Should Diversity be an Obligation in Game Design?

[Machine Man 1992]

Second of all, Bioshock infinite's furor was rather small, but it was there.

If it was there, I didn't see it. I certainly don't remember it detracting from the respectable sales and plentiful critical praise being heaped upon that game. I think we can safely say they got away with it.

Third, you just listed a group of character's who were well written and notice how none of those character's were protagonists.

Actually, I just listed the first non-white, non-straght, non-male characters with obvious negative traits that I could think of. I can't help having excellent taste.

None of them are protagonists because video game protagonists with negative traits are few and far between. Add the qualifier of being non-male etc etc and I can't think of a single one.

If the character's a well written one, I hope that the perpetually offended either ignore them or get shouted down by normal people. But if the character isn't well written, then they assume it's from hatred rather than not having the budget or time to hire a writer. I was referring to protagonist's and I'm kicking myself for not including that in my original post.

So... poorly written characters receive criticism, some of it inevitably dumb criticism, while well written ones don't?

Isn't that how it should work?

Does that answer you're question?

No.

You specifically did not answer my question.

To be honest, I've lost the point of this back and forth. Nor do I care anymore. You seem to be under the impression that I was speaking in anything other than the broadest terms when I said that white males were the go to characters for protagonists for a reason.

What I meant in general was that, with having a white man as the protagonist, the developers can do anything they want to that character without offending anyone. I did not imply that any time developers tried to diversify it inevitably lead to backlash.

 

[Weaver]

I'd love more diverse characters in video games, however apart from praising good examples of diversity and giving them exposure...

[snip]

It's a negative vs. positive reinforcement scenario.

Y'know, I saw someone try that not long ago on this very forum.

It still caused the people who consider "diversity" and "inclusive" to be dirty words to promptly throw a shit fit.

If we're thinking of the same thread, I recall people making a bunch of excuses for why at least half of the diverse characters didn't "count" for one reason or another.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

No there shouldn't be an obligation in game development to make games catered towards everyone...it would ruin the whole freedom of actually making a video game as you wanted it to.

We all know Bioware went this route so they wouldn't piss off the rest of the gamers that aren't straight and created their games to be inclusive and cater to everyone. This is understandable because they are creating role playing games with custom characters.

I wouldn't want this to happen in all places however..but hey that's just me.

Diversity is good, but not all the time every time.

 

[renegade7]

Obliged, certainly not. You're not obliged to do anything.

However, as some have commented, that doesn't mean that players and critics are not obliged to disagree with that decision or make requests for more minority representation. Even if not for grander concerns of social justice or equality, maybe it would just plain be more interesting to have more diverse characters.

I would say developers have very little to lose and quite a bit to potentially gain from diversifying their character designs. That said, in all likelihood it really wouldn't matter much for sales, except for a slight increase in interest for having more unique characters.

But including them just to have them to fulfill some kind of social obligation opens the door to tokenism, and that's just annoying at best and exacerbates racism and sexism at worst.

seriously name ONE thing that all games need to have and I can name at least one great game that doesn't include it.

Controllers. Checkmate.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Ehhh. Not sure. In some games it doesn't fit (female soldiers in most shooters? Kinda out of place. In most historic settings downright implausible).

The only time I felt like throwing a genuine shit-fit over the lack of females in a shooter was when Gearbox didn't include females in the multiplayer for Aliens: Colonial Marines; the one setting that had an inbuilt justification and they fucked it up. Along with everything else, it must be said.

 

[Wonder Warrior]

I agree with Dizzy. Forcing diversity is unfair for everyone. However as has been proven with movies like Frozen and Big Hero 6, getting competent writers who are from diverse backgrounds can make a product better because it does something new and different. Frozen was praised because it was a good freaking movie, not because of the female writers who were working on the movie. Isn't it incredible that after so many years Frozen was the first disney princess movie with a female lead writer. Big Hero 6 had an asian protagonist. That changed the character and the story. Given the setting and world building it made sense to have an asian kid.