Simpsons Game Joins Pride Parade

The Simpsons game Tapped Out has launched a pride month update in which players can spend their winnings (issued in donuts, naturally) to buy rainbow flags, a pride billboard, and even the famous gay steel mill. "We work hard, we play hard." Donuts are also available for purchase with real money, of course. Learn more at the link. (Tipped by JMG reader Jeff)

Christian Video Game: Kill The Faggot

ArsTechnica reports that "failed Christian shoe promoter" Randall Hermann yesterday released a video game titled Kill The Faggot. The game briefly appeared on the Greenlight section of the downloadable games site Steam before being yanked following complaints.

Before its removal from Greenlight, games critic Jim Sterling downloaded and tested the game, which launched via Herman's game shop moniker Skaldic Games. The resulting YouTube video revealed a crude game that has players aim a bullseye to shoot and kill people who say such things as, "Can I put my weiner in your butt?" and "Whoops, I just dropped the soap." (After playing a minute of the game, Sterling shouted, "Where is the fucking satire? What is it satirizing? Not really anything. It's just being 'the thing.'") The game makes very clear that its goal is to shoot and kill homosexuals (with liberal use of the pejorative F-word in the game's title, at that). Players get points for killing gay people—more points if the person killed is transgender—and they lose points for any straight people they kill. It's hard to make a judgment call about the "most" offensive thing in this game, but we were particularly disturbed to hear the game's announcer celebrate a kill by saying, "AIDS carrier eliminated."

In a statement posted to another gaming site, Hermann wrote: "These people that think if you are even remotely homophobic, you are 'hateful' and a 'bigot,' and do everything they can to destroy you in every vicious way possible. So I decided to go down a path that most developers are afraid to go down: to piss these people off by making the most overly offensive game possible to these idiots to prove a point."

Hermann appears in the promotional video for a "Christian skate shoe company" that failed to launch last year after its Kickstarter campaign was canceled. According to materials for the shoe company, the product was intended to "promote the words and teachings of Jesus Christ through quality footwear." Herman's Twitter page notes that he is a "composer, 3D artist, game programmer/designer, skateboarder, and follower of Jesus Christ." His IMDb page lists a number of video game credits.

The video game has attracted wide attention on Reddit and in the gaming community. The below review clip of Kill The Faggot has been viewed 118K times since yesterday.

(Tipped by JMG reader Paul)

TRAILER: Pixels

Paul McCartney - Hope For The Future

Created for the video game Destiny.

Atari To Release LGBT-Oriented Game

Via Engadget:

By December, Atari will release Pridefest, a mobile city-building game focused on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. It's also launching an online casino service. Yes, both of these initiatives are coming from the same company responsible for Pong. But when you look at the amount of money those two seemingly disparate sectors represent, it's clear why Atari is making such a huge push in those directions. Online gambling may be having trouble gaining a foothold in the US due to regulatory laws, but it's booming in Europe. By 2015, the European Union predicts the industry will pull in some €13 billion (over $17 billion). Witeck Communications, which specializes in the LGBT consumer market, forecasted that 2013 would see the LGBT community's total buying power reach $830 billion in the United States alone. For a company that's been struggling for the better part of the last four decades, all of that money must look incredibly attractive -- regardless of where it comes from.

Engadget reports than an Atari official is "adamant" that the game isn't an attempt to pander to LGBT community. But they also quote an unnamed gay executive in the video game industry, who observes that Pridefest feels like a merely "reskinned" version of earlier similar games. (Tipped by JMG reader Derek)

Kids React To Game Boy

Tetris Turns 30

Christian Video Game Makers: Satan Totally Ruined Our Kickstarter Campaign

The makers of an Old Testament-based video game say that their Kickstarter campaign failed because Satan told people not to donate. Via Polygon:

"I believe that, 100 percent," replies Richard Gaeta, a co-founder of Phoenix Interactive. He argues that since the launch of the Kickstarter for Bible Chronicles: The Call of Abraham, trouble has come into all their lives. "It's very tangible," adds his business partner Martin Bertram. "From projects falling through and people that were lined up to help us make this a success falling through. Lots of factors raining down on us like fire and brimstone." [snip] "If Satan is rallying some of his resources to forestall, delay, or kill this project, I think, this must be a perceived threat to his kingdom," adds Ken Frech, a religious mentor to the project. "I fully would expect something like this to have spiritual warfare. Look at the gospel accounts of demons and so forth. That's reality. Many Americans don't believe it anymore. That doesn't change reality."

The game makers, who are now seeking other funding, are biblical literalists and they say that if it happened in the Old Testament, it happens in their game. Including the story of Sodom, although because they want a kid-friendly rating, things don't get very graphic about why Smitey McSmiterton did all that smiting. Below is their failed Kickstarter pitch.

Coco Peru Plays Grand Theft Auto

I pretty much chuckled for the full 12 minutes.

(Via JMG reader Zhy Kitty)

Video Game: Ultimate Gay Fighter

"The only colors in this rainbow are black and blue." Coming to all cell phone platforms in January. The press release is here.

(Tipped by JMG reader TJ)

Pat Robertson: Sinning In Video Games Is The Same As Sinning In Real Life

SAN FRANCISCO: World's First LGBT Gamer Convention Makes Its Debut

GaymerX, the world's first convention for LGBT gaming geeks, was held this weekend in San Francisco, where over 2000 fans enjoyed gaming panels, booths, concerts, cosplay, and parties. Sponsors of the event included GLAAD, the Trevor Project, Electronic Arts, and XBox. Gaming site Kotaku tells us about one of the weekend's most memorable moments:

Ellen McLain, the voice of GlaDOS from Portal made an appearance at the GaymerX convention and sang ‘Still Alive’. That’s pretty cool in and of itself, but perhaps not newsworthy. But what happened next? Well, that’s the best part. This is truly one of the best video game related proposals I’ve ever seen. Prepare for tears! I don’t want to ruin it by summarising it in some way that totally doesn’t capture how cool this is, so just watch it and set your face to ‘blub.’

Fast forward to the 4:00 minute mark if (like me) you don't know what Portal is and therefore won't know its theme song.

Google Launches New Game

Buzzfeed tries to explain it:

Ingress is just a game. A massively multiplayer alternate-reality game, one that that overlaps with the real world — so like you walk to actual places (a museum, or library) with your phone to do things in the game, in which you're on a team with potentially millions of people competing against a rival, equally massive team — but a game nonetheless.

I still don't get it. Pong, anyone?

Tetris Light

On sale for $47. I would change it every day.

(Via Buzzfeed)

The Gayest Video Game Ever

Playbill has the details:

The video game includes 32 of Webber's songs from 13 of his musicals, including "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," "The Phantom of the Opera," "Memory" and "Any Dream Will Do," among others. Here's how the video game is described: "Fans of hit musicals such as The Phantom of the Opera, Sunset Boulevard, Evita, Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Jesus Christ Superstar will now be able to put themselves center stage with this new game." Players can choose from three different game modes: Dance, Sing or Career. "Sing & Dance" will also feature the voices of Broadway performers Elaine Paige (Sunset Boulevard, Cats), Michael Crawford (The Phantom of the Opera), Donny Osmond (Joseph…) and Sarah Brightman (The Phantom of the Opera), who "sing" alongside the gamer.

The release date is September 14th. And now you know what you'll be doing at dinner parties this fall. (Tipped by JMG reader Robert)

Headline Of The Day

Details. (Tipped by JMG reader Paul)

New Sims Ad Features Gay Love

(Tipped by JMG reader Fritz)

Game Maker Backs LGBT Content

The religious right is continuing their onslaught against video game maker Electronic Arts, deluging the company with thousands of letters complaining about the option of creating gay characters in its latest Star Wars release. But company officials are thumbing their nose at the attack.

"Every one of EA's games includes ESRB content descriptors so it's hard to believe anyone is surprised by the content. This isn't about protecting children, it's about political harassment. EA has not been pressured by any groups to include LGBT characters in our games. However, we have met with LBGT groups and sponsored industry forums to discuss content and harassment of players in online forums. In short, we do put options for same-sex relationships in our games; we don't tolerate hate speech on our forums."

While Tony Perkins and the FRC have issued press releases that denounce EA, the company notes that most of the complaining letters are coming via the Florida Family Council, who last month issued a complaint which included a mocking image of Darth RuPaula, an action figure we'd actually love to have.

Hate Group Warns Of "Darth RuPaula"

Via Right Wing Watch:

There were no LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) characters in any of the Star Wars movies. So if BioWare, the maker of Star Wars video games, adds LGBT characters for kids to select as their action figure it could be something like Darth RuPaula, a combination of Darth Vader, one of the most popular Star Wars characters, and RuPaul, the renown transgender cross dresser. Florida Family Association has prepared an email for you to send that urges officials at BioWare’s parent company Electronic Arts and Lucas Films to stop any additions of LGBT content to Star Wars video games.

If you create a gay video game character, you just might end up the host of several nationally televised shows! Nightmare!

Video Games Make Kids Gay

"What makes this so dangerous is despite what the labels say, the actual purchasing market for these games is often young males ages 11-16. This age group is not yet mature enough to not be impacted by these life decisions. There is no argument that video gaming is an extremely effective training tool. These young minds will be indoctrinated to homosexual relationships as normal lifestyles with homosexual characters being portrayed as heroes in warfare and in romantic situations." - American Decency Association board member Steve Ensley, who is ever so pissed about video game makers that allow users to create gay characters.

RELATED: Game maker Electronic Arts is among the many companies dubbed "cultural polluters" for introducing a Star Wars game with the option of gay players.

The latest attack on our culture from gaming is the result of a small, yet very vocal, group insisting that homosexual behaviors and lifestyles be introduced into a Star Wars game. If they are successful, their actions could further indoctrinate children into the belief that homosexual behavior is completely natural, before their minds have developed fully enough to make their own choices and decisions.