"Videogames have stopped 'announcing' gay characters"

Richard Dansky, central Clancy writer at Ubisoft, posts interesting blogs on video game writing over at the Ubisoft Blog and this time he has interviewed fellow writer Lucien Soulban (lead writer on Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon). Given that Soulban is openly gay, Dansky asked him when we're going to see an openly gay main protagonist in a AAA video game:

"Oh boy. I think the real question is, When are going to get a gay/lesbian AAA hero(ine) who isn't a one-off joke? You look at Javier Bardem in Skyfall, his character's sexuality was total shtick to satisfy one scene. Otherwise, he was a narcissist with mommy issues, and a pedophile to boot. His "seduction" of Bond was nothing more than vanity because Bond was his reflection, the new "him." Yay. So it bothers me when I hear people using his performance as a benchmark for diversity in entertainment, and I have heard it being bandied about.

So when are we going to see that gay protagonist in a AAA game? Not for a while, I suspect, because of fears that it'll impact sales. So either we'll see a bait-and-switch like the original Metroid with Samus Aran where we'll find out damn near after the fact (PS: And Dumbledore was gay), or it'll come out of left field with Rockstar, Valve, Naughty Dog or Telltale, perhaps. But when it happens, I hope it's a serious take on it and not played up for jokes."

Soulban did note that things are improving when it comes to gay characters in video games on the whole:

"We'll definitely see more of them, and I think it's happening quietly. Look at the choices offered in Mass Effect II & III, or Fable III, or Dragon Age II or Skyrim, the gay characters in Borderlands 2 who mention it without much fanfare, etc. Videogames have stopped "announcing" gay characters. They're introducing them without much fanfare in an effort to say, Yeah, it's there and pretty normal. Call it: We're here, we're queer, and we're busy working."