Examining Problems with Queer Representation in Video Games and Exploring Design Solutions

Kenton Taylor Howard†

Games and Interactive Media

University of Central Florida

Orlando Florida USA

Kenton.Howard@ucf.edu

In this paper I address a problem related to video game culture with which modding has often engaged: the way queerness is portrayed in video games. I examine how mainstream games, indie games, and fan-created modifications relate to issues with queerness in video games. My goal is to analyze the ways in which modification can help players explore some of the problems surrounding portrayals of queerness in mainstream games. I also focus on the lessons that game designers and modders can learn from more positive portrayals of queerness in indie games. Overall, I suggest that considerations about a game’s mainstream or indie status influence how both developers and players relate to queerness in games and argue that modding is a powerful way for players to engage with and explore issues with queerness found in mainstream games.

• Social and professional topics • Human-centered computing • Applied computing

Queer Games, Modding, Indie Games

Kenton Taylor Howrd. 2021. Queerness and modification in mainstream and indie games: Examining problems with queer representation in video games and exploring design solutions. In Proceedings of the 32nd ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media (HT’21), August 30-September 2, 2021, Virtual Event, Ireland. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 9 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3465336.3475114

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Permissions@acm.org. HT '21, August 30-September 2, 2021, Virtual Event, Ireland © 2021 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-8551-0/21/08…$15.00 https://doi.org/10.1145/3465336.3475114

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Modding is a popular fan practice in gaming culture in which

players add content to video games, change existing content, or otherwise modify them. In this paper I address a problem related to video game culture with which modding has often engaged: the way queerness is portrayed in video games. In particular, I examine how mainstream games, indie games, and fan-created modifications relate to issues with queerness in video games. It seems obvious to note that queerness and games have interacted in controversial ways for quite some time, so I do not intend here to provide a historical overview of issues that have arisen in the past: sources such as [1] and [2] have covered many issues related to queerness and games and establish that games have many problems with portraying it. Instead, my goal here is to analyze the ways in which modification can help players explore some of the problems surrounding portrayals of queerness in mainstream games. I do so by looking at specific mods for popular gaming franchises rather than attempting to provide data about all of the mods for a particular game, as such mods provide examples of design techniques aimed at issues those games have with queerness. I also focus on the lessons that game designers and modders can learn from more positive portrayals of queerness in indie games.

The relationship between mainstream and indie games is

critical to my analysis of queerness and modification in this paper. I first examine how many of the problems related to queerness in games have been stratified along the lines of popular mainstream games and less popular indie games to demonstrate that mainstream games have typically handled queerness much more poorly than indie games. Second, I look at more positive examples of queerness in indie games and how those games are often in dialogue with the problematic portrayals of queerness found in mainstream games. Finally, I look at how problematic portrayals of queerness in mainstream games have been addressed by fan communities through gameplay modifications. I use these examples to suggest that modding is one potential solution to those problems by looking at how queer modders work within existing narrative and gameplay frameworks. Overall, I suggest that considerations about a game’s mainstream or indie status influence how both developers and players relate to queerness in games and argue that modding is a powerful way for players to engage with and explore issues with queerness found in mainstream games.

While the importance of representing marginalized forms of

identity in popular visual media is relatively uncontroversial at this point, portrayals of marginalized identities in mainstream games have frequently been met with resistance, or in some cases, outright hostility. As an example, reactions to characters like Tracer in [3], a prominent lesbian character who serves as the one of game’s mascots, were generally divided into two groups: “those who applauded the inclusion of a prominent gay character, and those who [were] mad about ‘diversity’ and ‘political correctness’ being shoved down their throats” [4]. Inclusion of queer content in games is important despite this resistance, though games have particular problems related to the structure of the gaming industry that are worth considering when discussing queerness. In this section I analyze queerness in games through the lens of the mainstream / indie divide to examine how those problems relate to a game’s mainstream or indie status. I suggest that even though queer narratives in games have become more common in mainstream games, indie games still handle queer representation more effectively because such games do not engage with queerness simply as a vehicle for profit and popularity as mainstream games often do. To address the issues surrounding queerness in gaming culture, I argue that game critics should highlight problems with the ways that mainstream games portray queerness and provide examples of such problematic portrayals. In addition, I claim that game scholars should highlight effective portrayals of queerness in indie games to help combat those problematic narratives and provide examples of such games as well.

It is important to acknowledge the position of many games as

commercial products when considering how they interact with queerness: many of the considerations that surround mainstream games are driven by profit-based motives. [5] argued that “anyone who has engaged with video games in the last three decades is familiar with the primary institution that games have been deployed successfully in service of: the consumer marketplace.” The author pointed out that the categorization of games is often based on elements that relate to the game’s status as a commercial product, and I suggest that the terminology surrounding games has likewise mirrored this focus: mainstream and indie have become common descriptors used by fans, journalists, and scholars to refer to different kinds of games, even if those groups use such terms in varying ways. While both terms are relatively broad qualifiers for describing games, they almost always are linked to a game’s sales numbers and audience size: for example, [6] argued that “mainstream game development is corporate in nature and capitalist in ethos” and suggested that “mainstream is characterized as emphasizing profit and popularity over creativity and artistry.” As such, mainstream games operate much like other forms of corporate media in terms of their engagement with queerness: they usually only do so if it can bring in more profit for the game’s creators. It can be even harder to determine what qualifies as an indie game as “indie media is defined by what is not mainstream” [6]: such media is often identified by the qualities it does not have when compared to mainstream media. If this is the case, indie games are those that are driven by artistic motives

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rather than profit and popularity, and indie games are therefore more likely to engage with queerness from an aesthetic perspective than other games. In fact, [7] included a section titled “2010s Queer Indie Game Boom,” noting that when several queer indie games “all came out in quick succession, they ushered in the queer games movement.” Such games “were often critiqued as not being real games or ‘just’ being art games” [7] but those games were also “markedly personal in nature [and] communicated the designers’ own lived experiences” [7]: these queer indie games were developed with specific aesthetic intentions that are very different from the design goals that drive mainstream games. These factors mean that when analyzing how mainstream and indie games interact with each other in terms of queerness, considering whether a particular game is a mainstream or indie game is useful because that consideration could have an impact on the kinds of queer content a player might see in each type of game. The terms mainstream and indie allow for some assumptions about the kinds of queer content that each type of game might contain: in general, mainstream games are less likely to contain queer content and indie games are more likely to contain such content, and mainstream games are also more likely to handle queerness poorly than indie games. While such an assumption is not a guarantee and cannot describe all the kinds of queer content found in mainstream and indie games, the terms allow for an examination of how queer portrayals in games are often related to a game’s commercial status, or lack thereof. The terms also allow for an analysis of the kinds of problems with queerness that mainstream games often run into and the ways that indie games have avoided them.

A lack of queer representation and a focus on straight male

players is one of the most common issues that comes up with mainstream games. [2] argued that “video games have notoriously underrepresented LGBTQ people,” and in many popular game franchises, the issue is simply that there is no queer content at all. This lack of queer content in many mainstream games suggests that the developers assume that their players are straight, or at least that those players do not want to encounter queer content. [5] also noted that “the status quo, to nobody’s surprise, is that games have seldom been made by or for queers, or even with queers in mind:” instead, mainstream games are typically aimed at the straight male players who are seen as the target audience for such games and queer players are ignored altogether. Portrayals of queerness have therefore been uncommon in mainstream games, and if queer content is included such games, that content is an afterthought at best. A good example of such an approach is found in The Elder Scrolls series: most games in the series rarely engage with sexuality at all and any relationships they include are almost exclusively heterosexual, almost never involve the player, and tend to not have any particular relevance to the overall story. [8], however, goes a bit farther than other games in the series in that it allows the player character to marry some of the game’s NPC characters. More interestingly, the game’s NPC characters will marry the player’s character regardless of either character’s gender, which allows for queer relationships in the game. Most of the narrative elements of those marriages are interchangeable, however, and most of the

marriable NPC characters use the same lines of dialogue no matter what the player’s gender is with no acknowledgement of any difference between a straight and gay marriage. This approach is certainly flexible, but [9] criticized approaches like this for being shallow as they tend to flatten any potential diversity in queer relationships: in fact, there is very little narrative difference between the game’s queer relationships and straight ones at all. While approaches like the one used in [8] are becoming more common, most mainstream games simply choose not to include queer content at all, and ones that do often offer shallow portrayals of queerness. Because so much of the popular discourse surrounding games focuses on mainstream games, this issue means that queer players are often excluded from that discourse in the sense that they are unlikely to find queer characters and narratives that they can relate to in mainstream games, and when they do, those narratives are often very brief and are depicted as a minor element of the story at best.

While a lack of queer representation in mainstream games has

been one of the most common problems with them throughout the history of gaming, it is worth noting that queer content in games has become more common over the years in general, especially in roleplaying games or other story-driven genres that allow for significant character interaction. As such, queer content that was once only the purview of indie games has started to be included in mainstream games, particularly if romance between the player and another character is a possibility within the game. Even when queer romance is included, however, mainstream games still struggle to portray it effectively: for example, [10] suggested that mainstream games are “bound up with naturalized, patriarchal constructions of gender and sexuality” in the sense that they take a heteronormative stance toward those elements and portray queer play as outside of those norms. [11] also pointed out what often happens when queer players play mainstream games: “for queer gamers, sexuality comes into play in ways that make visible the cultural norms of the ‘ideal’ player – a player who is at least symbolically male and straight.” This comment highlights the fact that queer players of mainstream games are usually thought of as falling outside of the game’s “default” (i.e. straight male) player identity, a fact that queer players are also constantly reminded of as they play many popular games. This issue means that when queer content is included in mainstream games, such games treat “queerness [as] just a different twist on non-queer heterosexuality” [12]: for example, queer romance options are treated as just another selection from the menu of choice offered by the game rather than a meaningful story element that is handled differently than the other romances. Overall, when mainstream games include queer content, their “solution to difference and diversity… is token inclusion or flattened representation, and what it means to be inclusive is still narrow, often stereotyping, and problematic” [13]: as such, the inclusion of queer content in such games is not always positive. That being said, I do not suggest that mainstream games should simply avoid queer representation altogether: as noted earlier, that approach causes its own problems, and a lack of queer portrayals have likely led to many of the issues with queer representation in mainstream games in the first place. Because of

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that problem, however, it is worth examining some specific examples of mainstream game franchises that have included queer content but have also struggled to portray queerness well.

A mainstream game series that has frequently included queer

content is the Dragon Age series. The franchise was very commercially successful: for example, [14], the final game in the Dragon Age series, was Bioware’s largest selling launch in history as of 2015 [15], an impressive feat considering the popularity of their games in general. The series has also included quite a bit of queer content: for example, [16] wrote a PhD thesis discussing queerness in the Dragon Age games, demonstrating the breadth of queer content in the series. It is important to note, however, that the developers of the series have publicly framed the inclusion of queer content in the games in terms of profit-based considerations, however, as one of the developers of the series asked the following question with regards to queer players at a GDC talk about sex and representation in Bioware games: “is there an untapped market out there full of gamers waiting to be appealed to?” [17]. One of his goals with the talk was to highlight the potential of queer players as this untapped market, an approach which suggests that gestures toward inclusion in the Dragon Age series were motivated at least partly by the potential profit and popularity to be gained by including queer content. In the Dragon Age games, that content mostly comes in the form of LGBTQ identifying characters that the player can form relationships with. [18] argued that in most of the games “the potential for non-heterosexual identification or role play is primarily constructed and validated on the same terms as playing straight” because a queer player’s sexual identity is expressed through romantic interactions that are very similar to the kinds of interactions that a straight player engages in. Choosing a romantic partner in the Dragon Age games is therefore the player’s primary means for expressing a particular sexual identity, with the games typically including an LGBTQ character or two as gesture toward inclusion: in [19], for example, most of the player’s potential romantic partners are straight, while two, Leilana and Zevran, are bisexual and react the same way to romantic advances of any gender. While providing a variety of romance options is not necessarily a bad thing, reducing queer identification down to the selection of one of the game’s few LGBTQ characters as a romantic partner is a particularly reductive choice in terms of narrative and game design and one that is usually avoided in indie games, which tend to build queerness into the game’s narrative and mechanics in a variety of ways.

Finally, a common problem in mainstream games is the

inclusion of visual elements that undermine the game’s engagement with queerness. I previously discussed this problem in relationship to the Fallout series [20], particularly in regards to how [21] offers opportunities for same-sex relationships, but undermines them by forcing the player to start the game in a heterosexual marriage. Visual elements throughout the game’s introduction continually reinforce the importance of the player’s straight marriage to the game’s overall story: even though the player might not want their character to identify as straight, the game’s visuals will serve as frequent reminders of their previous marriage. These elements could simply be ignored and written off

as poor visual and storytelling choices by the developers, but [22] argued that “to be a ‘player’ is to hold a subject position in the gaming experience, bound up in symbolic and representational processes:” players are involved in making meaning when they play a game, and that factor might contribute to the discomfort felt by queer players when a game essentially forces their character to be straight before allowing them to play their character as queer. Visuals that reinforce that straightness serve to intensify the problem because video games are a visual medium: a few lines of dialogue might be ignored or easily removed by modders, but visuals that continually suggest straightness are harder to ignore and cannot be easily modified without more advanced video game development skills. This factor might also be why queer indie games such as [23] make a more conscious effort to include visual representations of queerness: such visuals can reinforce in-game dialogue or story elements to create a more queer experience overall. Since such games also offer examples of design strategies that mainstream games could use to portray queerness more effectively, I will now examine queer indie games to highlight some of those strategies.

While categorizing the kinds of problematic portrayals of

queerness found in mainstream games is not too challenging because those portrayals often suffer from similar issues, indie games create a wide variety of queer experiences that I could not hope to fully encapsulate here. Despite that diversity, some queer indie games seem to be in dialogue with the approaches that mainstream games take in that they directly address some of the problems with queerness that I described above. That being said, I would not suggest that these games represent particular archetypes of queerness or narrative benchmarks for queer stories in games since that suggestion would undercut the very diversity of approaches that queer games take: while mainstream games often suffer from specific types of problems in terms of queerness, indie games represent queerness in a much broader variety of ways. This variety is another reason why I have focused on specific indie games here instead of large groups of games: the games I discuss here provide examples of the kinds of design strategies that could be useful for addressing such problems since these games seem to be in dialogue with those issues. In this section, I will highlight some of those design strategies here in addition to the ways that these games address common problems with queerness in mainstream games.

One design strategy that indie games use to handle queerness

more positively than mainstream games is simply including queer characters and narratives more frequently throughout a game’s narrative instead of avoiding them or only addressing them briefly. [24] provides a good example of this kind of approach, as the game presents queer relationships throughout the game world. The game’s story focuses on several queer characters, but their queerness is not necessarily a central element of the game’s story or mechanics; it is simply a part of each character’s overall identity. In terms of design, the game is a point-and-click adventure game in which the player controls various protagonists navigating a futuristic cyberpunk style city while trying to solve

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a mystery; one of those protagonists, Dr. Max Lao, is trans, which is a significant part of his overall identity and backstory in the game. The game presents the character’s gender identity as being fully accepted in the futuristic setting, however, and the other queer characters who appear are likewise accepted within the game world as well: their queer identities are important in terms of who they are, and the characters are not marginalized within the narrative or treated as simply alternatives to straight characters. [25] argued that “Technobablyon presents a world where gay relationships and queer identities are normative:” by using this design strategy, the game presents queer identities as simply part of the setting.

Another approach to queer indie game design that

demonstrates the diversity found within that space is basing much of the game on the creator’s own personal experience, allowing such portrayals to provide a depth that goes beyond straightforward romance plots or simply the inclusion of characters who identify as queer. [26] is a good demonstration of that approach: the game is clearly referencing the kinds of romance plots that often appear in mainstream games, but the developer primarily focuses on portraying queerness by describing events from their own life throughout the game’s story. The game focuses on a discussion between the player and Squinky that is based on a scientific study that outlines 36 questions that are aimed at finding out whether or not two people are romantically compatible [27]. The game takes place during the apocalypse – certainly something that the developer has not experienced themselves – but most of the dialogue is based on Squinky’s in-game persona relating their own experiences with being a nonbinary queer game developer and the difficulties that came along with that identity. At one point, for example, the character commented: “If a queer non-white non-guy like myself gets too popular, well, the trolls come out and harass the living daylights out of you” [26]. Such comments in the game feel quite authentic, as they should: narratives are often at their strongest when they are based on lived experience that is only slightly fictionalized, and the above dialogue is clearly a description of the developer’s own experiences with creating games. While this kind of reliance on personal experience might be considered a common quality of queer indie games, queer indie games that rely on such an approach are always quite different from one another because the experiences of queer developers themselves are likewise quite different from one another’s.

When queer games include audiovisual elements as prominent

parts of game design, they often employ those elements in a way that reflects queer experience metaphorically rather than placing a focus on more literal elements like the selection of an in-game romantic partner with a particular gender identity as found in games like the Dragon Age series. An example of this approach can be found in [23], which is a first-person narrative account of two queer women in a destructive, abusive relationship: the player plays as one of the women and does not get the opportunity to choose between other romantic partners or relationships at any point in the game. The game features a 3D environment that the player can move about in and interacting with objects provides bits of narrative that expand on the relationship between the two

characters: for example, touching a telephone presents a voicemail from the narrator’s mother while her partner comments: “Oh My God, delete that. You’re not really going to get in touch with them are you?” [23]. While the game takes place in a 3D world, its visuals are blurry and indistinct: it is possible to make out the environment and the objects within it, but they are often out of focus. The visuals depict the apartment that the two characters live in, and various objects demonstrate that the women are in a punk band together. The narrative advances as the player steps into the shower at various points in the story, with the shower itself functioning as a kind of portal that transports the player between two nearly identical versions of the apartment that represent different chronological points in the relationship between the characters. Color shifts in the environment between each apartment indicate changes in the emotional relationship between the two women, often moving between hot colors that indicate emotions like anger or jealousy and cold colors that indicate anxiety or depression. The visuals are much simpler than what might be found in a mainstream game: they are focused on giving impressions of emotional states rather than offering exacting visual fidelity, providing an example of how queer indie games often employ audiovisual elements to serve less as selling points for a game and more as aesthetic devices that enhance the game’s portrayal of queerness. Again, such a design strategy is not necessarily archetypal since queer games use a broad variety of visuals: [23] is quite visually distinct from most other queer games, and in fact is distinct from most 3D games in general. Instead, the game represents a common approach to visuals in queer games while also demonstrating the diversity of visual aesthetics found in those games.

Overall, it is clear that indie games tend to handle queer

representation better than mainstream games, and it is likely that queer indie developers can do so because they are not driven by the pressures of producing games that are commercially successful. That being said, I do not suggest here that it is impossible for mainstream games to include queer representation in positive ways, nor would I argue that all indie games represent queerness well; in addition, I do not argue that mainstream games should simply abandon the portrayal of queer content altogether or that such content is antithetical to commercial success. Instead, I suggest that the creators of mainstream games should be acutely aware of the impact of such content given the position of mainstream games in the overall gaming market and that designers can look to queer indie games as examples of how to more meaningfully include queer content in all kinds of games. More importantly, as [28] argued, “we have to employ a plurality of tactics to bring down the monolith:” pushing for better queer representation in mainstream games is one approach to doing so and highlighting good queer representation in indie games is another. Since mainstream games will likely continue to dominate overall discussions surround games, however, another approach could involve queer modding: players could modify games themselves to include the kinds of more positive queer content and gameplay elements that are found in queer indie games like the ones described above. I explore that approach more fully in the next section.

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Since much of the discussion about problematic depictions of

queerness in games centers on mainstream games due to their market share, one solution to the problems with queer narratives in those games could involve designers making their games more easily modifiable so that fans can create better queer content themselves. On the surface, this solution seems to have a lot of potential, as it offers fans a way to comment on problematic elements in their favorite games even more directly than through critical discourse: queer modding allows fans to actually change the game itself so that it portrays queerness more effectively. Modding is a solution that I have recently explored elsewhere with regards to the Fallout franchise [20], and the notion of adding queer content to mainstream games through mods works within a tradition of queer modding that is quite longstanding: for example, [12] highlighted queer mods for the Fallout series as well and suggested that they “yield anti-normative play spaces through an orientation to queer sexualities and genders,” acting as a form of resistance to the problematic portrayals of queerness in the games. Queer modding is therefore a tradition worth examining as it relates to mainstream games, as many of the issues that I raised earlier in regards to mainstream games are addressed directly by such mods.

As I discussed earlier, portrayals of queerness in mainstream

games are often either nonexistent or problematic, so it is worth considering why are players interested in modifying such games: why not simply play and modify some of the indie games that handle queerness in a more positive and thoughtful way? It would be difficult to find out exactly what the motives of individual modders are without directly surveying the people who play and modify such games, but since most queer indie games do not offer modding tools directly to players, a lack of access might be one answer: there are simply not many modding tools available for indie games, which makes them much more difficult to modify. Indie games typically have fewer players than mainstream games as well, and since modders are a subset of the total players of a game, indie games usually have smaller modding communities. These factors mean that mods for indie games are not common and that the potential audience for indie game mods is much smaller. On the other hand, many mainstream game franchises have a long history of offering modding tools to their fans, which encourages queer modders to work with such games. There are also longstanding and very active modding communities surrounding popular mainstream game franchises that have consistently offered mod support, offering a larger audience for mods that are designed for those games. Modding communities for mainstream games can grow so large that some people build upon the creations of other modders, a process that [29] called “reciprocal innovation,” which expands the modding community for such games even further. These factors encourage queer modders to create content for mainstream franchises despite their problematic portrayals of queerness: both the tools for mod creation and an audience for those mods are available for such games. Frameworks such as Steam Workshop have begun to change this dynamic by offering a space for modding communities for a wider range of games, but the lack of easily available

modding tools for indie games means that modding communities for such games will always be smaller than those for larger mainstream games. [30], a fairly well-known indie game that focuses on queer relationships, provides a good example of this issue: a search for mods for the game on both the Steam Workshop and on the popular modding website NexusMods returns no results. While the developers have not created modding tools for the game, which does make it more difficult to modify, [30] is made in Unity, a very popular and free to use game engine, which means mods for the game could still be created even without the developer providing modding tools. Overall, since queer modders tend to focus primarily on mainstream games, my analysis in this section will therefore primarily focus on mods for such games as well.

While there are many kinds of mods for mainstream games

that are often aimed at simply adding new mechanics, characters, or other content to the game, queer mods occupy a specific space in relationship to mainstream games when compared to other kinds of mods. Since mainstream games do not typically focus on portrayals of queerness or depict it poorly, queer mods for those games often operate as a kind of resistance to the way a particular game depicts queerness: such mods might add queer content where none existed before, or they might modify existing portrayals of queerness to make them less problematic. Queer mods for mainstream games could therefore be considered a form of “Queergaming,” a practice [13] described as follows: “players take existing game titles, characters, stories, and worlds and queer them, remediate them to refashion and reimaging not only content and play but their very own relationship to ostensibly non-queer games.” The concept of queergaming as a form of resistance in relationship to modding suggests that players have a desire to queer non-queer games or games that have problematic kinds of queer representation. Queer mods for mainstream games also fit into the definition of queergaming because [13] argued that “queergaming expands what it means to create, consume, and play to include game mods:” as such, “queermodding” can be a way of queering the game itself. Despite the problems with queerness often found in popular mainstream games, there is a great deal of queer mod content for such games and looking at queer mods for such games can provide insight into why they chose these particular games in the first place. More importantly, looking at the mods created by those communities helps to demonstrate the kinds of content that queer modders find problematic since that content is most often addressed by queer mods.

Queer mods for mainstream games are quite diverse, but while

these mods take a variety of approaches to altering queer portrayals in mainstream games, they often address similar kinds of content. In fact, some authors have even tried to categorize queer mods in terms of the types of game content that they modify: for example, [31] suggested distinguishing between queer mods that are “cosmetic” mods and queer mods that focus more on “gameplay:” “We might imagine video game modifications on a coordinate plane of queer possibility. One axis represents cosmetic enhancements… The other axis is mechanical alterations.” This distinction is particularly useful in that it

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provides a framework for discussing the different ways that queer mods engage with games, but more importantly, it suggests that analysis of queer mods should go further than simply pointing out that queer mods exist for certain popular games: that analysis should also consider what kinds of content the mod engages with and the ways in which it does so. While I will not necessarily consider the distinction between cosmetic mods and gameplay mods in this analysis, I do pay attention to the kinds of content that queer mods engage with, as doing so demonstrates the design strategies that queer modders use to address issues with representation in mainstream games. I also analyze how much content the mods alter, as some of them only change small elements of their respective games, while others represent large overhauls or even approach what could essentially be considered almost entirely new games. I would also suggest that in general, cosmetic mods require the alteration of more content than gameplay mods: gameplay mods usually involve changes to a game’s code, but cosmetic mods that change a game’s visuals usually involves both editing the game’s visual assets and the code that controls those assets. Overall, many of the queer mods I discuss here would likely fall into cosmetic mod category, though a few of them might be considered gameplay mods instead.

Many queer mods engage with the various problems with

queer portrayals in mainstream games that I discussed earlier. Some queer mods often focus on simply adding queer content to games that have little such content already: queer mods for Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls franchise, for example, often exist mostly to address the series’ lack of engagement with queer sexuality, which is one of the most common problems with queerness in mainstream games. Bethesda has made modding tools available for almost every game in The Elder Scrolls series, however, and many queer mods for their games aim at adding more narrative significance to queerness in the game world by adding elements other than romanceable NPC characters. Mods like [32] are a good example of this approach: it is a relatively small mod in terms of content, as it adds text-based letters to [8]’s game world. Those letters discuss queer relationships between characters, and the mod’s creator says the letters are intended to “[bring] a bit of immersion here and there” [32], making queerness feel like a more significant part of the game world but not making any drastic changes to the game’s mechanical or visual feel. The approach also resembles the way that games like [24] handle queer representation by including it throughout the game’s narrative rather than as a part of a specific plotline or as a romance mechanic. Mods like [32] therefore address a common problem in mainstream games that I discussed earlier: such games rarely engage with queerness at all, so these mods fix that by adding in small amounts of queer content throughout the game. As such, one approach to modding could simply be using it for inclusion by creating mods that add queer content to a game that does not have any.

A lack of engagement with queerness is a problem in

mainstream games, but as noted in earlier, some mainstream game franchises have engaged with queerness more frequently over the years. Their engagement with queerness is not always positive, however, leading modders to address that issue as well by creating

mods that change the way a game handles queerness. The Fallout franchise is a good example of this situation: the games are frequently modded because the developers have offered a set of modding tools for many games in the series shortly after their release, but also because the games engage with sexuality fairly often for a mainstream gaming franchise, and they typically do so from a very heteronormative and binary perspective despite their apparent flexibility. [21] is a good example of this problem: as mentioned earlier, the game allows the player to be in queer relationships, but the game’s visuals continually reinforce the player’s previous straight marriage. These visuals cannot be avoided without the use of mods, and queer mods for the Fallout series therefore usually focus on modifying the game’s visuals to place more of an emphasis on queerness. As mentioned earlier, in a previous article [20] I highlighted examples of queer mods for [21] that alter the game’s introduction sequence so that its visuals are more queer in an attempt to address this issue. These mods often make significant visual changes to the game: for example, one of these mods, [33], alters the game so the player can be in a same-sex marriage throughout the introduction, which changes the game’s visuals a fair amount, and another one, [34] has a dramatic impact on the game’s visuals by enabling a “femboy” appearance for the game’s male characters. The latter mod is also an example of the kind of “reciprocal innovation” that [29] discussed: it relies upon another mod that was originally intended to sexualize the appearance of all the game’s female characters, so [34] actually queers both the original game and a heteronormative mod for the game. These mods are clear examples of queer modding as a form of resistance to the visual heteronormativity found in mainstream games, and many queer mods for the Fallout games exist as a direct response to the problems with the ways in which the games visually depict sex and queerness.

Queer mods for Bioware’s Dragon Age series take another

approach to modifying the portrayals of queerness in the games that highlight an issue mentioned earlier: romance plots in those games often portray queer romance and relationships in almost the exact same way as straight ones. While the second game in the series, [35], was designed such that nearly all of the romanceable characters could be romanced by the player character regardless of the player character’s gender, the first [19] and final [14] both featured romanceable characters who have specific preferences in terms of gender: they will only form a relationship with the player character if the player character’s gender identity matches the interests of the NPC. Many players found that they were unable to romance a particular NPC because the player chose the “wrong” gender and that they were restricted to only romancing the game’s programmatically defined queer characters; as such, mods that alter the NPCs preferences so that they are interested in a variety of player genders are extremely common and often change the romance mechanics in the game entirely. An example of such a mod is [36], a mod for [19] that alters all the NPCs so that they can be romanced regardless of the player’s gender. On the surface, the mod essentially used the same approach to romance that [35] and [8] used, which could actually undermine the portrayals of queerness in the game by making them more shallow; however, the mod creator also engaged in a

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significant amount of work to alter the narrative of [19] so that queer relationships were not portrayed the same way as straight ones. The creator created new “banter” dialogue for other NPC characters so that they acknowledge the new queer relationships created by the mod [36], and even went so far as to alter dialogue for the romanceable NPCs so that “characters won’t misgender the [player]” [36]. The created noted the dialogue changes enabled by the mod “[apply] to every time the [player’s] relationship… is acknowledged” [36]: all of the NPC characters in the narrative use the appropriate pronouns terminology for the player character’s queer relationship even though the dialogue references for those pronouns and story elements did not originally exist. These kinds of queer mods illustrate the lengths to which players will go to alter a mainstream game: queer modders are often willing to create a significant amount of new narrative and dialogue content for games to address problems with the way that mainstream games present queerness.

Finally, some queer modders engage in a complete

reconfiguration of a game, altering the original in such totality that the mod itself could essentially be considered an entirely different game. Such mods fall into a larger category of mods referred to as “total conversion mods,” which are built with many of the same assets as the original game but represent completely new gameplay experiences from start to finish. The most wellknown queer total conversion mod is likely [37], an episodic series that is based on a game from Valve’s popular Half-Life first person shooter series, [38]. None of the original narrative elements of [38] are present in Yang’s mod: unlike other mods that alter parts of a game but leave the overall story relatively intact, [37] is a totally separate story that does not intersect with the story of the original game at all. The mod completely reimagines the gameplay as well, transforming it from science fiction action game about a male hero fighting off an alien invasion to a game about “stargazing, gay divorce, and Emily Dickinson” [37]. Overall, [37] is clearly a significant departure from the original game in terms of gameplay, narrative, visuals, and many other elements, as [38] does not significantly engage with queerness at all. Yang continued working on the project for quite a bit of time and eventually remastered the mod in 2015 using an open-source software development kit created by Valve to make it freely available without needing a copy of the original base game, further blurring the line between [37]’s status as a mod and a completely standalone game. Total conversion mods like [37] therefore represent perhaps the most radical form of queer resistance to mainstream games: they require significant development skills and a lasting time investment in order to create, but they so thoroughly queer the game that in some cases they become almost completely separated from the original game they came from.

There are many other problematic portrayals of queerness in

mainstream games and positive portrayals of queerness in indie games that are not discussed in this paper; similarly, there are many video game franchises that have made modding tools available to players, and many queer mods for such games. As

such, the examples in this paper are not meant to be an exhaustive list of issues with portrayals of queerness in mainstream games, and the queer indie games and game modifications discussed in this paper are likewise not meant to represent the only possible solutions to such problems. They are instead meant to illustrate the relationship between queer portrayals in mainstream games and modification of those games, a relationship in which modders both work within a hegemony while simultaneously resisting it. In particular, modding problematic queer portrayals in mainstream games is an approach that is double-edged: it allows modders to address the issues in their favorite games, but also enables mainstream game developers to avoid doing the work of addressing those problems themselves, an issue that I have discussed in the past [20]. This issue is why looking at queer indie games are also important: such games allow creators to step outside of that hegemony entirely and focus on portrayals of queerness that are not driven by profit or popularity-based considerations, but instead by designers who simply want to portray queerness in games more positively.

As discussed earlier, this issue is particularly complex, as

modders should not stop making queer mods, nor should mainstream games stop portraying queerness: both of those approaches would simply make matters worse. Instead, my goal here is to highlight the ways in which these problems and solutions are in dialogue with one another: as mainstream games continue to include more queer content, indie games will continue to address the problematic portrayals of queerness that are offered by those more popular and commercially successful games. Mainstream games that offer modding tools will also continue to have queer mods that are aimed at adding in queer content to games that do not have such content or addressing the problems with the queer content that the games do have. Since both queer indie games and queer mods deal with the problematic forms of representation that mainstream games portray, I argue that queer modders can look to queer indie games for examples of design strategies that can help them address problems in the mainstream games they mod, and I suggest that the design strategies I outlined in this paper could be a good starting point for queer game developers and modders to look to in the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work is an excerpt from my doctoral dissertation, “Critical Modding: A Design Framework for Exploring Representation in Games.”

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