To be honest I'm not entirely sure what your point here is Shamus, you seem to be walking on the fence a lot here, trying to say both that you think they should change the ethnic makeup of video games to be more diverse, but at the same time it shouldn't be forced and you really don't think anyone should be made to do it.
To be honest I'll also say that I think this issue, at least as far as it's come up on these forums is marred by ignorance, with statements being made based on a very narrow political position designed to empower specific people and representitives.
The issue we're increasingly seeing is less a matter of race, and more a matter of culture, and the problem is guys like MovieBob being unable to distinguish between the two enough to realize that racism pretty much doesn't exist in countries like the USA, but cultural conflicts do, and as cultures can be drawn along racial lines some confusion is possible.
This is pretty much why guys like "Will Smith" and before him "Bill Cosby" were the exceptions to the rule, the black guy that could be interchangable with a white guy in a leading role. The reason for this is all about how that act, what they believe, and how they present themselves when they perform. Despite some occasional ethnic referances when roles require it (especially from Will Smith) both are pretty much well assimilated into mainstream society, believe in adaption, and don't generally walk around acting like there is something special inherant in being black, or that they are owed anything on those grounds. Of course at the same time, both actors are also considered to be sell outs by a huge percentage of the black community... the classic "ho ho"... black on the outsie, white and gooey on the inside. That kind of analogy being made by black culture to attack anyone who fits into the mainstream especially on a large scale.
The thing with most black actors is that when they get involved in a movie inevitable their prescences brings a lot of fairly offensive pro-black, and anti-white statements or implications along with statements associated with the characters they play that are both ignorant and anathema to most of society. Your basically looking at the representation of an obselete counter-culture that still exists on a large level, and is actually responsible for most of the tensions that exist, rather than any actual racism. Guys like Bill Cosby (who has a PHD in Children's Education) has gone off about this, and has shown himself to be quite aware of his perception on both sides of the fence.
The thing is in evaluating a lot of these actors, a lot of it comes down to an individual level whether or not an actor has shown himself as leaving that kind of thing behind at least when he performs. A lot of these actors however wind up adapting the roles to what they want to say and how they want to present themselves.
In a lot of cases when you look at a movie, you can tell by a mostly black cast and leading roles... unless specific people who proved otherwise, are present that there is going to be a lot of anti-white ando/or pro-black garbage inserted into the movie, whether it belongs there or not. Incidently this doesn't mean a soapbox political speech, or any kind of call to violence, a lot of it can just come down to attitude and casual statements that are made. Such movies DO appeal to the large counter culture that believes in those messages, but to everyone else it's pretty much obnoxious. There is also a tendency to actually feel that supporting such things is counter productive because one of the big challenges in society right now is to deconstruct that counter culture entirely so everyone throughout society becomes *ahem* a sell out as the critics of guys like Will Smith or Bill Cosby would call them.
I'll also be quite blunt in saying that politics do enter into this, as does the talent of the people involved. Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall both could have become (or remained) Will Smith types, especially Eddie, but some of their political statements (especially Arsenio, when he had his own talk show) kind of put them into a a catagory where they became difficult to seperate from what they stand for even if they can resist the temptation to put it into a movie. That, and as many people will point out Eddie Murphy had a few big hits, but he's also well known for producing movies that perform well under the expectations, as opposed to someone like a Bill Cosby or Will Smith who have more consistantly been part of quality products. I've given Eddie Murphy enough chances, where despite liking him, and thinking he's very talentd and funny, I feel his products tend to be garbage overall. So basically when I see an Eddie Murphy movie, I think fondly back to the good stuff he has done, but tend to dismiss the movie as crap because he just doesn't pick good projects... his taste blows chips. Someone like Halle Berry is neutral enough where they could have been more of a break out start to carry "mainstream" leads, but to be honest she doesn't seem to be as talented as a lot of people think. She had a chance with things like the "Catwoman" movie and we all see how that turned out. She can carry the role of a major supporting character or a co-star for someone else doing a lot of the heavy lifting. If the big selling point of a movie is simply that she's in it... I'm not going to get too excited. The only thing she did as the lead that I thought was decent was "Gothika" and that was just okay.
When you look at black actors, one thing you'll notice is that most of them almost invariably play one thing: the angry black man. That anger is almost always aimed at society due to white oppression. Someone like Samual L. Jackson has pretty much made a career by being versatile enough, and wise enough, to adjust that schtick into a more general direction. While he has played roles with a lot of racial overtones (Die Hard, etc..), he has also played the same kind of role without all of that nonsense, to the point where Samual L. Jackson can carry the role of being a "badass" without nessicarly having to tie it into being angry at the evil white man and "social injustice" that doesn't actually exist.
Then when you look at black comedians and such, that can be a touchy thing as well when a lot of the humor is pitch black humor based on both simultaneously mocking and glorifying some of the worst things in society, many of which are embraced in one way or another by this dominant counter culture. When you consider that a lot of people live in fear of rampaging gang bangers, drug dealers, pimps, and other assorted things especdially in the inner city, it's a style of humor and presentation that doesn't work as well when taken from say stand up to a movie persona. Someone can say make movies involving redneck humor because while there are isolated incidents nobody really thinks Rednecks are all that dangerous. On the other hand jokes about pimps, drug dealers, and gang bangers... well we have people like that holding neighrborhoods in terror and killing people every day. Someone like Kat Williams might pull down a successful stand up act, but I think there are reasons why he hasn't been able to broker that into a universally accepted TV show or Movie career like a "Larry The Cable Guy" or whatever.
That's my thoughts at any rate, and a lot of it applies to video games. You take your minority character, black or anything else, and you decide to have them act like a normal part of the mainstream and people will sit there and consider them a sell out and make jokes like "Storm is black, wow... I never noticed she always acted white..." (from comics). You start having them act black, and then you've got the issue not only of it becoming an offensive parody to someone, but also of pissing even more people off because of all of the things that make the subculture in question differant.
The mainstream is mainstream for a reason, it's safe territory, and if you want a successful product that's where you stick. In general minorities are less likely to be offended by playing a game with a mainstream white protaganist, than say the majority reacting to controlling the a member of a counter culture. This is before you even get into how a lot of these counter cultures interact, despite the liberal point of view it's not everyone against the oppressive white guys exclusively. Black culture, latino culture, asian culture (especially) and others all come into explosive conflict with each other. When I was kept advised of such things regularly, we always got warnings about the potential explosive potential of blacks and chinese together and to watch out. This because of all the cross traffic to the casinos we got from Chinatown districts in New York and Boston and how the dominant gangs running the less pleasant things in the casino were all Asian and operating out of the "Club International" and/or Baccarat pits. These guys being directly opposed by black gangs, with a lot of actual racism involved from the Chinese. There was always some concerns that someone would try something major related to that at the casino, I wasn't involved in anything that went beyond the petty or minor level though, but then again I had
a bit of a knack for handling incidents. The point here being is that while all minorities can usually at least tolerate the mainstream in buying products, catering to one minority or counter culture can literally drive off others. There are always going to be exceptions, but in an overall sense I think that part of the equasion is things like how if you have a Black protaganist, that means your going to lose a decent part of the Asian market at least in some large areas like New York which can be a factor. On the other hand if you have your neutral 30 year old white dude both groups might bellyache about too many white guys, but both will probably buy the product... it's a point I don't think a lot of people consider. There is more to it than white/mainstream against everyone else, people tend to forget what counterculture vs. counterculture can do, or about racism between minority groups so far as it still exists as true racism.
