“We Need To Pull Every Lever We Have” - Insomniac's Narrative Director Discusses Lack Of LGBTQ Content in Video Games - We talked to Mary Kenney, associate narrative director at Insomniac Games about the lack of LGBTQ representation in gaming.

Highlights​

• LGBTQ gamers still don't feel seen in the gaming industry.
• Insomniac associate narrative director Mary Kenney emphasizes the importance of designing games that make players feel accepted and important.
• The gaming industry has a long way to go in terms of queer representation, despite the significant number of LGBTQ+ players.

It can be easy to feel shunned when it comes to queer representation within gaming. Not only do LGBTQ people put up with endless derogatory, homophobic, and transphobic comments littered around every grimy corner of social media whenever a queer character crops up in a game, but a recent report showcases just how little this group is represented in the medium.

Things have changed significantly, the tides have turned, and developers are including fleshed-out and interesting queer characters in their games. Still, it hasn't been enough. According to GLAAD's recent study, more players than ever identify as gay, bisexual, queer, or transgender, and yet, only 2 percent of games on major consoles and PCs include queer characters.

Mary Kenney, an associate narrative director at Insomniac Games, opened up to me to give her opinion on the "heartbreaking" state of LGBTQ representation amid GLAAD's report.

LGBTQ Gamers Don't Feel Seen​

Kenney, who started her career as a journalist, has written for some of the industry's most popular video games. From Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Batman: The Enemy Within to The Walking Dead: The Final Season and the upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine. Kenney has helped construct some of gaming's most diverse characters, like Clementine and Violet from Telltale's The Walking Dead, but freely admits that more needs to be done in game development to make LGBTQ people feel like they are an important part of video game structure now and also its future.

In a moment of reflection, Kenney credits the late great Danielle Bunten Berry, a trans woman and pioneer game developer who created one of the first successful multiplayer games on the Atari platform, M.U.L.E., Kenney says that Berry's influence on the game industry was a powerful presence as she often "spoke about video games as a means to create connection" due to her unwavering advocacy for online community spirit. "In the decades since, this has proven true in fan communities, conventions, and multiplayer games," says Kenney.

Delving into GLAAD's latest report, Kenney offers up two important insights. While one is a positive and welcoming outlook as often the LGBTQ community wants to seek out safe spaces so they can feel accepted, the other is extremely worrying and disheartening. "The GLAAD report tells us something key - games are a way for LGBTQ people to socialize. But it also tells us something heartbreaking: that LGBTQ gamers don't feel that developers are thinking of them when they design games."

Thankfully, there hasn't been a shortage of LGBTQ developers over the years. We have seen incredible talents coming from the minds of people like Maddy Thorson, who created the transgender character, Madeline, in the game Celeste, Cathryn Mataga, a transgender programmer and founder of the independent video game company Junglevision, who worked on X-Men: Reign of Apocalypse as well as Spider-Man 2 and also D.E. Chaudron from Larian Studios, a queer and nonbinary video game developer who worked on Baldur’s Gate 3 - to name only a few.

We Need To Pull Every Lever We Have​

Kenney echoes this evidence by saying "There are so many LGBTQ developers, and we want what players want - to design experiences that tell the player we're here, we're important, and we belong." This could become increasingly difficult as we see more and more pitches turned down amid one of the worst years ever for gaming. However, Kenney remains adamant that something has to give way to allow change to happen.


"We need to pull every lever we have," Kenney says. "Characters, community support, mechanics, to make it so. It's a subject she's clearly passionate about, and her insights are thought-provoking.


Even though the gaming industry is touted as the modern entertainment giant and is worth more than film and music combined, it has a long way to go in terms of queer representation. Only 2% of games feature an openly LGBTQ+ character, in comparison with 28% of films released in 2022, and 11% of primetime TV characters in 2022 and 2023. Surely it makes better sense for gaming studios to want to include the queer community into their games due to 1–5 players identifying as LGBTQ+, since, at the very least, the financial pull is there, so what is the issue here?

Although just throwing queer characters into games isn't what the LGBTQ+ want either. Representing these characters in a meaningful and authentic way through deeply woven stories to really feel understood is what will always be needed, and more than anything, allowing LGBTQ+ people to feel truly seen in the process.



Link

 

[Echo_Ender]

I should also point out that Thorson decided Madeline was transgender retroactively.

/v/ had a dive into this a while back and basically confirmed that they arbitrarily changed the character into a troon so the game would show up under all the 'Trans' and 'LGBTQ' tags and get a bunch of free press from the alphabet people after the initial release sales started fading.

It seems to have worked, unfortunately.

What is this modern obsession these identity groups have with "being seen"? Yes we already see you well enough as you won't stop cramming gays, cripples and coons in every piece of media imaginable. If we saw you any more we'd all go blind.

The other thing is that when you try to get away from things and people you don't like in real life, only to find them shoved in every medium you try to escape to...

It starts turning dislike/annoyance I to outright hatred really fast.

I used to not really care about gay characters in games. But now I roll my eyes every time. And if I see trams stuff, I'll automatically pass on it, even if the game seems decent.

 

[DoomsdayElite]

LGBTQ gamers still don't feel seen in the gaming industry.

They will never feel seen because they're psychopathic narcissists and they can never be satisfied. They would burn the fucking world down for head pats and "validation" on Reddit. They pushed their degeneracy to the limit-and beyond it-and now people are revolting.

 

[Rudolf's Friend]

It seems to have worked, unfortunately.

Dunno how much it worked but what I do know is what came out of it is the Sharty trying to doxx Matt Thorson. Dunno how successful they were but I believe they were able to track him down to a certain area.

Anyways i was looking to try and find out info about this bitch, and this was the best that I could come up with her, so i'm not sure if it's exactly her

Spoiler: unconfirmed doxx

This private information is unavailable to guests due to policies enforced by third-parties.

I do know through her linkedIn that she lives in the Chicago area, and from her IMDB and website she was a former failed actor who went into Games Journalism writing dogshit for Kotaku that got her a job writing games for whoever succeeded Telltale Games and now for Insomniac. Based on the fact that she had acting gigs in the mid 2000s, i'm assuming that she's in her 40s-50s.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2338569/

The main issue with finding out where she is, is that she hasn't exactly shown an email address for her to contact to. there's a website that she has people contacting her with, but that's about it.

https://www.marykgames.com/contact

 

[Kane Lives]

"Gradually, I begin to hate."

 

[D.Angus]

Your games were much better when you were under constant crunch.

Spoiler: PS

You're all still mad that a character called "Gay Tony" is the best written gay character despite the fact that fag is dropped every other line.

 

[Wodanaz]

We have seen incredible talents coming from the minds of people like Maddy Thorson, who created the transgender character, Madeline, in the game Celeste

Excuse me, I couldn't help but point out that this is pure tranny cope.

It has also become painfully obvious to me that I, myself, am trans. But these are things that I was not aware of during the development of Celeste, where I was writing Madeline and speaking from her perspective. Creating Celeste with my friends helped me reach the point where I could realize this truth about myself. During Celeste’s development, I did not know that Madeline or myself were trans. During the Farewell DLC’s development, I began to form a hunch. Post-development, I now know that we both are.

The developer straight up admitted that Madeline being trans is a retcon, and was never the original intent. Anyone with a brain could see that, but I guess we all know the caliber of person who becomes a troon or takes them seriously.

 

[sirthisisanarbys]

 

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

Yeah, Spyro was total dogshit because the Professor didn't butt fuck Hunter and Elora wasn't a tranny. She was a faun, you dork.

 

[Otterly]

The idea that unless what's on the screen is a carbon-copy of you, you can't possibly enjoy it?

Yeah i just don’t get this at all. It’s something I think perhaps relates to this lack of sense of self. I don’t need every film I watch to have middle aged women in it as the main character, I just want plot and character. For books or films. Just write a good story. I do t care if the main character is a man, a woman, a rat, whatever. Just make it a good story.
I have asked quite a few people this; WHY do you need to see yourself on screen? They never have a good answer for that at all.
One person on here (I can’t remember who) made the point that some people watch a film and then imagine themselves as the main character or a character in it, and others need that character to be them. So the difference between kids watching a superman movie and half are pretending to be superman while the other half are pretending that superman has become them, or they’re inserted in the movie making changes for them. I think there’s probably a fairly profound point about self here somewhere if anyone can articulate it better than me

 

[Idiotron]

 

[TheArtilleryman]

Take me back



Just make fun games....
Please...

 

[Troon Meet Noose]

What is this modern obsession these identity groups have with "being seen"? Yes we already see you well enough as you won't stop cramming gays, cripples and coons in every piece of media imaginable. If we saw you any more we'd all go blind.

They always forget the implied as good people when they talk about being seen. If video games started adding a shit ton more Buffalo Bills then they'd be screaming about "being seen" like that.

The reason they want to be seen in video games, movies and television is to perpetuate the myth, especially for the trannies, that they're not perverts, sex offenders and molesters

 

[Rudolf's Friend]

Should also mention that this is what this game writer looks like

Spoiler: Dangerhair

So pretty much she’s another victim of Marxist teachers and later professors at the schools she went to. It also mentioned that she has a son, which I imagine is either from surrogacy or through adoption, but even if her kid actually is her offspring, it is most likely that in the near future she will have her son troon out at a young age, or less likely but still possible, her “son” was originally her daughter but pooned out.

 

[NerdShamer]

developers are including fleshed-out and interesting queer characters in their games.

No, they aren't

How much money did Jaws make back in the day?

How many sharks bought a ticket?

Last I heard, the sharks boycotted it because it had an Great White in it.

 

[Bland Crumbs]

You need to get back in the fucking closet.

I really want to congratulate the left. In less than a decade they have turned me from an open minded centrist into a radical right wing traditionalist.

 

[The Backwards Man]

Yes, please bomb your studio so I can laugh at you when you're out of a job.

 

[NerdShamer]

I think there’s probably a fairly profound point about self here somewhere if anyone can articulate it better than me

The short version is that this is essentially an absence of having an complete identity and an healthy range of interests. Or it's just an surface level understanding of an given topic and the "representation" stuff is an massive flex to hide it. At least the autists are generally content enough to stay within their wheelhouses for this very reason. With the fags, I'm not entirely sure, aside from trying to run an recruitment drive with it

 

[Computer Guardian]

/v/ had a dive into this a while back and basically confirmed that they arbitrarily changed the character into a troon so the game would show up under all the 'Trans' and 'LGBTQ' tags and get a bunch of free press from the alphabet people after the initial release sales started fading.

It seems to have worked, unfortunately.

The other thing is that when you try to get away from things and people you don't like in real life, only to find them shoved in every medium you try to escape to...

It starts turning dislike/annoyance I to outright hatred really fast.

I used to not really care about gay characters in games. But now I roll my eyes every time. And if I see trams stuff, I'll automatically pass on it, even if the game seems decent.

could you link to that /v/ thread?, I 'd like to see how they figured it out, becuase I'm sure it'd be pretty funny to see how one of the characters that they keep trotting out as such was done as a marketing stunt.

 

[ZazietheBeast]

Here's a thing. If you wanna make games for fags, do so. Heartbeat being a great example with the 41% off sale. But trying to force fagshit into regular video games as everyone else isn't a fag, it simply isn't going to work.

And no, trying to force people to be fags also isn't going to work. And that has been made fun of decades ago with Crab People.

So, enjoy the collapse, GG Triple A games industry, the future is Indie. Also, its important to remember that these companies are being fucked with by the government through DIE and BRIDGE which in turn came from that fuck from Blackrock who is a proud WEF member, Larry Fink. So if you want someone to blame for your failure, blame Larry like the rest of us.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

Take me back

View attachment 6017138

Just make fun games....
Please...

I think this a key point that some people are missing - the ultimate goal is demoralization. No fun allowed, because fun = distraction from the "real issues plaguing marginalized communities", or some such nonsense. Demoralized people are easy to control.