Community Spotlight:
TriXie Interviews the Editor-in-Chief of GayGamer.net
Published September 11, 2007
I was delighted to meet Flynn DeMarco aka Fruit Brute 67 at this year's E3. He loved my shoes and I love his Web site. I decided it's time to get a closer look at GayGamer.net, so I interviewed the Editor-in-Chief.
Fruit Brute, TriXie and Tiny Dancer at E3 2007.
TriXie:Does GayGamer.net have a mission statement?
Fruit Brute 67: Not as such. Our real goal is just to create a safe, fun place for people to get their game news without having to deal with the homophobia and closed-minded fanboyism that exists on a lot of other site's forums and comments.
TriXie: Tell us the backstory on GayGamer.net. When did it start, what was the idea behind it, who was involved in its birth, all of that.
Fruit Brute 67: GayGamer came about when I and my friend Jason (Toots) were escaping from Hurricane Katrina. We were living in New Orleans and suddenly found ourselves in Atlanta with nothing to do until we went back to retrieve our belongings. We were talking about the game sites and their very heterosexual oriented formats. Almost jokingly, I said we should start a site for gay gamers that would be a sort of spoof of the regular sites. The more we talked about it, the more it sounded like a real idea and something we could share with our friends as a place to talk about games since we were all now separated. So, riffing on the whole "Top 10" list thing, which often were devoted to stuff like "The 10 Hottest Game Babes," we thought we would launch the site with a Top 20 Gayest Game Characters list.
Almost a year went by before we actually launched the site with just three writers, myself, Jason, and our friend Tim who was still living in N.O., and my long-time friend Mike who took over the tech aspects of getting the site together.
TriXie: What has been the reaction from the community? There seems to be a high level of homophobia in the gaming community.
Fruit Brute 67: The reaction from the community has been mixed. We have definitely received a lot of support, but we have had our share of haters. There is definitely a high level of homophobia amongst the community in general, but I think that is changing. We recently experienced a hack on our site which took it down for 2 days and the outpouring of support was phenomenal. But there were also a lot of people questioning why there needed to be a GayGamer.net in the first place. Considering the vast amount of gaming sites out there that cater to different types of gamers such as 2Old2Play, The Grrrl Gamer, GamerDad and Go Nintendo, I find it odd that people would question why we would want to create our own site. I think a lot of these people assume (without even looking at our site) that GG is gay news-centric which is certainly not the case. What we do is cover game news from a gay perspective which is a completely different thing. I could go on and on about why GayGamer exists, but we'll save that for another time!
TriXie: How about reaction from the games press and games industry? Supportive, encouraging, or not?
Fruit Brute 67: The reaction from the industry and press has been incredible. Everyone has been so supportive and is always glad to see us coming at conferences. We have worked very hard to earn the respect of our peers, and I am always thrilled to see GG get mentioned in the same breath with sites like Kotaku, Joystiq and Destructoid. We may not have the numbers that those sites get, but we are certainly well known. When the hack happened, most of the support e-mails I received were from people within the industry and other game sites. It was touching and really made me realize that what we have to offer is a valuable contribution to the industry.
TriXie: Do you find your readership is mostly gay men, or is there a wider variety of readers?
Fruit Brute 67: We have quite a variety of readers actually. I often receive e-mails from people saying things like "I'm straight, but I really enjoy coming to your site." I'm really glad that we have sort of transcended the "gay" moniker and can appeal to a wider audience.
TriXie: Your tagline is "For boys who like boys who like joysticks." Is there a sister site for lesbians?
Fruit Brute 67: Unfortunately no. or I should say, not that I know of. Of course we are all inclusive at GG and have been actively pursuing getting some lesbian writers for the site for some time, but no one has come forward yet. Do you know any, because we'd love to have them?
TriXie: I will keep my eyes open and help you find some! Your site is hilarious. I imagine that even non-gamers would be entranced by the delightful writing on your site. Have you heard any anecdotal evidence that non-gamers are frequenting your site just for the sheer entertainment value? Or maybe even picking up a game just to see what the fuss is about?
Fruit Brute 67: I wish I could say I had heard of such a thing, but unfortunately, I find that a lot of gay people find the fact that we like to play games a bit of an oddity. I wish I could really get a bead on exactly who is reading and why, but doing such things is difficult at best. I have heard some stories though, from people who read the site with non-gaming partners, that their partners have become interested in some games through seeing our site, which is really exciting. Recruiting new gamers, even if it's just to one game is always fun. My parents have actually become game fans from reading the site. I bought them a Wii and they just love it.
TriXie: GayGamer.net focuses more on RPG goodness, and less on the latest round of sports games. The GamerchiX community is also into almost every kind of game except sports. Do you find you have a significant female readership?
Fruit Brute 67: Well, like I said before, it's difficult to actually pinpoint who is reading our site, but I think that we have a fair amount of female readers. You know, gay guys and straight girls go together like peanut butter and jelly!
TriXie: And nothin's better than good ol' PB&J! What's next for GayGamer.net? Where do you want to take the site in the next few years?
Fruit Brute 67: Of course, I'd like to see our numbers grow and I'd also like to see us continue to transcend the name by becoming more widely popular with all kinds of people. Going to events like E3 and GDC have really given the site a lot of respect from people, and hopefully we can continue to keep people interested in what we are doing. We have plans for a big expansion coming later this year. I can't talk too much about it right now, but rest assured we have a lot of great things coming up in a lot of areas, not just video games. So be sure to keep your eyes open!
TriXie: Awesome, can't wait to see what you have in store, and keep up the great work!
Interview by TriXie
