8 Ugly Problems About Gender Representation The Gaming Industry Won't Admit

2. Token Romances Are All Too Common

This issue is less severe in none-RPG titles, but where it is present it proves to be just a little bit irritating. I'm going to highlight a personal favourite game of mine - Skyrim - and talk about its use of romance and love interests. On the offender scale its fairly small, and even offers an in-lore explanation as to why the marriage mechanic is what it is, but having your own personal servant in your home of choice for the remainder of your journey isn't exactly the most intelligent way of presenting the concept to an audience. Other RPG titles like Fable suffer from this issue as well (along with a distinct heteronormative approach to story telling, but I digress) where a marriage is superfluous to the main events of the game. These romances hold no impact on the story and are just an addition to a player's questing, so why don't we make them more fulfilling? It's hard to recall instances outside of the RPG sphere where a romance has felt particularly forced or 'bolted on' to the main experience, which in many respects places gaming above some of film and TV's most successful programming. Indeed, there have been some truly memorable and worthwhile romances in the medium throughout its history, but a more diverse and perhaps accurate depiction would be very much welcomed as games continue to push genre boundaries.