I can’t play games that doesn’t define a gender. I can’t relate with vacuum. I could play with nb in fact my favorite Versus role play PC is nb as it is clearly a person same with other spectrum choices. When game doesn’t describe at least bagely a corpse and flesh I feel playing like a Undefined player place holder with no personality. I need some base under writing my role playing experience If nothing is set nothing I have to play of. The undercover game lacks of focus and I have no idea if I am a person or a ghost that makes my attachment zero

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I disagree, The walking dead, The Last of us, stardew valley, The sims and Assassins Creed Odyssey and Syndicate all had characters who weren’t hetro and no one made a big deal about it. For choice games, I think most of the gender locked interactive games(Male or female) don’t have any romance in them and the ones that do let you be non hetro and it’s never mentioned them not being transgender. The sims also had trans characters, no uproar about that. I would like to go into more details but this might not be the thread for that.

Maybe not, but that depends on the person.There’s a character in the Harry Potter series that had just been confirmed to be gay by the author after the series had been long completed, some people said it was representation and some said it wasn’t. I believe if there’s hints that a character might be attracted to same sex then that may well gay/pansexual/bisexual and in a sense representation definitely if the author never say that character isn’t bisexual or that it’s left up to you.

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You must come from a different reality than most of us… O_ó

The games you listed caused quite a ruckus, and the Harry Potter thing? Majorly people NOT part of what Rowling retroactively added to gain cookie points said it’s good representation.
Most of the people that ARE any given minority rowling tried to snatch wokepoints from said Nope. If it isnt in the book/said while a series is going and then be put in it does not count.

And no matter how queercoded etc a character might be/appear: on page/on screen confirmation or it didnt happen

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Right, and I think that is a definite weakness of it as an approach, in addition to, as MeltingPenguins said, “Representation that isn’t visible in the thing is not representation”, which is why I mentioned in the other thread…

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I hate when they left all to interpretation… A character personality and orientation gender should be clear in a novel. Because is unfair for umbrella lgbt+ collectives even for females . Because o casually all characters no defined are lgbt + NEVER cis males heteros that are pretty well defined as alpha males.

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@Nathaniel, I think that’s kind of an unfair thing to say. That anything not outright stated could serve as representation for anyone. Because I can’t recall a single piece of media where all of that gets outright mentioned. So basically, with that statement, it shuts down everyone’s ability to address an issue that seriously affects them. It seems really unfair to just silence people by changing the rules like that.

And it doesn’t even work anyway, because did Ellie ever explicitly state she identifies as a woman or is lesbian? Does Riley? So by the logic you seem to use, that might as well be a straight male in a straight romance then. Was Dumbledore explicitly stated to be a cis man? If he’s attracted to men, maybe he’s actually a straight woman. None of the Stardew Valley characters explicitly state anything either, so having a romance with Sebastian as a male MC could actually be a straight romance if Sebastian identifies as a woman. Hell, even Dragon Age’s Dorian wouldn’t count anymore because he never explicitly states he’s cis, so he could be a straight woman too, right? The list goes on and on.

It doesn’t work like that, does it?

Sorry, I really don’t mean to jump on you personally but I’ve seen this exact argument used too often to silence people and it always feels so unfair.

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Ellie specifies that she is a girl in all the first game and first game dlc clearly as day show her kissing her first love E3 shows Ellie kissing and rimantically dancing with a girl Dumbledore is a guy last book shows him as child in a flashback and everywhere is a HE his relationship with Grinderwald is clear as a day but is more problematic. Dorian is clearly a boy as he appointed himself as male in several moments like when defended himself as bigotry and talking about his childhood

I know Mara, that was exactly the point I was trying to make.

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Sorry Irony doesnt traslate well with internet. I thought you had been played a very different games than me lol

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It’s fine, misunderstandings happen. I’m not a native English speaker either so that sometimes gets in the way of getting my point across properly too. :yum:

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From what I’ve seen from Google searching, stardew valley didn’t cause a ruckus it only was praised as a progressive story of seasons/harvest moon, Assassin Creed Syndicate also didn’t cause any except people wondering if the main character was bisexual or not, and the sims didn’t not recently anyways, maybe back in 2001 but you are correct about the rest.

I think some authors who forget about things and then when the novel/game/shows is over they remembered that they should’ve putted that but didn’t get to, so they confirm it off screen. There’s also the fact that some popular publishing/animation etc companies that unfortunately just don’t accept diverse things and the author/creator have to confirm a characters sexuality or gender off screen. I think those are majority times the case and it’s still representation. And also I remembered there’s deadpool, in all the comic books and movies he’s been in he dated females and only besides a couple of flirting with the Male characters there’s really nothing there but nevertheless people love the fact he’s pansexual and consider him representation.

I mostly meant hints, like a character does something that could be interpreted as that character might be non hetro or/and cis, like for example the recent Voltron ,there’s a gay character in there(which may or not had been handled horribly) and there was a hinted at character who maybe gay from the he looks at the Male characters and not showing any interest in the female characters. A lot of people see this character as gay or bisexual and the authors never stated they weren’t.(they stated something about a ship not becoming canon though) so it’s kind of like well they never said otherwise and the fans see him as representation.

Sorry if you took it like I’m silencing people, I don’t want it to seem like that, I just really like discussions.

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I’m sorry too, I read your post as any character that doesn’t specify their entire being could technically be anything. So you could provide a huge list of super masculine guys who are never uncomfortable being treated and referred to as a man, are huge womanizers who never act interested in men, and you could just go “Okay sure, but does this almost painfully stereotypical man say he’s a man though? No? Then I guess you can’t complain because you can’t say 100% certainly that he’s not actually a bisexual woman! And that goes for 99% of characters so you don’t even have a right to complain!”

But now that you’ve clarified your meaning, I get it and even agree that it doesn’t harm anyone for people to interpret certain things in a way that adds representation for them. So I apologize for misunderstanding too. Discussions are great, I love them too. To end this on a happy note. :wink:

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Oh yeah… Voltron… and the… gay character… who is the one who went through hell several times over and won’t be allowed to be happy… yeah…

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Out of the nearly 200 games published under the HG and CoG brand, around 4-6 are gdnerlocked. Of these 2 are female, 4 are male. Of the ones that are male, they are divided by three series and two authors. Specifically, the Infinity Trilogy, A Study in Steampunk, and the very first Choice of Broadsides. Finally all the male genderlocks are years old.

I am completely lost on this whole ‘so many’, why people care after so long, and why this is a relevant discussion to be having now given the number of female genderlock WIPs planning to be released, which would even up the numbers.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, genderlocking a CYOA game is pointless. It forces the player into a role that they have no choice in. I don’t care if the setting means a genderlock is desirable. The author of HMS Foraker was clever and simply flipped every single gender in the game, so that the story remined the same.

You want a game that discusses gender roles? Fine. But take a page from HMS Foraker. The themes, attitudes, values, beliefs, etc. are exactly the same whether you are male or not.

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