Should Diversity be an Obligation in Game Design?
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No, it should be encouraged.
Diversity for the sake thereof is cheap and comes across as token and forced. This is counter-intuitive to effective writing, and will ultimately undo the story.
I personally think that games writing needs to evolve properly before we can truly write interesting, non-standard characters and make that unique to gaming, though I encourage the experimentation thereof, as all efforts lead to eventual augmentation in skill.
Diversity for the sake thereof is cheap and comes across as token and forced. This is counter-intuitive to effective writing, and will ultimately undo the story.
I personally think that games writing needs to evolve properly before we can truly write interesting, non-standard characters and make that unique to gaming, though I encourage the experimentation thereof, as all efforts lead to eventual augmentation in skill.
How about stop marketing Diversity as something that makes certain groups special?
I mean it's only controversy bait if some things related to certain characters are ALL that define them and all that they're marketed for.
Do it like, say, The Walking Dead.
No one batted an eye at Lee or Clementine's ethnic backgrounds aside from only one incident I can recall with Kenny in Episode 2 of Season 1, and even that was rather vague. And even still quite a lot of people love these characters.
Some more examples of what I mean is,
[PROTOTYPE2] didn't make a single mention on Heller's skin color.
Just Cause 2 didn't make any special special comments about Rico's race besides trying to make him a campy hispanic hero.
No one talks about Alyx Vance being special because of being a girl or of being of Asian and African descent.
No one made a big deal about how the Prince of Persia was...well....Persian.
No one is up in arms about the main character of Transistor being a girl.
They're all liked (Heller I THINK is liked, I sure as hell liked how hilariously over the top his anger was) not by these tropes specifically, but because they're good characters that quite a lot of people took a liking to.
My point is, don't make diversity a gimmick when making a game, just do whatever you want while trying to hold some significance for the matter of ethnicity if that's the case.
But then there's also fear of backlash.
I mean sure I just consider sometimes that my characters in RPGs like say, Mass Effect, are Muslim like me.
But if there was ever any official Muslim protagonist of a game then it would just lead to everything going up in flames about which version of Islam should said character have been. And knowing how barbaric and animalistic reactions can get, I don't think someone would want to take a chance like that these days until some brave soul decides to try his hand at it.
Because the closest that I've heard about anything close to home POSSIBLY being related to something good is in Metal Gear Rising, the one time they acknowledge Pakistan having a PROBLEM of terrorism not managing to get fully wiped out instead of just throwing it under the bus as ultra-stupid conservative desert country like most media interpretations of the country do (Seriously, as much as I got bored with Iron Man 3 that was fucking cheap with the whole "Rhodey breaks in to a sweatshop full of women working in desert buildings in hijabs thing", the veil isn't a necessity back home and there's only Balochistan that has the most desert in the entire country).
In the end the key is just that the creator roll with it.
Don't make it a BIG DEAL that the character is one thing or another, just DO IT.
Their race, cast, creed, gender and all that stuff can be important if it's important to the GAME ITSELF, not annoying everyone with it by going, "SEE? WE CAN BE DIVERSE, LOOKIE HERE WE ADDED A WOMAN AS A PLAYABLE CHARACTER IN REMEMBER ME, LOOK AT HOW INCLUSIVE WE ARE.". Just an example so no offence to fans of Remember Me, I haven't played it myself but saw quite a lot of the gameplay and story. I thought Nilin wasn't THAT bad, just that her model being a girl meant that the camera kept trying to get in her pants at the worst moments.
I mean it's only controversy bait if some things related to certain characters are ALL that define them and all that they're marketed for.
Do it like, say, The Walking Dead.
No one batted an eye at Lee or Clementine's ethnic backgrounds aside from only one incident I can recall with Kenny in Episode 2 of Season 1, and even that was rather vague. And even still quite a lot of people love these characters.
Some more examples of what I mean is,
[PROTOTYPE2] didn't make a single mention on Heller's skin color.
Just Cause 2 didn't make any special special comments about Rico's race besides trying to make him a campy hispanic hero.
No one talks about Alyx Vance being special because of being a girl or of being of Asian and African descent.
No one made a big deal about how the Prince of Persia was...well....Persian.
No one is up in arms about the main character of Transistor being a girl.
They're all liked (Heller I THINK is liked, I sure as hell liked how hilariously over the top his anger was) not by these tropes specifically, but because they're good characters that quite a lot of people took a liking to.
My point is, don't make diversity a gimmick when making a game, just do whatever you want while trying to hold some significance for the matter of ethnicity if that's the case.
But then there's also fear of backlash.
I mean sure I just consider sometimes that my characters in RPGs like say, Mass Effect, are Muslim like me.
But if there was ever any official Muslim protagonist of a game then it would just lead to everything going up in flames about which version of Islam should said character have been. And knowing how barbaric and animalistic reactions can get, I don't think someone would want to take a chance like that these days until some brave soul decides to try his hand at it.
Because the closest that I've heard about anything close to home POSSIBLY being related to something good is in Metal Gear Rising, the one time they acknowledge Pakistan having a PROBLEM of terrorism not managing to get fully wiped out instead of just throwing it under the bus as ultra-stupid conservative desert country like most media interpretations of the country do (Seriously, as much as I got bored with Iron Man 3 that was fucking cheap with the whole "Rhodey breaks in to a sweatshop full of women working in desert buildings in hijabs thing", the veil isn't a necessity back home and there's only Balochistan that has the most desert in the entire country).
In the end the key is just that the creator roll with it.
Don't make it a BIG DEAL that the character is one thing or another, just DO IT.
Their race, cast, creed, gender and all that stuff can be important if it's important to the GAME ITSELF, not annoying everyone with it by going, "SEE? WE CAN BE DIVERSE, LOOKIE HERE WE ADDED A WOMAN AS A PLAYABLE CHARACTER IN REMEMBER ME, LOOK AT HOW INCLUSIVE WE ARE.". Just an example so no offence to fans of Remember Me, I haven't played it myself but saw quite a lot of the gameplay and story. I thought Nilin wasn't THAT bad, just that her model being a girl meant that the camera kept trying to get in her pants at the worst moments.
Many of my favorite videogame characters aren't even human. You could make all the characters black transexuals, or robots, or aliens from another dimension, it wouldn't really matter to me that much. The things that matter most to me deal with how the game works, it's mechanics and it's plotting, not the specific gender and racial makeup of it's characters.
Diversity shouldn't be expected or obliged for the most part. Just because you have different sexualities, skin tones, and genders doesn't make your game better. In fact, most of the time, including those seems to dumb the already bad writing in games down(compared to other mediums) to accommodate them and make sure everyone knows what makes them different instead of making them a good character.
That being said, I'll echo what alot of people say, I'm sick of seeing the same mid-thirties white guy in as many western games as there are the past few years, it's nearly the exact same model every time, and it's boring, not exclusive of others, just boring and incredibly repetitive. And Eastern devs are becoming less and less open to localization unless they're Nintendo because it's too much fucking trouble because for the most part they don't give a damn about what a character looks like or their jiggly bit attraction, because they're characters first, not-white second. It's too much fucking trouble because the loudest voices screaming for diversity are closed to that market and they routinely get panned by "critics" that scream diversity as well.
That being said, I'll echo what alot of people say, I'm sick of seeing the same mid-thirties white guy in as many western games as there are the past few years, it's nearly the exact same model every time, and it's boring, not exclusive of others, just boring and incredibly repetitive. And Eastern devs are becoming less and less open to localization unless they're Nintendo because it's too much fucking trouble because for the most part they don't give a damn about what a character looks like or their jiggly bit attraction, because they're characters first, not-white second. It's too much fucking trouble because the loudest voices screaming for diversity are closed to that market and they routinely get panned by "critics" that scream diversity as well.
Putting heavy emphasis on diversity in game/art related courses should be obligatory. However at the end of the day if you want your game to be a Wonder bread fest with a dappling of chocolate people to blow up that is your own obligation and personal freedom.
That simply doesn't exclude you from getting criticized for it.
Which is what it all boils down to. You don't want to add diversity in games? Cool. People have every right to criticize you for it.
You want to add more diversity in your game? Also cool. People have every right to criticize that.
You know what's not cool? Every single fucking time a dev even so much as mentions adding in a gay/woman/lgbtq+ in their game they get accused of "bowing" to SJW's or said group forced them to do it ala angry tumblr posts and internet forums.
That simply doesn't exclude you from getting criticized for it.
Which is what it all boils down to. You don't want to add diversity in games? Cool. People have every right to criticize you for it.
You want to add more diversity in your game? Also cool. People have every right to criticize that.
You know what's not cool? Every single fucking time a dev even so much as mentions adding in a gay/woman/lgbtq+ in their game they get accused of "bowing" to SJW's or said group forced them to do it ala angry tumblr posts and internet forums.
The lack of knowledge is gonna depend on the person's age really. And I don't know about you but I looked things up that I didn't understand in media as a child. I don't see why others wouldn't. It's gonna depend on if the writer wants to spend time educating their audience or not.endtherapture said:
There is also a problem of othering such characters by not often including them in media depicting certain time periods and alternatively making a big deal about their inclusion when they are put in. But in reality things like a Muslim solider wasn't that uncommon back then. And so you have writers under the impression that they have to justify a certain type of chracter, but justifying that chracter could very well throw the overall plot out of whack by taking time away from plot specific issues. And so they don't bother being more inclusive and more and more people leave with the false impression that Medieval Europe was racially homogenous.
If a story is about a Muslim mercenary being newly hired to fight in a war then the writer would take all the time they needed to explain things. But what if its not? What if the main thrust of the story is about overthrowing some evil overlord? Are writers supposed to stop the action just for an info dump? What if the Muslim mercenary has been hired for quite some time and the other soldiers are already used to his presence? Would it not be inorganic if the story stopped for an info dump? Or is the writer supposed to include an obligatory racist solider who hasn't gotten over that fact that his lord's hiring outsiders yet just to bring it up? Or will a writer trust its audience to guess based on how different the mercenary looks that he's a foreigner.
In everyday life people don't stop to explain things they already know. If two adult Americans are talking about the president one of them isn't gonna drop in a basic explanation of what the presidents job is. Most adult American's have some idea of what the presidency is. A writer can choose to have the main character be from a different culture, or have amnesia, just as an excuse to have the characters explain what the presidency is. Or a writer can leave well enough alone and let that be another piece of the setting puzzle for the reader/viewer/player to click into place later. Questions can good for a story, questions encourage us to pay attention so that we pick up subtle clues in order to figure things out on our own. Questions encourage us to do our own research in order to enrich our lives. And nothing about that makes a story weaker.
But that diversity exists and that's why people are so adamant about including it. Say someone makes a game set in Vancouver, but they don't include characters representative of the diversity you casually see day after day. Does that not strike you as odd? Would you not wonder if the creators had ever actually been to Vancouver?Westaway said:
Or what if its thousands of years in the future and humans have begun living on other planets? Based on current global demographics just how likely would it be that all the "heroes" of this hypothetical space epic would be White? Odds are there would be more folks looking Asian or African. At the very least they'd be ambiguously brown. That's not ethics, that's math. Our world is diverse, and that's why it stands out when that diversity is ignored in media.
It'll happen naturally overtime. People tend to write from their perspective so the characters they write will either be similar to them, or and idealised version. Since the majority of people that make games are male, the majority will be from a male perspective. As the a more diverse range of characters will appear. My main issue is that some games need to point out their equality, such as the latest dragon age, instead of just treating it like a normal thing.
Fuck no, game design is about building a functioning and interactive digital world based around a set of rules.
Storytelling on the other hand is a different matter entirely, but no one should ever, EVER be obligated to cram in diversity. If it doesn't fit with the themes, tone or story the game is trying to tell, it always feels awkward and forced and diminishes the quality overall.
I'm also of the opinion that if the designer just plain-old doesn't want to have a diverse cast of characters, it is THEIR decision and theirs alone for their creative vision.
A diverse cast of characters however, can add colour and depth and interest if used appropriately. It's a storytelling tool like any other.
Storytelling on the other hand is a different matter entirely, but no one should ever, EVER be obligated to cram in diversity. If it doesn't fit with the themes, tone or story the game is trying to tell, it always feels awkward and forced and diminishes the quality overall.
I'm also of the opinion that if the designer just plain-old doesn't want to have a diverse cast of characters, it is THEIR decision and theirs alone for their creative vision.
A diverse cast of characters however, can add colour and depth and interest if used appropriately. It's a storytelling tool like any other.
No, cause forced diversity would end up hurting the creative process if the setting doesn't really call for it.
That said, in setting and storys that can support it, yes, there should be a bigger roster of races and characters then what we usually get.
That said, in setting and storys that can support it, yes, there should be a bigger roster of races and characters then what we usually get.
Far Cry 4 gives us an asian (half-asian? His parent's are supposedly both Kyrati, but he (ingame, not his character art) looks mixed race). He's also more blandly and poorly written then either of the "straight white boy" protagonists I played in Far Cry 1 or 3 (even though I hated Fratboy Jason Brody). His background only even comes up as an excuse plot to halfway explain why he suddenly joins up with the Golden Path (his father's rebellion). Its what I'd use an example of "This diversity was pointless, because it just churned out a character they didn't do anything interesting with". The funnier thing being that the game does have interesting non-white characters (and a woman) in Amita and Sabal, who contribute an actual dynamic, even if it doesn't resolve satisfyingly beyond the usual token nod to "choice".endtherapture said:
No, of course not. However I don't think that if they want to say make the badass space marine a woman, it shouldn't lead to the sort of shitfights that allegedly occurred with Remember Me.
They aren't obliged but it doesn't hurt to add some diversity to a game. Going back to the whole no female assassin's in the co-op for Assassin's Creed: Unity. The fact that Ubisoft lied and said it was lot of work when it clearly isn't is what I hate. Come on, just take a random female NPC, copy her, and then give her the same move set and clothing as the male assassins. Done.
Heck, Shadow of Mordor gave players a female skin to use. If they can do that in about a month or so there is no reason Ubi-Soft could not have done the same thing.
Instead of lying through their teeth they should have just come out and said they didn't want to add female assassins in co-op.
Heck, Shadow of Mordor gave players a female skin to use. If they can do that in about a month or so there is no reason Ubi-Soft could not have done the same thing.
Instead of lying through their teeth they should have just come out and said they didn't want to add female assassins in co-op.
The biggest problem with this entire discussion, particularly in terms of social media, is the black and white stance so many loudmouths take. The reasonable folks usually have their voices drowned out in the din created by a select few screaming "You're a PC SJW libtard who wants to ruin gaming!" and "You're an ignorant conservative asshole who has already ruined gaming!" at each other in turns.
Part of the problem is a tendency for most of the rest of us (myself included, I'm not perfect) to just sit back and let the flamewar consume the entire discourse, eating popcorn and shaking our heads with smug smirks, saying stuff like "This is why we can't have nice things". Another part of the problem is that these shitstorms tend to sway the more susceptible of us, and we get caught up in the turdnado, landing on one side of the fence or the other simply to have a side to stand with, even if only so there will be other people to agree with the words we say.
So it remains that talking about the shoulds and shouldn'ts isn't the best way to have a discussion about inclusivity in gaming. Rather, it's best to continue what others already have begun: Highlight games that are different from the norm. Shine a spotlight on games which wouldn't get the same attention otherwise. Show the big companies that we want these different, diverse experiences by supporting them. If you're the type that doesn't buy into these experiences because you've always had the ones you wanted all along, good news! Those are never going away, because you keep buying them. Just keep on keeping on and you'll have the next Mighty Whitey Kills the Foreign Hordes: The Reckoning Revengeance in no time.
There's no need for cajoling or threatening and there's no need for irate posturing because one disagrees with certain criticisms, and I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, because a goodly number of the folks on these forums are pretty reasonable people, but it needs to be said for the benefit of the noisy little minorities from both extremes of the issue. If anything, it might get them to ponder a bit about just how far up their own asses their heads are.
Part of the problem is a tendency for most of the rest of us (myself included, I'm not perfect) to just sit back and let the flamewar consume the entire discourse, eating popcorn and shaking our heads with smug smirks, saying stuff like "This is why we can't have nice things". Another part of the problem is that these shitstorms tend to sway the more susceptible of us, and we get caught up in the turdnado, landing on one side of the fence or the other simply to have a side to stand with, even if only so there will be other people to agree with the words we say.
So it remains that talking about the shoulds and shouldn'ts isn't the best way to have a discussion about inclusivity in gaming. Rather, it's best to continue what others already have begun: Highlight games that are different from the norm. Shine a spotlight on games which wouldn't get the same attention otherwise. Show the big companies that we want these different, diverse experiences by supporting them. If you're the type that doesn't buy into these experiences because you've always had the ones you wanted all along, good news! Those are never going away, because you keep buying them. Just keep on keeping on and you'll have the next Mighty Whitey Kills the Foreign Hordes: The Reckoning Revengeance in no time.
There's no need for cajoling or threatening and there's no need for irate posturing because one disagrees with certain criticisms, and I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, because a goodly number of the folks on these forums are pretty reasonable people, but it needs to be said for the benefit of the noisy little minorities from both extremes of the issue. If anything, it might get them to ponder a bit about just how far up their own asses their heads are.
Eh, in restraint. It makes me think "should using more spices be an obligation of cooking?" Sometimes more spices compliment eachother & bring out new flavors, but sometimes they work against eachother, & give you heartburn on top of it. If you appeal to every whim of minorities, they'll expect more & more in the future, they'll each want those parts to expand & be focused upon more heavily, taking away time & resources from core gameplay & story, until the game loses it's identity.
dude minorites aren't "spices" to the "default" foodslikalaruku said:
white guys are not the default of humanity
[quote/]If you appeal to every whim of minorities, they'll expect more & more in the future, they'll each want those parts to expand & be focused upon more heavily, taking away time & resources from core gameplay & story, until the game loses it's identity.[/quote]
there is so much wrong with this I don;t think I have the energy...
OT: you might as well ask should all games have italian plumbers in them? because its about as useful as a question
games are not unlike other mediums before, criticism from a cultural perspective has been going on for eons and like it or not games are and SHOULD be subject to the same criticisms and analysis
I think you missed her point. She's not saying that "white guys" are the default, she's saying (I hope I'm getting this right) that white guys are like the most mundane, commonly used spice which gets old for some people but despite that is still the default choice for others.Vault101 said:
Everyone has their "default" or "regular" choices. Most game devs are straight white males, therefore that's their "go-to" demographic for writing protagonists. Most of the characters I make are lesbians by default, because that's just my "default". All of my characters have been white so far so I'm planning on making my next one non-white just to add a different flavour.
Though I am not suggesting for a moment that I am using race as a commodity. Just something to break up the homogeneity.
I understand what you're saying but I don't think that neglecting diversity is necessarily a conscious choice. Even if it is a conscious choice, it could be because the writer is too afraid of making poor portrayals of races/genders/sexualities that aren't their own. Personally my characters' races and sexes can be chosen at random and they'd still "make sense", because all my characters tend to be strange in ways that aren't limited to any demographic haha.Dragonbums said:
I think the reaction people make to announcements of "diverse" characters is at least partially fuelled by the attitudes of devs themselves. I think recently a Far Cry 4 dev said that "anyone who is against social justice will hate this game" as some sort of brag about how diverse the cast is. It's an attitude that was also in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. Now I'm not saying all this "omg SHW shills ruining gaming" nonsense is warranted, but it's certainly not helped on the other side.