Rise of the Gaymers: The rising prominence of gay geeks

In a $5 billion a year industry dominated by straight white guys, there’s a growing contingent of fans whose loud and proud voices are increasingly being heard. And deferred to.

Gay video game players and designers, who refer to themselves as gaymers, are stars in TV series, developing video games that are LGBT friendly, and crowdfunding wildly successful Comic Con-type events like Gaymer X, to “show the true spectrum of gamers that exists,” according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

The heavyweights in game publishing, like Microsoft’s Xbox, Electronic Arts and Rockstar Games, which gave us the Grand Theft Auto series, are embracing the often-ignored gamers by supporting the gatherings, recruiting LGBT gamers and including gay-friendly add-ons, according to the article.

Read more from Bloomberg Businessweek.