Gay Focused JRPG Fantastic Boyfriends Seeks Crowd Funding for English Translation

The small Japanese development company Lifewonders is seeking funding for an English translation of its JRPG Fantastic Boyfriends: Legends of Midearth, which features a gay protagonist.

[NicSage]

Pass.

[LostDjinn]

That's your choice. Mine too. If people want to get their Gasian on who am I to stop them though?

Gay people, straight people, people that are lesbian or trans-gender all share one thing in common. They're all people. That's the only thing anyone needs to remember.

[Mulletino]

Ok

[ChronoJoe]

Don't think anyone was contesting that fact in the first lace, Djinn.

Personally, I simply dislike games focused around someones sexuality, be they straight, gay, lesbian, or anything else.

It's kinda pathetic if sexuality is all that characterises your game / makes your game unique. You don't tend to hear games featuring straight protragonists advertising the characters heterosexuality as a selling point, yet somehow this scenario is okay when reversed.

On kickstarter the game is advertised as a 'mobile app for gay people and their allies' ... games like Tomodachi life were criticized for not allowing gay marriage, yet games like this can openly advertise the circumscribed restriction on the featured characters sexual orientation?

I'd like to see Uncharted 4 with 'straight protragonist' scrawled over it's advertisements and see how people react. I imagine the reaction wouldn't be all that positive.

[LostDjinn]

Joe, it's not about straight people changing their view. It's about respect all round. I have no right to force my beliefs on another person. Conversely, they have no right to force their beliefs on others/me.

This type of cyber panhandling/croud funding (sexuality/gender/race based) is trying to leverage divisions in gaming. If it wasn't they would simply make said game and let it stand on its' merits.

If there was respect do you think this sort of thing would be tolerated by anyone?

Why do you think so many of the same people that scream homophobe/racist/masogynist/et c. have no problem projecting their hate on to others?

Edit: Left out an "ing". Damned typos.

[Pastorfuzz]

I also pass.

[ThunderPulse]

I would never help a game like this.

[-Foxtrot]

They shouldn't really be using sexuality within the game to try and get it funded. It's exploiting sexuality.

I mean Super Mario Bros wasn't called "A Quest to save my home girl" or Zelda "An Adventure to save my Girlfriend"

[Spotie]

Zelda and Mario were never- until recently- under attack for their very nature.

[Qrphe]

>They shouldn't really be using sexuality within the game to try and get it funded

Why not? SMB is a platformer series while Zelda is an action adventure game. The specific genre of this game seems to be JRPG with eroge elements so it's doing what it's supposed to.

[-Foxtrot]

Sexuality isn't a genre though is it

Look the LGBT community for years have went on about equality and then shit like this happens which seems to separate themselves from straight people. Why? I mean it goes against what we've been fighting for years for.

[DarXyde]

@Foxtrot,

I'd have to disagree. Sexuality isn't a genre--this I agree with. But it isn't about separating themselves from straight people. More than anything, it's about gaining some representation.

Sex sells. How else were you going to get PSOne era gamers to play as a woman in Tomb Raider? They made her figure incredibly hyperbolic and gave her jiggle physics. Now, when we have a more accepting society, Lara can be represented without oversexualizing her character. Tomb Raider was pitched as "it's an action title...but to sell people on a woman, we'll make her well-endowed" and it's successfully permeated gaming culture.

Fantastic Boyfriends doesn't look very different. it's about representation and the game basically says, "it's a JRPG, which people often love... but let's make it a game with gay characters".

They're games first, but I think the idea is to trojan horse certain themes into gaming culture so they become more common. Frankly, we don't have too many games with women as leads or gay characters as leads today, but at least one group is much better represented than in the past.

[rainslacker]

Think I'd rather know more about the game than if it has a gay protagonist. I went looking for reviews, but..well lets just say the amount of porn it brought up discouraged me from looking further.

Is it a good game, or is the selling point that it has a gay protagonist? If it's the latter, well, then that's no different than trying to sell a game because the main character has big breasts or there is sexually suggestive content, or whatever.

I'm all for people funding things they want to see within gaming. But if they're going to do so, at least fund games that are worth playing, and not games that pander to a specific group of individuals in this way. Pandering to a genre, or a style is one thing, pandering to a group of people who don't know what they're actually funding based on their sexuality is just unethical. I don't like it when it's heterosexually focused, and don't think it's any better when it's homosexually focused.

[Spotie]

One thing I've learned from my own people's (black people) struggle with equality is that you have to create your own societal systems before society at large accepts you.

Until all the straight people in the world stop tripping and just accept that not everybody is like us, gays will need their own equivalents. Their own conventions, their own television networks, their own eroge. To act like they're intentionally trying to separate themselves is to ignore that the only reason they develop separate systems from the straight community in the first place is because the straight community refuses to make room for them.

[00]

that's pretty much like everything else in the world, human tribalism at work.

[rainslacker]

That's understandable. Not a very good trait of human nature, but that's society for you.

But looking at it from your perspective, are the movies(or whatever media you care to cite) that black people created good just because they were made or focus on black people? Or do they gain acceptance simply because they are focused or made by black people.

It's one thing to cater to a group, it's quite another to cater to it well and be representative of that group.

I can accept that it is fairly laughable when a group outside the group in question does try to cater to a certain group. Some of the sitcoms I've seen are just ridiculous, and IMO probably do more harm than good by perpetuating stereotypes, but that's another debate.

I don't think this game is trying to separate a group from the rest, but it's hard finding out if it's actually a good game or not. I'd like to trust the crowd-funding marketing for it, but we all know that PR isn't the best source of objective information.

[Spotie]

@rainslacker: A little bit of both. When all you've got is what you make yourself, you'll take anything you can get. It may not be the best, it may not even be considered good, but you'll take it and be proud of it if it's what your group can do. Besides, if you DON'T encourage even the mediocre, who else will? How will they get better? "We aren't gonna support this because it isn't any good" definitely won't push them to improve for the next go-round.

So even if it's subpar, it will get supported, until the abilities of those involved are up to snuff.

I don't know whether or not this is actually by developers who understand the gay community, but I can commend at least the attempt, so long as it's genuine. I'd prefer that to nothing at all, even if it's for a group I don't identify with.

What I DON'T prescribe to is the theory that any minority should wait for acceptance by the majority, rather than creating an equivalent to the best of their abilities. Not fond of that notion, especially when it's not as if acceptance is a given.

[ChronoJoe]

I feel as if that's an easy way out Spotie. Yes, there are ignorant an intolerant people out there, but segregating oneself only provides them with more reasons to identify you as different.

It further establishes you as an outgroup, exacerbating negative, out-group biases (prejudice or not, it's human nature to favour in-group members). So ultimately it simply makes thing's worse to segregate in that way.

You should be commending games like TLOU and MKX, who naturally integrate LBGT characters without making a fuss. Doing so better establishes them as in-group members, mediating negative reactions to these people. Obviously it's not going to be accomplished by two games, or overnight, however games like Fantastic Boyfriends have the opposite effect, highlighting LBGT characters as different, and actively working against what games like TLOU and MK are doing by treating LBGT characters as normal human beings.

[Qrphe]

>Look the LGBT community

How is that related to what the Japanese developers of this game are doing? It's not, the LGBT community isn't one person nor have them claimed to be speak for them.

[hazelamy]

you're actually dictating what the game creators can or cannot do with their game?

interesting.

[gangsta_red]

That mobile domination!

[Enigma_2099]

Not interested, but I wish them luck.

[ManAnimalX]

D I S G U S T I N G.

[Splatoon]

I'd rather fund something that has a ghost of a chance.

[Halo2ODST2]

Wow, i'm actually crying from how funny that is, Yugioh abridged.

[masa2009]

What I find strange is that in my understanding, hyping something as pro-gay is not the Japanese way to do this kind of stuff.
I thought in Japan sex was a private matter. It is not discussed in public, gay or straight, and as such gays do not really feel the need for the community at large to validate the legitimacy of their orientation since it's a private matter for everyone. As such consumption of gay-themed pop culture is not an contentious issue.
At least that's the impression I had.

Their discourse about "allies" and the likes seems formatted to fit the more confrontational view of the visibility of gays in pop culture that exists in the West.

[00]

Sex between people is probably seen as a private matter, but when it comes to merchandise they go all out.

[i8urCAKE]

HA GAYYYYYYYYYY

[antias]

Good luck but Mobile Only 20,000 for a Translation of an already finished game? And on indie go-go not kickstarter? Seems like they are just trying to milk some Social Justice Money while they can lol. If you want games with gay characters, go for like KOTOR/FABLE 2/MASS EFFECT etc.

[InTheZoneAC]

just wondering what kind of broken minds are behind these games...

[Tsubasa-Oozora]

And a lot of people dont believe me when I say they have an Agenda.

You don't see games called "Get a Girlfriend/s and screw them".
Why are they pushing this down our throat?

from the article:
"The game has the main character tasked with saving the world of Midearth from a demon king while “forming bonds and falling in love with characters such as a fierce horned ogre, a monk skilled in magic, a rough Adventurer’s Guild master, and a dragon in the form of a man"

Are you kidding me? falling in love with Character'S... multiple people?? Prostitution? This is some kind of homosexual orgy game advertised to children. Sickening

Ban this game and the people behind it.

[Fullmetalevolust]

LOL! you have one hell of an imagination, and a vivid one at that. You assumed all that based on that tiny paragraph?

Ugh, and to think I liked your avatar. ;)

There's a buttload (pun intended) of heterosexual sexual games from Japan, among other countries, and didn't the atari had Custer's revenge, which depicted a cowboy having sex with a native american?
Now talk about an agenda.

[Halo2ODST2]

Nextt time at least try to make a coherrent counter-argument. I don't support the game but clean yourself up.

[gangsta_red]

"This is some kind of homosexual orgy game advertised to children. Sickening"

I'm no supporter of this game either but wow...was this comment dipped in ignorance.

"You don't see games called "Get a Girlfriend/s and screw them". "

I'm pretty sure there are games like this, especially in Japan, heck i was just referring to a few Vita games that seem to have some bondage, S&M theme going for it.

[Fullmetalevolust]

It can't be worse than that pigeon dating sim, hatoful boyfriend! lol.
I'd like to see some gameplay tho...can't fund something based on mere promises, how does it play?
And that goes for any game.

[KryptoniteTail]

I hope this fails.

[rataranian]

Nothing against gays but no. Why? Because fuck "mobile app"

[hazelamy]

it's stories like this that show up the bigots.

you say if you want gay characters in games make their own games, well they just did, and the bigots still attack them.

and the biggest gg supporter on here telling devs what they can or can't do with their game?

but that's ok to do when it's homosexual or other minority characters right?

the response to stories like this shames the gaming community.

people like foxtrot here call themselves defenders of gamers, when the truth is they're an embarrassment to gamers.

hell, they're an embarrassment to humanity.

people who think game creators shouldn't be told what they can or can't do, unless it involves gay or trans characters and then they're perfectly justified. in their minds. dictating terms.

[NicSage]

I wonder how they procreate in this game.