Adrienne Shaw Piece
The piece starts by telling the reader that it was AIDS day. A holiday that most certainly 99% of all people on the planet would not know existed. This is most likely to set the tone for the book. Adriene discusses an interview she had with a homosexual couple in their apartment. Though honestly, I feel like it is just forced for the sake of diversity. Her and the woman named Pouncy were supposedly wearing the same outfit that day, how charming. Pouncy even said that she did not want to wear her jacket when going downstairs despite how chilly it was because it would make them look like lesbians. Whatever that is supposed to mean.
This book discusses how there is a:
link between consumptions and identities; the different types of sociality in media consumptions; the way resources impact who plays video games and when; the fact that identities do sometimes guide consumption… the different types of representation audience activity made available by different media. (14)
Essentially, this piece is one of those types that argues for equal representation in entertainment media. There is nothing wrong with including different types of characters with their own uniqueness to them, but if the character is forced in there then the character typically lacks any kind of personality and will often feel dry. People who are inclusive for the sake of inclusivity typically do not understand the fundamentals of writing well written characters. It is a phenomenon in our modern culture that is destroying any way of creating well written stories and characters. One can create any character he or she wants but that character must be believable or likeable. Otherwise it just comes off as a dry forced in character whose only purpose is being there because the writer needed to make a quota.
According to this person’s theory she believes that there is a necessity for adding diverse media representation because the company should want to hit all demographics. However, there is a problem with this theory. Depending on the game or media it might not always be effective. For example, historical war games like World War II first person shooters, most people who play those games prefer to play them for the historical accuracy of the game. When EA wanted to market their game Battlefield V as the most historically accurate World War II game and they have women with prosthetic arms and a cricket bat on the western front, gamers that prefer this specific genre are going to be off put by it and most likely will not buy the game. Additionally, only 6% of Americans identify themselves as a part of the LGBTQ community so having a game that specifically targets only them is also not smart marketing wise because most of the time those types of entertainment have over forced sexual content that may disturb the remaining 94% of the population. Now in RPGs it is incredibly common for straight males to make a female lesbian character but that is only to satisfy lustful purposes.
