Representation in video games is a very broad topic that I never really began to explore since enrolling into this class. I feel as if representation in video games is not as talked about as it should be, believing that some groups are more represented than a lot of the other groups. Starting with my game history, I played a wide variety of PlayStation games with narrative stories ranging from true experiences, to made up fantasy worlds and characters. What I noticed is that in all the games that I used to play, only a few titles throughout my time gaming included or represented the LGBTQ community. One game being a relatively new title to an ongoing series, Borderlands 3 included non-binary, gay, lesbian, and queer characters within the game, in a way making me realize about the LGBTQ representations in video games. On top of that, the previous game in the ongoing franchise Borderlands 2, and The Pre-Sequel allowed players the chance to play as a bisexual character by the name of Axton, a white male who comes off as quite masculine, and Athena lesbian sheriff. Out of almost all the games that I have played, Borderlands seems to give fair representation to the LGBTQ community. Knowing the fact that I have played over hundreds of video games in my lifetime, its quite eye opening as to why most games do not include LGBTQ characters. The Borderlands series was one of my first encounters of queerness in videogames and did not hinder my experience; so I am curious as to why equal representation in video games is not more common than it is.

After reading Where is the Queerness in Video Games by Adrienne Shaw, a lot of points stuck out to me whilst reading her article. One in particular was the comment about LGBTQ characters within video games, addressing to the audience that most PC’s are not a part of the LGBTQ community. I believe this is where the representation of that community is skewed. After finding out that both Axton from Borderlands 2, and Trevor from GTA V were bisexual, I had no idea that either characters were, and that is part of the problem. “However, Trevor and Curtis are only explicitly shown to have sex with women, and Hana’s relationship to her partner, Rain, is only hinted at in the game” (Shaw, 3880). I believe that if game developers want to better represent a community within their game, make it more known to the players. I have played both GTA V and Borderlands 2 for countless hours and am just now finding out that characters from both games are a part of the LGBTQ community. Not only should the developers include more playable LGBTQ characters, but relay to the audience a backstory of the character through in-game collectables, or through video productions explaining the lore behind the game.

After looking through the LGBTQ game archive, I found it very interesting how many games that I have played throughout my lifetime has included characters from this community. Me being at a young age, I probably did not understand or comprehend the depth of the gender of the characters, but there were a lot more games than what I was expecting. Also, I found it odd with how modern times are changing, there aren’t more games under the 2010’s column that has represented the LGBTQ community. Maybe the list isn’t fully updated.