Does the black hero exist?

[Final_Assassin_42]

Sgt. Johnson from Halo.

I know a lot of people think he got relegated to the "sidekick," role...

But I don't buy into that.

 

[jadedcritic]

You know, I don't want to be too incredibly evil or anything; but I'm inclined to think it's likely just because they're too afraid they'll touch on a nerve and end up in court because their hero ate some fried chicken or something. If the ruckus over RE5 proved anything, it's that some people are still too sensitive, and unless you're certain developers (Yes, I'm looking at you Rockstar), then nobody WANTS controversy around their game, so they err on the side of caution. Except Rockstar.

 

[Chilango2]

Corporations do tend to be risk averse yes, but I don't think people are "too sensitive" that implies that racism is come and gone, and that's a proposition that is provably false.

 

[Dae Han]

Sgt. Johnson from Halo.

I know a lot of people think he got relegated to the "sidekick," role...

But I don't buy into that.

And Master Chief.

Proove me wrong.

 

[Final_Assassin_42]

Sgt. Johnson from Halo.

I know a lot of people think he got relegated to the "sidekick," role...

But I don't buy into that.

And Master Chief.

Proove me wrong.

The books.

 

[beliefs22 [deprecated]]

The only game i can think of that I've played that had a main playable character who was black would be Shadowman. But more importantly I think, is addressing the question of WHY different races/sexes/sexual orientations are underrepresented in not just gaming, but all kinds of media. Being gay and black myself, i long for games that have main characters who i would be able to relate to, not just in video games, but also in books and movies. If you look outside of video games, you'll notice that most movies and books, that are focused on gay/black/ect. tend to be bad, and tend to be horribly cliche. Of course there are exceptions, and it's great when you actually find a something that is genuinely thought provoking, surprising, and entertaining, that you can enjoy on an level that you may not be able to enjoy "main stream" media.

However the problem with implementing these alternative views into the media, is that what ever you're representing, be it a sexual orientation, a race, a sex, a nationality, it tends to overshadow any other part of the story. The experience becomes solely focused on the fact that the main characters of the story are different from the norm. I would have loved to play a Final Fantasy X, where the romance was between two guys, but i can't honestly think of a way in which an idea like this could have been implemented, and not have overshadowed everything else the game had to offer.

We don't live in a world yet, where you can pop in a video game, and have the main character just be black, or be gay, or be a woman, and it's not surprising, or distracting from the rest of the story. There would have to be some explanation (that would be a big part of the storyline) as to why the protagonist isn't normal, and only when we get to the point as a society where these things aren't "out of the norm" will we ever see games where there the protagonist or anything but white males, and it's not the game industries fault, it's just the way the world is.

When we finally don't reach that point, we won't even have post like these, cause it'll be just another video game, movie, book, tv show, nothing special, cause we're all the same.

 

[dv8withn8]

@BlueMoon
Torque from The Suffering isn't black. He's culturally ambiguous. If he's anything he looks hispanic to me.

Anyway, Black heroes... Spawn immediately jumps out at me. More of an anti-hero but you gotta love him. He's more badass than other character ever conceived!

And whoever mention the Boondocks... gimme a break. That show is horrible.

 

[dv8withn8]

And Master Chief.

Proove me wrong.

Yep, the books... MC is described as "tall with short hair, serious eyes, and strong features. His skin being too white from being in his armor all the time."

As a kid, he's described as have brown hair and freckles.

FIN.

 

[werepossum]

V.Sixenth, that graphic is hilarious! I laughed out loud.

Just remembered the adventure game I bought my wife (I don't play 'em, they irritate me) by the guy who created the Siberia games. I forget the name of it, but the protagonist is a black female.

Still, if it's an FPS or driving game (the only kinds I play) does it really matter? You don't see yourself (except Duke Nukem - damn I'm lookin' good) when you play. And if it's a first-person game, where you play as the character, how can the protagonist be a role model?

And I second the crapusation about the Boondocks.

 

[Lord_Sammael]

You know I don't get the black hero thing oh sure there are very few black hero's but there are very few other minority heroes (FYI I'm not judging). You see very few hispanic, native Americans, Russian, and so on heroes.
So before we get on the whole poor black people bandwagon (and no I am not a racist) look around it's just the way it is at the moment. But don't go saying that the black community is the only one that's short on gaming heroes.

We are getting better with representing diffirrent races, but heck I don't think I've ever seen a jewish hero in a game.

 

[Ironmaus]

Shaq Fu.




Sorry, had to be said.

Does the race of a PC really matter that much?

Apparently it does. If race didn't matter then there would already be a more racially diverse cast of leading characters in games. The fact that they're disproportionately white says that something is wrong. Is it that most game developers are white? Is it an assumption about the audience/marketplace? Those are the things we need to figure out.

What type of role do people want to see non-white characters in? Are there games not being made because a white or non-determined race character wouldn't fill the role?

Well, I guess the answer to the first question is, "All the types of roles there are." The answer to the second question is difficult to answer because we'd have to know more about failed projects. Still, that would be a good line of inquiry for this topic.

 

[Dae Han]

I stand firmly corrected on the Master Chief issue, thank you.
I thought one of the good things about the chief was that you didn't ever see what he looked like under that armour and so it might have been easier for players to see him as a representation of themselves in the gaming universe. Gordon Freeman doesn't speak so it helps stop you from constantly being reminded you're playing as a character, I wondered if the Chief had a similar mass appeal due to not showing his actual body?

I'd be curious as to what inspires Eastern games developers to constantly create non Asia looking leads. In the case of things such as the RE and Silent Hill series I assume it?s a direct reflection of the influence of Western cinema. I'm very much looking forward to the new Blue Side Kingdom Under Fire game which despite being a Korean game seems to feature all western style characters. Is that from cultural influences or a decision made in hopes of having a more mass market appeal?

Also to stick back more to the original subject : 50 cent - Bulletproof?

 

[dv8withn8]

I wouldn't call a game in which the lead is a criminal, a hero, he's simply the protagonist. A hero is someone with a moral foundation. So that rules out 50 cent and DJ from San Andreas. 50 cent is an icon of a lifestyle that celebrates everything that is wrong with modern society so hardly a hero in even the vaguest sense.

I would consider Sgt. Johnson from Halo a hero. That guy is awesome. Just too bad he wasn't a playable character. But I'd bet he gets his own game in the future. Read Contact Harvest and you'll agree.

 

[hooliganyouth]

What about a game like "Saint's Row" where you can customize your character? Where do those fall into this debate?

As an aside I would play the hell out a "Dead Presidents"-esque game. Considering the cultural backdrop and possible story arcs and soundtrack you could have a powerhouse game.

Then again I'm a big fan of games set in older time periods.

 

[jaiden26]

Ignore celebrity tie-in's and other extremely stereotypical depictions of black people, and games that allow for user definition of the character model unless it is considered cannon for the player character to be black (Crackdown) can any of you think of a game where the hero was black?

In World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online you can make your main character a black guy or girl, and the only steroetypes that come up are the ones you make them do, cause you are 100% in control of everything they do.

 

[ohnoitschris]

I'd be curious as to what inspires Eastern games developers to constantly create non Asia looking leads. In the case of things such as the RE and Silent Hill series I assume it?s a direct reflection of the influence of Western cinema. I'm very much looking forward to the new Blue Side Kingdom Under Fire game which despite being a Korean game seems to feature all western style characters. Is that from cultural influences or a decision made in hopes of having a more mass market appeal?

Also to stick back more to the original subject : 50 cent - Bulletproof?

Many Asians and Caucasians have a similar skin tone, with different facial features. You'll never meet anyone who looks like an anime character complete with dinner plate-sized eyes and natural pink hair, so it's easy to give them an indefinite race.

In the English versions of the Ace Attorney series, it is made clear that the events take place in America. However, late into the series it becomes clear that some of the characters are from Japanese origin; despite almost everyone in the game looking as though they are all from the same racial background. However, the two German characters don't look racially different from everyone else, except for their out-of-place gaudy outfits.

Just to put it out there:
Michael in Maniac Mansion is required for one ending. He's black and issues no stereotypes; he works in his school's photo lab and has a jazzy theme music. This game is older than most of you.
Agent Spin is the leader of the dance trio in Elite Beat Agents, on the easiest difficulty. Medium and Hard are white dudes. Oh snap.

 

[shadow skill]

I think what it comes down to is fear. People do not like to leave their comfort zone the identification argument really only exists within the minds of the advertising directors and maybe the 12yr old racist halotards (Which obviously are not all the people who like Halo they just happen to be the only ones that would die over a non white hero.) it is alot like the arguments used when talking about women in games it doesn't really extend to the majority of gamers.

Just look at COD4 I still don't understand why the game is obsessed with the British and Americans when so much of the game takes place in areas you would expect to see Russian Military involved instead they basically decided to relegate Eastern Europeans to the status of "threatening other" yet again....Which is so tired by now that it just shows that they need help. I can't help but feel like how Yahtzee probably felt with MOHH Airborne.




This is all very much under the rader of course because it is not entirely possible for the people responsible for making games to just come out and say "Conform" in no uncertain terms. But just talk about something like control configurations and how almost all suck since typically the dev team does not give the user any real control over how to map things. If you bring up this sort of thing you will be told to conform even though for the vast majority of individuals the default configuration is suboptimal (This is most obvious with First person shooters.) let alone the people who happen to feel like using something other than the defaults for any reason.

For many people if they do not see a problem then that means there IS no problem, this contributes to the atmosphere we have, stuck with the same heros, the same villains etc. But this all has more to do with why we do not see the black (non white) hero rather than whether he or she exists or not.

I would like to think that at least part of the creative process should involve moving out of one's comfort zone and having the guts to try a thing or two. Carry on.

 

[JamesW]

As for the story, it's obvious no one's affected by some player-character connection issue because the playable character is of a different race. If that were the case Ratchet, Daxter, the Katamari guy, Pikachu, Bomberman, Loco Rosso and millions of other non-human characters wouldn't be likable and relatable (hell, look at Peggle! But not for too long for risk of getting a seizure.)

The thing is, there's a difference between the absence of a race, which is what you get with non-human protagonists, and the existence of a different race, which is what you get with black/asian/whatever protagonists. The former is a neutral value. The latter is a negative value, or at least is perceived to be such in the minds of TV (and thus, I suspect, gaming) execs; they theorise that when a white person turns on a TV show with a black lead they assume that the show was not made for them, but for a black audience. It's not neccessarily an inability to connect with black characters, it's a lack of drive to bother doing so.

There's anecdotal evidence in TV to suggest that this may be the case; of The Wire's four seasons so far, the one that received the highest ratings was season two, which is also the only one to have a predominantly white cast (the other three seasons are mostly set in the Baltimore projects).

Still, I would imagine that this is different in gaming, which has a generally younger audience that actually idolises black culture (or at least the gangsta rap culture that has become synonymous with "black").

By the way, there was a game that came out years ago for the PC and (I think) PS2 that had a black, female main character. She was a cop tasked with running around a sandbox city and bringing down crime. Can't remember the name of it. Chaos something? There was a burly white guy, too, but I can't remember if he was an optional second character or just a sidekick.

 

[Doglike]

Urban Chaos, Made by Muckyfoot, Published By Eidos, Darcy Stern was the Black Female Cop... Can't Remember the name of the sidekick white guy... he was playable in one level but mostly turned up to push the story forward...

I worked on it, there was a general concensus at the time that it sold poorly because the protagonist was a black character... we got a lot of coverage in the black press and it reviewed pretty well... 70% or so... At the time I figured that the race thing was bullshit but after 12 years in the industry I'm not sure. I think the fact Darcy was black turned a lot of people off but more importantly I think the fact she was black turned marketing off and they didn't push the game because they figured it was some sort of niche "black thing" product.
Tragically this is not the only time I have seen marketing turned off or at least frightened by race and attempt to dictate the genetic make-up of video game characters. A game on which friends of mine worked got to beta stage before one of the main characters who was black was de-ethnicised to broaden its appeal. tbh the character was not made caucasian he was changed to a more racially ambiguous, mixed race looking character but I still found it unsettling that marketing and seemingly the buying public at large can't get past the colour of a fictional characters skin.

I suppose it's not marketings fault really, their job is to sell to the buying public and if the buying public are a bunch of racist eejits it is still their job is to target that market and provide products that will sell best to that market

It's hardly a defense but race is a hot potato... I'm aware of games which dare not even mention racial archetypes for fear of offending or excluding people. I find it ludicrous and if I were a daily mail reader I'd say "ITS POLITICAL CORECTNESS GONE MAD!!!!" but I'm white so what do I know. I appreciate the problem. Even Theme hospital got complaints because its characters had racial variations, some basic sprite colour changes, but they omitted a particular shade and that offended someone. Under those circumstances you can see how it looks easier to make no effort and just use characters that look kinda beige... But not mentioning race at all even when it's present as a player choice seems patronising and could just as easily be read as suggesting that ones race is something to be ashamed of. Obviously I think thats stupid too but seeing as it is so easy to offend/prompt litigation these days it's no surprise that corporations shy away from anything that could be contentious

Race is something that exists and therefore is something that needs to be depicted within games if they are ever to mature. Whether a character is good or bad or a person is good or bad their race is not what defines them, their actions are what define them. Ultimately, in the world of video games a Tauran or an African American or a Stygian can each tell a compelling story and it's up to the industry to present race as a fact of life not a marketing ploy or some awkward "issue" and its up to the market to get some enlightenment and understand that.

Perhaps it's not so much a case of video games growing up but the audience too

 

[MacCarth]

Blade...the game.