Videogame Characters "Lack Diversity," Study Finds

[scotth266]

This isn't much of an issue, but I can think of several different reasons why the white character is the standard:

1) The majority of game makers right now are likely white males. They want to make their characters believable, so in order to do that they stick to making characters that they can identify with, and therefore craft better personalities for. This could also explain the stereoypes, though in some cases (Gears Of War/Saint's Row) you can sense that the developers were taking a dig at the stereotypes that they were including.

2) The game makers think that white main characters sell games. Remember, regardless of how fun they are, games are a buisness, and that means that they're there to sell you a product. It might just be that the makers decided that white characters tend to to sell more games, in which case they're only giving us what we've indicated we want. Bad games/unprofitable games lose money: in fact, most games lose money, so the developers are less inclined to take risks in their games because they don't want to rock the boat. This is why you see swarms of sequels instead of new IPs all the time: devs need titles that they know will sell in order to finance the rest of their games.

3) The game makers are, ironically, scared of the possibility of being called racists. Ethnic arguments can easily erupt over games: remember Resident Evil 5 (admittedly deserved)? Any sort of negative coverage erupting over a game has a significant chance of losing them sales: and accusations of racism in their games could easily hurt their bottom line. This would be the same reason sex in games is uncommon: if the game makers include sex, they gain publicity: but a lot of it is negative publicity from the media.

These are all just theories of course.

 

[j0z]

When was the last time you've seen a women not portrayed as a sex toy?

Alyx Vance.
Granted, she is a NPC, but she is one of the strongest, most unsexed woman in video games right now.

Don't forget Jade from Beyond Good and Evil. What about Mirror's Edge, too? But beyond those games (which all seem to portray characters of sort of neutral race, strangely enough. It's like white women and black women can't take any form but sexualized) I think Jumplion's probably pretty correct. Between us we though of three. I'll bet we can all think of a dozen different examples that counter those characters.

Yeah, I had forgotten about her from Mirror's Edge. Plus, Her from Mirror's edge was slightly asian looking right?
And Alyx was a mixed race (White mother, black father)
But I agree, for every Alyx we have a two Laura Crofts.

 

[Jumplion]

When was the last time you've seen a women not portrayed as a sex toy?

Alyx Vance.
Granted, she is a NPC, but she is one of the strongest, most unsexed woman in video games right now.
OT, I think this is pretty ridiculous, the majority of gamers are white males, so they make games with white males as the lead character.
I personally don't care who my main character is, as long as they are likeable.
I would like to see more diversity in game characters too, but more in the form of no more space marines.

I will give you that, but again, as much as it pains me to say it, it's the exception not the rule. I'm not denying that women are portrayed as other things instead of sex symbols, or blacks depicted as other things besides gangstahs or the enemy, but the majority is depressingly what I said.

There's truth, and then there's interpreting facts. The only actual number mentioned was that of the female gamers, and there's no real mention of how any of this was determined. Beyond this, the claim is made that Latin children play more video games than white children. I'm more than a little curious to know how THAT was determined.

Like I said, how accurate and credible this is is debatable, but there's no denying that there really is a lack of real variety with games, most being the old "If I were an older grunt" image of young white men, the "if I was a younger guy" image of young white men, or the masterbatory images of young white men (Quote from Moviebob, check the links I gave earlier, they're quite insightful)

Really it doesn't matter that he's not "accusing" anyone. He's jumping on the bandwagon and making determinations about games based on what probably amounts to his own opinions. Beyond this, I've tried to make Latin or Asian looking characters with games that allow a lot of facial customization, and they all end up looking white anyway. Which brings us to my final point, why does it matter? Race is disappearing on this planet. I mean, I can usually tell just by looking if a person is black from Africa, or from America, why? Because most people of African descent who have been in the United States for more than a few generations have some white ancestors. In time race will disappear altogether, especially in the US, so why do we insist on making it part of our identity?

But he's not jumping the bandwagon of anything, you are. He's just saying, out of the 150 most popular games from 9 platforms on all ratings, the showing of ethnicities is quite low with most of them just being white. Again, the credibility is debatable, but that's all he's saying.

And if it doesn't matter, why are some people against things like this? If it's no problem, there shouldn't be any problem trying to incorporate a Gay person in the game and have his personality and beliefs conflict within the story. But it does matter because quite frankly the industry takes these issue very immaturely. An example, a depicted homosexual in one of the Persona games (Persona 3 or 4 I forget which) was getting a lot of flak for being reluctant about expressing his sexuality, but when taken into context with Japanese culture, it's just his personality conflicting with the player's actions and thoughts.

But I'm rambling and I don't think even i know what I'm talking about. All I am really saying is that if it doesn't matter, it wouldn't hurt to include an asian-black, lesbian, Jewish, woman character and ends up meeting an Anti-Semetic White supremacist and then conflict arises. Right now, it's just "This guy's Arab, shoot him!"

 

[Booze Zombie]

Quotey stuff.

Ignoring colour and ignoring problems are two different things.

 

[ItsAChiaotzu]

I want to make my real point first, before I respond to some stuff other people said. Did we need to fund a study to make this apparent? I mean, this is one of those things where science proves what was common sense. I could've observed this, and probably for a lot less money than those guys got paid (like, free!).

The sad bit for me is that we've pretty much ignored that videogames are overly white. That we need a study to say this (although, there's been an article on the Escapist on this previously) in order to draw attention to it is bullshit. But looking over the comments, I found pretty much general apathy to this. The trouble, to me, is not so much that videogames have too many white protagonists, but they go out of their way to be white. All those war games where we endlessly storm the beaches at Normandy (which always seems to take like two minutes, for an invasion that took nearly the whole day to get off the beaches) totally ignore the fact there were black units operating out there. And GTAIV features an Eastern European immigrant? In 2008? You know how many of our immigrants (legal and illegal) are Eastern Europeans? Nearly nothing. There's only one way to sell a black protagonist to white consumers: make him a gangsta because white boys in the 'burbs already think that's how blacks are anyways. Everyone else is just a side character.

Um, gotta say.

Who cares?

The reasons they're mainly white males is because that's the most simple character to make, and can't really be called offensive.

Besides, a lot of very popular games are made by white males, and they probably don't want to make a game about an elderly black woman just to please certain minorities.

Wait, what? How is that first point true? Are Caucasian features easier to code, or something? Is white skin easier to model? I don't understand how you made that observation. That doesn't seem logical to me at all. Maybe it's the most simple character to make if the programmer is white, because it's the first character to occur. The second point makes slightly more sense, but the reality is that videogame developers don't call the shots, unless they happen to also be publishers. Publishers would love new markets. The key here is the "underserved" bit at the end.

You know what's even better than diversity? Not giving a shit about what colour someone is.

Colorblind is not an appropriate response. In America we're somewhat more cognizant to the fact that overlooking is pretty harmful in itself (although, sometime when people grow up in an all white neighborhood miles away from the nearest black person, they seem to think the problem's solved, because they don't deal with it). As long as media implies that "the norm" is white, then the people who do discriminate, who do give a shit what color someone is, will continue to feel motivated to keep minority populations down. Because after all, change is bad. We wouldn't want the status quo to change, now would we? What if black becomes beautiful? The the black ram will tup the white ewe, to quote Shakespeare. And that's a bad deal for Whitey McDiscriminatory. Sure, McDis is an awful person, and the majority of (white) people don't support his policy of telling non-whites to shove it, as long as they don't speak out because they're busy ignoring our differences, he can say whatever he want and be relatively unassailable, because the only people who would complain would be non-whites, and they would complain, wouldn't they?

I didn't mean in terms of programming, it's just, no one cares what kind of stereotype you put on a white guy, but with other races you have to work around any stereotypes which makes it a lot difficult to create any kind of likeable character.

 

[DirkGently]

Why does every single statistic need to match the statistics of population? And it's some kind of problem if it doesn't? Jesus Christ, I hate this shit. I sincerely doubt there is any real malice or hate behind this. People seem to forget that racism comes with real hate and malice; not just apathy or anything of the sort. I have a hard time believing that every game developer hates all the "muds" and is out to show off the real way things are in video games.

I would argue that apathy is just as relevant to racism as overt discrimination. Any Chinese woman who has walked into a store completely ignored and then watched a white man walk in and be greeted warmly and asked if he needs anything will tell you that apathy can be a form of racism. (I get to watch this first hand, seeing as the aforementioned people are my parents)

That situation is not sheer apathy. That is racism, backed by hate and malice. They're intentionally ignoring your parents, not just not giving a fuck. Or they don't give a fuck and they know the guy they enthusiastically greet.

My point is, there isn't some grandiose conspiracy to keep the minorities out of popular culture, the developers just don't give a fuck enough to match their characters to the latest census/poll data.

 

[SilentHunter7]

Someone hasn't played Gears co-op.

Once again, one game out of 150 across 9 platforms of all ratings makes the rule? Or to be fair, two games out of 150 across 9 platforms of all ratings make the rule? (previous post)

I said no such thing. I was merely pointing out the fact that him saying there are no playable Hispanic characters in games is factually inaccurate.

 

[HobbesMkii]

Lots of stuff from Jumplion, j0z, and myself about some non-sex toy women protagonists

Yeah, I had forgotten about her from Mirror's Edge. Plus, Her from Mirror's edge was slightly asian looking right?
And Alyx was a mixed race (White mother, black father)
But I agree, for every Alyx we have a two Laura Crofts.

Actually, there's another good point. It seems like every time they make a female characterization who doesn't suffer from Most Common Super Power they actually do a damn good job of creating a believable recognizable character. So, I guess my point is it seems like they wouldn't really be that hamstrung in trying to create a little better diversity, since they seem to only get home runs when they try pushing the boundaries (although, maybe Mirror's Edge was only a double).

 

[Jumplion]

Someone hasn't played Gears co-op.

Once again, one game out of 150 across 9 platforms of all ratings makes the rule? Or to be fair, two games out of 150 across 9 platforms of all ratings make the rule? (previous post)

I said no such thing. I was merely pointing out the fact that him saying there are no playable Hispanic characters in games is factually inaccurate.

Bah, now that's just nitpicky of you

 

[The_ModeRazor]

That's an... interesting issue.
Just kidding. Whoever made this up seriously needs to get a life.

 

[joystickjunki3]

I'm not opposed to making games that feature more ethnicities and such, but if games become flooded w/ Latino personalities, then what will happen to the white kids' identities? Will they have identity formation problems? And, if so, will these people give a shit?

[edit] My whole point is that the argument is absurd. "Culture is okay, as long as it's not 'American-white-non-Hispanic' culture... then it's too dominant and should be restrained." That's what it all seems to come down to.

 

[Sparrowsabre7]

What? I find it hard to believe that Gears of War is not in the top 150 most poopular games, and that has a hispanic character as a main playable character, in co-op at least. So there is AT THE VERY LEAST 1 playable hispanic character, and therefore their stats are lies.

But then 40% of statistics are made up on the spot anyways =P

 

[RanD00M]

I'm tired of space marines.

Every one is.

 

[A Pious Cultist]

A lack of hispanic characters inhibits "identify formation" but the proportional black characters "reinforce stereotypes"? I can't be the only one that finds that a teeny bit funny.

 

[pigeon_of_doom]

A lack of hispanic characters inhibits "identify formation" but the proportional black characters "reinforce stereotypes"? I can't be the only one that finds that a teeny bit funny.

Not when you realise most black characters are basketball players or gangsters, and never break outside the stereotype. Simply being accounted for in the media doesn't diminish their potential impact in the 'identity formation' of young black children, and the cultural expectations children of other ethnicities may derive from their media exposure (although other entertainment mediums are just as guilty).

 

[Takoto]

Hasn't this guy seen more recent character customization in games? In a lot of games you can practically be whoever you want (perhaps not have the hair style you want though).

 

[Jumplion]

What? I find it hard to believe that Gears of War is not in the top 150 most poopular games, and that has a hispanic character as a main playable character, in co-op at least. So there is AT THE VERY LEAST 1 playable hispanic character, and therefore their stats are lies.

But then 40% of statistics are made up on the spot anyways =P

Again, it's the exception, not the rule. Name 149 other games where the main character is hispanic and not just a stereotype of "gangstah". I'll make it easier, find 149 games with the main character not white and not a stereotype of whatever ethnicity is shown. I know, I know, there are games with those people in them, of course, I'm not denying them. But Gears of War isn't exactly the epitome of defying this study, is it? After all, space marines.

That's an... interesting issue.
Just kidding. Whoever made this up seriously needs to get a life.

I'm sick of people tossing aside an issue just because they think it's stupid. If we want games to improve and grow, or just grow up, then we have to take these issues head on. We cannot just toss aside this because we think there's no issue. There is one, and whether we like it or not, it's going to be brought up again and again until we actually do something about it.

 

[Madaxeman101]

does it really matter if game characters lack diversity

 

[pigeon_of_doom]

does it really matter if game characters lack diversity

Yes, as it implies that game storylines are only dealing with a limited topic or settings in their fiction.