I’ve meant to say this since a while: I think the great thing about forums like this is that we can say stuff like “I won’t play a game if it has … in it” or “I don’t like if a game has … in it”, but we don’t have to go on the google stores or whatever elses review page and leave a bad review bc of this. The author can read what our opinion about their game is and still we don’t ruin the sale of their game which could be ruined or at least decreased if for example all the people here who said they don’t feel comfortable with playing a game with male protagonist would say this on the Infinity series review page and give it just 1 star.
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Okay I’m really curious which you guys prefer. I think logically a game with an MC whose gender is nowhere stated so it’s entirely up to the players imagination should be the same as where we can choose the gender, but the difference is only an s as @MadMinnie put it. I wonder if I’m the only one to whom there still is some difference and would rather choose the MCs gender even if thats the only difference it makes.
- Gender choice for the MC
- MC with nondefined gender
- Both is equally fine
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I’m not saying you are advocating for this position, but I never understand this “only an s” business. It seems odd to talk about the letters. It’s like saying the difference between a thousand and a hundred is “only a zero”; why do you care about a zero so much?
Or saying that you defeat the dragon with a word as opposed to a sword. It’s just an “s”! I mean, all we have are words here to create the narrative for us. Which words get used make a big difference.
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It is not only an s, it is far more than that it is the posssibility of imagine new sort of characters from a shy chubby girl To a sassy guy… When I was kid only table top give me the opportunity to express myself as a charismatic powerful woman free of stereotypes due media only portrait of women was damsel of distress or meat sex toy. A weak submissive coy blushing creature putting there to catter cis hetero male fantasies. I am not hetero cis male I am sick tired of be forcing role playing as one due 99% of movies books videogames are gender exclusive male …It is easy say oh dont buy it when you are a cis man So thenlike saying don’t buy absolutely any entertainment . I play genderlocked games and some are my fabourites but I vastly find better could be free to role play as mara and see my mara in my mind is far more enjoyable to me It is not just a letter is a open window to my imagination and a posibility to be a warrior not stereotyed
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I do hope my post about “just an s” didn’t come across as me downplaying it as meaningless as that definitely wasn’t my intention and I apologize if that’s how it came across.
To clarify: I meant that the bar for making people seriously happy is really low.
Personally, I would prefer it if your creation choices made some difference (though preferably not just in a negative way). For example, I’ve heard (but I’m sure it varies) from numerous gay people that they feel like they can comfortably be themselves more with other gay people than with straight people because they feel safer and get them better than straight people. Having a gay character open up to a gay MC faster, for example, seems like a cool way to make that MC feel a little more alive and meaningful and adds variety to the different MCs. To me at least.
But underepresented people often don’t dare ask for that sort of content because even just asking for a gender option (the extra s) in a game where gender doesn’t even play a part and where nothing additional is being requested is already considered unreasonable and asking for too much by some. So imagine what responses you’d get asking for anything more than just a swap from he to she. That’s what I consider sad sometimes.
Hope that was a little clearer. 
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The problem with that is often lead to stereotypes and very hard ones. For instance I am a cis girl so games to differentiate normally assume what being a girl they believe it is. Like calling me princess and put my room WITHOUT CHOICE as pink with ponies and make me dying for make up… I hate pink mostly my friends are guys For me is easy get closer to a guy that to a many girls due my interests are here in Spain mostly masculine in my age as nerds were males until few years ago. My best friend is gay and he found easier relate with girls than me lol. So that diferenciate content will create more stereotypes than being immersive. As you will tell people that is true what they don’t think is true.
Sorry I don’t like pink and I don’t want be caled princess because I am not. So instead of iimmersion you have anger me. I hope with time authors will be more aware of use stereotypes so freely. Here this forum is a good step to erase those presumptions.
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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. 
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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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