Games with black protagonists
- Thread starter The Almighty Aardvark
- Start date
Recommended Videos
No, I get you. I was being a bit (see: all of it) sarcastic in my post anyways.Lonewolfm16 said:
Anywho, I live in the south where both ethnic groups are intertwined socially, politically, etc. It's not very often you run into a "black colored whitey" (as Lelani so eloquently put it) unless they come from a very predominantly white area, often suburban. It usually comes down to where and how they were raised, where and how their parents were raised, where and how their grandparents were raised and so on and so forth. This, of course, translates to both sides.
Sometimes you come across strange mutations, like a black guy wearing the typical baggy pants and oversized jersey with an afro driving a custom 4 wheel drive truck, blasting country music. True story, by the way.
I wonder how it compares to actual demographics.Dragonbums said:
I'm not entirely surprised though. If you're a big company spending millions on a game you want the main character to relate to as many people as possible. In the US, that's white males. As such, it isn't unethical for characters to be designed with the customer base in mind. Still, I like the way things are going nowadays where customers are largely customiseable. That sidesteps the entire conversation but that's more difficult to do when voice actors are involved.
I can see that.Lightknight said:
I don't see much people in my demographic playing videogames anyway.
It hardly bothers me anymore. And besides, it's all about baby steps right?
Right now I'm just rooting for the female part of the group. And maybe when I'm too old will my demographic come in.
Nothing to really make a stinker about...at the moment.
I assume once said target is big enough people will start to complain. It all happens eventually.
Glad someone said Aliens Vs Predator. That's one that goes forgotten alot.
But really the only ones have been named already, and all I could think of was Aliens, Starhawk, Crackdown, Walking Dead and 50 Cent (lawl)
But really the only ones have been named already, and all I could think of was Aliens, Starhawk, Crackdown, Walking Dead and 50 Cent (lawl)
The Walking Dead: 400 Days recently had a black protagonist: Russell
Then you have games where the player can CHOOSE to have a black protagonist, a la The Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc.
Then you have games where the player can CHOOSE to have a black protagonist, a la The Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc.
You can add almost any Bioware game to this list ('cept those Sonic ones and Jade Empire). They have player-made protagonists; black characters can be created. Try Knights of the old Republic too.The Almighty Aardvark said:
Theoretically speaking, XCOM Enemy Unknown allows the player to recruit black infantrymen as well. The player entity is of an undefined skin type.
In the end it has to be considered financially worth their time to do. In games where you can choose from a list of characters there is almost always multiple race options and both genders present nowadays and that is right for the developers to do.Dragonbums said:
In games where there is only one character they typically mimic the majority of gamers. I may also consider this an ethically sound decider. This isn't the same as hiring an individual because of the color of their skin, this is creating a product with the customer base in mind.
You've got to understand, as of 2010 the numbers are tremendous. White or European individuals make up 72.4% of the US population. Next closest group is Hispanic or Latino at 16.4% but 8.7% of that group is also categorized as White or European
(Example of White/European hispanics:
Alexis Bledel [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexis_Bledel_2008.jpg]
Cameron Diaz [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CameronDiazJune09.jpg]
Martin Sheen [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sheen,_Martin_(2008).jpg])
So the actual next closest that wouldn't consider themselves white would be Black or African American at 12.6%. 7.7% of the hispanic category and Asian Americans are less than 5%.
So I guess if you're making an avatar that is representative of your customer base it'd be white every time unless the character is established as something else. This is assuming that the main character's appearance can alter the projected revenue of a game. I don't know that it does and that's not a fair assumption. I think back on the games where I've played as a black, hispanic, asian, female individual and it hasn't done anything to impact my enjoyment or excitment for the game. If it's a good game I'll give it a shot. I wonder if other people are like that in aggregate though.
FYI, I should speak on female gaming demographics. People are currently using that latest study to show that 47%/53% is the ratio of girls to males in gaming. However, not only does the study itself have incredibly loose interpretation of gamers, but less than half of the respondants on that study even claimed to be planning to buy at least one game in the coming year. That means that less than half the respondents are the target market for people selling games. Furthermore, the increase in numbers can easily be contributed to an increase in phone gaming which would appeal to some companies but not AAA developers on consoles. Finally, as of 2010, 80% of female console gamers owned a Wii as their primary system. Males were at 41%. Doing math on the basis that the male/female ratio that year was 60%/40%, you can deduce that less than 20% of the female gaming demogrpahic would have been considered part of the AAA gaming demographic and there's no evidence that this number would have necessarily changed. Not only that, but we have no idea if the genders even express the same distribution regarding favored gaming genre. Personally, my wife prefers shooters and RTS games. But what about the agreggate of gamers? I love RPGs, am quite good at shooters and only enjoy the particular RTS games (Warhammer 4000 and Warcraft RTS' always caught my interest for some reason). My first girlfriend, however, couldn't even bear to shoot a gun at me in Halo (whoa was she timid) but hit up Age of Empires like there was no tomorrow.
Yeh...LetalisK said:
I would really appreciate a few voice options on those games. As it is, my player is someone I laugh at. That voice is horrible... It sorta sounds like John Mayer at times.
Again, I understand the whole ethnic demographic. Black people in general tend to make up a...pretty small demographic of the gaming crowd. (The ones that aren't into the NFL games anyway.)Lightknight said:
It's something that I've long since accepted. If I gnashed my teeth about it all the time, I don't think I would be playing videogames right now.
Of course that is the reason why character customization games have so much appeal to me.
The indemnification of white though is pretty interesting for folks who aren't necessarily "white" so to speak. However that will lead to a very different topic not related to this one.
For me, as a female personally I tend to enjoy platformers open RPG worlds, adventure games, the occasional party game (and by party games I mean Mario Party because all the other ones tend to suck) and games with a good story.
The only shooter I have played and thoroughly enjoyed is TF2. Mainly because they don't take themselves seriously and the art style is pleasant to look at.
I guess...aside fro the TF2 part I fit the stereotype of what games woman tend to play on a day to day basis. However I have no problems with playing your average COD shooter type games. They just don't interest me is all.
On that note, I don't think the game industry should cater to the female demographic specifically, however it doesn't hurt to slowly make those games appealing to them. They are in the long run, one of the last few demographics the game industry hasn't really affected.
Nintendo got it with their Animal Crossing game seeing as how they claim in Japan a lot of the buyers were women, and games like Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls understood it. To what extent, I'm not quite sure but if the ME3 trailers featuring FemShep were anything to go by it seems that they are aware of them to the point to try to get more in.
Also "Girl Games" need to burn in a fire forever. They...are just really, really bad.