LGBT in Video Games: Has It Gotten Better?

     Recently it has been announced that an upcoming game for the Nintendo 3DS, Fire Emblem: Fates, will allow same sex marriages. This is a big thing considering last year we had the big incident with another 3DS game, Tomadachi Life. If you don't remember, there was a bit of controversy when Nintendo made a statement that it was going to fix a glitch that would allow people to marry the same sex in Tomadachi Life. Nintendo later on, after seeing the backlash, apologized and said that they will include same sex marriages in later games. Reflecting on this, I have to wonder if as a gay man and an avid lover of video games, has things gotten better for me? Am I being represented?
     Same sex relationships isn't the new frontier in video games. It has been in games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Just after the Tomadachi Life controversy Square Enix allowed same sex relationships and weddings in its Final Fantasy XIV MMO. There was even a pride parade supporting this. This seems very profitable in games that let you customize your character, but what about games that don't?
     As being represented in games we have come a long way. Over the years, we have had gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender characters represented in games. Has it gotten better? In some ways it has. The roles of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders in video games has progressed over time. The most obvious example has been The Last of Us. The Last of Us was one of the games where they had people who were LGBT, not only Ellie and Riley, but also characters Bill and Joel. Mortal Kombat X was the most recent game where one of the new characters Kung Jin was implied to be gay in a cinematic and was later confirmed to be gay by one of the creators. These characters were written as people you can see being real genuine people instead of stereotypes that often end being portrayed in video games, but in media as well.
     While this is still good, the progression is still slow and being represented in games still seems to be a closeted thing. Gay characters are in games, but mostly they end up being supporting characters and rarely do we ever get them to be protagonists, people we control in the first place and the majority of the game. Don't get me wrong, it is nice to see people who are gay in video games, but I would like to see me being represented more than just a supporting character.
     I'm not going to lie as society progresses, we see more demand for art and media to progress as well. We are starting to see this in games, just like we're seeing better female representation in games thanks to Anita Sarkessian who has been advocating feminism and pretty much has been laying down the issues of negative female tropes in video games. Just like that,we are starting to see the ball roll a bit faster. When we see more games with protagonists who are gay, that's where I can see progress.