If it's just an anecdote in the plot, I don't think many people will mind. However, if you want to convey a moral message, it must be done well. Disney is not a good example to follow in that case because they deliver their messages in a crude and insensitive way.
The main thing is to make the message open to interpretation so that, when the player interprets it, they assimilate it more easily because that interpretation is partly their own creation.
There is also how some players try to immerse and identify with the protagonist.
The protagonist having vastly different core qualities can make that difficult. Sure, the protagonist does things, that no normal person would ever do. Like fighting dragons, doing magic or generally be the hero of a tale. That leaves the mundane everyday life things to relate to the hero. Like having love interests. Or a sexuality.
So it is a tricky thing to include lgbt elements. Attach it to the main character and risk estranging that character from the majority of potential players. Attach it to a side character to just have it for the sake of having such sub plots? Making the story centered on those elements or having them just appear?
Would gay Mario trying to find his gay platonic prince friend in another castle be a distraction or an incentive to play the game? I go with distraction. Trying to rescue the princess is just about one of the oldest hero tale tropes. It is not relevant, but only serves as an alibi motivation. Any other reason would have done the trick.
the lesbian variation
One can always subvert or change a trope.
What did trigger your interest in the game? The "twist" of trope, the gameplay, graphics, previous knowledge of the developer's works?
Probably the yuri theme, seeing how that game was made for a yuri jam.
Did you play those Mario games because of the romance plot?
Would gay Mario trying to find his gay platonic prince friend in another castle be a distraction or an incentive to play the game? I go with distraction.
“Sorry, Mario. The prince is in another castle.”
Is that distracting? A genderswap wouldn’t matter for gameplay. Change the title and alter the character design a little; everything else could stay the same.
Then those of us who for our own reasons dig up the rare stories about saving princes would have increased interest in the game.
A genderswap wouldn’t matter for gameplay.
Exactly my point.
Then what is the genderswap for? Probably to give a known game a twist for a new audience. But creating a distraction for the previous target audience.
That works well in indie games. Carve out a nieche, find an audience. You won't cater to the masses, but you will also not compete against the games catered for the masses.
There are a lot of people that exist. But if you tell a story, you do not include all sorts of variations, just becaue they exist. Trans people exist too. So do children, disabled people, body builders and chain smokers.
So at which point would trans muscular smoking baby Mario in a wheelchair be a bit of a distraction in a jump & run game, that never actually adresses any of the highlighted qualities? Surely it must be a sign, if someone get's distracted by this and just plays another game.
My point is, that if you have gay Mario do the jumping, you better involve the gayness in the story in a satisfying manner. Else it is just a distraction. An informed quality.
There is nothing wrong with having gay Mario. Or muscular wheelchar Mario. This is a story decision of the writer. It is not a random chance roll of the dice what the story is about or what qualities the characters have, out of a pool of existing qualities.
If Mario would jump in the 1950s, he would have probaby had a cigarette in his mouth and depicting him as a non smoker would have been the distraction. In the 1890s it would have been a tobacco pipe, especially if he were to solve crimes. This "distraction" is about information value. The expected thing is the thing with the least information value when it happens. A stereotypical plumber from Italy having a mustache and being hetero is not news.
Presenting him with a full beard or as gay, is news. It subverts the trope. Being done good it is an interesting story. Though after glancing at tags, there seems to be a certain lack of gay jumper heroes. 170000k platformers. And maybe 500 gay/lgbt https://itch.io/games/genre-platformer/tag-gay https://itch.io/games/genre-platformer/tag-lgbt But I assume there is also a certain lack of hetero platformer heroes, since that quality is of no concern for jumping. Or as I phrase it, a distraction.
But we're not talking about cigar-chomping bears in a wheelchair. No-one was proposing that. We're talking specifically about one particular kind of representation, done by and for people who care about that for whatever reason. Slippery slopes are a logical fallacy.
Besides, that's a suspiciously specific type of character. I'm beginning to have questions.
We're talking specifically about one particular kind of representation, done by and for people who care about that for whatever reason.
Then you have been reading this discussion vastly different than me. The setup of this discussion was not players that seek lgbt content and subsequently find it. So I approached it as the situation where lgbt content is added on top, as the original post described it. The title of the thread can be understood differently, like a poll, like if people would care for 3d elements in a 2d game. And while I agree in principle with "Unless they greatly affect the direction of the plot", I go further and say, it distracts a bit and often comes across as bad writing or trying to appear inclusive. I would like to see such qualites either worked in satisfactorial or not at all.
If your reason for having an lgbt hero is to appeal to people looking for lgbt, that changes everything! Of course it is not a disctration! It is the whole point why the hero has that quality.
I picked Mario because he is well known and because his games would work no matter his sexuality. So adding lgbt elements to a Mario game would be such a situation. For this topic with rpg, Link might have been better, but many people do not even know his name.
