Yes, but honestly, I get to play a Marcus Pheonix so often (with a whiny, nearly helpless girl tagging along) it wouldn't hurt to have stuff way more diverse. Look, I don't mind a trope when the point of the game is to invent any excuse to participate in the gameplay (e.g. UT2004), but if you're trying to tell a story and every character is a trope, (I'm looking at you, Gears of War) maybe a little diversity could help the designers raise their story level a notch or two, by, I don't know, actually putting some thought into it.

Personally I'd rather have some hamfisted attempts to try and shake it up rather than just going "welp, we can't do it well so back to Straight White Men." It's easy to just accept the status quo if nobody ever tries to change it. Of course initial attempts are going to suck, but the idea is to get better, not just stick with what's easy.

Are you kidding? You're asking for diversity from Gears of War? It's far and away the most homoerotic game I've *ever* played. It's like a massive preamble to a giant gay orgy.

I see what you're saying, but I think a more pressing issue is that the quality of story and writing in our most beloved of media/art forms is so utterly shit at the moment. I think we need to get to a point where the storyline of 99% of games *doesn't* make us cringe and then we can perhaps concern ourself with a decent representation of humanity as a whole.

Video games are exploring more and more areas of art and storytelling. Not trying will essentially lead to never getting there. Yes, we can have our epic "Casa Blanca" type video games alongside our Piranha type video games. Yes, some treatments will be hamhanded (e.g. Anders from DA2, though the whole game was hamhanded), but never trying is a recipe for literally never getting there.

So I say, sure, some of the tries will necessarily end crappily, and even when they're good they'll receive unfair criticism, but the industry really shouldn't get a pass on not trying when they keep claiming art (which I believe they are, fwiw).
Not really, it's a trope of every band of brothers type war movie ever made, with some screaming and weird aliens thrown in for good measure.

That's funny and all but it'd be nice to have games with some characters who are actually homosexual and not THAT'S SO GAAAY "homosexual."

I 100% agree, though the Gears of War chaps aren't "that's so gaaaaaaay" gay, they're frat boy *maaaaaasssssssivee* overcompensation gay. Normally I'm averse to such armchair psychology but holy crap, it's soooo naff.

Sure, I'm not saying there's a point at which it's acceptable to start addressing different perspectives, rather that I find the lack of quality in writing is a more pressing issue and that once that has been dealt with to a sufficient degree it might then be worth grumbling about other things.

Still, the good thing is that the indie scene has really taken off thanks to digital distribution and that'll allow for far more interesting games with better writing made by people not so afraid to take a risk. I do see things improving because of that, I think it's *highly* unlikely we'll see anything from the big developers that satisfies for an awfully long time though.

See, for me I find things like Bioware's relationship systems encouraging. Not because they're well written (far from it, they're dumb as hell), but at least they show an effort, and they've been getting better with each game in their portrayal of gay men and women (other aspects of their writing is another story).

It just seems like saying "let's wait for other things to get better first" is a good way to ensure we're going to be waiting forever. At some point you just have to start pushing for it, because shit doesn't happen on its own.

This is true too.

Of any relationship shown in a game, I believe I've only ever seen anything resembling a good relationship handled in Ico and Spider-Man 2.

It'd be nice if it came to the point of casual conversation, like characters in RPGs sometimes chat while out on the road (I think DA2 is the most recent example of this). Just put an ounce of thought into character development, and you've got a group as accepting of a LGBT person or couple as they are of the half-dragon half-catgirl they've got in the party too.

Actually I'm more saying "let's push for better writing in the field of gaming in *general* rather than get bogged down in specificity." I think that decent representation of homosexuality and any other aspects of humanity will come naturally as a result of a general improvement in the standard of writing. For now I think we need to be saying "come on guys, average age of a gamer is 35 - we're not teenagers any more so please - stick to coding and hire some decent writers".

A bit of a sad indictment that is then. Not that I thought Ico was bad, but it didn't have much/any depth to the relationship. What it did succeed in doing very well was generating a sense of warmth/protectiveness that no other game has managed, at least none that I can think of. Half-life 2 had its moments with Alyx, but it was all a bit of a geek-fantasy.

Spider-man 2 I don't remember ever playing - though it's hard to imagine how it could do a relationship well - care to expand a bit on what made it so good?

Because the field is so sparsely populated and so focused that only one aspect of gaming can be improved at a time.

Further assumption is that Sturgeon's Law can be so easily circumvented. Hasn't proven to have been in the last 200 years; doubt the gaming industry is going to break the mold.

But "demanding better writing" is vague as hell. Better how? More diversity is as valid an improvement as any, so why hold it off for later?

There was focus on the relationship. Peter Parker was actively keeping her in mind while he was doing his Spider-Man thing. He was torn between his self-appointed duty and his love of this woman. And it's handled in showing a few different aspects. One minute he's late to a meeting with her, and another he's trying to make up and excuse to leave because he sees a crime, and another he's...doing something positive. I get confused between 2 and 3 in what all they do together at this point (in the 3rd, he's swinging her around the city on joyrides at night).

It's simple really. Write characters as actual human beings. Compare say Dragon Age 2 to Fallout: New Vegas. In Dragon Age 2 Anders comes on to you as a male Hawke, there is no actual option to let him down easy as every denial ends with a hissy fit and a massive hit in rivalry points. Normal people don't act like that. Compare Anders to Arcade Gannon in New Vegas who is a well written character who happens to be gay, it's never an issue about his sexuality. Same can be said for Veronica. Write the characters as real people and you can't really go wrong. Write characters to be some kind of love interest first and a person second and you end up with... well with Isabela.