WomenGamers.com had the pleasure of interviewing Fruit Brute, Editor of GayGamer.net. Although the site may cater to "boys who like joysticks" and "girls who like rumble packs", the content itself appeals to tolerant gamers of any sexual preference. Intrigued, WG's chief editor set out to get the story behind this unique site.

WG: Tell me a little bit about the history of your site. What prompted you to start GayGamer.net?

Fruit Brute: The site was originally conceived as a project to work on after I left New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina. I had been visiting various game blogs for a while and noticed how heterosexually male oriented most of these sites were. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with aiming your content to your target audience, but in particular, the comments and forums of a lot of these sites were filled with homophobic rhetoric and hateful comments. So I thought it would be a neat idea to create a space where gay gamers like myself could go and feel comfortable talking about how hot Devil May Cry's Dante is or how they can't wait to pick up the Pink DS lite without feeling like they were going to get "flamed" by other readers. There was also a bit of tongue in cheek going on here in the beginning. I really wanted to create a sort of parody of the hetero sites with their endless scantily clad girls and "Hottest Game Girls" lists. As we became more popular though, that portion sort of fell by the wayside and we started serving up more serious game news.

WG: Your content can be enjoyed by people of varying sexual preferences. Do you know or can you make an educated guess as to what percentage of your visitors are GLBT?

Fruit Brute: This is something I'm really not sure about. I would love to take a survey and find out a real number, but at this point it's hard to tell. If I had to venture a guess though, I would say maybe 70%?

WG: What is your mission? What do you ultimately hope to achieve with your site?

Fruit Brute: I hope that  we can create a space where people of all sexualities will be comfortable, while at the same time catering specifically to our GLBT users. I hope to give a sense of community and put a face to the gay gaming population, which is probably larger than most people think. I would also like the publishers and game creators know that there is a large audience of people out there who aren't being targeted and could potentially bring them a lot of business if they marketed their products in the right places.

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