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Blizzard Game’s Heteronormative Problem

07/30/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
At the beginning of this month, Blizzard went into the Beta for what is one of the more highly anticipated releases in the MMO community, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Within that expansion will be two new races, the Goblins and the Worgen. Video games are, by and large, written with the expectation that the population of gamers is white, male, and mid-teens to mid-twenties. This is the old stereotype which is, actually, highly incorrect. The average age of the MMO player is mid-thirties. Somewhere between thirty-three and forty-five percent of all gamers are women. Most of us probably grew up playing on Atari consoles.

Ok, so, most games are designed with the interests of young, white males in mind. That means women in skimpy armor and with large breasts, male protagonists, and a lot of other bits about that.

I remember the battle royale that happened on the Blizzard forums over the calls for more female-friendly fair in game. The suggestions included the ability to cover up a bit more of our characters, especially since much of the armor for The Burning Crusade expansion amounted to metal bikinis on women, as well as a few more female racial leaders (something that Blizz ignored again with Cataclysm despite calls to make the new Goblin leader female to go with Sylvanas Windrunner). Another suggestion was skimpier armor for male characters as well.

The thing is, not all of those who were arguing for the skimpier armor on male toons were women, and not all of those who were arguing to keep the skimpy armor on female toons were men. Many male, or at least assumed to be males, expressed a certain love for the idea of having men running around in armor reminiscent of Conan the Barbarian, and some women were appalled at the idea of taking away the metal bikinis because of pixilated sexiness. Not all of these were due to, well, let us face it, wanting to attract toons of the opposite sex.

The thing is, many lesbians and gays play video games, but the assumption has always been that the audience is not lesbian or gay. While companies have tried abysmally to break into the women’s gaming market (note- most women would not buy a pink playstation or Desperate Housewives the Video Game), they have also been abysmal at tailoring games towards the LGBT market which, today, has some pretty impressive buying power. World of Warcraft guilds hold pride parades, and there are several LGBT focused guilds in the game.

Unfortunately, what brought this little piece on is a bit of disappointing news. For the most part, Blizzard has never written in a romantic element to a character’s storyline. Unfortunately, there is going to be some romantic elements in Cataclysm, most specifically in the Goblin start zone. If ‘you’ are playing a female Goblin, then you appear to have a boyfriend at the start of the game, and if ‘you’ are playing a male Goblin, then you appear to have a girlfriend at the start of the game. The quest text seems to indicate a certain amount of romance between the NPC’s and the player’s character. It is disappointing, but not unexpected. Outside of The Sims, it can be very hard to find games which are not rampantly heteronormative.

It would be nice if Blizzard could have made it so that the player could chose which of the two NPC’s (Candy Cane or Chip Endale) the player could take the quest from. After all, the Valentine’s world event is certainly not limited by the gender of the NPC’s, and often involves kissing female or male guards irregardless of the gender of one’s character. Well, Cata is in Beta right now, and it would be nice if Blizzard did a bit of change with regards to this before the expansion goes live sometime later this year.

Of course, it would be nice if they sent me a Beta invite, but I doubt that will happen. After five years in game. . .you’d think they’d invite me lol.

I will still be buying Cataclysm when it hits the shelves.

I would like to thank WoW gamer and podcaster Total Biscuit for bringing this up. While he did not send it to me, he did mention it in game and it got me thinking. Blizzard has something of a problem with heteronormative thinking, and it would be nice if they moved away from that a little more. They aren’t as bad as others, but still. . .

Addendum: Irregardless is irregular English and is not considered a misspelling or a double negative. Please refrain from commenting upon it.