The original "Gaymer" survey was created to "quantify the existence of an invisible minority." Now that we know that they do indeed exist, it's time to find out what they like. Paul Nowak, a masters student at Full Sail, has created the new survey in order to make an in-depth study of what "gaymers" want from their games.

Ideally, I want to learn what exactly it is that gaymers want from their games and how that differs from their heterosexual counterparts. I'll take that information to develop guidelines the industry can use when trying to make gaymer inclusive games that don't become offensive or insulting to any gamer regardless of sexual orientation. If someone had done the same kind of research when the industry was trying to reach out to female gamers, girls wouldn't have had to suffer through the wildly unsuccessful attempts of games like "Mary Kate & Ashley's Winner's Circle" pony racing. I'm hoping to help the industry avoid the same mistakes as it reaches out to gay gamers.

I've gone through the survey myself, seeing as it is open to gamers of all sexual orientations. Aside from the initial question about sexual orientation, it mainly concerns itself with questions about content, genre, and game features, before slipping into more specific questions about homosexual content, using games like Enchanted Arms, Bully, and The Sims as examples.

As for the survey's motivation, I find myself a bit conflicted. I've just never thought of gaming as a pastime that sexual orientation figures into. Nowak makes a valid point about the industry's stumbling first attempts at reaching a female audience, but are homosexual gamers that much different from everyone else that they need to be catered to specifically? I'm not saying they shouldn't be...I suppose I am asking if they really want to be.

New Gaymer Survey [Full Sail via Joystiq - Thanks Alexander]

And they almost certainly won't be the last. Homosexuality has long been a controversial issue amongst gamers, developers, and publishers alike. With the ever-growing popularity of online games, players often bring their intolerance online, sharing it with their friends, teammates, and guilds. This tends to lead to knee-jerk reactions from the industry, with an unfortunate emphasis on the word jerk.

Consider the example of SimCopter. A designer named Jacques Servin decided of his own accord to include a bit of beefcake in Maxis' SimCity spinoff, giving birth to "himbos". "Himbos" were shirtless, Speedo-clad men with nipples as bright as runway lights. The men would gather together in large numbers on certain dates, taking the place of some of the scantily clad women originally featured in the game. Servin, himself openly gay, included the bit of secret code on a lark, figuring Maxis would find it amusing.

They did not.

The Easter Egg was discovered shortly after the game's initial release, with 78,000 copies making it out the door beforehand. Jacques was terminated, and Maxis created a patch to remove the half-dressed men, also offering a service where customers could call in to get their disks replaced. Jacques' comments at the time neatly summed up the atmosphere of the early 90's.

"I didn't do it out of anger, just kind of `Why not?' I can't quite figure out why they would be so angry. It's not a game for kids; it's for 20-year-olds. But you put gay and kids anywhere in the same sentence and people explode."

SimCopter was released in 1996. A decade later and game developers were still reacting poorly to homosexual concerns.

In 2006, Blizzard scolded a player in their popular massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft for advertising her guild as gay and lesbian friendly, claiming she was violating the game's harassment policy. Following up on the issue the player, Sara Andrews of Tennessee was informed that her advertisements might cause other players to become abusive. Players who otherwise would have been content to sit at the auction house shopping for spell components, driven to the brink of homophobic madness by the mere mention of gays and lesbians.

After spending several years playing World of Warcraft, one could sort of see their point...but that point is beside the point. In trying to invite others to a guild where they could be comfortable, this player was exposed to an extremely uncomfortable situation. A situation that sparked threats both legal and otherwise against Blizzard.

Lambda Legal, one of the nation's oldest organizations dedicated to protecting gay and lesbian rights, examined the situation and came to a conclusion that seemed sensible to everyone but Blizzard: "You can't tell gay and lesbian people that they have to be quiet so other folk won't harass them."

Blizzard eventually apologized to both Lambda Legal and Sara Andrews, calling the situation an "unfortunate mistake", explaining that their game master who dealt with the issue misinterpreted Blizzard's rules, and that "it has always been, and will remain Blizzard's policy that LGBT-friendly guilds are allowed to announce their existence, and to recruit members in the same manner as any other guilds."

The World of Warcraft incident highlights one of the key issues that developers face when dealing with the subject of homosexuality. It generally isn't the reactions of the developers and publishers themselves that cause problems. It's their perception of how the players will react that results in them making unwise decisions.

Case in point, Microsoft's handling of a situation last year involving an Xbox Live gamertag. A gamer going by the handle "theGAYERgamer" was surprised to find his gamertag banned from the service, with Microsoft requesting that he change it before playing games over Xbox Live. According to reports, the company had received complaints that the name contained sexual innuendo and was in violation of Xbox Live policy. More recently, a lesbian gamer was banned from Xbox Live because her profile indicated a sexual preference.

Some would say that sexual preference has no place in online gaming, with Microsoft stating that a gamertag that read "theHETEROSEXUALgamer" would be treated the same way, but it isn't quite the same thing. Heterosexuality is a popular assumption. Homosexuality is considered an alternative. A straight male doesn't have to go out of his way to let women know that he is straight.

Things are looking up for Microsoft, having recently been in talks with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation regarding their Xbox Live policies. Perhaps they can come up with a better way of dealing with the homosexual lifestyle other than simply hiding it away.

This leads us directly to the recent troubles with Star Wars: The Old Republic. Following cries of discrimination following a moderator post stating that gays and lesbians did not exist in the Star Wars universe, community manager Sean Dahlberg apologized using the following excuse:

When I first built the word filter list, I added a variety of terms to the word filter that have been used numerous times in derogatory messaging.

While the SimCopter example was one of childish retribution by a developer who felt he was unfairly treated, both the World of Warcraft and Star Wars situations stemmed from employees of the respective companies that felt they were counteracting bad situations. Unfortunately, both representatives chose to attempt this by ignoring the fact that gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered exist. You can't address an issue like this by sweeping it under the carpet. That just creates bumps in the carpet that someone is eventually going to trip over, getting hurt in the process, and that hurt will rest on the shoulders of the company that did the sweeping.

What makes situations like these so tragic is the fact that other companies have taken great strides towards accepting "alternative lifestyles" in the recent past. Rockstar Games allowed for same-sex kissing to occur in Bully. Many massively multiplayer games not only allow for gay and lesbian couples to get married, but issue press releases to announce the feature. BioWare itself allowed for same-sex pairings in their epic science-fiction role-playing game Mass Effect, standing strong in the face of the controversy that those gameplay elements drew from the mainstream media.

The internet is a haven for intolerance. One could say the anonymity afforded by the world wide web serves to enhance it, allowing bigots to open their mouths wider without fear of someone placing a well-deserved fist there. We cannot ignore this fact, but we also cannot ignore the large population of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered gamers. Hiding them away is not the answer. Sure, they will be subject to ridicule and strife by those less understanding among us. It's almost unavoidable. The point is, just like anyone who doesn't fit into societal norms, I'm sure they'd rather walk tall and dodge the occasional cruel barb then hide who they truly are.

The people who get married in Second Life, the idea there seems to be that love is purely a product of the mind, and that just seems insane to me. The body has such a central role in our sexual lives, in our physical lives, that you can't just leave it behind.

Q&A with author Tim Guest [Nerve]

The recent kerfuffle over Leigh Alexander's article on mature versus juvenile sexuality in games reinforced some observations I've been making for the past few years, and highlighted a few more problems I have with the way the discussion tends to turn. Sometimes, I think it just highlights how immature the gaming community can be that we can't discuss the issue of cleavage without resorting to name-calling. Still, sex and visual culture has been on my mind recently thanks to my current research - and if being submersed in films and film culture will do anything, it will dredge up plenty of examples of good depictions of sex, bad depictions of sex, and everything in between. And to be honest, I think the gaming industry by and large has a lot to learn from the older medium of film: from the good, the bad, and the ugly.

While games aren't film, there are a lot of parallels in the ways stories are told and the fact that both are visual mediums. Certainly, there's plenty of bad sex and sexuality on screens across the world, but there's plenty of rich and wonderful depictions, too. Some people say we shouldn't look towards film, but until the medium leaps beyond our current way of telling stories via consoles and handhelds, I think we should be looking to the more established, more mature medium for inspiration (at least some of the time). It couldn't possibly hurt for the most part. It's delightful to ruminate on the emotive power of future video games with fancy technology that's way, way ahead of what the industry can currently produce - but despite the arguments against looking to film for tips on narrative design, games on the whole can barely manage to string together a creative, original, well-developed and well-written narrative.

One of Alexander's points in her Aberrant Gamer column was that it's often the subtle relationships that take on the most power - hand holding in ICO, watching the relationship of two adults through the eyes of a teenager in Final Fantasy XII. It's not the sex/sexual overtones/sexuality for the sake of titillation that so often seems to crop up in games, either with the physical acts or having pixilated tits on display. I'm of the humble opinion that it's easier to whip up a scantily clad character to insert some 'sex appeal' into a game (or movie) than it is to create that same sex appeal through, say, character development. How many films and games have thrown in the more overt sex/sex appeal as an afterthought - "Damn, we forgot the sexy bits, and people like sexy bits - let's throw in some mostly naked people." It feels like an afterthought, and that's a shame, because adding sexuality to the mix can heighten the emotional impact a story has on the viewer. A beloved-but-not-great film in my collection is The Peony Pavilion (not to be confused with the original) - after a subtle handling of the complicated friendship between two women, the not terribly convincing love scene between one of the female leads and her first man crush is not only unerotic, it's jarring, out of place, and only serves to yank the viewer out of what is otherwise a beautiful and rather dreamy film.

On the other side of the coin, one of the most erotic scenes I've ever seen (and I've watched a lot of film) is from Red Sorghum. Early in the film, Gong Li's little wedding procession is waylaid by a bandit, who pulls back the red curtain of her litter, reaches out, and squeezes her red slippered foot. She looks up at him and smiles. It's an erotic, if subtle, moment, far more so than watching various video game vixens or vapid starlets slither about on screen in few or no clothes. It's way more erotic than watching a 'sex scene' that seems tacked on as an afterthought. We're talking about squeezing a foot - even if you aren't terribly aware of the sexual power of the slippered foot in imperial China, it's hard not to see the sexuality that rolls off the screen. More than that, Gong Li's character shifts from a shy girl to being aware of the power of her own sexuality. All this with a foot squeeze and a look, the tilt of a chin, a smile. Video games are capable of this level of subtlety and nuance, but it's a capability that has, thus far, been more or less unexplored.

In short, boobs are the easy way out. Overt sexuality is an easy way out - instant titillation with the ensuing hordes of ogling fan boys and girls is a hell of a lot easier than trying to sell sexuality of a subtler stripe. Sex - and overt sex appeal - has its place, but the fact remains that it's more difficult to craft complex characters, the ones that ooze sex appeal without cartoonish proportions, than it is to put a pixelated body on display. They're less dangerous, too, people on display, easier to put in their place as a sexpot or vapid curvy creature - it's the Gong Lis of the world who are dangerous, the ones who are well aware of the power of what they aren't showing, the ones who can lure and tempt the unwitting man into god only knows what. The ones who know they have more going for them than overexposed cleavage are temptation to the extreme. The lovely courtesans of imperial China (the 'talented women,' not the streetwalkers) were renowned for their beauty, their myriad talents (usually in poetry, painting, or calligraphy), their charming company, their manners. Even wives developed friendships with these multi-talented vixens. There's no doubt that sexuality and beauty played a huge role in vaulting the talented girls to the top of the courtesan heap, but they are deeper than just their stunning figures; pretty figures and faces are a dime a dozen. The most talented had a throngs of adoring admirers (Ming dynasty fan boys and girls?) for several reasons, no matter how sharp their tongue. History, novels and films are all full of these complex, subtle women, vividly sexual beings without being shallow or cheap, but video games seem to lack in this regard.

Let's live dangerously here: any reason the good girl can't vamp around screen every now and again? Does the vamp have to be a man-eater all the time? Characters tend to be shuffled into one category or another, and there is a bit of a madonna/whore complex going on when it comes to women. Characterization of men, I must hasten to add, isn't much better, and just another example that what we really need is better writing, better narrative, better characterization. If the sad, consumptive opera singer of the aforementioned Peony Pavilion can be by turns depressed housewife, tender-hearted friend, and vixenish seductress - if complex characters can emerge out of what amounts to a very average production - why in the world can't equally complex characters emerge from powerhouse development teams at great studios with more frequency than we currently see?

One of my favorite modern films, Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love, features Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu Wai playacting a suspected affair between their cheating spouses. Maggie Cheung, while wearing an astonishing number of tight fitting qipao throughout the film, isn't cultivating sexuality via skin. She's not vamping and pouting her way through the plot; we never see a sex scene, or anything even approaching torrid, happen between the jilted, playacting spouses. And yet - the two are wonderful to watch on screen together. It's passion of a less unbridled sort, developed with looks and posture and body language, but it smolders throughout the movie - and it's sexy as hell to watch them on screen together. Tony Leung once said in an interview that despite playing opposite each other in a number of films, he and Cheung deliberately see each other infrequently to preserve mystery in their relationship. It's partly that mystery that's devastatingly sexy, and the reason I'll suffer through having to watch Zhang Ziyi attempt to act just to see Cheung and Leung work their on-screen magic.

I don't think we're ready for the Wong Kar-wai of video games - I'm certainly not ready for Wong Kar-wai on my console or handheld - but if he and other directors can manage to convey sexuality and well-developed relationships, to say nothing of creating desirable on-screen sirens, in two hours and without resorting to cheap titillation, surely whoever's in charge of the story board for a game that may well have much, much more time to develop and explore characters than your average big screen picture could do the same. Let's have the good girl show some skin and the bad girl cover up a little for a change, or at least admit that's an option. We, and the characters, deserve more richness and diversity in the characterization mix. When the good girl goes 'sexy,' you wind up with Yuna of Final Fantasy X-2. While I think there are some arguments to be made for the 'liberation of Yuna' and ensuing clothing loss and radical change of personality, couldn't they have sexed up the clothing and character without turning her into a giggling idiot for three quarters of the game? No wonder Paine looked like she was nursing a bad headache most of the time.

This really isn't about sex, nudity, breasts, or anything else; it's all in the handling. There's a 2001 documentary (of sorts) that follows the lives of a lesbian couple in Beijing. They're perfectly normal people and a loving couple, they just like to spend lots of time doing their daily in-house activities in the buff. We see them cooking dinner, cleaning, hanging out, showering, hopping in bed - and yet, despite their nudity and their engagement in activities that could easily become fodder for softcore porn, it doesn't feel cheap, it doesn't feel like a copout. Of course, there are plenty of 'artistic,' 'independent,' or 'underground' films that are just as guilty of using gratuitous sex or nudity to say nothing more than 'Hey! Our headliners look good naked! Watch our film!'. And on the flip side, plenty of big budget pictures have tackled sex and naked people with aplomb. This is all about the direction, the cutting, the crafting of the film. This stuff doesn't just happen - it takes talent and the desire to create something more.

With all the emphasis on realism in graphics, you'd hope that people would be equally concerned with realism in characterization (I suppose that particular divide is a conversation saved for another day). Still, considering what can be conveyed visually these days, it should be even easier to create narratives and characters that are compelling in a way that the written word sometimes isn't. And no temperamental prima donna actresses to worry about!

We have the talent in spades - now it's time for the desire to create rich characters and engaging narratives to follow. Jiggling breasts et al. are, at this point, a copout - an easy way to create sex appeal. From better writing, better characterization, more thoughtful creation will flow better depictions of sexuality and sex. And I daresay some of those maligned, subtler, more 'mature' aspects will add a certain element of sexiness that is, for the most part, currently lacking in games. I wouldn't want gaming to resemble an art house theatre and nothing but, but we're in no danger of that - I'm just looking for more options, just like I have when I flip through my DVD collections. I'm patiently waiting for the gaming vixen who knocks us dead in her first appearance, and not with her unrealistic proportions. She'll appear someday ... I hope.

Some games are meant to be nothing more than entertainment, just as many movies are. Even the great 'social dramas' of the silver screen were sold to the masses on sex appeal and escape. But I'm at a loss to see how more diversity and better crafting would hurt any of us in the long run. Jiggling pixels are never going to go away - but it's time to add more (a lot more) than that.

Notes on film screens, in order: The Actress/Centre Stage [阮玲玉] (1992); The Pillow Book (1996); In the Mood for Love [花樣年華] (2000); Peony Pavilion [遊園驚夢] (2001); Red Sorghum [紅高梁] (1987); Peony Pavilion; In the Mood for Love; still from The Goddess [神女] (1934) from The Actress.