Gay pride day may have been last month, but that didn’t stop the clan “Rough Trade Gaming Community” from organizing their first ever gay pride parade in FFXIV: A Realm Reborn. It looks colorful, joyful and celebrates a decision from the game’s producers.
Game producer Naoki Yoshida said that Square Enix was wrong to initially ban same sex marriages:
Why should there be restrictions on who pledges their love or friendship to each other? And so we decided to go this way.
Rough Trade Gaming Community describes themselves as a clan that spans numerous MMOs, protecting people from hate speech and helping each player feel free and safe online. Nice idea and great to see some virtual LGBTQ support as well.
Arranging themselves by armor color to replicate the rainbow flag, casting occasional spells to seem even more festive, the players walked along the piers to show their support of the cause much like real-life parades. Check out the video:
It seems that LGBTQ representation in games is becoming increasingly accepted. It doesn’t take away from the enjoyment that straight gamers experience, but it can make gamers from all walks of life feel more included and recognized in their game of choice. Here’s hoping that pretty soon we won’t have those same silly controversies about gay marriage excluded from games; they should be just as natural a part of a game as any other mechanic, story or style. The world is a varied and wonderful place and the sooner games can reflect this, the sooner they can benefit from all that variety has to offer.
Last Updated: July 23, 2014
Alien Emperor Trevor
July 23, 2014 at 15:18
In related news, I spotted this in the Steam room last night.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/312970/
Gerhard Davids
July 23, 2014 at 15:22
The “Lesser spotted gay cast game”. Nice find.
Hammersteyn
July 23, 2014 at 15:20
We could make a massive parade with Planetside 2 even though we only have purple, red and blue faction colours there is different camo available. But I doubt if it can last ten meters without someone shooting.
Gerhard Davids
July 23, 2014 at 15:23
“But I doubt if it can last ten meters without someone shooting.” Innuendo or no? I like to believe yes.
Hammersteyn
July 23, 2014 at 15:23
Oh Snap.
Brady miaau
July 23, 2014 at 16:05
In-your-endo?
Terry Prattchet , Lords and Ladies, Nanny Ogg *edit*, May have not got it perfectly right, the quote or the book. She said it to the dwarf Cassunda (whatever the spelling)
Rince&pop
July 23, 2014 at 15:26
You could borrow some pink from Umar? *runs
Hammersteyn
July 23, 2014 at 15:35
http://d3dsacqprgcsqh.cloudfront.net/photo/av03brW_460sa_v1.gif
Rince&pop
July 23, 2014 at 15:36
I call overuse!
Hammersteyn
July 23, 2014 at 15:44
You call overuse on Kevin Spacey but pink hair is fine?
*Sigh
Rince&pop
July 23, 2014 at 15:49
That’s LE sigh dammit! Have you learnt nothing!?
Alien Emperor Trevor
July 23, 2014 at 15:54
Overuse?…
Hammersteyn
July 23, 2014 at 15:54
Heh well that’s your thing, Kevin Spacey is my thing.
Brady miaau
July 23, 2014 at 16:03
What a suspect thing to say, in my usual mean way
Hammersteyn
July 23, 2014 at 16:06
Dammit Ive done it again
Brady miaau
July 23, 2014 at 16:07
🙂
NO BRITNEY SPEARS SONGS, please!
Morne Nell
July 23, 2014 at 15:23
Having it there is one thing enforcing it onto people is something else, same with language in games
Alien Emperor Trevor
July 23, 2014 at 15:30
How is gay marriage forced upon people in a game? Or am I misunderstanding what you’re saying?
Morne Nell
July 23, 2014 at 15:35
What I meant was it should not be enforced in the future, not that it is there yet
Rags
July 23, 2014 at 15:51
Yeah man, I hate it how games these days enforce things on you. Just can’t stand the violence when I play Quake. Do I really need to shoot people? Why are they forcing me to do these evil things?
/troll 😀
Alien Emperor Trevor
July 23, 2014 at 15:52
I know right? I thought I was buying a peaceful seismology sim. That title was false advertising.
Anon A Mouse
July 23, 2014 at 15:30
…..
Brady miaau
July 23, 2014 at 16:01
Amusing play. I especially liked the movie rendition, with Kenneth Brannaugh (Spelling?)
Anon A Mouse
July 23, 2014 at 16:06
It’s Kenneth Branagh, and yes it’s one of my favourite Shakespearean plays.
Brady miaau
July 23, 2014 at 16:08
And the movie has Emma Thompson in it, who just seems to look better and better as time goes by. See Love Actually for reference
Weanerdog
July 23, 2014 at 15:59
So Atari has decided to tap into the LGBT community and are working on a city builder where you can customize your own floats. It seams like there may still be space in New Mexico.
Brady miaau
July 23, 2014 at 16:04
I do not understand why this is newsworthy.
Or am I too liberal and do not fully understand the issues?
Anon A Mouse
July 23, 2014 at 16:09
Hence my picture below.
Weanerdog
July 23, 2014 at 16:14
The LGBT community have pride marches as a show of solidarity so that they can support each other due to discrimination and abuse. Remember that these people are denied some pretty basic human rights and face all sorts of abuse such as corrective rape in SA.
So now we have an online march so that online community members can show similar solidarity.
So why is it not important to you, maybe because it is not really for you.
Brady miaau
July 23, 2014 at 16:46
Good point. I did not consider the “real world”, such as the issues in South Africa of corrective rape and so forth. When I first saw this I only saw it in the context of games and “fake” worlds games are played in.
Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek partly to have a multi-cultural, multi-racial crew working together, with the same goals and ideals. So perhaps my initial though, of why is this here, was not correct and perhaps games can and should be a vehicle for social change.
That road also has many, many bumps on it. I imagine games like COD and Battlefield may have problems in the social change regard.
Thanks for the feedback!
Weanerdog
July 24, 2014 at 09:33
To be honest I didn’t even get the IRL Gay Pride until fairly recently.
As to COD etc, I think that there is a very, very long road to go.
Pieter Smal
July 23, 2014 at 16:29
Horrible music!