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Grand Theft Auto is not a friend of the queer community

Grand Theft Auto is not a friend of the queer community

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Welcome to the first edition of video games weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday (yes, we recognize Tuesday today) that broke into two parts. The first is a room for short essays, observations and strips on video game trends and related topics from me, a reporter who has covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week, about which you need to know, including some headlines from outside of Engadget.

Please enjoy – and see you next week.

I have a growing feeling in some of my favorite -Queer -Gaming forums in terms of Grand Theft Auto VIAnd it both makes me laugh and scares me deeply of the formible nature of our common reality. When the second trailer for GTA VI On May 6th one of his protagonists, Jason, became an immediate sex symbol among the gays, and the thirsty memes rolled in. This was carefree and funny, but at the same time the Altright Gaming-Crow was Too gay – Even if it is clearly a heterosexual guy. Queer players accused the neo-Nazis of the projection, and the memes that Jason increased as gay icon dived until it stopped somewhere on the way to being a joke. I started seeing serious comments that point out that the GTA franchise was a bastion of inclusion and a pronounced friend of the LGBT+ community. I saw Queer player talked about it GTA VI As if it were a warm and inviting room, doing something for us.

And me oop – This is a serious grandfather gas light, friends.

I'm not here to burst any bubbles and I sincerely hope that GTA VI Presented rounded, diverse characters with thoughtful storylines. However, when it comes to queer topics, this is simply not what the series does. GTA has a story of the maintained harmful stereotypes on transgender people, and and and and GTA V In particular, a platform made available for players to enact violence against trans figures.

I treated this topic in detail in 2020 and at the time with Dr. Ben Colliver, a lecturer for criminology at Birmingham City University, and author of “Representation of LGBTQ communities in the Grand Theft Auto series”. Violence against trans people in the United States has long been recognized as an epidemic, and in 2025 the situation is worse than ever-the legislator legalizes transthobia and closes access to gender-known care and uses trans lives as political football. It is a bad time for the LGBT+ community to have false friends. This is one reason why I shot when I see that people rewrite the story of GTA.

Ugly stereotypes and targeted violence are part of the GTA DNA, so the common argument here is that, Strictly speakingThe series beats in all directions and that means that it is not discriminatory. But this attitude does not keep the test. The analysis of Dr. Colliver showed that CIS men in GTA games remain largely intact and are often used by characters that represent oppressed groups.

“Above all, it is LGBT people, sex workers and women who are shown in a poor way,” said Dr. Colliver in 2020.

The only topic that GTA takes really seriously is masculinity, and even then it approaches the topic from a simple lens. GTA presents mainstream power fantasies with a straight man with a Michael Bay Flair and a youthful sense of edge and impact, and and GTA VI Looks more of the same. This is even with the admission of a female protagonist lucia who deals very much with Jason, who is currently coded despite massive gay men, which in my opinion was a total accident from rock star.

(And because I can hear your screams from here: Yes, yes, Gay Tony's ballad existed and it is a beautiful piece of DLC for GTA IV focuses on a strange character. The thing is, it came out 16 years ago – before Rockstar Trans -Power set up GTA V -und although it was incredibly well received, the studio does not yet have to return to its blueprint. I find this fact more meaningful than anything.)

GTA is a non-subversive franchise built for basic broses, and this fact is only reinforced by the homogeneity of the rock star games and the complacition of his parent company Take-Two Interactive. We have no data about Queere representation at Rockstar, but in Rockstar North in 2024 women put together less than 12 percent of employees in the highest paid roles. In the entire studio, women's average hourly wages were 43 percent lower than that of men. In his annual investor report submitted this month, Take-2 removed all references to diversity and inclusion and deleted any mention of the awards that the company received for the support of LGBT+employees. These steps are supposed to appease President Donald Trump, and it is the exact type of spinless and bootlicking behavior that the GTA series is supposed to mock.

Personally, I love to make crimes and play with police officers, and as it turns out, most other video game fans. This mass application ethic has contributed to making GTA one of the most ongoing franchise companies in the industry. Please, bank just not further GTA VI Be progressive or actively included from a strange perspective. We need no further reason to be disappointed nowadays.

In addition, we cannot have the old right-wing reality consumed our own. The people who complain that Jason is too gay Overwatch 2 Cammy Skin-Sie are insatiable people who, as an art form, make poorly glowing arguments about games. Do not take your messages and do not deal with your lies. Think critically about your angle of attack and now play all queer games you want. One of my personal recent favorites is Sorry, we are closedIf you are looking for a sexy, Campy location to start.

Confessible The director and long -time obsidian narrative Lead Carrie Patel has come to the Night School as the game director of the Night School, the studio behind the Oxenfree series. This is a big get for the night school and a sign that the team has a certain stability in its future. Netflix acquired the night school in 2021 before the start of Oxenfree 2 And as part of the great pressure of the streaming company in the development and publication of video games. Netflix has meanwhile closed an internal AAA studio and reduced its edition of third-party providers, but it seems that the night school is safe and is working on somewhat stories if patels tell us something.

Lili History made in May as the first video game that was taken into a competition for a Cannes Festival, and it looks great bike. Lili is a contemporary neo-noir interpretation of Macbeth, which is presented in full movement video and plays on the streets of Iran and contains networks of the government's corruption and witches that work as hackers. It is a collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company and Ink Stories, the studio behind the award -winning game 1979 Revolution: Black Friday. Lili Is already on the festival circle, but it is still in development and should be available in or shortly after the end of 2025.

Bungie only revealed Marathon In April, but the game is a rocky time before the start. First of all, the studio had to apologize publicly and check everyone Marathon Assets after it was confirmed that the alpha of the game included stolen works of art. Then, Forbes A report in which the current tensions at Bungie were documented said that morality in the studio in every department was in “free fall”. The latest rumors around MarathonThe country in September is that its marketing plans have been completely sunk.

Geoguessr after a quick – and clearly effective – Community Blackout is no longer included in the ESPORTS World Championship. The most productive Geoguessr MAP creators have drawn their contributions out of the game to protest against participation in the EWC, and called the tournament “A sport in sports washes that the government of Saudi Arabia used to distract and hide them from the terrible human rights record”. Less than one day after the start of the power failure, Geoguessr replied by giving up the event and wrote: “You – our community – have made it clear that this decision does not correspond to what, what Geoguessr stands for. If you tell us that we misunderstood it, we take it seriously. “

The FTC was the last remaining language meeting against Microsoft through Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, and it has now been silenced. The FTC officially dismissed its case against Microsoft after losing his recent appointment at the beginning of this month.

In a sweet moment of serendipity, Clair obscur: Expedition 33 Has sold 3.3 million copies on the market in the first 33 days. If they were waiting for a sign to play, this could be.

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