GLAAD Calls on Gaming Industry to Hire More LGBT Workers, Add More Gay Characters

GLAAD has released the first-ever report on LGBT inclusion in video games, which claims that 17 percent of active gamers are LGBT. The organization is now calling on the gaming industry to increase games with gay characters and hire more LGBT workers “in positions of authority,” among other things.

The GLAAD report, done in partnership with Nielsen Games, found that 17 percent of gamers are LGBT, and that 72 percent of LGBT gamers say that seeing characters with their same identity or sexual orientation makes them feel better about themselves, according to a report by IGN.

The report, which surveyed 1,452 active PC and console gamers in the U.S. between July and August of 2023, also said that that number jumped to 78 percent for LGBT gamers between the ages of 13 and 17.

They survey added that LGBT gamers are 11 percent more likely to use gaming as a means for escaping situations they find difficult in the real world, with 24 percent saying they are more likely to depend on gaming to get through hard times. Additionally, 66 percent of LGBT gamers said that gaming lets them express themselves in ways they don’t feel comfortable in everyday life.

Nintendo’s Switch eShop is being called out for having the lowest percentage of games with LGBT characters or storylines.

Meanwhile, Microsoft had 146 games content available on the Xbox store featuring LGBT, PlayStation had 90, Nintendo had 50, and Steam had 2,302, with the number dropping to 1,506 when “adult only sexual content” tag was filtered out.

GLAAD says these four cases represent less than two percent of all available game libraries.

Therefore, the organization is calling on the gaming industry to increase the percentage of games with LGBT content, strive “for representation that promotes inclusivity and acceptance,” take “responsibility for making gaming communities more inclusive,” consult with “LGBTQ media content experts,” and hire “LGBTQ workers in positions of authority.”

“There are several reasons for the lack of LGBTQ representation in the game industry,” GLAAD said in a statement.

The statement continued:

Some reasons for exclusion are passive. Often, game companies have not considered that they should represent LGBTQ people, nor do they see us as a major part of the core gaming audience. Some reasons for exclusion are active. Companies worry about pushing away a core audience that they assume are resistant or hostile to LGBTQ content.

This imagined core audience, however, is a myth, and it is one of the reasons it was paramount for GLAAD to create this gaming report. LGBTQ games are a significant part of the existing active gamer market and, by and large, non-LGBTQ gamers are not nearly as resistant to this content as many assume. Gaming represents a vast and lucrative market. By some measures, the global revenue from video games exceeds that of the film and music industries combined.

“Despite its reach, the game industry is out of step with contemporary media in terms of LGBTQ representation, and it is failing its LGBTQ consumers,” GLAAD asserted.

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