Most video games star white males.

[Twilight_guy]

Yeah, white privilege.... also your own cultural prejudices color your judgment. For example, Games from Asia featuring Asian protagonists that are received as white despite not being so. If you don't like it, write a letter or something. It's part of the culture and not something that a thread is going to change.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

The tendency for video game developers to make protagonists as white is racist.

Bollocks, it's probably not even a conscious decision. Creators create in their own image (or the image of what they'd like to be).
If it is a concious decision you can guarantee it's a marketing decision based on research into the target market which is largely white males.

I notice that you're not making much of deal about these supposedly racially selected characters not being female.
OMG! U r such a sxist!!!!!!!1!eleventyone!!!!!

I think the new DMC character design speaks in spade that people create in their own image. If I remember right the new Deus Ex has a similar thing going on as well.

 

[michael87cn]

Yes, that includes the ones made in Asia.

Uncharted
Gears of War
Crysis
Assassin's Creed
Metal Gear
Legend of Zelda
Super Mario Bros.
Deus Ex
Mass Effect
Max Payne
Hitman
Kane & Lynch
Devil May Cry
ect. x 1000

Surely I am not the only one disturbed by this.

Assassin's Creed character isn't 'white'
Metal Gears character isn't 'white'
Legend of Zelda is a JAPANESE game, character is not 'white'
Super Mario Bros. is a JAPANESE game, character is not 'white'
Mass Effect has no set character...
Devil May Cry is a JAPANESE game, character is japanese.
ETC x 1000 . . .

Most of the other games were made in the USA so yeah... they're probably going to have white protagonists, not exactly shocking or unusual.

 

[ms_sunlight]

...why is it a problem that most games star white males? If there's no reason for him not to be a white male...let him be a white male. If your game is set in a country with a mostly white population, and you don't consider his race to be an important factor in his character, then make him a white male, because then you don't have to concern yourself with other aspects of the story that might involve race or gender.

Wow. You're obviously not aware of it, but this is a ridiculously ignorant statement.

Please explain this comment.

I can't speak for yunabomb, but the problem for me is seeing white as "default" and non-white as "other". It's not that any particular character is a white male - after all, why not? It's that almost all of them are. If there's no reason for him not to be a white male, then surely there's no reason for him not to be a black male, or latino male, or South Asian male - or indeed a woman of any race.

 

[James Mann]

Diverse races are not that important for a play character as the race doesn't make a difference to who the character is, and considering the amount of publicity anything race-related has in games, simply have the character be the standard white male makes it a lot easier than accidentally slipping into the racism pool, while trying to fit the mannerisms to the race (no, its not racist to understand that while race does not define a person, it does affect them and ignoring this would simply create the standard male character just with different coloured skin)

So yeah, for the most part Race is left out of the protagonist it isnt however abandonned with the supporting characters, and this is where the development and progression is. As better and better divrsity creeps into the support character role it breaks down from the stereotypes formed and develops better characters, from this developpers may become confident enough to create decent player characters whose race is not the standard white males, and it make no difference to the storyline but still be believable.

Although i would also like to point out that a lot of games take place in white dominated countries. So a realistic (because we all like realism) probability is that the protagonists would be white.

A lot of RPGs (such as ME as mentioned) Allow you to play as a customizable character.
Some games give you a selection of players to play as, such as the L4D series, both games have a black characters, and i would probably expect different races it shows how the design of a game limits the portrayal of race, l4d has 4 open slots, and the game must therefore create 4 characters with personalities... you can't fit the entire spectrum of races in 4 character slots. Almost every other game only has one protagonist, imagine how hard it would be to do that?

So okay.

Games where you can play as another race:

GTA:SA
GTA:4
Mass Effect (custom)
Fallout 3 (custom)
The Elder Scroll Series. (custom)
Call of Duty MW
L4D1/2
Saints Row (custom)
Dead Island
Prince of Persia

Games with different Raced support Characters:

Half Life 2
Crysis
Resident Evil 5 (no, the game isn't racist just because the bad guys are a different color this time, thats what happens when you go to a different country.)
Final Fantasy
And game set outside of the white dominated parts of the world.

 

[Lazier Than Thou]

ITT: Martin Luther King Jr. is spinning in his grave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness_%28race%29

I literally have never factored the race of the protagonist in my buying decisions, and neither have 98% of everyone else here.

That's a blatant lie and I'm going to tell you why.

I never would have played World of Warcraft if I couldn't be an Orc(not actually true, but I wanted to say it as a joke).

On Topic: This is all nonsense. Not that it's occurring but that it's a bad thing.

Are people more attracted to their own race? Yeah, it's in our genes. Human beings are social creatures, they generally need groups to survive. They're more likely to pick groups that they immediately identify with. Same goes with the protagonists of stories, movies, and video games.

White people don't really go to Tyler Perry movies, because they're specifically marketed to and designed for black people in America. This isn't a bad thing, this is a good thing. It allows people of different races and cultures to have entertainment that is far more accessible to them.

Can white people identify with black people? Absolutely. Can black people identify with white people? Certainly. Are they more likely to identify with people of their own cultural or racial background? Definitely.

You want more black people as protagonists? Get more black people as writers and developers for games. They'll be just as successful in the market place as white people. Proof? Tyler Perry is worth an estimated #350 million. http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/directors/tyler-perry-net-worth/

White protagonists in video games has nothing to do with secret racism. It has to do with a basic evolutionary psychological premise. People are more likely to group with their own kind. It's not a bad thing. It's not a mean thing. It's not a way to oppress people. It's nature.

Get over it.

 

[elvor0]

JC Denton can be black, pretty sure Shepherd can be too.

Also, looking for flamewar much?

Race isn't really a big issue in games, a characters personality and motivations are much more important than race.

You don't think it's a little insulting that there isn't more genuine diversity in gaming, and for that matter in the media at large? You don't think that imprints on and affects a public's perception of race and what roles a people of different races end up getting to have? Look up minstrel shows before you answer that question, unless you already know what those are.

Ok yes, I'll give you that there could be more diversity, and I'm quite happy to play whoever the hell the devs put as their main character so long as they're a good character, but your last statement is just making shit up.

We're not in the age of slavery and minstrel shows anymore, and I don't know what backwards bizarro universe you come from, but people are NOT that impressionable, even very young children don't make that assumption unless their parents have told them that "black people are evil!" just because characters of certain skins are in certain roles in video games, it doesn't make people think that that's how people are. Although we do still have genuine racism in society, most people are sensible enough not instantly turned into racists just because Deathwing in WoW takes on the form of a black dude when he's in human form. In fact, scrap that, nobody is that fucking stupid.

 

[Agayek]

That's not an explanation, that's an illogical excuse. The majority of people in America who don't find black women attractive, do so because of white privilege.

This is not a troll thread. Not pretending that racial issues don't exist is not tantamount to trolling.

You have no idea how sexual attraction actually works do you? There's a myriad factors, and generally the most attractive females are those most capable of child-bearing. There's a very good, scientifically supported explanation for why interracial couplings are so rare. Specifically, that the things most people of a certain race find attractive are different in other races. There's always outliers, but those are the exception rather than the rule.

It's not racism anymore than a chihuahua not wanting to mate with a doberman is.

 

[Thyunda]

...why is it a problem that most games star white males? If there's no reason for him not to be a white male...let him be a white male. If your game is set in a country with a mostly white population, and you don't consider his race to be an important factor in his character, then make him a white male, because then you don't have to concern yourself with other aspects of the story that might involve race or gender.

Wow. You're obviously not aware of it, but this is a ridiculously ignorant statement.

Please explain this comment.

I can't speak for yunabomb, but the problem for me is seeing white as "default" and non-white as "other". It's not that any particular character is a white male - after all, why not? It's that almost all of them are. If there's no reason for him not to be a white male, then surely there's no reason for him not to be a black male, or latino male, or South Asian male - or indeed a woman of any race.

I'm guessing nobody read the second half of my post.

FICTIONAL CHARACTERS ARE NOT REAL PEOPLE. THEY ARE SYMBOLS. A WHITE MALE IS A BLANK CARD. WOMEN HAVE BEEN OPPRESSED UNTIL FAIRLY RECENTLY. A FEMALE PROTAGONIST REPRESENTS GENDER EQUALITY.

There's a whole list of character types defined by nationality or gender.
Let's take Rico Rodriguez (Just Cause). He's a CIA agent, but he's not American. If he WAS American, then by the rules of character-creation, he'd automatically be associated with the trigger-happy traits of the US. But he's not. He's Hispanic. This makes him removed from the Americans, but still on their side. His nationality is there to separate him from his employers.
Look. Read my original post.

 

[yunabomb]

...why is it a problem that most games star white males? If there's no reason for him not to be a white male...let him be a white male. If your game is set in a country with a mostly white population, and you don't consider his race to be an important factor in his character, then make him a white male, because then you don't have to concern yourself with other aspects of the story that might involve race or gender.

Wow. You're obviously not aware of it, but this is a ridiculously ignorant statement.

Please explain this comment.

It's hard to explain, but I will try. Viewing white people and men as a default group is a major aspect of societal racism and sexism.

This is why having people of color and women in videogames (and other forms of visual entertainment) without tokenizing them or making them fanservice items is important. It's not as if developers are required to talk about race and sex if a person of color or a woman is a protagonist. In a game with a character-based plot, doing that effectively would make it interesting, though.

 

[twaddle]

Alright. I believe this thread needs to be edited because white is usually a term associated with primarily Americans and not with what the thread is really about Race. White is ethnic and race and ethnicity have separate meanings. What the thread needs to be called is "Most video game stars are Caucasian Males".

 

[Commissar Sae]

I actually thought about this for a while during a recent media class. It was also the subject of an article here on the escapist if you want to look it up. It's hard to come up with positive characters who are outside the ranks of white masculinity who aren't either blatant stereotypes or hyper-sexualized.

There are of course examples tat can be found, but they are relatively rare compared to white males asically for the reason most people have already mentioned: most gamers are currently white males. So I guess I both agree and disagree with you on this one. It is an interesting subject to be sure and you could probably write a half-decent essay on the subject if given the chance.

 

[Joshimodo]

The majority of videogame protagonists are:

30-something white heterosexual males who speak English.



The largest demographic that purchase videogames are:

20 or 30-something white heterosexual males who speak English.



The majority of Western game developers are:

30-something white males who speak English. No idea on sexual preference there, but it's probably pretty normal, with the heterosexuals being the larger percentage.




If games are racist because of main characters being depicted relatively similar to the most prominent demographic, then every form of visual media is racist. Including all of art history.

This is one of the most ridiculously convoluted and outright stupid threads I've seen here in a while, and that's saying something.

 

[an874]

JC Denton can be black, pretty sure Shepherd can be too.

Also, looking for flamewar much?

Race isn't really a big issue in games, a characters personality and motivations are much more important than race.

You don't think it's a little insulting that there isn't more genuine diversity in gaming, and for that matter in the media at large? You don't think that imprints on and affects a public's perception of race and what roles a people of different races end up getting to have? Look up minstrel shows before you answer that question, unless you already know what those are.

Ok yes, I'll give you that there could be more diversity, and I'm quite happy to play whoever the hell the devs put as their main character so long as they're a good character, but your last statement is just making shit up.

We're not in the age of slavery and minstrel shows anymore, and I don't know what backwards bizarro universe you come from, but people are NOT that impressionable, even very young children don't make that assumption unless their parents have told them that "black people are evil!" just because characters of certain skins are in certain roles in video games, it doesn't make people think that that's how people are. Although we do still have genuine racism in society, most people are sensible enough not instantly turned into racists just because Deathwing in WoW takes on the form of a black dude when he's in human form. In fact, scrap that, nobody is that fucking stupid.

Times are not as bad, as they used to be that's true. But what racism exists became more covert and more insidious, so that instead of publicly disrespecting someone, say a white man doing so to black person, we have situations where these feelings are expressed in other more subtle ways such as job discrimination or racial profiling. Kids may not be impressionable enough to be taken in by blatant racism, but the trend in video games and the rest of the media (to lesser extent outside video games, and perhaps comic books) to have default white males as the default character at the helm of just about EVERYTHING is a contributing factor to this insidious new form of racism, and kids are affected by this. Video games are toys, all of them, and even ones meant for adults are obviously often played by kids, so this point still stands.

 

[Thyunda]

...why is it a problem that most games star white males? If there's no reason for him not to be a white male...let him be a white male. If your game is set in a country with a mostly white population, and you don't consider his race to be an important factor in his character, then make him a white male, because then you don't have to concern yourself with other aspects of the story that might involve race or gender.

Wow. You're obviously not aware of it, but this is a ridiculously ignorant statement.

Please explain this comment.

It's hard to explain, but I will try. Viewing white people and men as a default group is a major aspect of societal racism and sexism.

This is why having people of color and women in videogames (and other forms of visual entertainment) without tokenizing them or making them fanservice items is important. It's not as if developers are required to talk about race and sex if a person of color or a woman is a protagonist. In a game with a character-based plot, doing that effectively would make it interesting, though.

Not at all. Fiction works totally different to real life. In real life, you could meet a black man with a perfectly valid claim to being descended from Sir Francis Drake. Nathan Drake being black, however, would raise questions the developers didn't see the need to answer, so they just made Drake white. Once again. Fictional characters are not people, they are symbols. You will pass off a real person's race. When talking to a black man, you don't remember them for being black. In a story, the character's colour is often noted. Unless they're a white man.
The white man has no societal chains to throw off. He has no history of being oppressed. He has no 'against the odds' story.
If I were to set a game in Kenya, my main character would be Kenyan. Unless I wanted a subplot about the character being an outsider. If your game is set in a predominantly white male society, then unless you have plans for their race or gender, the character is a white male.

Take L.A. Noire. Try and make Cole Phelps anything BUT a white male. It's not possible. Even if the plot remained identical, the message would be totally different.

 

[Sangreal Gothcraft]

meh....politically correct much? Anyways minorities tend to get stereotypes...so yeah....lets just leave em white....or chosen in rpg like style....

 

[Shinclone]

If the OP is actually serious and not trolling then they seem to be the type of nutter who foamed at the mouth and screamed that Resi 5 was racist because you kill black people in it.
As many people have said games are aimed at white males between the ages of 15-35. Why? Because it's good business.
OP would you consider the Cosby show racist because it only had black people on it?

 

[yunabomb]

There are of course examples tat can be found, but they are relatively rare compared to white males asically for the reason most people have already mentioned: most gamers are currently white males.

The problem isn't really that most gamers are white and/or male, it's that the developers in American studios are. I mentioned movies earlier, where a majority of viewers are women, while a majority of protagonists are men. We'd still have the same characters even if women were the majority of gamers.

 

[ms_sunlight]

Spoiler: Spoilered for brevity

...why is it a problem that most games star white males? If there's no reason for him not to be a white male...let him be a white male. If your game is set in a country with a mostly white population, and you don't consider his race to be an important factor in his character, then make him a white male, because then you don't have to concern yourself with other aspects of the story that might involve race or gender.

Wow. You're obviously not aware of it, but this is a ridiculously ignorant statement.

Please explain this comment.

I can't speak for yunabomb, but the problem for me is seeing white as "default" and non-white as "other". It's not that any particular character is a white male - after all, why not? It's that almost all of them are. If there's no reason for him not to be a white male, then surely there's no reason for him not to be a black male, or latino male, or South Asian male - or indeed a woman of any race.

I'm guessing nobody read the second half of my post.

FICTIONAL CHARACTERS ARE NOT REAL PEOPLE. THEY ARE SYMBOLS. A WHITE MALE IS A BLANK CARD. WOMEN HAVE BEEN OPPRESSED UNTIL FAIRLY RECENTLY. A FEMALE PROTAGONIST REPRESENTS GENDER EQUALITY.

That's the point. A white male is not a blank card. White is not default, non-white exceptional. Male is not default, non-male exceptional. Why should a blank card be of one particular race or gender? One of the best examples of "blank card" character from the last few years is Chell from Portal, and she's a non-white woman.

(I read your original post; I just didn't agree with it.)