Too much diversity.

[Worgen]

So Extra Credit just came out with a new video about diversity.
If you don't feel like watching it, I'll just mention one thing it says. In a certain game your race is randomly selected, some players had complaints about not being able to get into the game because they couldn't make a character who looked like them. The extra credits people then make the point that, what about all those gamers who aren't white and male, they might be having the same issues with games.

Anyway, thoughts?

I never understood people who say they need a woman/black person/whatever to be able to relate to a character.

I almost never relate to game protagonist anyway, because I've never had to avenge anyone or go on a quest to save the world or find myself in some haunted place. Being a white guy isn't going to help IMO.

I know not everyone is me, but the idea seems alien to me.

Personally, I don't get it either, if given the chance I always make something as far from myself as possible. If there is a non-human race to choose from, Ill pick it. If I'm stuck being human I'll make a female. If I'm stuck being male I'll be black. Being a white guy in games tends to be last resort for me.

But some people seem to mostly want to play what they look like, so it must suck when you tend to be stuck being a white guy, if you're not one.

 

[Worgen]

I never understood the "can't get immersed because of MC's X": you play a vampire, riding unicorns in a fantasy land, wait, that vampire is WHITE?! IMMERSION GONE!

In the end it falls apart because it's a fucking video game with zombies and crafting, not some deep game that actually expands on it. Not to mention that a company doing a huge publicity stunt and then lamenting how they did it from the kindness of their hearts rather than boost awareness doesn't sound very truthful.

So... then you agree that we need more diversity? Because your point about "I never understood the "can't get immersed because of MC's X": you play a vampire, riding unicorns in a fantasy land, wait, that vampire is WHITE?! IMMERSION GONE!" means that having something other then a white guy as a main character is good.

Or am I missing your point?

 

[Mikeybb]

*snipped for space*
Anyway, thoughts?

While I'm not a player of rust, I quite liked the player features being decided by abstract account details.
I don't know specifically why it appealed, but it certainly didn't put me off.
Probably the idea that people would eventually be able to recognize each other by face, and simultaneously not be able to restart a bland looking character to blend into a crowd of other bland looking raiders and other miscreants.
That said, I'm not sure if the engine has enough variety in features available yet to make this work as good as I'm imagining it.

As to the point of the video.
Fair point made for people who need a bit of ego insertion/projection when they want to play a game.
I've never really needed it myself.

The only time I've found a game that lets me makes something which looks close to me anyway is spore.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

If a game is fun, then thats all i care about. Dont care what race, gender or animal im playing as.As long as the story and gameplay is fun then i will enjoy the game. Diversity doesnt make a crap game good so forcing it in a game is pointless. An this me, a white guy, who plays as a female in rpgs because its fun to kick ass and save the world as a woman. Its fun.

Looking to GTA5 and playing as Franklin (i think that was the black guys name). I enjoyed his character alot, though not when you did the whole "black gang" crap where every second or third word is 'dog' or '******'. Just became laughable like some over the top version of a black gang member. Hated that part. But him as a character was great.

Saying gamers dont accept diversity is stupid. We have played as men, woman, old, young, black, white and every colour of the rainbow. We played as robots, aliens, mushrooms, animals and insects. I have played games since the Atari and its only now that diversity is a thing. Now diverse characters are great but we always had diversity. We even played as an indian in AC3. So people may want more, but why ignore all the diversity we have had before? Or is diversity now mean non white and non male?

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I never understood the "can't get immersed because of MC's X": you play a vampire, riding unicorns in a fantasy land, wait, that vampire is WHITE?! IMMERSION GONE!

In the end it falls apart because it's a fucking video game with zombies and crafting, not some deep game that actually expands on it. Not to mention that a company doing a huge publicity stunt and then lamenting how they did it from the kindness of their hearts rather than boost awareness doesn't sound very truthful.

So... then you agree that we need more diversity? Because your point about "I never understood the "can't get immersed because of MC's X": you play a vampire, riding unicorns in a fantasy land, wait, that vampire is WHITE?! IMMERSION GONE!" means that having something other then a white guy as a main character is good.

Or am I missing your point?

For me i saw games that let you build your own character like rpgs as playing as yourself. Mass Effects, Skyrim etc. But games like Tomb Raider, Uncharted or Gears of War, your playing that characters story, not your own so it shouldnt be an issue. So when i play Franklin in GTA5 im playing his story, not a black version of myself.

I know guys that wont play a game as a woman. Im sure there are white/black people that wont play a game thats opposite of their skin colour. Maybe woman our there that would rather play as a mushroom than a male? I think diversity isnt so much an issue as the internet given racist, sexist idiots a forum to spout their comments and make gamers labeled as intolerant arseholes. Even though those are maybe less than 1%. Gaming should be about the experience. An as long as that experience is fun that what more is there to want?

 

[Longing]

If you want to play a game where the main character is a transvestite 350lbs black he/she, then learn coding and make the game yourself. Don't force artists to change their art or craft because you want them to do it your way. Alternatively make millions of dollars and buy a development team to make a Tranny game yourself.

or enough people could say that they'd be interest in buying a game where the protagonist is a fat black transman (lovingly wrote down another way by you) and then an actually talented studio that knows how to make games develops it! what a outlandish idea!

Simply saying your criticism out loud is not 'forcing artist to change their art'. Look at all these frightened artists changing the glorious paleness of their protagonist at this very moment!

ps. great use of slurs, you get an a+ on that.

 

[Scars Unseen]

So Extra Credit just came out with a new video about diversity.
If you don't feel like watching it, I'll just mention one thing it says. In a certain game your race is randomly selected, some players had complaints about not being able to get into the game because they couldn't make a character who looked like them. The extra credits people then make the point that, what about all those gamers who aren't white and male, they might be having the same issues with games.

Anyway, thoughts?

Well I suppose the first thought is this: are the people that are complaining solely white and male? And in either case, so fucking what? The lack of diversity in other games has absolutely nothing to do with being forced into a certain race, sex or whatever in a game that has other options. Those are two different issues entirely. Hell, I would argue that the latter is worse, because at least the former can be explained by laziness.

 

[Worgen]

So Extra Credit just came out with a new video about diversity.
If you don't feel like watching it, I'll just mention one thing it says. In a certain game your race is randomly selected, some players had complaints about not being able to get into the game because they couldn't make a character who looked like them. The extra credits people then make the point that, what about all those gamers who aren't white and male, they might be having the same issues with games.

Anyway, thoughts?

Well I suppose the first thought is this: are the people that are complaining solely white and male? And in either case, so fucking what? The lack of diversity in other games has absolutely nothing to do with being forced into a certain race, sex or whatever in a game that has other options. Those are two different issues entirely. Hell, I would argue that the latter is worse, because at least the former can be explained by laziness.

Well, the people complaining being mostly white and male could be explained as the people of other races and genders who cant get into a game because they cant play a protagonist that looks like them just never became gamers so they aren't complaining because they don't play games.

 

[CrystalShadow]

You jnow, this makes me want to fire up Rust just to see what their algorithm would make of my steam account.

I'm also just curious what they've actually implemented. Is purely random, but tied to some ID code after being generated? Is it a psuedorandom generator using elements of your steam profile as the seed?
Just how random is it anyway? Does it pay any attention to the handful of things you can explicitly list on your profile? or is it totally random?

For that matter, how much diversity does the character creator underlying this have in it? It may be random, but it is still modifying a set of parameters. If you could adjust them manually, how many combinations would there be?
How many faces? How many skintypes? Hair colours? Eye colours?
Bodytypes? Gender?
What are the limits exactly?

Diversity is a weird thing though, in general. More often than not, it isn't representative...

About half of the population of the planet is female, roughly half is asian, and a full 1/3 of the planet has been chinese in recent history...
Globally, europeans are a minority, representing only about 1 billion people, give or take.

Diversity is strange like that.
Who is and is not a minority depends on context.

If you're gay, you're a minority in most contexts, but if you go to a gay club, that likely isn't true in that context.

Still, does it matter in games? Eh. If there's a character creator, it's obnoxious if you can't be what you want. But that's true regardless.
I like to play things as a short, redheaded catgirl (see my profile picture. XD). More often than not, that isn't possible in a game. Does it bother me? Sometimes. But not enough to care.
It also isn't about what I am, or am not in reality doesn't have that much direct bearing on what I want to be in games. Because, most of the time, it's about being something you WISH you could be, not what you are.
Whether that's about looking different, or doing things you can't really do in reality, iT amounts to a similar thing.

As for games wuth no choice in characters at all? Eh. Whatever.
I personally wish for greater diversity here solely because having every game protagonist ever being a straight white male tough-guy is just plain... Dull,
You want every game to be the same thing, starring the same dull, character?
Eh, bleh.
BORING!!!!

by that token, my biggest grievance here is when a dev does create a different Iind of character, more often than not these days they get accused of 'pandering' or 'caving in to SJW's' or whatever.

That's just completely unfair. It implies having a straight white male is 'keeping to your artistic vision', while anything ekse is 'pandering to a minority'.
Which is just insulting to everyone. Devs, minorities, and everyone else alike.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Wow, so much "I'm all for diversity, and I'll play any sort of character.. but stop asking for diversity," stuff. It seems a lot like "I'm all for diversity, but I'd rather it all stay straight white guy." It smells a bit of BS. Ya know, Disingenuous.

People eagerly defending gaming from the horrible diversity thing that threatens to show a wider assortment of characters, and points of view from people aside from the straight white guy thereby creating more diversity in plots, and potentially something more interesting than straight white guy fights enemies, finds girl, gets girl, fights more(provided rescuing the woman wasn't the end game goal), gets more women, fights more, yadda.

Why are we jumping to the extreme that we're "forcing the developers" to do anything? Like we have that power? The notion is idiotic. We can ask for whatever we want, but push comes to shove, it's the producers, and people controlling the purse strings that force te developers into "safe" areas, gutting creativity, and basically doing what status quo supporters think the people wanting diversity are doing in stifling developer creativity, which is BS at it's finest.

Honestly, I'd rather developers have real freedom, and let the diversity fall into place naturally, but no matter what we'll have people crying that it's being shoehorned in, but they're mysteriously silent when women are cut from the roster in favor of guys.

I can't believe people think that anyone has the power to govern a multinational media like that. If some group had the power to control what companies do, I think they'd probably try for a loftier goal than videogames. Like world domination. Seriously, if a group could make an entire section of the world's economy work for tem instead of te frikking dollar, they'd be absurdly powerful.


Kudos to Rust's decision.

I don't blame people for not being able to get into a game because of the protagonist. As an asian lesbian growing up as a minority to an extreme in the southern US (And I do mean southern. NOt just in a cardinal direction way, but in a racist rednecky way) I've endured it for decades. I don't have a choice but to try and immerse myself, and suspend disbelief. I guess that's part of the reason I'm just so ticked off at the industry lately, especially when the weak excuses for limiting a game to a straight white guy surface.
Funny how Ubisoft did that in Unity citing it's just too hard, but look at the upcoming assassin;s creed? Potential for choice of gender! I'm not even really looking at the AC set in China, it's more of an indie project compared to a full blown AC game, isn't it? And that weak excuse after Liberty? And AC Multiplayer?

What grinds my gears are the people expecting people wanting diversity to sit and be happy without it. It's absurd, really. Why should we be happy with a lack of representation?

 

[Mong0]

As a brown person, I've never had any complaints with playing as a white character, or the opposite sex for that matter, because I approach the game with the understanding that I am not the subject of the story.

In games where the narrative is dependent on the character's race or sex (e.g. a love interest as a motivational factor) it's necessary to be unable to choose them. This dependency is arguably necessary in story driven games as it unifies the main character with their world.

Assigning these traits randomly, however, implies that nothing in the game is dependent on sex or race. This being the case, I think that being unable to choose is stupid and pointless, especially if it's just to make a point about some perceived social bias.

 

[LysanderNemoinis]

As a brown person, I've never had any complaints with playing as a white character, or the opposite sex for that matter, because I approach the game with the understanding that I am not the subject of the story.

In games where the narrative is dependent on the character's race or sex (e.g. a love interest as a motivational factor) it's necessary to be unable to choose them. This dependency is arguably necessary in story driven games as it unifies the main character with their world.

Assigning these traits randomly, however, implies that nothing in the game is dependent on sex or race. This being the case, I think that being unable to choose is stupid and pointless, especially if it's just to make a point about some perceived social bias.

Amen, my brother or sister from another mother. I honestly can't give five shits in rapid succession who or what I play as in games. It doesn't matter to me. My ability to empathize or relate to the protagonist has nothing to do with race or gender but whether they're interesting or at the very least cool as hell. One of the main characters in Modern Warfare 2 is a hispanic guy, and the game was still boring as could be and I couldn't care about him at all. Meanwhile, while I'm not a black ex-professor in a zombie apocalypse or a posh witch who kills angels, I loved The Walking Dead and Bayonetta. If you can't get into a game solely because the protagonist doesn't share your race or sex, then you're the one with the problem, whatever you may be.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Never had a problem with playing a generic white dude, or a generic fighter jet or a jeneric yellow circle, or blue hedgehog. Really, if it;s enough to break your immersion you were never really interested in immersion to begin with., I mean I mean I love games that allow you to customize, though not because theya llow you to make yourself. They allow you to make some uinteresting characters. Like the Gigantic, beefy, dyke troll biker brawler I made for my Playthrough of Shadowrun Returns.

 

[Gizen]

Why exactly is diversity good or necessary? I keep seeing posts about needing more diversity in games, but I've never seen any arguments for why we need more diversity in games (I've heard opinions, but not arguments).

Is it just "common sense", like "games causes sexism"?

Why is it "bad" with a game of all black/white/yellow people? Why must all colors (not to mention genders, disabilities, and body sizes) be included? What is the benefit?

The argument is very simple. Some people like to get immersed in their games. Some people find it more enjoyable and/or easier to get immersed when they have a character that, at least on some level, resembles who they are. More diverse options amongst more games increases the odds that any one of these people will find a game that fulfills their desirs. Overall, more people will be able to find games that appeal to them.

If you want a second argument, it's because homogenization is boring. It's boring when everything and everyone looks the same. Different aesthetics can make otherwise similar games better stand apart from one another more easily.

Are those arguments not good enough for you? Are they too close to being an opinion? Well if you say that's just my 'opinion', then that itself functions as an argument for diversity, because if you dismiss the call for diversity as being just an opinion, the same label can then be flipped in reverse against the call for maintaining the status quo, and in that case, what makes your opinion any more valuable than somebody else's? Afterall, if the race/gender of any given character is as unimportant and irrelevant as proponents of the status quo often like to maintain, then why NOT change it?

The closest thing to being a valid argument against diversity is fulfilling the 'artist's vision', except artistic vision is ultimately just a facet of free expression, and free expression includes the right for people to complain about things they don't like, which includes that artist's vision. If their vision is small-minded and homogenous, featuring all white men and cliched stereotypes, sure, they're free to make that game if they want, it's their right as an artist... and it's my right as a consumer to tell them it sucks, make something better. Artistic license is not a magic shield that defends you from all criticism of your work. Besides, in this age of AAA games where publisher's demand games are changed to suit their whims and games are made by teams of hundreds instead of by individuals, it's difficult to honestly claim anyone's artistic vision would be damaged anyways, because game development already forces a constant series of artistic compromises between all the people involved.

 

[Dragonbums]

Always interesting to see how when it comes to diversity there is always the "diversity for divirsity's sake" and at the same time they are perfectly okay with white dude, with stubble basically being shoehorned into every game no matter what the circumstances are no questions.

But everyone else that has a darker skin tone than a light tan better have backstory worthy of a literature award to so much as justify their appearance for any role higher than NPC.

This is also not to mention that devs shoehorning in white dudes all the time is a matter of their own creativity and artistic freedom, but another dev doing the same but with POC and LGBTQ+ people are simply being shallow "sjw" point winning clods.

But don't worry, I'm sure in 50 years gaming will reach a point where people of my demographic and other similar ethnic and sexual groups can be dumped into games and people wouldn't bat an eye at it.

 

[Dragonbums]

In my personal experience, most of the claims for more inclusiveness I've heard are from people who are either not a minority

Because people who are a minority and complain about it are often shouted down and slammed with the "well your a minority that doesn't matter money wise so stfu and enjoy your vidya privileges" and we just decided to let the White boys club argue it out among themselves. Not to mention, I'm not exactly sure why it's a BAD thing that someone who is white,cis, and male is able to emphasize with people who are rarely represented in media (and not just videogames.) invalidates their argument.

 

[PapaGreg096]

Always interesting to see how when it comes to diversity there is always the "diversity for divirsity's sake" and at the same time they are perfectly okay with white dude, with stubble basically being shoehorned into every game no matter what the circumstances are no questions.

But everyone else that has a darker skin tone than a light tan better have backstory worthy of a literature award to so much as justify their appearance for any role higher than NPC.

This is also not to mention that devs shoehorning in white dudes all the time is a matter of their own creativity and artistic freedom, but another dev doing the same but with POC and LGBTQ+ people are simply being shallow "sjw" point winning clods.

But don't worry, I'm sure in 50 years gaming will reach a point where people of my demographic and other similar ethnic and sexual groups can be dumped into games and people wouldn't bat an eye at it.

Yeah pretty much this, I find it funny that people who says all these things think they are being better then the sjw when in reality they are being just as bad by making a big deal on POC and LGBT characters

Personally, while I do understand that some people get tired of race debates in gamming, I still find it annoying that most games that star a black protagonist has been sandbox games and black guys in fighting games tend to be big and burley.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

I'm all for hating the SJW zealots, but people seem to be becoming so paranoid about them that they'll freak out over anything slightly related to "social justice". It seems the general sentiment here is that people shouldn't care about the race of the character, but they're annoyed that the choice has apparently been taken away in order to make a political point. I ask you, why is this such a horrible thing?
Art has had political/theological/philosophical messages since the dawn of time, and games are no different. If this is all to make a political point, then I'd say it's actually well done, since it seems more like the set-up of a social experiment than the delivery of the conclusion.

You don't have to agree with the point that they are allegedly making and have every right to disagree, but people seem suspiciously quick to hush up anyone who suggests that the race/gender of characters in fiction actually does matter in some way to a large portion of the population. Accepting that other people do care about race and gender in fiction doesn't create an obligation to appease these people, but it is incredibly disingenuous to claim that these people don't exist, and rather silly to claim that they shouldn't exist.

 

[PapaGreg096]

I never understood the "can't get immersed because of MC's X": you play a vampire, riding unicorns in a fantasy land, wait, that vampire is WHITE?! IMMERSION GONE!

In the end it falls apart because it's a fucking video game with zombies and crafting, not some deep game that actually expands on it. Not to mention that a company doing a huge publicity stunt and then lamenting how they did it from the kindness of their hearts rather than boost awareness doesn't sound very truthful.

So... then you agree that we need more diversity? Because your point about "I never understood the "can't get immersed because of MC's X": you play a vampire, riding unicorns in a fantasy land, wait, that vampire is WHITE?! IMMERSION GONE!" means that having something other then a white guy as a main character is good.

Or am I missing your point?

If I understood correctly you're missing my sarcasm, the vast majority of games are fantastical in one way or another so it seems to me that if you can relate to a character despite him living jn a completely different world but consider that character not having the same sex/race what breaks your immersion (not for example, giant worms) then it's extremely silly.

Also, I'll add the classic "if you want games with an X lead (X being a minority), than play a game from a country where X is the majority", why should american/european studios not go for most of the people in their countries?

Can you show me a game where the country it originated from where black or african is the majority.

 

[Fallow]

Why exactly is diversity good or necessary? I keep seeing posts about needing more diversity in games, but I've never seen any arguments for why we need more diversity in games (I've heard opinions, but not arguments).

If you don't find personal preference a compelling reason, what kind of arguments would you?

This is a discussion about artistic preferences. Of course it's going to be based on opinion; that's what the topic is about.

Personal preference is absolutely fine. I'm pretty sure I have one of those myself somewhere. My confusion arises when I keep hearing how we "need" more diversity, which doesn't sound like personal preference ("want").

But if this is diversity drive is all about personal preference (even though it doesn't sound very 'personal' to me) then I guess I understand the motivation.

Now, we can all out ourselves in someone else's shoes, and feel empathy / motivation for someone who isn't like us, of course. But if it's every single time-- if it's never someone like me-- I hope you can recognise why this might become alienating after a while, and why I might want to read/watch/play something I can identify with more closely. People become used to it, and lose sight of when others aren't getting the experience they are.

While I can see where you are coming from here, I also think you need to put more emphasis on the diffuse (and varied) way we function. Where is the line for "someone like me" and "someone not like me"? What about my physique but wrong hair? What about exactly me except skin colour?

Identification and projection are complex and not necessarily based on physical criteria at all (I know I've identified and projected myself on nonhumans multiple times, including animals, moving furniture, french fries, and non-corporeal entities). It may even turn out that physique is not a criterion for these things[footnote]speculation only[/footnote].
Regardless of that though, it is a personal experience, and what causes projection for one individual does not necessarily cause projection for another.