Videogame Characters "Lack Diversity," Study Finds
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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Depends on what you want video games to be.Madaxeman101 said:
Right now, most of them have all the nuance of another genre that's chockablock with bouncy breasts, generic protagonists, and lazy stereotypes: action movies.
If you think the entire medium could aspire to something other than action-movie thematics (or if you think that action movies could be about more than what they are now), then it does matter.
-- Alex
I jacked up quoting lion damnit sorry its not in a little fine boxBooze Zombie said:
Jumplion= "You know what would be even better? Having a variety of characters that are not just support characters or the enemy. Or better yet, having the person's origin's conflict with the story and actually have some impact, I could imagine that if a character hated blacks and you were a black character eventually he'd stop hating them. Could break some new ground in characterization and diversity in games, who knows".[/quote]
Nooo i believe that booze zombie has it if you don't care then people wouldn't waste their time with studies that everyone knew about anyway. If you go out of your way to try to make your game culturally sound you may inevitably just insult them by bringing attnetion to their ethnicity its similar to those people yahtzee talked about who have lemons for heads
The study shows hispanics children play more video games then white children and this has been going on for a very long time. So wouldn't that mean they give even less of a shit then we do?
"Missed sales opportunity"? I don't buy games based on the ethnicity or gender of the lead. I'll play as a black woman, an Asian man, or whatever else they throw at me, as long as the game itself is fun.
It should be noted, though, that Japanese games consist mainly of Caucasians because Japanese people, as a whole, find Caucasians more attractive than other races. I'm not trying to be racist or anything here; just go to Japan. All the models on billboards and such are uber-pale. It's just their cultural idea of beauty/attractiveness.
It should be noted, though, that Japanese games consist mainly of Caucasians because Japanese people, as a whole, find Caucasians more attractive than other races. I'm not trying to be racist or anything here; just go to Japan. All the models on billboards and such are uber-pale. It's just their cultural idea of beauty/attractiveness.
I think that the majority of game deveopers probably identity better with white culture which is why they would be more likely to put a little more of themselves in the game than make up a character they themselves don't identify with. Oh and if your children are developing self identity through a medium where most conflict is resolved through laser guns, then we might have a seperate study to conduct here...
I doubt it's purposefully against Latinos, or Blacks, or women, or any non-Caucasian and non-Dick possessing. Though it would probably interesting with an array of such characters, it's not a dangerously racist issue, and it's the people that look for racism in something that strike me as the racists.
Response; Sure we could do with more women, or multiracial characters, but it's not a very big problem.
Response; Sure we could do with more women, or multiracial characters, but it's not a very big problem.
The man compares a global medium with an American population, the comment amount latino children sounds like statistical wordplay to me, and if the developers have shown no particular preference he randomly asigns them one:
"In the event that a game provided the option to choose from a list of primary characters, such characters were selected randomly so that characters from both genders, all
ethnicities and all age groups had an equal chance of being selected."
Games could do with having more diversity, but not for the reasons Williams suggests.
"In the event that a game provided the option to choose from a list of primary characters, such characters were selected randomly so that characters from both genders, all
ethnicities and all age groups had an equal chance of being selected."
Games could do with having more diversity, but not for the reasons Williams suggests.
I thought this was about the diversity of character personality. Damn you! I was going to rant about how Japanese RPGs seem to follow the same template. Apathetic/Innocent Hero, Cute girl for a sidekick, slightly energetic and annoying friend whom the audience grows to hate with a mysterious villian.
Samurai Warriors doesn't have any white males for me to play. All of the characters are Japanese. I feel that this doesn't help me relate to the characters and is stunting my identity growth.
Koei, please add more white males to Samurai Warriors. Thanks.
Koei, please add more white males to Samurai Warriors. Thanks.
That....wasn't my point though. If we shouldn't care, then why is it such a problem to make more ethnicities ect... as more than just the target or a sidekick? It's not hard to add in a Black engineer for your space ship, just don't make him love fried chicken and speak "street".jakefongloo221 said:
If we just ignore it and say "we shouldn't care" then we do nothing, and games stay the exact same way; full of Space Marines and stereotypes. If we say "we should care" then games grow up and we get more than just Space Marines and the Black "Gangstah". That's all.
It seems like a lot of the comments are presenting a false dichotomy: either we leave things as they are and ignore ethnic diversity in games, or we go on a P.C. rampage and forbid the white male protagonist from ever making an appearance in games ever again. Or something equally absurd.
I don't think it's a conspiracy either. But I think that apathy is a form of discrimination that everyone should make themselves responsible for. Diverse representation doesn't have to match exactly the census numbers, that isn't the point. The point is that, there are real people (as opposed to stereotypes) who happen to be of other ethnic groups, and games should reflect that because leaving them out implies they aren't important enough to be included.
You misunderstand my example. My mother is the asian woman. My father is the white man. I can tell you definitively that the salesperson in question doesn't know him.DirkGently said:
I don't think it's a conspiracy either. But I think that apathy is a form of discrimination that everyone should make themselves responsible for. Diverse representation doesn't have to match exactly the census numbers, that isn't the point. The point is that, there are real people (as opposed to stereotypes) who happen to be of other ethnic groups, and games should reflect that because leaving them out implies they aren't important enough to be included.
OH, I misunderstood your example, indeed. My apologies.Florion said:
I don't think that at all. Apathy, is, in it's crudest terms, not giving a fuck. There is no malice or hate behind it. There can be a form of racist apathy, but I don't think it's the case here. It's people who seem to love political correctness, or who seem to fear being called a racist, who make such a deal out of this. Just because people are hispanic, or black, or martian does not mean that there should be an equal number of games with those kind of PC's. Likewise, the lack of it does not mean they're less important. It means story writers don't write those kinds of characters; whether it's because they don't feel know enough about such a person to accurately write a charcter, or they themselves don't feel it's a big enough deal, or that the setting of the story would not support such a character as the PC.
It's not about proportional numbers. To borrow a phrase from the Moviebob video that somebody linked to earlier in the thread, it's about challenging the notion that the tabula rasa character is a white male. That is the character they come up with when they are being apathetic; I'll return to that later.DirkGently said:
This is based on the belief that people of non-white ethnicities are inherently "different" from white people. They aren't.
Distinguish this from racist apathy for me, please?
I understand that in some video games, it doesn't make sense to completely rework the story to accommodate an Islamic hero, for instance. But probably in about as many instances, the hero is white/male for no other reason than it didn't occur to anyone that the hero could be anything else. The developers are not guilty of being apathetic, they are the victims of a cultural prejudice that white/male is the tabula rasa. It takes conscious effort to pull yourself above that belief - I know this because I'm definitely racist against black people (not ideologically, but I know that even when I was a baby I cried my head off the instant I laid eyes on my black pediatrician, and the aversion has stayed with me years later in less visible ways), and I have to question my actions and inactions whenever I'm with my friends who are black.
The question remains whether it is our moral obligation to challenge that cultural prejudice. We're guilty of racism? We're victims of culture? Which is it? I think the answer is simply that we are guilty victims. The right thing to do is to challenge the prejudice even if it isn't your fault. If you decide to be apathetic, you remain guilty, but if being a victim makes you feel any better...
Then what kind of apathy are we looking at?