A collage of images. A man buliding part of the set, various components of the set, a distance shot of the set which is a house, a backyard and some stairs. A game image, with Lume going up the stairs in her grandfather's house. There is a door on the bottom half.

A little while ago I did a casual review about this game called Lume.  You can check out the review here.  It was a fun game made by a bunch of people who, according to Luke Whittaker of State of Play Games, “The game started as a slightly crazy delusion that we could make a 3D game without the need for any 3D software.”

Personally, I think they succeeded in making a beautiful game.  However, you can read that in the review.  I got a message a little while ago that told me that the game has just been released on the iOS, so if you’ve got a iPhone or iPad you can pick up this little gem.

An image of a dragon, twisted around a scroll with the words 'BioWare Corp' written on it.

I’m going to make an admission: Yesterday, when I started the petition calling for BioWare to come out publicly in support of the beleaguered Jennifer Hepler, I didn’t expect them to listen. I’ve been involved in activism and the fight for social equality for a few years now, and the process has made me into a terribly cynical person.

It’s not that I thought that BioWare weren’t essentially good people—I did, and I still do—but I had nevertheless subconsciously presumed that the financial interests of a large games company would override their desire to take a stand on these issues, when push comes to shove. So when we started asking for a thousand signatures in support of Hepler, I wasn’t sure that we would get anywhere near that many.

A day later, and I’m absolutely delighted to have been proved wrong on both those counts.

Not only did we manage to get almost four hundred signatures in the eight hours that the petition was open, but I could then quite happily close it early—long before the droves of misogynists got wind of it and made moderating the comments into an increasingly depressing experience—when Ray Muzyka, one of BioWare’s co-founders, released the following statement on their forums, and through their official Twitter feed:

Jennifer is a valued, talented employee who has been with BioWare for many years and we hope will be with us for many more. It is awful that a few people have decided to make her a target for hate and threats, going so far as fabricating forum posts and attributing them to her, and singling her out for projects to which she has not contributed (i.e., Jennifer is not even a part of the Mass Effect writing team). All of us at BioWare support and will continue to support Jennifer fully, and are happy to see so many people out there are also supporting her during this difficult time.

At the same time, BioWare also announced that they would be donating $1000 in Jennifer’s name to Bullying Canada: A charity working to stop the physical and emotional bullying of young people.

This is an incredible example of what a community can do when it draws a line and says “This is not acceptable” and is a testament to BioWare as a company, regardless of what else we might think of them. It is also living proof that petition sites like Changes.org (who generated an email and sent it to BioWare every time someone put their name against the list—something which I suspect had some small influence over the speed of their response, if nothing else), and the communities that drive those sites, are most definitely capable of achieving real, measurable change.

Some of the comments we got in response to the petition were genuinely moving, and served to restore some of my faith in humanity, and the speed and unambiguity of BioWare’s response was a truly wonderful thing to see.

BioWare’s statement does not erase the magnitude of the wrong that has been done to a member of their staff, but that a company of their size would choose to come out and condemn that kind of behaviour has to be an important step along the road to making it a thing of the past. This is not to say that the world is fixed and everything is perfect and sunshine and flowers (I would, for example, strongly recommend not reading much past the first page of responses to BioWare’s statement), but it nevertheless makes me admire immensely what places like the Border House are achieving in showing women like Hepler that they are not alone, and I feel genuinely honoured to be a teeny-tiny part of this community.

As a final side-note, I would strongly suggest that anyone who is interested in the matter take a look at Quinnae’s article discussing the relative merits and flaws of what it was Jennifer Hepler actually said in the first place, which is pretty much what should have happened all along.

A screenshot of a video of the Mass Effect 3 cover for Xbox 360, showing FemShep.

This unboxing video of Mass Effect 3 shows that despite FemShep not being featured on the cover on the shelves, you can flip the cover at home and have your box feature her instead of the male Shepard.

What do you think of this?  I’m mixed between sad that she isn’t on the cover by default but happy that we at least have the option.  Progress?

Two male gnomes from the intro sequence in Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning. They are taking the main character to the Well of Souls.

Let’s take a quick break from this week’s seriousness with our regular Wednesday round of questions:

• What games are you playing this week?
• Would you recommend those games to other Border House readers?
• What games have you ranting?
• Are any of those games listed ones that you want to see covered on the site?

I have mostly been playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. I am now roughly 8 hours into the game. I like the bright art style and the combat is incredibly fun. I had originally started my character as a sword wielding fighter but quickly switched her over to a mage and both are viable options. None of the quest lines I have encountered so far have been very surprising, but I did have one or two that I definitely enjoyed (a quest involving Sister Zelda in the first town being one of them). I am still very early in the game so expect to hear more in the coming weeks.

What games have you been playing lately?

The Deep Roads -- A beautiful concept painting depicting a figure walking through the dimly lit geometric stonework of a mighty tunnel.

There were many things wrong with the recent bacchanal of hate that surrounded Bioware writer Jennifer Hepler this past week, but one of the more critical ones was this: she was being savaged for merely offering an opinion in an ongoing discussion about gaming. One of the tragedies of cultural sexism is that we as women are not taken seriously as participants in our fields; even when robust defences against misogyny are mounted, lost in the shuffle is the renegotiation of the discussion that allows these women’s views to be folded back into the discourse where they belong.

In other words, one of the best ways we can honour Hepler as a community of gamers is to take her ideas seriously and discuss them rationally, whether or not we agree.

So let’s get down to it: what are the merits of her ideas surrounding issues like skipping combat?

I have often said that combat is the central idiom of progress in most video games; across every genre you can think of—encompassing a startlingly diverse canon—combat reigns supreme as the primary mechanism by which progress is both represented and assessed. This has been handled in a variety of ways that lend distinction to various games; there are many ways to do combat. However, could there be another way forward? I believe that dethroning combat as game’s central mode of progress is one of several ways games can begin telling a whole new tranche of stories.

In the furore surrounding the public airing of edited remarks by Hepler even some of the more sensible commentors routinely conflated “combat” with “gameplay.” Some said that Hepler was calling for the “game” part of video games to be extracted entirely. I feel that if fighting has become so central to our understanding of what gaming is, we have a problem. Needless to say, an entire genre of games that many gamers look back on with a measure of fondness—Adventure games—wouldn’t exist if combat was the bread and butter of every game.

But what about Hepler’s idea specifically? I think it merits a good deal more consideration. As Susana Polo on the Mary Sue has argued, one of the third rails that Hepler’s comments inadvertently touched on was the rampant fear in some sectors of the gaming community that games are becoming easier; “dumbed down” is a phrase that appears in every one of these conversations. The eschatology of it is all rather interesting: “casual players” are coming over the hills and threatening to destroy all we hold dear. They shall burninate the countryside and burninate the peasants, absconding with our rich, fulfilling gameplay, and our deep, involving games, all so that greedy developers can make a fast buck off a growing market.

The reality, however, is very different—as many here no doubt know, at least on some level.

You may not know it, but these sheep are responsible for the death of gaming, and everything else we hold dear. Damn you, sheep, damn you!

First of all, the hatred of “casuals” (a notoriously ill-defined group) is very often a dog whistle that is meant to antagonise people to whom gaming has not catered to in the past, women in particular. To look at any online “hardcore v. casual” debate one will immediately find lamentations about “bored housewives” playing games and what a terrible thing this must be. This invariably leads to the now ritualistic sneering about Farmville and discussions about how Farmville is killing our babies and making holes in the ozone layer.

So, misdirected anger. But what about the substance of the complaint: that games are getting easier? In some senses this is true. Games lack some of the obnoxious mechanics they had in the past. Reflexes are no longer as important as they once were during the golden age of platformers. But there is a deeper truth that few of these debates get at. Many gaming companies have not declared war on challenges, they’ve declared war on tedium.

A Common Ancestor?

When I played Dragon Age: Origins I found out quickly that the Deep Roads were a scary place- both the writing and the atmospheric design bent everything in that direction. Few things horrified me in a game as much as the approach to the Broodmother (it’s up there with the abandoned hotel in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines in terms of being incredibly scary and chilling).

What pulled me out of that atmosphere? Killing endless waves of darkspawn every five seconds, if I’m to be honest. It’s arguable that’s part of the atmosphere. Darkspawn come from the Deep Roads. Where else would you put endless writhing masses of the things? But there is a balance to be found, in my opinion. Too much combat can be too much, and on subsequent playthroughs I loathed schlepping my party to Orzammar not because DwarfWorld wasn’t a ton of fun (it is, and it is exceedingly well written- many parts by Ms. Hepler, no less), but because I was thinking “Ugh… hours of killing darkspawn again. Weeeee.” It’s not because the Darkspawn were especially hard to fight, it’s because they were incredibly tedious to mow down due to sheer volume.

And my parenthetical about the VtM:B hotel? That hotel was the scariest challenge I ever encountered in a game and it required zero combat on my part. That made it more, not less frightening. My weapons could do nothing. The final boss of the entire level was my own fear. I mean that literally, the biggest challenge was overcoming the sheer terror induced by the atmosphere. No darkspawn/orcs/zombies/skeletons/mutant rats required.

Some may say the Deep Roads aren’t the best example for reasons I’ve already mentioned—and fair enough. But be real with yourself: how many times has repetitive, grindy, bread and butter combat against hordes of forgettable enemies in an RPG where they’re clearly designed as filler actually been fun at all times? Sometimes it is fun, actually. Some days I want nothing more than to mindlessly grind (don’t read too much into that sentence). But would having the option to skip combat somehow be nice? Yes.

Why? Well, explaining this requires a bit of a detour.

On The Mary Sue, one critic in the comments, Tess27, argued the following:

This is because videogames derive from a completely different branch: board games; RPGs, and in particular Bioware RPGs, are even more associated to board games since their gameplay derives directly from Dungeons and Dragons rulesets. Now when you play a board game, you don’t do it for the story, you do it for the challenge of the gameplay.

I disagree rather strongly with this. But let’s assume it’s true and that board games are the common ancestor of all RPGs. Having a common ancestor still implies evolution and divergence. I don’t play Monopoly for the same reasons I play Dungeons & Dragons. What attracted me to the RPG Eclipse Phase was entirely about its story. The mechanical system was not a draw in the slightest. RPGs are distinguished by the meaning they create whose warp and weft are synthesised by the loom of narrative. Mechanics can be important: they are the measure of your character’s progress and the almighty arbiter of her interactions in the world. That neutral roll of the dice that can decide the fate of empires.

Pictured: a D20 basking in its profound metaphorical power. (See here for more: http://www.etsy.com/listing/60669433/chompd20)

But what makes the roll interesting? The context lent by the story. You’re rolling for initiative to accomplish something. Self-perfection in the context of a game does involve, yes, raising your Strength score from 12 to 18. But what makes it satisfying is that a Str score that high gives you a fighting chance against the evil warlock who’s been your character’s nemesis since level 1.

The fight itself can also be a satisfying nailbiter, but the that tension only comes from the story that gives purpose and meaning to the fight.

Another objection must be raised at the implications of Tess’ construction. It seems to say that whatever “story” is, it’s something that’s not gameplay. And whatever gameplay is, it’s something to do with combat. I find this both tautological and unhelpful. I prefer a much more holistic view of gameplay, and it’s one that includes story. After all, much like a stat increase, advancing the plot of a game is its own reward.

So what does this have to do with Hepler’s suggestion? Endless repetitive combat is only one way we might perfect our characters. We could, instead, be given alternatives that enable other forms of gameplay. A button that allowed us to skip combat as easily as we skip spoken dialogue might be nice, but also rather heavy handed. I’d prefer non-violent alternatives, in conjunction with combat that was more focused—instead of hordes of nobodies (so bland that they’ve garnered names like ‘mobs’ and ‘mooks’), let’s have a smaller number of more interesting enemies. Allowing routes around combat at least some of the time can help us deepen our characters in RPGs.

My favourite moments in RPGs are those where I’m given a very distinct choice in how I complete a quest, and those are often the most fun and meaningful moments for me. My favourite part of PnP RPGs is not dice-rolling-as-combat but that I get XP for being my character. Put another way, I get XP for talking, trading, seducing, strategising, praying, singing, philosophising, politicking, spying, cooking, parenting… perhaps now my point should be clear. (For a similar discussion, this episode of Extra Credits should provide a lot of food for thought.)

The idiom of progress needs a bit of complication and diversification.

Why do We Play?

Hepler is not wrong to suggest that this may appeal to new markets. Some people criticised her for making essentialist statements about women’s taste in gaming when she said:

“The biggest objection is usually that skipping the fight scenes would make the game so much shorter, but to me, that’s the biggest perk. If you’re a woman, especially a mother, with dinner to prepare, kids’ homework to help with, and a lot of other demands on your time, you don’t need a game to be 100 hours long to hold your interest — especially if those 100 hours are primarily doing things you don’t enjoy. A fast forward button would give all players — not just women — the same options that we have with books or DVDs — to skim past the parts we don’t like and savor the ones we do. Over and over, women complain that they don’t like violence, or they don’t enjoy difficult and vertigo-inducing gameplay, yet this simple feature hasn’t been tried on any game I know of.”

This is a complex discussion that deserves more than the bookend I’m consigning it to. My view on the matter is that there is truth to the idea that mothers in particular are overworked and have demands placed on them that fathers or non-parents are less likely to experience. A cursory survey of the sociology literature reveals this (Arlie Russell Hochschild’s The Second Shift remains the most accessible example). I don’t think it’s essentialist to point out that mothers in particular may have a harder time making room in their schedule.

That said I think she could have chosen her words more carefully when she talked about what she feels women want; certainly a lot of us like violent and vertigo-inducing gameplay. I do not feel that antipathy to violence per se is something especially invested in women, and it may be more reasonable to suggest that what we (and a lot of men, for that matter) are really pushing back against is time wasting tedium whose sole purpose appears to be to win a highly contrived contest.

One of Hepler’s points, however, was that she finds it hard to convey to outsiders that games are more than that, and she feels that allowing options to gloss over or skip combat entirely may help emphasise another side of games entirely. I suspect that’s what she meant when she said:

“I really believe that there is a large group of women who enjoy other genre products (from fantasy romance novels, to anime, to the Lord of the Rings movies), who would enjoy an interactive RPG story with some of the more logistical challenges removed, but I honestly don’t know how to let them know it’s out there.”

Part of what made World of Warcraft so appealing was that it transcended the masochistic gameplay of games like Everquest which seemed to revel in tedium-as-challenge. This was not just offputting to, say, working mums with busy schedules (after all, a lot other of women did play EQ), but to everyone. Plenty of men wouldn’t play either simply because they had too much else to do. WoW changed this by allowing MMO game play to be progressively reduced to bite sized chunks that you could add up to a massive whole at your own pace.

Now Hepler and others have pondered how we can take this to the next level by allowing players to not only take things in chunks (after all, in single player games Save and Reload do that for you) but how to have more input on the nature of the content itself. That’s a worthy discussion.

WoW not only allowed you to take content in bites, but it reduced overall tedium. The death system was dramatically relaxed, rest XP was introduced (remember the fury when that was first announced?), the amount of crap you had to kill was scaled back, and it got better and better as time went on. Quests began to reliably drift away from the Kill 10 X schema and towards various modalities of questing that made places more memorable and interesting. In Wrath of the Lich King, what could’ve been a boring quest to gather lumber turned into an interesting micro adventure wherein I got to commandeer a Goblin shredder.

Not to be trite about it but creativity yields more fun.

Instead of taking Hepler’s comments at purely face value, we should see her words as a starting point that invites us to think more deeply about why we play. We won’t all agree on a “skip combat button” but her idea raises a welter of issues that we do need to consider as a community, for both the sake of inclusion and the sake of artistic originality. Already with Deus Ex’s “conversation bosses” and Mirror’s Edge “Pacifist” achievement, we see some glimmering examples of possibility. My hope is that the adults in the room can continue talking about Hepler’s comments and those like them, and see where they lead. Hepler’s proposition should not be seen as a binary yes/no question, but an invitation to think more deeply about why we play and where we’re going with it.

Edit: Rock, Paper, Shotgun posted an article today which also takes on the argument surrounding skippable combat. Worth a read for sure!

As Alex mentioned yesterday, over the last week or so BioWare writer Jennifer Hepler has been subject to some pretty vile abuse based on her weight, gender, and for her feelings about promoting inclusivity for women and gay characters (and players) in the gaming industry.

As a fat, female gamer (not to mention one who gets a lot of flack for playing games on ‘Easy’ so I can just enjoy the stories), I can honestly say that I haven’t dared to look at any of the comments that were made about her. In short, I’m not sure I could cope with how angry, impotent and upset it would make me feel. I genuinely cannot imagine what it must be like to have torrents of that kind of abuse targeted directly at you. And so instead I started thinking about what I could do to show her that she is not alone, and that she doesn’t have to feel as though the whole world thinks that she should kill herself just for being who she is, and for standing up for what she believes in.

I didn’t know much about Hepler before I got up this morning and saw Alex’s article, but from what I’ve read since, it look as though she’s had a hand some of the things about the Dragon Age games that genuinely gives me back a little bit of my faith in humanity.

Although I’ve written before about how BioWare can make mistakes, I still pretty much consider them to be ‘one of the good guys’. So, I figured I would start a petition calling on them to release a public statement supporting Jennifer, and condemning the putrid, disgusting sexism and homophobia that’s been directed at her by some of their so-called ‘fans’.

I’d ask you all to consider signing it, and passing it on through places Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter. If enough of their consumer base starts shouting about it, hopefully BioWare will start thinking seriously about taking a public stand against this kind of prejudice and discrimination.

Sign the Petition

Jennifer Hepler is a writer for BioWare who has worked on Star Wars: The Old Republic and the Dragon Age series. She’s also the latest target of gamers’ misogynist rage for the crime of being a woman with an opinion about video games that some assholes on Reddit didn’t like.

How the whole thing appears to have started is someone posted a combination of quotes from an interview from 2006 that doesn’t exist any more, as well as quotes that were entirely made up, on the gaming sub-Reddit in order to have a rant about how Hepler is “a cancer that is poisoning BioWare.” The thread was eventually deleted because of the attacks and the false attributions. But that wasn’t enough: angry gamers took to Twitter instead, harassing both Hepler and the people who offered support, and apparently even going so far as to make harassing phone calls to her home. Things escalated further when Hepler dared suggest that sexism played a part in the hatred. Right, and sexism played no part in the harassment of Jade Raymond, either, did it?

There’s a homophobic element to the attacks as well, with gamers (TW) accusing Hepler of “screwing up Mass Effect by making Shepard gay.”

The bulk of the outrage appears to have stemmed from two interview answers where Hepler talks about not enjoying playing games and offering up the idea of skipable combat for players who are more interested in a game’s dialogue. Notice the title of the thread where the quotes in question come from: “BioWare aims to get rid of gameplay from games.” Because someone on the writing team is going to have that much control over game development. The outrage here speaks of both jealousy–she gets to make games and she doesn’t even like them!–and a complete ignorance as to how game development actually works.

But more importantly, she’s talking about making games more inclusive and suggesting that people play games for different reasons and in different ways. This is at the heart of why the misogynerds are so angry: the industry is changing, it’s been changing for a long time, and it’s no longer the sole domain of misogynist nerds like them. The sheer entitlement that these people have, that games should cater to them and only to them, is astounding. For them, making games more accessible and inclusive is the exact opposite of what games are for: bragging rights. It’s not cool to tell people you beat a game when the option to skip combat entirely is there, is it? But games aren’t just skill challenges any more; some games are more interested in telling a story with the player, rather than blocking most people from even finishing them.

As Thess puts it:

So … to the immature dipshits: You are going to have to share your toys now. You are going to have to share your video games and your comic books. You are going to have to accept that we like these things, and that they will become more inclusive and not just cater to insecure, homophobic, insular fuck-knuckles on the basis of that liking. You are going to have to go back to fucking kindergarten and LEARN TO SHARE. And if you don’t like it? You can actually ignore the fact that it’s there and play it the same old arsehole way you want to. The potential for story-heavy or story-only play; the possibility of male LI for male Shepard; storylines that actually involve some depth and do not entirely rely on blowing people’s heads off and being lauded as a hero for it? THEY DO NOT HARM YOU BY EXISTING.

To summarise the summary: GROW THE FUCK UP.

This sort of immaturity is misogynist for the same reason people calling The Sims not a real game or talking about how casual gamers are ruining video games is misogynist: it’s based on a fear of girls getting into the clubhouse.

Update Feb 21, 2012: BioWare co-founder Dr. Ray Muzyka released a statement in support of Jennifer Hepler here. In addition, BioWare made a donation to Bullying Canada and encourage others to do the same.

The following is a guest post from Anna Anthropy:

Anna Anthropy is a white transwoman, game designer, critic and sadist, a classic dyke in the “Elizabeth Bathory” mode. Did you know her first book is coming out in March? Now you do, and you’re so excited for it!

on february 15, kotaku ran a “feature” on dani bunten. i’m not linking it – you can find it pretty easily if you want – because it’s disrespectful in a way that, as a transgendered woman, makes me cringe. the article, written by luke plunkett, perpetuates a misinformed attitude about trans people that is downright dangerous in a culture in which we’re already as marginalized as we are.

specifically, the kotaku article is rooted in the idea that a transgendered woman lives a dual-gender identity, that she “was male” prior to her transition. the article opens with a photo of a trans game designer pre-transition, and goes on to refer to her by her given (birth) name and male pronouns. halfway through the article, it springs her gender identity upon the reader like a plot twist, finally showing us a picture of her post-transition and using her chosen name and pronouns. if a feature on me called me by my birth name and had a picture of me with a beard, i would shit myself and then the author.

as a transgendered woman, let me DISPEL SOME MYTHS.

transition is not some BEFORE / AFTER DIET PILL AD. a transgender woman isn’t a man before she A) chooses to identify as a woman or B) has her genitals operated on. and the latter is in fact irrelevant to the former: i identify as a woman, but i have no plans for surgery. when you are born into this society, you’re assigned a gender. i was assigned “male.” but though i spent many years struggling to fit myself into a male identity that doesn’t mean i consider myself to ever have been a boy or man. i had not yet come to terms with my identity as a woman.

identity is a complicated thing, one that every person, trans or otherwise, experiences differently, and i can’t claim to speak on the late dani bunten’s behalf. but i can speak as a trans woman who deals with transphobia on a daily basis, especially in spaces related to videogames. and i can tell you on authority: if someone identifies as a woman, you call her a woman. if she internalizes female pronouns, you use female pronouns to refer to her. if she tells you her name, you use that name and not one that was chosen without her consent. oh, she expressed regret once about leaping into surgery she might not have needed to get? doesn’t invalidate her identity.

transphobia is rampant in games culture: it’s dangerous to all transgendered people and all women. it’s dangerous to everyone who participates in this culture. i remember a tigsource thread on “girl game designers” where someone said: “if you go on a blind date with a female indie game designer, you have a 50% chance of ending with a dick in your a**” (i think the word the poster dared not type is supposed to be “ass.”) to perpetuate incorrect myths about trans people and our identities is grossly irresponsible for a site like kotaku.

i posted on twitter about the article this morning, angrily, because I WAS FUCKING ANGRY. stephen totilo, who currently runs kotaku, reacted defensively, calling the article an “earnest tribute” and that he thought the “word choice” was “valid.” he didn’t say this to me, of course. i don’t know whether he blocked me or was simply ignoring me, but he refused to engage me, tweeting his responses to my concerns at courtney stanton, who i think was retweeting my tweets so that he could see them. while i was writing this post he finally buckled under the pressure of piles of tweets from trans people and allies, and changed the pronouns in the article and announced plans to change the top photo, but that doesn’t address the fact that the article – whose title includes the words “transgender video gaming pioneer” – is more about the novelty of bunten’s transition (“the narrative,” as totilo put it) than her actual contributions to videogames.

so let me tell you about dani bunten and how much we all owe her. she was one of the earliest voices in games to recognize that videogames were becoming solitary experiences, and that they had tremendous potential as interpersonal, social experiences that they were failing to actualize. “no one ever said on their deathbed, ‘gee, i wish I had spent more time alone with my computer,’” is the quote most often attributed to her. her digital game design was strongly informed by that of board games, which has been really good at this interpersonal dynamic thing for quite a while – her best-known game, m.u.l.e., adapts a number of traditional board game ideas, like auctions, to videogame contexts. and if you can’t see how this is relevant to my work in 2012, you haven’t been reading my blog.

(Trigger Warning- Transphobic slurs)

Poison from Street Fighter X Tekken: A young white woman with magenta hair, dressed in a white tanktop, belt choker, and black cap.

There are a lot of nay-sayers to social justice activism, even jaded, pessimistic gamers within the cause who feel big companies who profit off of the discrimination of minorities will never change. It’s easy to see why, with years of writing, speeches, and conventions only chipping at the seemingly invulnerable armor of those who hold the most sway in games. While the tireless battle still continues, I believe an experience of mine lends a little hope.

Senior Editor at GameCritics.com Brad Gallaway is a subscriber to Playstation: The Official Magazine (PTOM), and noticed in the recently released March issue an article about Capcom’s upcoming Street Fight X Tekken. The article posed teams of fighters against each other in a mock tournament, writing snippets in a sports-caster/trash-talking way in good fun to add some hype to the game’s release next month. Good fun until Gallaway saw this written about one of the characters, Poison:

Excerpt from the article, reads: "The Final Fighters: Hugo and Poison. You really don't want to know why these two are paired up. Hardbodied she-male (?) and permed 'roid rager; a logistical nightmare. Just rest assured that someone online has written something far worse."

And this:

An excerpt from the article, reads: "It's King vs Hugo in the wrestling stakes, and Yoshi vs. Poison in the "what the hell are you?" stakes. And to be honest, the Tekken originals have the edge from the start -- maybe because we actually know what we're doing with them. There's so much of Hugo to hit that big man takes quite a pounding, and ol' Jag-Head and Ninj-Face have no qualms about putting their collective boots into their maybe-lady opponent."

For those who haven’t followed Poison and her controversial history, it could be said that she is video games’ first and most popular transgender character. Though many things that surround her are problematic, and Capcom won’t officially comment on her identity, she serves as an idol to some transgender gamers as a recognition that they exist in their favorite activity. There are many arguments for and against her, but what actually matters is how she is treated by Capcom and media.

Despite her notoriety, Gallaway didn’t like what he saw- unchecked transphobia in a major publication. Reaching out, he couldn’t find many people who reacted strongly to it, most likely because the community is used to seeing incidents like these brushed off with non-apologies. Eventually he brought the issue to me, and I knew I couldn’t let it die. Thankfully, I was able to get in contact with PTOM’s Editor in Chief, Roger Burchill, and bring the matter to his attention. Here’s a little snippet of what I said to him:

“I was very surprised this slipped past the editing process. I understand that this is meant to be in the spirit of trash-talking, but if sexist and racist slurs would be unprofessional to publish, I believe the same applies transphobic language. Any public support for your transgender subscribers and confirmation that transphobic hate speech is unprofessional and unwanted would be extremely appreciated.”

I find that while society is becoming more aware that discrimination exists, we are still learning what to do with it. Being accused of discrimination is a hefty charge, and all parties involved might not know how identify and resolve the problematic behavior. In the end, I didn’t want to call Roger or anyone at PTOM transphobic, because that’s most likely not the case. Instead, I wanted to identify to them “Hey, that’s not cool” and gain assurance that they don’t stand for discrimination at their publication. Because in the end, that’s what we’re fighting for, right? Recognizing what’s wrong and resolving to remove discriminatory and oppressive qualities from our actions? Here’s how Burchill responded:

“[U]ltimately the blame lies with myself as I performed the final edit on that piece. I did initially recognize the inappropriate nature of the passage and did attempt to change it to something less offensive while retaining the trash-talking “voice” of the piece. As evidenced by what made its way into print, I did a horrible and clumsy job. I was not happy with the edit when I made it and I regret that I didn’t listen to my inner voice at the time I approved it to publish. The obvious solution was that I should have changed the passage to something that doesn’t pander to the basest elements of gamers and people in general. I failed badly in this instance and I pledge to do better in the future.”

Done and done. Perfect. I was surprised and relieved when I got his response. Too many times have I received non-apologies or accusations of being too sensitive. It was almost too easy, however, I realized that this wasn’t exceptional behavior; it was just being compassionate and professional. I know of some online publishers who could follow Burchill’s example: find out why what you did was wrong, honestly apologize, and make a stand for higher standards next time. His apology wasn’t just to me, but to everyone for contributing to a problem that plagues our industry. PTOM will be running my letter in the Mail section of their May issue, publically apologizing to their subscribers, and using the incident to bring into light the undercurrent discrimination in gaming. Thank you Roger Burchill, because this is what a decent human being would do, despite how rarely it happens.

This is also a testament to the power of allies; to my knowledge, no one else involved in contacting PTOM was transgender besides me, but I had a few hands help me along the way. Just because you may not be a certain minority doesn’t mean you can’t stand up against their oppression. What’s more, it’s not a shameful to be an ally. The more visible it is that everyone has a stake in fighting against discrimination, not just those offended, the more others will feel inspired to take their stand and push us forward to a place inclusive and safe for everyone. PTOM might not be scouting for transgender writers and producing a fixed segment on social justice activism, but I believe if this attitude is adopted across the industry and games media, it won’t be long until that does happen.

Figures in the colors of the rainbow hold hands.

At long last, the latest episode of The Border House Podcast! We’re changing up the format to be a monthly release and hopefully tackle more serious and current topics to make each especially worth it. Anna and Kim join me to talk about safe spaces and moderating ideologies, and I think we covered some ground on the topic. Be sure to comment with questions, comments, and suggestions!