Reaction to LGBT Characters in Overwatch

How do students feel about this game now?
Overwatch

In 2015, Blizzard released Overwatch, an online shooter where a user can play with attractive and charismatic characters. All characters in the game have interesting background stories. Some of them raised a big controversy because many players were not prepared to the fact that two-game characters, namely Tracer and Soldier:76, would be the representatives of the LGBT community. In this article, we will describe and analyze the main types of student responses to the question of LGBT characters in the game Overwatch.

Admiration of inclusiveness

Many players admired Overwatch for its diversity of characters. It is a game where any person may find a character that will suit him or her. The Internet is filled with accounts of players that play Overwatch just because it is an inclusive game that attracts attention to the question of LGBT. As we all know, the problem of homophobia remains a painful issue in the modern world. Any efforts to oppose it by popularizing LGBT characters through game-related comics are praised by conscious players.

The discourse on Overwatch even became a topic for many academic assignments. The growing awareness of the LGBT issues was recognizable in the growing number of free essay samples about LGBT. Nowadays, educational programs are more and more focused on promoting argumentative LGBT essay topics. The main purpose is to eliminate many cases of homophobia. It goes about situations in which even a mere computer game is fiercely criticized for the presence of LGBT characters.

Overwatch League - 2-2-2 Role Lock Is In

Homophobic backlash

Unfortunately, not all young players interested in this game were favorable to inclusive values. The point is that homophobia remains a big problem among American youth because more than 70% of U.S. LGBT teenagers are bullied at schools because of their sexuality. The game faced a backlash at diverse American forums and gaming community websites. The most popular argument was that games should not be used for social and political propaganda, just like any educational book. It was widely used by the most radical youth.

Conservative Internet users adhering to traditional family values were among the first to oppose the promotion of this game. Such people are radical in their views and do not accept opposite views. In many situations, they can even bully people with different views, whether it goes about a mere match in Overwatch or a discussion on an online forum. For them, Overwatch is an attempt to ruin traditional family values by ensuring the spread of the LGBT movement.

They just want to play

There was also a third category of players. Those were people that wanted to stay neutral about Overwatch. They were skeptical about the value of games as tools of anti-homophobic struggle. At the same time, such people also did show any bias in their reaction to LGBT in the game. They just enjoyed the game without attempting to participate in the discussion on the LGBT discourse. Most probably, this category of young Overwatch players was much bigger than the preceding ones, but it attracted less attention.

A few years later

Fortunately, in recent years, the gaming community has already accepted the presence of LGBT characters in the game. There are still people that hate this game, but, overall, the debate has ceased. It is still difficult to evaluate the situation properly. One may expect that such acceptance means that liberal education does well in making students much more tolerant and less aggressive when it comes to the question of sexual identities.

The release of Blizzard’s online shooter, Overwatch, was a topic of a big debate on the presence of LGBT characters in video games. Many university students admire this game for introducing LGBT characters and attracting attention to the problems of sexual minorities. This phenomenon also showed that the gaming community was still homophobic. Fortunately, nowadays. Most users of Overwatch are not concerned with the presence of LGBT characters, which shows that the community of student gamers becomes much more inclusive.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Lost Password

Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.