This week pertained mostly to the representation of the LGBTQ community in the video game industry, and what is good and bad representation in video games. On top of this, we also discussed gender roles and representation as a whole in the video game world. These discussions led us to the Netflix series “The Guild”, which is a show lampooning the gaming community, with many “colorful” characters on the show. All of the characters on this show fill a certain stereotype of people in the gaming community, such as recluses who hate confrontation, men who are womanizers, young men in high school or college, middle aged men who live their lives off of others, people who are addicted to gaming, people who neglect aspects of their real lives in order to play, the list goes on and on. While this show is more of a comedic take on the world outside of gaming, it shows the controversies and negative attitudes it can bring into the gaming world itself. This then led us into looking at the LGBTQ Video Game Archive, which catalogues games, series of games, and instances in games that pertain to the LGBTQ community. While I have looked at this website before, it seems that the archive has become much more expansive, whether that be due to user submissions or more findings by the founders of the website itself. It was interesting to look into games that were not previously on the archive, and how some games represent the community. For example, I’ve been playing a lot of “League of Legends” in the past semester after my friends got me into the game. When I saw the game listed in the archive, I was somewhat confused at first. In my 6 months of playing the game, I have never seen any explicit LGBTQ content while playing the game. However, content made outside of the game, such as with comics and animations, reveals more about the backgrounds and lore of the game’s “champions”. For example, while it is never explicitly stated that the champion “Neeko” is a part of the LGBTQ community, some hidden voice lines vaguely hint at this, while developers announced outside of the game that Neeko is in fact the first openly lesbian character. In addition, on the LGBTQ archive, the champion Varus was listed as being a LGBTQ reference. I was quite confused, as there is no mention of Varus’ backstory in game, nor is there any alluding to his identity. However, his backstory which was built up by the comics and outside media confirm this champion’s inclusion in the LGBTQ community. When it comes to representation in video games, I believe that a character should feel like a real person, rather than a canvas which developers can find a story for later. A good example of what I find to be bad representation in video games comes from Overwatch. In 2019, three years after the game’s release, Blizzard announced through a comic that Soldier 76 was gay. This felt very ingenuous to players, as it felt like “they made the character gay just because they could”. The LGBTQ community shouldn’t be treated as a stereotyped minority which developers can slap onto a character “just because they feel like it”. Writing a character should be like creating a human, these traits and characteristics are a part of them, not a status symbol.