Poll: Jim Sterling Calls Out New Assassin's Creed (for racism/sexism?)

putowtin

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Jul 7, 2010
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Yes because the french revolution was cram packed with Asians, Africans and chaps over from Brazil for the day!

Seriously folks, that's one render, we saw 20 seconds of co-op game play that didn't exactly go into much detail. I know everyone loves to hate on Ubisoft, but lets what else they bring to the table before branding them all racist hummm?!?
 

rbstewart7263

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Lilani said:
Zak757 said:
To be fair, they really ARE identical.



They are all a bunch of white dudes with stubble and trimmed mustaches making the same facial expression. The only significant difference is the hood color, which doesn't really earn you any originality points. You don't get much less creative or diverse with your character design than that. I don't know if this is an issue of race or sex, but it certainly is creatively bankrupt for a game with "unity" right in the title.
Yeah, if I didn't know any better, I'd look at that and wonder if perhaps they were doing a game where you play as one character but in four different situations or realities, and each of these is representing the four scenarios. I mean Jesus, people whine about how perfect diversity in a group is unrealistic, but if you ask me a group of guys who have this much in common is even more unrealistic, unless they're brothers. Same height, same race, same sex, same build, nearly the same facial hair...I wonder if this was less about sticking with demographics and more about Ubisoft wanting to save on making new character models and rigging.
And it could be that its there personalities that took focus on differentiating them. We dont yet know what the writers and designers motivations are so we shall see.

edit: we now know that it they really wanted to but it would be double the work. they would have had to have done some 8000 plus animations on a different skeleton. also you as the player will always see yourself as the main while the other people ,who will also see themselves as the main character will just be the other three guys. makes alot of sense eh?

Sounds reasonable to me though I know a few people who with no experience in animation will surmise that it would have been like "really easy" and "like 30 minutes of extra work" without any actual knowledge or explanation as to how they know that.

though if anyone with experience can confirm or deny this claim go ahead. the rest can put it to bed.
http://www.destructoid.com/assassin-s-creed-unity-won-t-have-female-co-op-avatars-and-here-s-why-276412.phtml
 

Rozalia1

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I'm sure it was a joke, but honestly I do tire of people attempting to dictate how characters in games should be designed.
Do such people not realise what the reaction would be if the 4 guys were a Midget, Black, Asian, and a women.

Also classy to see all those white dudes all look the same posts because that doesn't stink of racism at all, just like all those blacks and Asians looking the same huh?
 

Legion

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Oct 2, 2008
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Rozalia1 said:
Also classy to see all those white dudes all look the same posts because that doesn't stink of racism at all, just like all those blacks and Asians looking the same huh?
The difference is that in here people are referring to four very specific white guys from an image they're looking at who look the same. That is not the same as saying that all Black/Asian people do.

OT: He was being tongue in cheek, making a joke based upon the name. I do not believe he was suggesting it is racist/sexist. That doesn't mean he hasn't brought up a good point though, at least some variety would be nice.

There are plenty of ways they could do it without it feeling contrived or simply doing it as a token effort after all. Twin brother and sister, an ex-slave freed etc.
 

Rozalia1

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Legion said:
Rozalia1 said:
Also classy to see all those white dudes all look the same posts because that doesn't stink of racism at all, just like all those blacks and Asians looking the same huh?
The difference is that in here people are referring to four very specific white guys from an image they're looking at who look the same. That is not the same as saying that all Black/Asian people do.
They don't need to be black, cuban, or asian to look different (which they clearly are if you look at the half of their face's on show).
 

Phasmal

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Jun 10, 2011
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Rozalia1 said:
I'm sure it was a joke, but honestly I do tire of people attempting to dictate how characters in games should be designed.
Do such people not realise what the reaction would be if the 4 guys were a Midget, Black, Asian, and a women.

Also classy to see all those white dudes all look the same posts because that doesn't stink of racism at all, just like all those blacks and Asians looking the same huh?
Only you (and maybe the OP) are mentioning racism. Everyone else just sees lazy design.

And these specific four guys DO look all the same. Tiny bit of different facial hair, but they all have the same height and build to the point I'm not even sure if they aren't meant to be the same guy.

OT: As other people said, it's just a joke calling out lazy design. And it does look pretty lazy. We'll just have to see, but I do get tired of playing the same type of protagonist over and over.
 

Floppertje

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I was actually wondering where all the French accents were. If they're there, they're too subtle to notice. Is it too much for a game set in France to contain some French accents?
 

Madame_Lawliet

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Or... maybe he was just making a joke?
It's a ponient joke, it's a joke with a message, and a worthwhile message at that, but... it's a joke...
The game has the subtitle "Unity," and all the primary player characters are white dudes who look pretty much the same, he was making a joke about the irony in those two facts.

Making a big deal out of it just REEKS of insecurity, it's one tweet, don't worry about it so much.
 

Absimilliard

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Nov 4, 2009
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Thunderous Cacophony said:
[...] and an Englishman in AC4.
Quick fact: Edward Kenway is Welsh. Welsh people will generally not take it well to be called English.
 

Rozalia1

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Phasmal said:
And these specific four guys DO look all the same. Tiny bit of different facial hair, but they all have the same height and build to the point I'm not even sure if they aren't meant to be the same guy.

OT: As other people said, it's just a joke calling out lazy design. And it does look pretty lazy. We'll just have to see, but I do get tired of playing the same type of protagonist over and over.
You can't even see half their face so how can you claim that? Try and picture what the guy on the left end, and the guy on the right end will look like for example. Look at the bottom and than fill in the pieces yourself. They still look the same to you?

You know that reminds me, why is it that so many game characters in a lot of games are all the same general size...there couldn't be a reason for that at all, could there? No logical reason exists surely.
 

Phasmal

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Jun 10, 2011
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Rozalia1 said:
You can't even see half their face so how can you claim that? Try and picture what the guy on the left end, and the guy on the right end will look like for example. Look at the bottom and than fill in the pieces yourself. They still look the same to you?

You know that reminds me, why is it that so many game characters in a lot of games are all the same general size...there couldn't be a reason for that at all, could there? No logical reason exists surely.
Sorry dude, they all look extremely similar to me, maybe I'm just racist.

What do you care if I think this design looks lazy? Not sure what you're defending here. (And are you really defending against lazy design by vaguely insinuating that they're all using the same model? Because... lol).

I personally agree with Jim, and think this design doesn't look interesting. Sorry if that upsets you.
 

Smiley Face

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Could they be more diverse? Yes. Would that be better? Yes.
Is it ok that they're not diverse? Yes.
Is it silly that they look tremendously similar? Pretty much, yeah.
Would people be making jokes about the unlikeliness of a diverse group of Assassins running and murdering freely around Paris during the revolution if there were a woman and a Haitian on the cover? Of course they would.

People would be complaining about this any which way. Regardless of however international the Assassins are supposed to be at this juncture, the fact remains that at that time period women were subjugated and racism was widespread, even among subgroups of West-European Caucasian. As much a fan as I am of diversity when used well, it's perfectly fine not have diversity if it doesn't add to plausibility, moreso if it complicates things. For instance, while women and Haitians and whatnot did participate in the revolution, that does NOT mean that their status as a member of another gender/race went unnoticed or unremarked, and it would have lead to complications that Ubisoft probably wouldn't want to bother with, particularly given the co-op angle.

Seriously, if they did have Joan of Arc and Alexandre Dumas running around, and the characters didn't react to it, people would complain it was unrealistic/dismissing real issues of sexism/racism. If they included them AND addressed those issues to a realistic extent, people would complain the game had bloated writing and spent too much time saying "Look at us, we have a female action hero in historical France, ISN'T THAT WEIRD?". People will whine and complain regardless of the choice made, so I can't blame Ubisoft for deciding to just make the game the way they wanted to.

Although, you never know, talk about it enough, maybe they might decide to throw in some last minute changes. Personally, I would like to have some diversity, but my point is I don't blame Ubisoft for not taking that route.
 

Rozalia1

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Phasmal said:
Sorry dude, they all look extremely similar to me, maybe I'm just racist.

What do you care if I think this design looks lazy? Not sure what you're defending here. (And are you really defending against lazy design by vaguely insinuating that they're all using the same model? Because... lol).

I personally agree with Jim, and think this design doesn't look interesting. Sorry if that upsets you.
Cute. So the right end one doesn't have more of a olive skin look, while the left end one has more of a...Germanic look?
Yeah perhaps you are, or maybe its your eyes...why not both actually.

Because a "all those X guys look the same" response with X being the usual suspects wouldn't be met in the same way.
Do tell me about the wonders of the Mortal Kombat 9 characters all being of differing sizes and builds while you're "loling" by the way.

So if the middle guy was black he'd suddenly be interesting? Someone call the artists of the world and tell them they just need to blacken everyone up to make good designs.
 

Phasmal

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Jun 10, 2011
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Rozalia1 said:
Dude, you are clearly more invested in this than I am, so I'm gonna leave you to it.
But I will add that no artist is gonna start crying just because some random person doesn't like their design, you don't need to spring to the defence.
 

Rozalia1

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Phasmal said:
Rozalia1 said:
Dude, you are clearly more invested in this than I am, so I'm gonna leave you to it.
But I will add that no artist is gonna start crying just because some random person doesn't like their design, you don't need to spring to the defence.
That sort of response when presented with actual questions you can't adequately answer without exposing yourself eh? You've jobbed yourself out regardless so I don't mind, saves me time actually.
So this thread should just have people criticising, and they should never be challenged because "lol who gives a crap"?
 

lord canti

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May 30, 2009
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or maybe their all just stock characters for the trailer? Even if he's just calling out lazy design, The AC protagonist have always been very diverse.
 

BathorysGraveland2

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They're assassins though. Aren't they supposed to blend in? Look uninteresting. Not attract attention. All that other stuff?
 

Jandau

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Dec 19, 2008
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First of all, Jim was making a joke. You should be able to do that without people jumping down your anal orifice.

That being said, he does have a point. Yes, France was very much inhabited by white people around that time, but it wasn't exclusive. Also, even if 99% of the population was white, I'm fairly certain that males weren't 99%. So maybe throw at least one chick in there. Also, a token black (or arab, or any non-white) race/ethnicity wouldn't be unreasonable. Isn't one of the reasons we play games to see interesting characters? And even if you do have 4 white dudes, do they have to look nearly identical? Again, the whole "let's have some interesting characters!" issue.

As far as I can tell, they went down the Power Ranger route of character differentiation, but even managed to mess that up. We have a Blue Ranger, a Green Ranger and... two Yellow Rangers? Seriously, couldn't add one more color? Like Red? Or Black? White and Gray wouldn't be amiss either.

When a bad children's show from the 90ies has you beat on character design, you have a problem...