Gamers hate diversity? Bull****.

[Batou667]

Minorities doesn't have the buying power of whites, which is why you don't see much minorities. Can't cater to a base that doesn't exist.

Eh? Are you saying that black people don't have disposable income? I think that's a dubious claim, especially since a fair few brands specifically target the black dollar either as their primary, or one of their core, demographics. There's a music industry targeted at a black audience, ditto films. Just because black people are overrepresented in the working classes doesn't mean they don't buy cars, electronics, and other luxury goods. You never heard of "bling" culture?

Anyway, we have black gamers right here on the Escapist who represent a handy disproof of the idea that this userbase "doesn't exist".

 

[fezgod]

I've been waiting for a post like this ever since I saw the first picture. Yeah, those games may all have 30-something, white brown-haired protagonists, but only a few of those games are as iconic or well known as the one's in the other picture.

Yes, modern videogame protagonists are often homogeneous, but that shouldn't be a criticism of gaming as a whole.

 

[Frotality]

all forms of media and storytelling make use of a boring as f**k featureless protagonist, its just that books cant get away with describing the same guy over and over and movies/tv cant cast a perfect 3d render of john everyman like video games can. its a problem with the entertainment industry, not the gaming industry.

 

[Weaver]

I think the brown hair image was meant to reflect modern trends in gaming, not gaming historically.
Does anyone really care about pacman or crash bandicoot now-a-days?

 

[Jingle Fett]

Here's the revised image:

Suddenly, the state of gaming doesn't look quite so gloomy and homogenised, does it? Yes, the "brown-haired, 30-something male" is still represented, but to imply that this archetype is a requirement to sell a game, or that "gamers won't buy a game whose protagonist isn't a male power fantasy!", is bunk.

I don't see any black or latino characters on the "revised" list. Sad that animals have more representation than they do...

 

[Batou667]

I don't see any black or latino characters on the "revised" list. Sad that animals have more representation than they do...

Perhaps, but that list does contain Americans, an Italian, an American-Italian, two Japanese, a Greek and a Brit. The human characters also include brunettes, blondes and a ginger. It could be worse...

Most of these triple-A titles originate from studios in Japan, Europe or the USA, so to some extent it's understandable that most protagonists will reflect the racial characteristics of those places (lightish skin, darkish hair). Complaining that Japanese games don't feature enough Hispanics is a bit like saying Bollywood films are exclusionary for not casting enough Nordic blondes in leading roles. Different market, different target demographic.

I suppose that's a bit of a simplification as the games industry more or less has a global market, while relying on the input of quite homogenous teams of developers. Hence the issue of not many minority protagonists, and the faltering or ham-fisted attempts to "correct" that. While I think that studios in the US really should be trying harder to reflect the demographics in their own country, European and Japanese devs don't (I feel) have quite the same responsibility to be flag-wavers for diversity. Hopefully in time the situation will fix itself as games start getting developed in, and by, "minority" cultures and we'll have a gaming equivalent of Bollywood or Chinese Cinema.

 

[Starik20X6]

Also, notice that there's only one female in twenty characters.

Hey, we're not sure about the bird. You're being sexist assuming it's male! ;P

Hey, what about that other girl? Second row, second picture... Oh wait that's Cloud. [/obvious JRPG character design joke]

Yeah I've got nothing else to add. Actually, now that I think about it, you know what bugs me more than the overuse of the 'white male with brown hair protagonist'? That the protagonist never has curly hair. Think about it- how often, in any movies, games, TV shows or even books, does the protagonist have curly hair? Literally the only curly haired protagonists that comes to mind right now are Frodo and the rest of the hobbits.

 

[DoPo]

Yeah I've got nothing else to add. Actually, now that I think about it, you know what bugs me more than the overuse of the 'white male with brown hair protagonist'? That the protagonist never has curly hair. Think about it- how often, in any movies, games, TV shows or even books, does the protagonist have curly hair?

Can't think of many either. At least for games, they have the excuse of short/straight hair being easier to do. Well, that's been relaxed in the last few year but it's probably still going more or less out of habit. For other media, I dunno. Well, they sort of have an excuse in that many protagonists have short hair, so you can't exactly do curly with it. But it doesn't explain why short over anything else.

Now that I think about it, though, TV/movies may have an excuse of sorts - if the actor doesn't have naturally curly hair, they'll have to keep remaking his hairstyle which takes time. I dunno, that's the only explanation I can think of that isn't "just because". It's not much better but there you go.