Multimedia
Gay Gaming
By Bryan Ochalla

Jan 28, 2008

Looking for a little gay representation in your next video game outing? Forget about the titles that have hogged the headlines recently—including Mass Effect and its “blink and you’ll miss them” girl-on-girl sex scenes. Gay gamers looking for a more in-your-face experience should track down the little known Internet offering, Queer Power: Welcome to Queerland, released way back in 2004. 

Crafted by Italian design shop la Molleindustria, purveyor of such fine, politically-based Flash games as Orgasm Simulator, Operation: Pedopriest and Faith Fighter (which boasts the brilliant tagline: “Religious hate has never been so much fun!”), Queer Power is best compared to arcade-style beat ‘em ups of old like Street Fighter II—that is, if Street Fighter II had been conjured up by Dr. Ruth.

The differences between the two games are apparent from the start. Players choose to control either a “dick lover” or “pussy lover” (“other or confused” is an option as well) and are then thrown into an arena of sorts along with another ambisexual character. 

Although battles in Street Fighter  II take place in real-world environments, Queer Power’s backdrops consist of undulating sexual organs. And whereas Capcom’s classic beat ‘em up provided players with hundreds of moves and poses, developer Paolo Pedercini’s dirty little game offers just a few—nearly all of which involve one sexual act or another.

Some of the many "moves" available to those playing Queer Power: Welcome to Queerland

Queer Power inverts the fighting game archetypes created by the  Street Fighter series in another was as well: Instead of battling to the death, “opponents” in la Molleindustria’s offering deal out massive amounts of pleasure until one or both players collapse in orgasm.

Don’t worry if it all sounds a bit strange—it is. In fact, it’s less a game than a pixilated piece of social commentary. Which is just what the controversial Pedercini was shooting for, of course.

“Game conventions are strongly biased by cultural and ideological values,” the developer says. Overturning those clichés “is a way to play with players’ expectations and push them to reflect on the stereotypes in commercial games.”

Having fun isn’t the point of Queer Power—or any of la Molleindustria’s games, for that matter. “At least not the common concept of fun,” Pedercini says. “The point is to imagine an alternate reality were everybody is free to ignore their gender roles.”