I will ask a different question. In how many mainstream games can you actually confirm the main character is straight? Sure it may be more than the two examples of gay main characters, but still very few compared to where it just doesn’t come up.
Pretty much every GTA, Duke Nukem, the Witcher series, the God of War series, Yakuza, Unchartered, the Final Fantasy games, the Super Mario games (including Donkey Kong), even Pac-man… and that’s just the ones I’ve played. Then you’ve got virtually everything featuring Disney characters, Star Wars, as well as most other TV and movie tie-in games (of which there are many).
That’s the thing about defaultism, is you can play a straight character and not even remember you’ve done it because it’s just the default. I’ll bet you didn’t even notice that Pac-man was canonically straight, and yet if Ms. Pac-man was instead called “Pacman’s Husband Steve”, suddenly Pac-man’s one defining trait would be his sexuality.
If nothing else, you’ve provided an object lesson in just how true OP’s meme is.
I will ask a different question. In how many mainstream games can you actually confirm the main character is straight? Sure it may be more than the two examples of gay main characters, but still very few compared to where it just doesn’t come up.
Pretty much every GTA, Duke Nukem, the Witcher series, the God of War series, Yakuza, Unchartered, the Final Fantasy games, the Super Mario games (including Donkey Kong), even Pac-man… and that’s just the ones I’ve played. Then you’ve got virtually everything featuring Disney characters, Star Wars, as well as most other TV and movie tie-in games (of which there are many).
That’s the thing about defaultism, is you can play a straight character and not even remember you’ve done it because it’s just the default. I’ll bet you didn’t even notice that Pac-man was canonically straight, and yet if Ms. Pac-man was instead called “Pacman’s Husband Steve”, suddenly Pac-man’s one defining trait would be his sexuality.
If nothing else, you’ve provided an object lesson in just how true OP’s meme is.
Well, I never played the official Pac-man so yeah, had no way to notice.
But while you do have a point about defaultism, I still believe large majority of games just doesn’t say one way or another, which is as it should be.