Last month MileHighGayGuy let us know GLAAD was hosting a panel discussion on homophobia in virtual communities (aka networked video games and chatrooms) being held in San Francisco.

At the panel GLAAD screened an introductory video which in the words of GLAAD’s Director of Digital Media shows just:

how rampant and vile homophobia and anti-LGBT rhetoric is across virtual communities and how that virtual vitriol has real world impacts, especially on young children.

Here’s the video:

MUCH MUCH more video from the panel discussion is available on GLAAD’s blog here.

Also, Justin Cole, GLAAD’s Director of Digital Media also sent out an email today with some interesting quotes from the panel discussion in SF which I’ve copied and pasted after the jump:

I wanted to be part of this conversation because I grew up in a video game world that was centered around arcades – where you were physically present in front of the people you were competing against… ‘[T]rash talk’ takes on a different note when you are right there and if you were to suggest certain things about a person they would have the ability right there to do something about you suggesting it, whereas online anonymity and a lot of this competition, people don’t really have that same sort of punishment.
- Stephen Toulouse, Program Manager for Policy and Enforcement on Microsoft’s XBox LIVE service

I really appreciate GLAAD putting this on today because from a business perspective, what we really need to look at is how we can broaden the demographic and ensure this is a really safe space and people feel comfortable playing games.
– Dan Hewitt, Senior Director of Communications for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA)

I’ve been managing communities, both at EA and elsewhere, since 1994 and I was really excited about this panel because it’s the chance to open up a dialogue about how we as game developers can do our jobs better to address the situation and make our communities feel more inclusive and safer.
– Caryl Shaw, Senior Producer in the Maxis Studio (Electronic Arts, Inc.)

I felt it was really important for me to be involved because there is a difference, I think, between the way a virtual community that’s there for socializing, for entrepreneurship, for experience, the way that that community interacts with each other and the way that gaming communities interact with each other seems to have a little bit of a different focus. So, I was hoping we could have some dialogue about how those things are different and how we might approach things differently to make that difference cross those borders a little bit.
- Cyn Skyberg, VP of Customer Relations at Linden Lab (Second Life)

Yes, I think it would be great to see more positive depictions of gay characters in games, absolutely, yes, I think that would be terrific. Do I think that it has to be that way for me to enjoy the game? No. Would I like to be able to have the choice like, say, in Fable 2 where you can actually marry a man? Would I like to have that choice? Absolutely.
– Flynn DeMarco, the founder of GayGamer.net

This is something that our website has been tackling for three years. Ever since we published our first article, we’ve been dealing with the kind of things you heard on the video – I’ve received [them] in multiple emails, comments on my blog, comments on Kotaku when I used to work there as a writer.
– Flynn DeMarco, the founder of GayGamer.net

Our interactions have been a discussion, a dialogue, some way to work together – not that GLAAD has come to us and sat down at the other side of the table and said ‘okay, here’s our list of demands.’ It’s not been like that at all. It’s been educational. It’s been our ability to sit and say we don’t know the right thing to do and the right way to do it sometimes. What expertise can you help us with that will allow us to enable self-expression, safer communities? We want to know these things. It’s my team’s job to make it a safer experience on Xbox LIVE and I’m going to talk to anybody who has the expertise to do that. So our interactions have been nothing but positive and conversational.
- Stephen Toulouse, Program Manager for Policy and Enforcement on Microsoft’s XBox LIVE service

It’s very difficult for you to sustain a fiction about who you are if you spend 8, 10, 12 hours a day in these virtual communities and a lot of people now do that. So I think we’re starting to develop the etiquette and the processes for how we display ourselves virtually as we really are and as we go through those different evolutions of people becoming more open about who they are and being more engaged as a person in a virtual community, we will see a lot of these things start to shift and change. So we have and opportunity right now to kind of set up what are the mores, what are the values that we as a virtual community that we want people to adopt.
- Cyn Skyberg, VP of Customer Relations at Linden Lab (Second Life)

This is one of those instances where this is the right thing to do not only because it’s the right thing to do but because it also makes sense form a business perspective.
– Dan Hewitt, Senior Director of Communications for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA)

There’s a lot of opportunities for us here and that’s what’s been great about having these conversations – is it brings it up and it says: “Hey, are you thinking about this stuff when you’re making your game? Are you thinking about it when you’re doing the design? Well you should be.”
– Caryl Shaw, Senior Producer in the Maxis Studio (Electronic Arts, Inc.)

Tags: homophobia in virtual communities

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 10:36 am and is filed under Mile High Gay Guy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.