Story, Representation, Sacrifice and Realism

I recently came across a post in a Subreddit about Anthony Burch, a writer for the Borderlands series, joining Riot Games. This post was an expression of displeasure by the creator at this acquisition mainly due to the fact of an interview that discussed some of his priorities in writing. The main focus was would he be fine to sacrifice story for representation or should story come before representation, the main "culprit" being the fact that in Borderlands there were random bi-sexual, gay or lesbian and how that felt arbitrary and forced. His reply was "The points made against me are 100 percent true. I didn't have any particular stories to tell about human sexuality - I just randomly chose a few characters and decided they weren't heterosexual. I had no reason to do so other than the belief that a cast of sexually diverse characters is better than a sexually homogeneous one."

Now there are 2 main points I want to make involving this topic. One is on the side of Burch and how I believe his system isn't in fact taking away from the story at all. The other is against Burch and how I believe sometimes you need to put realism into a story before you make diversity the main focus.

First of all, I want to start off with the point that making someone OPENLY (this word is important) gay, bi, a-sexual or anything similar will never take away from the Borderlands story or most stories for that matter (read the other point for my reasoning to say 'most'). The Borderlands series is set in a place where being openly non-homosexual is perfectly fine and has seemed to cease being a point of contention (likely due to the bigger emphasis on not getting yourself decapitated.) The fact is, make any of those characters homosexual and their story changes to "my wife" instead of "my husband" or vice-versa. The fact is this is such an petty detail for some to criticise. It's very similar to the recent Ghostbusters reboot where people shut it down due to the fact it was an all woman cast, or the fact that the character of Hermione would be played by a black woman in The Cursed Child put off many people from watching the play. These details do NOT matter and never will. Not being a fan of Ghostbusters myself, I still didn't like the reboot, not because it was an all woman cast but the exact opposite. For me it didn't change at all, not in the slightest. It was still stupidly witty with cringe worthy one liners and pacing. The fact of the matter was, for me, the casting change didn't change the movie in the slightest. This is how it is with Borderlands. Yes the characters are gay or bi... So what? Would you care if they were openly homosexual, or maybe it's not just a sexuality thing. Would people care if the character was black instead of white, or maybe even asian? Would it be too hard to understand that there is more than one sexuality and nationality in the world? And that on a daily basis you do meet people who aren't in fact homosexual or white? Realistically some characters in the Borderlands universe are gay, Bi, A-sexual, etc. and have a different nationality to you and this DOESN'T matter at all

Now that I've stated that I want to look at a word I used in the last line, "Realistically". Realism isn't a thing that is associated with games a lot as most games do bend reality to a point so that the game can function and flow. In my opinion bending reality to a point is fine but there's a fine line between bending and twisting in my eyes. You can bend your world to a point it's still realistic but exaggerated but once past that point you're swimming in a fantasy world instead. I believe there are constraints you must adhere to in certain scenarios otherwise your game just looks silly or forced. I will give an extremely exaggerated scenario for this which is just to prove the point at a fundamental level.

If you were in the middle of a game in which you're a Nazi Soldier and you talk to an NPC and he openly admits he's a jew, that is going to immediately take you out of the game space because realistically this wouldn't happen. I understand this is a very extreme example of a game that would probably never be made due to controversial subjects, but I just wanted to show you the fundamentals of what I mean. I was talking with an acquaintance about how a game which has realistic humans in should not push the human body's limits beyond exaggeration to a point they look silly. I made the point that if you want the game to have realistic human bodies, there shouldn't be a woman that is 8 FT tall weighing less than 100 pounds, because realistically and scientifically that human body wouldn't survive, more than likely her giant figure wouldn't be supported by her small weight and likely muscle mass and yet I was greeted with criticism about how I was being extremely sexist and was even compared to Donald Trump. I thought "Hang on a minute, the point has been completely lost here. I'm not saying there's an exact way a woman character should be made, and that they have limitations. I'm saying every gender, every species in fact, has limitations in reality." Scientifically a T-Rex couldn't run long distances because it's body couldn't hold it's huge girth without expending a lot of energy. It would literally run it'self to death by exhaustion after 10 mintues. It's a fair point to make if you saw a T-Rex running you wouldn't be too confused as we don't see T-Rex's in our everyday so they're not reality to us. But if you saw a man, that was 3ft 3 inches weighing 250 pounds you'd understandably be extremely confused and in a game that would pull you out of reality.

As I said these are extreme examples so allow me to tone it down slightly. My main point is that, in my opinion, you should not sacrifice story and immersion for representation if it just doesn't fit. If you want to controversially go into slavery in American history, do it but don't pull out halfway through an sugar coat it. Make it real. I'm not saying this to say what happened was okay, the whole point is it WASN'T okay so stop trying to make it go away. Just because we're a "better society" now doesn't mean we don't have a horrible history and we need to make sure people know that. "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" as they say. If you create a day in the current present times, yes people will be gay, people will be black, but don't make it unrealistic. If your game is set in Mexico, the fact is Mexico does have very extreme areas, don't sugar coat that. Nobody is expecting to go to Mexico and see the beautiful wild safaris of Africa. If you're in a decent part you're in a decent part, but if you're in Acapulo and you don't see gangs, robberies or dirty streets and your player knows something about the 4th worst city for murders in the entire world, well they're not going to be immersed in your world at all.

My final conclusion is that; Yes you can bend the rules of reality to fit your games flow but you can't just bend it to a point you lose sight of reality. Yes diversity is amazing in games, if it fits do it, please. If you can fit different cultures and sexuality's into games that is amazing and should always be done. But you shouldn't sacrifice your immersion into the game for it.