Boys Love Playing with their Joysticks: Video Games Get Gay

UPDATE: The NYT on Comic Con. The LAT: "Gay Characters Enjoy Prominence, Acceptance"

While we've been nattering in the literary nursery, that colicky baby called video games has grown into a Goliath bigger than film. Hollywood brays ad nauseum if a movie grosses $150 million in its first weekend, a feat they've only managed five times, but in its first day on sale in the US the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops earned $360 million.

Likewise:

The bestselling DVD of 2011 was Harry Potter & TDH, Part 1 with 7.0 million copies. The bestselling video game was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 at 12.4 million copies.

Total US dvd + blu-ray sales for 2011: $9.5 billion

Total US film box office ticket sales for 2011: $10.2 billion

Total US video game sales for 2011: $17 billion

 Slowly, the nerds of the gaming world are inching toward LGBTQI inclusion. A breakout year was 2009, when Sims 3 finally allowed same-sex marriage (+ nude proposals), and Dragon Age included the clip above. Since then more games have let players steer male characters into gay adventures with hot CGI men. (Or elves. Or brainy aliens.) Even ultra hetero Grand Theft Auto released The Ballad of Gay Tony [wow] about a nightclub owner and his boyfriend in a mafia plot worthy of Elmore Leonard.

Last month, Crystal Steltenpohl posted an exhaustive, four-part examination of queers in video games in the 80s, 90s, and 00s parts 1 and 2. A quicker, lighter look is embedded below. For daily updates, read the blog Gay Gamer.

The geek and gamer paradise Comic Con opens today in San Diego. The event, which has outgrown its maximum capacity of 126,000 attendees, sold out within 90 minutes back in March. You can't say that about Book Expo. Which leads to the question, in the long run, how will teachers keep students interested in static words on a printed page compared to this type of interactive storytelling?

After the jump, two additional gay scenes and two visual stunners.

[For the novice: the pauses in dialogue are where the player chooses a response. Above, the options appear at the bottom of the screen; the player's selection is highlighted.] 

Watch this schoolyard deep kiss. But mute the terrible dialogue.

Comments

[Sandy]

Thanks for this. This is an area I never would have known about on my own. I still don't even have a cellphone much less all of this.

[best zombie games ever]

Is this really part of the game?