The new owners could erase that legacy. The legend goes like this: In 1999, a programmer named Patrick Barrett joined the video game studio Maxis to help develop the video game that would become . Working from an out-of-date design handbook, he coded the game to allow for same-sex relationships--even though the studio initially decided to include queer relationships for fear of backlash. The game was demoed to press with a wedding scene at E3 1999, and during the demo two female Sims kissed. Suddenly the game was the talk of the event, and any attempt to walk queer content back would be impossible to do quietly.

One of the falsehoods perpetuated among the more toxic sections of the gaming community is that LGBTQ representation and community in video games is something new: an agenda developers and publishers are pushing, at the risk of alienating their overwhelmingly white, cis male fanbase. Actually, video games have always been queer. This is the title of a very informative book from Bo Ruberg, which investigates the ways in which LGBTQ themes show up in games. Was there anything remotely gay about Pong, Tetris, Sonic or Call of Duty? Ruberg would argue that there is – but in 2023, we don't have to read queerness into video games.

Fresh from a drag performance featuring a gender-swapped Mario and Princess Peach chasing each other around on stage, after watching a burlesque performer disrobe to the Tetris theme, I am standing at the bar waiting for a drink, surrounded by people in fabulous outfits. Famous drag queen Asstina Mandella is here in a stunning dress; I am in a purple bisexual-colours suit and I still feel somewhat underdressed for the occasion. I am not used to this at video games events – back in the 00s, it was mostly men in black T-shirts with logos on them, and I was one of about three women in the room. But this is the first in-person Gayming awards, an event that celebrates queer representation in video games, and the huge and ever-growing queer community that plays them. This might not be what some people would think of as the gaming audience, but the fact is that just about everybody plays games now – two-thirds of all Americans, to pluck just one stat – and of course, queer people have always been part of that community.