Welcome back to Pushing Buttons, folks. In case you’re wondering where I’ve been, I was on secondment from video games for a week covering Glastonbury. Thankfully, a decade-plus of E3 coverage prepared me well for the fragrant crowds and inevitable liveblogging tech issues. Thank you to our ever-brilliant games correspondent Keith Stuart for covering for me while I screwed my head back on after the festival.
Pride events took place in London last weekend, and among the million people lining the streets for the event’s 50th-anniversary were parade contingents from PlayStation, Microsoft and Square Enix, among other game publishers and developers. Thanks to the industry’s entirely warranted reputation for toxicity, people might not think of video games as a particularly gay-friendly medium – but they have kind of always been queer, to borrow the title of academic Bonnie Ruberg’s book. I am one of millions of queer people who has found community through games: 21% of the UK’s video-game workforce do not identify as straight, according to survey by industry body UKIE (the Association for UK Interactive Entertainment).
