Together We Thrive: Celebrating the Joy of the LGBTQIA+ Community in Gaming

Video games could be a highly effective medium to specific and discover one’s id in a artistic and secure setting. Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind permits gamers to romance and marry characters no matter their gender. Overwatch options brazenly LGBTQIA+ characters, equivalent to Tracer, who’s heroic, robust, and prominently featured within the recreation. Inform Me Why tells the story of Tyler, a transgender man, with sensitivity and depth. Video games could be a highly effective option to discover identities throughout the security of artistic play whereas enabling all gamers to expertise new views that could be totally different from their very own.

This Pleasure month, we invite you to affix us on this journey of studying, rising, and thriving. Gaming is for everybody, and collectively, we are able to work in direction of making a gaming neighborhood that’s welcoming to everybody and is inclusive of individuals with a variety of views, experiences, and backgrounds. That significant work is achieved by means of folks impacting others by means of schooling, appreciating the lived experiences of others and constructing empathy with members of the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood.

We imagine it’s essential to assist organizations that uplift, empower, and handle the wants of the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood. Within the final 30 years, along with our workers, Microsoft has donated over $16M to organizations that assist the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood, and within the final 12 months alone, we donated over $1.3M. This 12 months Xbox, together with Microsoft, is thrilled to proceed these efforts with a $200K contribution to a number of organizations supporting the LGBQTIA+ neighborhood to assist encourage conversations, rally neighborhood actions, and empower folks to share their Pleasure.   

Moreover, Xbox Recreation Studios Publishing is proud to proceed partnering with GLAAD to provide extra inclusive video games from conception to design to improvement. Xbox is partnering with The Trevor Undertaking to assist join LGBTQIA+ gamers with helpful sources that assist assist well-being and security as they play throughout the Xbox neighborhood. Each participant has a singular story, and we stay up for future tasks the place folks throughout the rainbow spectrum could expertise the identical empowerment. Learn on to be taught extra about how we’re celebrating the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood this month and past:

Spotlighting Xbox’s partnership with The Trevor Undertaking

Gaming has lengthy been a supply of enjoyable, neighborhood, and self-expression for the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood. In keeping with GLAAD, LGBTQIA+ avid gamers are 24% extra possible to make use of gaming as a assist to assist get them by means of powerful occasions – with 66% of LGBTQIA+ gamers sharing that gaming permits them to specific themselves in a approach they don’t really feel snug doing in the true world.

This impression will not be misplaced on us. At Xbox, we’re dedicated to creating gaming experiences which are welcoming for all gamers, and that features offering a secure and inclusive house the place everybody might be their genuine selves.

That’s why we’re proud to highlight Xbox’s standing partnership with The Trevor Undertaking, a U.S. nonprofit that gives lifesaving and life-affirming providers to LGBTQIA+ younger folks. Since 2019, Xbox and its security groups have been partnering with The Trevor Undertaking to attach gamers with sources to assist their well-being and guarantee they really feel secure and welcome once they play on Xbox.

For us, it’s essential gamers really feel secure. Our ongoing partnership with The Trevor Undertaking is a method for us to do this. Extra data on how Xbox helps participant’s well-being might be discovered right here.

Within the spirit of Pleasure, we wish to share the next security suggestions to assist gamers get probably the most out of their gaming expertise:

• Discover your person settings. Xbox affords settings that enable gamers selection in how they play. Gamers can choose whether or not to make their mates record seen, select to obtain messages from individuals who aren’t mates, or block content material they don’t want to view.
• Take consolation in understanding Xbox has your again. To assist the broader player-base and LGBTQIA+ neighborhood, we take participant security critically. This consists of:
  • In-game reporting instruments to assist gamers flag problems with inappropriate habits or content material. Xbox invests in 24/7 protection globally to assist reply to and examine reviews.
  • Moderation instruments that work throughout textual content, pictures video and voice, to dam dangerous content material earlier than it reaches gamers.
  • Entry to computerized textual content filters, which empowers gamers to customise their gaming expertise and determine what content material will not be okay to obtain – these filters routinely block content material earlier than it reaches the participant.
  • Persevering with to create proactive measures to dam hate speech and put money into applied sciences to assist average probably poisonous communications, whereas permitting particular person expression.

Gaming and Impression with Rewards with Xbox

Rewards members in america can earn and donate factors to organizations supporting LGBTQIA+ communities with Xbox. The organizations beneath shall be accessible on the Rewards hub:

• GLAAD: Based in 1985, GLAAD – the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy group – works with tv, movie, video video games, Spanish-language media, journalists, and social media to inform tales and seek the advice of on LGBTQ media illustration. GLAAD tackles powerful points and provokes dialogue that results in cultural change by means of elevated media accountability, public campaigns, company engagement initiatives, and advocacy applications that assist to make sure 100% inclusion and acceptance of the LGBTQ neighborhood. (US)
• Outright Worldwide: Outright Worldwide is devoted to working with companions across the globe to strengthen the capability of the lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) human rights motion, doc and amplify human rights violations towards LGBTIQ folks, and advocate for inclusion and equality. (US)
• Nationwide Heart for Transgender Equality: The Nationwide Heart for Transgender Equality (NCTE) advocates to vary insurance policies and society to extend understanding and acceptance of transgender and non-binary folks. Within the nation’s capital and all through the nation, NCTE works to exchange disrespect, discrimination, and violence with empathy, alternative, and justice. (US)

Xbox gamers can earn Rewards factors in numerous methods, equivalent to enjoying video games, finishing Recreation Go Quests, and buying video games and different eligible gadgets on the Microsoft Retailer (exclusions apply). Begin incomes in the present day and redeem your factors for nice rewards. Donate your factors on the Rewards hub or on the Rewards redeem web page.

Inform Me Why Out there for Free in June on Xbox Consoles, Microsoft Retailer, and Steam!

Inform Me Why, the award-winning narrative journey from Don’t Nod Leisure and Xbox Recreation Studios Publishing, shall be accessible without cost on Xbox consoles, Home windows PC, and Steam for the complete month of June 2024. As in previous years, the Inform Me Why crew encourages gamers to present what they’d have spent on Inform Me Why to an impartial trans creator or a trans-inclusive charity of their neighborhood.

Discover Video games Curated by LGBTQIA+ Communities at Microsoft

Xbox invitations you to play with delight.

Throughout June and past, try quite a lot of recreation collections that showcase LGBTQIA+ creators, lead characters, and video games with inclusive gender and relationship choices. Out there on the Microsoft Shops on Xbox and Home windows, try the transgender and non-binary neighborhood video games assortment and the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood video games assortment. These collections will exist year-round as a part of our ongoing work to create extra inclusive gaming ecosystems and elevate content material that resonates with communities. For Xbox Recreation Go members, discover what video games can be found to play within the Xbox Recreation Go assortment and the PC Recreation Go assortment.

Featured titles throughout the collections embody:

Want for Pace Unbound (Out there with Xbox Recreation Go Final on Console, PC, and Cloud) – Want for Pace Unbound’s character creator permits for a number of gender expressions through clothes, hair, and voice choices that aren’t restricted to the gender binary. The sport additionally options racing rival, Justicia, a trans girl voiced by trans actress, Sena Bryer, along with together with LGBTQIA+ iconography within the streets and as decals in your automobiles.

Starfield (Out there with Xbox Recreation Go on Console, PC, and Cloud) – On this role-playing recreation set amongst the celebrities, create any character you need and discover with unparalleled freedom as you embark on an epic journey. Starfield boasts a formidable character creation software with a number of physique varieties, pores and skin tones, hairstyles, non-gendered options, and so they/them pronoun choices. Exploration choices embody pursuing romantic relationships no matter gender.

Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical (Out there on Console) – Play as star and stagehand as you establish the story by means of dialog and track on this online game for musical lovers. Written by the enduring and brazenly homosexual narrative designer, David Gaider, you’ll craft not solely a singular narrative, however a soundtrack to your personal musical expertise based mostly in your decisions. Forge your personal story and determine who to romance.

The Quarry (Out there with Xbox Recreation Go on Console and Cloud) – Play solo or in a gaggle of mates as any of 9 camp counselors on this thrilling cinematic expertise that leads down a tangled internet of prospects based mostly in your decisions. Get pleasure from an evening of enjoyable earlier than a celebration shortly turns into an unpredictable night time of horror and your relationships are examined by unimaginable life-or-death selections.

This Mattress We Made (Out there on Console) –   Chloe Lussier, CEO and co-founder of Lowbirth Video games, desires to inform impactful tales that function unconventional heroes. Set within the Fifties, the story that unfolds in This Mattress We Made is tied to actual historical past when being a member of the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood was criminalized. Step into the function of Sophie, an indiscreet chambermaid at a resort crammed with secrets and techniques, on this third-person thriller narrative recreation that explores the lengths folks have needed to go to pursue loving relationships as their genuine self.

Rejoice Pleasure in Forza Horizon 5

This 12 months’s Pleasure-themed Xbox artwork shall be added to Forza Horizon 5 as a vinyl: an in-game decal that you should use to customise any automobile. Exhibit this distinctive design in your automobile utilizing #ForzaRainbow on social media for an opportunity to be featured! (The vinyl shall be accessible beginning June 7 from the Forza Horizon accounts on Instagram and X.)

Overwatch 2 Celebrates Pleasure with In-Recreation Map and Calling All Heroes

Overwatch 2 celebrates Pleasure this month with the return of a fan-favorite map and Calling All Heroes. All month lengthy, the Pleasure competition returns to Overwatch 2’s Midtown map. Gamers can stay up for enjoying on this map as they queue for Unranked and Aggressive video games and immediately in a devoted play card on the Arcade. Calling All Heroes is Overwatch 2’s aggressive Esports collection that gives an inclusive setting to aspiring opponents of marginalized genders, together with those that current themselves as Trans, Non-Binary, and Genderqueer. This competitors returned final weekend, and everybody who tunes in at twitch.television/ow_esports will be capable of earn new drops like the brand new Monarch Enterprise pores and skin.

Xbox Gear Store

Present your love and assist for Pleasure 2024 with our new limited-edition t-shirts, hoodies and extra – designed by and with the LGBTQIA+ communities. Get your Pleasure gear now!

Rejoice Pleasure with the brand new 2024 Pleasure Assortment solely on the Blizzard Gear Retailer! Led by means of the Blizzard LGBT+ Worker Community, the Blizzard Pleasure Assortment options Pleasure-themed attire benefitting The Trevor Undertaking from Could 15 by means of June 30, 2024.

Discover Xbox’s Kingdom of Coloration

In celebration of Pleasure, the Xbox brand was reimagined as a crystal radiating with energy on the prime of a magic employees. The storybook-inspired picture additionally features a fortress with festive rainbow banners and fireworks. The artist, who’s a part of the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood, imagines the Kingdom of Coloration as a spot the place individuals who establish as LGBTQIA+ rule and the magic of Pleasure is unfold to each nook of the realm. Proper from the pages of a leather-bound e-book crammed with colourful artwork and calligraphy textual content, this picture evokes not solely acquainted tales of dragons, knights, and wizards, however launches these tales right into a extra inclusive future during which all gamers discover their magic.

Xbox Ambassadors Rejoice Pleasure 2024

The Xbox Ambassadors Program is celebrating Pleasure by spotlighting members of the Xbox Ambassadors neighborhood who responded to a latest survey about their experiences as avid gamers. Learn the Xbox Ambassadors weblog to listen to neighborhood members sharing their favourite reminiscences enjoying video video games, recommending video games that do a great job representing LGBTQIA+ folks and experiences, and providing recommendations on find out how to keep secure when gaming on-line.

Pleasure Dynamic Background and Wallpaper Out there Now

The Pleasure Month Xbox design is accessible in the present day as an Xbox wallpaper and dynamic background on console – comply with these steps to use the dynamic background:

• Press the Xbox button in your controller to open the information.
• Choose Profile & system > Settings > Normal > Personalization > My background > Dynamic backgrounds.

You may select between Video games, Xbox, or Summary dynamic backgrounds. Select the background artwork that you really want with the A button.

Radical Pleasure with Microsoft

Within the face of adversity, existence itself might be resistance and spark change. This Pleasure, LGBTQIA+ folks at Microsoft share the that means of pleasure and invite everybody to unfold acceptance, abundance, and concord all over the place. Be part of us and uncover extra at Microsoft.com/delight.