Covert Gay Representation in Video Games 1 Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Dec 15 1996

Location: 

California

Upon the release of the 1996 Maxis Inc. computer game SimCopter, the company discovered programmer Jacques Servin had secretly added scantily clad male CPUs to appear in the game and make out with the player character. The company fired him and was forced to offer a corrective patch "via an 800 number and the World Wide Web" to any customers unwilling or unable to handle the sheer erotic power of the 90s era, borderline-impressionist digital himbos. Servin claimed the stunt was in part an effort to highlight some of the inequities and double standards of the industry. At a time when gay representation in the medium was extremely limited and scantily clad women characters were often used to little controversy, Servin's trickery served to bring significant media attention to some of the failings of the 'progressive' tech industry.

Posted by asherh on

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