Stardew Valley fans ask its creator to add more pronoun options

polygon.com:

It’s been over seven years since the release of Stardew Valley,and its fan base is as active as ever. This time, Stardew Valley fans have organized to ask for more inclusive pronoun options in the beloved farming sim. On Sept. 29, Canadian content creator Atmos Fierce started an online petition asking the game’s creator, Eric Barone, to add additional pronoun options as part of the upcoming 1.6 update. Since then, the petition has received over 3,000 signatures and revived a long-running conversation around how the game interacts with its queer fan base.

Barone, also known online by his alias ConcernedApe, releasedStardew Valley in 2016. The once-small indie game went on to become a hit and a defining title of the farming sim genre, with over 20 million copies sold across a wide variety of platforms. In the game, you play as a disaffected office worker who moves to their grandfather’s rundown farm in a rural town. When you start the game, you’re able to design your character, choosing between “male” and “female” symbols denoting two gender options — which automatically set your character’s pronouns as “he/him” or “she/her,” respectively. Unlike in other recent games, there’s no option to select pronouns separately from body type, and there’s no nonbinary option, either.

Atmos Fierce first got the idea to ask for more pronoun options after another streamer, MomoMisfortune, started a similar campaign asking for nonbinary and customizable pronouns in The Sims 4, which resulted in the developers adding more pronoun options to the game. Fierce told Polygon via email that although he does not identify as nonbinary, he aims to create a safe space for other queer gamers like himself.

“I hope that Eric Barone will see this