The Daily Populous Saturday November 9th, 2024 morning edition
Authored by pcgamer.com and submitted by AliTVBG

Webfishing, the delightful $5 chat room fishing game released last month, includes a selection of cosmetic titles you can collect to display to other players below your username. Many are goofs, like Little Lad or Shithead. Others, like the Gay, Ace, Bi, and Trans titles, offer players a chance to express their sexuality or gender identity.

One keen intellectual on the Steam discussion forums, however, noticed the lack of a title for straight people and felt compelled to raise the issue (via Rock Paper Shotgun). At time of writing, it's unclear whether they'd noticed the vast majority of other human media that assumes a default straight perspective. Easy to miss, but as a straight guy, I promise you: We're doing fine on that front.

And yet, not everyone can read the room well enough that they don't need to wonder why an indie game featuring a bunch of anthropomorphic cats and dogs might not be centering the straight experience. It's a skill you develop, I guess. Despite the goofus behavior, however, Webfishing developer lamedeveloper was—as a sign of benevolence—receptive to the suggestion.

As part of its 1.09 Housecleaning Update, Webfishing now offers the "Straight" title. It costs 9,999 in-game dollars. For comparison, other purchasable titles cost $75. I'll also note that it's the only orientation-oriented title with quotation marks. Pretty good bit.

The Housecleaning update's other additions include bug and performance fixes, balance adjustments, a Hand Labeler for renaming items, and a Non-Binary shirt and title. There's also this note:

Added the ???????? which is accessed through the ???? ?????? and ??? ????????. Yeah.

Seems fine. Personally, I'm feeling an affinity with the new Creature title. I'll probably pick that up the next time I'm in the mood for a Webfishing fix.

Because that original thread's been locked, we can only wonder whether the original complainant is content with the added straight representation. If not, there's always, you know, almost every other videogame.

Scottyjscizzle on November 8th, 2024 at 22:11 UTC »

I’ll be honest, if we are pushing that bi/pan/ace/etc are just as normal/default as straight is then it’s probably best to include it as a title instead of assuming the default.

Jomgui on November 8th, 2024 at 14:35 UTC »

Was there gay representation in that game? WHY THE FUCK ARE PEOPLE ARGUING ABOUT SEXUALITY ON A FISHING/COMMUNITY INTERACTION GAME?

SXOSXO on November 8th, 2024 at 13:48 UTC »

What is the conversion rate to Stanley nickels?