‘Overwatch’ Soldier: 76: How Homophobia Tanked the Popularity of the Gay Character – Them
While games allow us to step into the lives of people completely different from us, there is still one difference that could be a bridge too far for some: playing an out gay character.
Researchers found that after Soldier: 76, a character in the online first-person shooter game Overwatch, was revealed to be gay in a 2019 comic, there was a statistical drop in his “pick rate” in the game, a term referring to the percentage of times players selected the character during a game. As Norwegian professor Cornel Nesseler writes in an analysis of the study published Wednesday in Scientific American, the newly-gay character experienced an “extreme drop” in popularity and pick rate following the coming-out announcement.
However, it may not be the mere fact of Soldier’s sexuality that turned gamers off. After surveying a group of players, most of whom were men from North America, researchers found that very few actually cared about the character being gay and that his sexuality would ideally not influence picking him in game. However, a large minority said that they experienced discrimination from other players in game when they played as Soldier, forcing them to switch to someone else. “They got tired of homophobic slurs and constant harassment and temporarily switched to other characters to avoid it,” Nesseler wrote.
Of course for gaymers like this reporter, the homophobic slurs in-game can feel even worse. Players have long tried to alert Overwatch developer Blizzard to its community’s homophobia problem, which has affected both its rank-and-file player base and its professional arm, the Overwatch League. And, of course, because we’re talking about gamers here, the harassment doesn’t stop at homophobia and often includes racist harassment, including the use of racist slurs and misogyny as well.
Nesseler also noted that, while many players did stop playing Soldier: 76, many chose instead to play another queer character, the game’s lesbian mascot Tracer, who has been out since the game’s launch. There’s no clear reason why Tracer is okay and Soldier: 76 is not. It is statistically true that queer women are more accepted worldwide than gay men. And, of course, straight men love the male-gaze-ified titillation of lesbians as opposed to the comical idea of two men kissing.
“Some players reported in the survey that they felt other players see lesbians as appealing and interesting, but that the same players voice disgust toward gay men,” Nesseler wrote.
Researchers found that the anti-Soldier bias seemed to wane about three months after the announcement, according to the study published in the Journal of Business Ethics.
This research also presents an interesting wrinkle in the ongoing evolution in how game developers introduce more queer characters to reflect the reality that queer people exist. Ultimately, companies may give us more Solider: 76s or more characters like Bridget in Guilty Gear Strive, but doing so could potentially open up the players to harassment and bullying, all because they might want to play a character that IDs as queer.
If you want to play Soldier: 76 right now, you can do so in Blizzard’s newly-launched Overwatch 2, though you’re going to have to wait out massive queue lines caused by attacks on the game’s servers.
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.