AlterConf Melbourne 2017: Playersexuality and Plurisexuality in Videogames by Alayna Cole
Channel: Alter Conf
Date: 2018-04-11

AlterConf Melbourne 2017: Playersexuality and Plurisexuality in Videogames by Alayna Cole

Increased representation of queer relationships in videogames can lead to further freedom regarding who player-characters can pursuit romantically; however, allowing a player-character to date a selection of NPCs regardless of that player-character's gender does not effectively improve diverse representation of varied sexualities. In this model, NPCs become 'playersexual', meaning that they will date the player regardless of traits such as gender, appearance, or personality, and this causes characterisation to be shallow and attempts to represent plurisexuality to be superficial. In this talk, I will discuss games that created playersexual NPCs, as well as titles that effectively combat this issue through their character design choices, with the hope of revealing the subtle differences between playersexual and truly plurisexual NPCs, while also inspiring game designers to create more meaningful characters.