Why Straight White Guys Shouldn't Always Play Games As Themselves

[Imp_Emissary]

Thanks for the article Rath.
It reminds me of a particularly annoying argument people make for why this or that media doesn't have more non-white/non-male characters.
"Because the demographics interested in this product are mostly white/male".

It assumes that white men only ever want to play a game that has a protagonist similar to what they are. Which is a load. Heck, some of my favorite characters aren't even human/humanoid. As you said, making a character a different color, or sex isn't going to make it better on it's own. However, adding different types of characters into games can let you tell stories that wouldn't quite work otherwise.

The example you gave of Sleeping Dogs was a good one.

 

[Piorn]

Important article, yes.
The problem is just, the only way to approach this problem is to create interesting characters, and this is not easy, especially due to the bloated way video games are made nowadays. When games can make millions and still be considered a failure, there is no way to take risks, and you have to appeal to an established playerbase. This leads to blander titles, overhyped expectations and more "failures". It's circular logic at it's finest.


On a related note, why do market researchers seem to think you can only "identify" with "your demographic" though, I never understood that. I've never watched a fantasy or Sci-Fi movie where I thought "this person is technically not exactly like me, so I can't identify with it's problems".
The magic of media allows you to mentally put yourself in somebody else's shoes, that is the entire POINT.
I don't play the Witcher because Geralt is a white male, I play it because I am not a tough monster hunter in a medieval fantasy world.
I don't watch Star Wars because Luke is a white male, I watch it because I am not a Jedi apprentice on an Intergalactic adventure.
Race or gender doesn't factor into my enjoyment of these at all.

 

[Phasmal]

I'm still stunned at the amount of comments in topics like this that think that fair representation is `demanding to be catered to`.

Not sure why you're stunned. Opening an article with "your demographic is fucked", clearly to get a reaction will ... get a reaction.

Well sure I guess if you didn't read the article and just made an angry comment? But the article seems to explain itself fairly well.

Not really sure what you're trying to say. This isn't just this article, it's every topic on representation - `Why are all these people coming out of nowhere and demanding to be catered to!` is a common sentiment in topics like these, and still one that confuses me.

But like I said, those people have made up their minds.

 

[Ariseishirou]

If you, as a person, feel helpless to change anything by doing these things, then request change, don't demand it. Explain what your ideas, wishes and wants would bring to the world of gaming and find others who agree to make a group request.
Be courtious, be patient, be factual and be passionate.

People do that though, and it changes nothing. Publishers cater to what they think their market demands.

This is why I take a very different tack with media when I want change: if it has something I don't like in it, I don't buy it. And I encourage others who agree with me not to buy it. And if it does have what I want, I buy it, and encourage others to buy it. When I learned that Watch_Dogs had certain misogynistic tropes I absolutely despise, I cancelled my pre-order immedately, and encouraged others who shared the same viewpoint to do the same. When I learned that Far Cry 4 wasn't going to feature Yet Another White Guy saving the Noble Savages, but rather someone actually from the region where it was set, I pre-ordered it and encouraged others to do the same. Sure, Watch_Dogs sold well, but maybe not as well as it could have otherwise, and I did the same thing with Brink - as did many others - when they revealed that despite having several billion customization options (literally) for your player character, not one of them would allow you to be female, and that game sold terribly.

If it affects their bottom line, maybe it might actually start to change things. So I can see why people blog railing about the problems of a given source of media; spread signal to noise, and cost publishers money, i.e. what they actually care about.

 

[Vegosiux]

Title is ambiguous.

Do you mean "Why straight white guys shouldn't play as straight white guys" or do you mean "Why straight white guys shouldn't play as themselves"?

Because, I am a straight white guy, and I always play as myself...and most of the characters I play are not straight white guys.

And yes, I get hung up on titles like that, because after all, impressions matter.

 

[90sgamer]

I usually enjoy your articles, Robert, but something feels wrong with this one. I'm not confident I can articulate what that wrongness is. Perhaps I feel that you are better able to internalize themes (imagined or real) and transplant them onto a medium where they do not exist than your average person, and you wrongly assumed everyone else can do as you do. For example, while playing The Walking Dead I never got the feeling that being black mattered. In fact, I felt that Lee could have been white and nothing about any of the dialogue would have been different. I expect your are more aware and concerned with social justice issues than I am, and that your background painted how you interpreted its subjective themes.

Or, perhaps I am bothered by the admission that role playing in a game can have a lasting affect on a person's understanding of the world. I did not feel like a murderer after playing Call of Duty 8: Mass Carnage, nor a Terrorist after playing Counter-Strike. Your argument seems to parallel that of alarmists claiming violent video games makes children (and adults) apathetic to violence.

I wish you would have brought up the possibility that the message in videos games is only as accurate and truthful as the creator of the game. If everything you said is true, then games could also be misleading, or even propaganda -- encouraging players to become sympathetic with a cause, whether its progressivism, or acceptance of transgenders, or even racism (a la 4chan /pol/).

Or, maybe I did not comprehend properly what you wrote and I took away the wrong message.

 

[Phasmal]

Snip.

Sorry, I have no interest in discussing this. I was surprised at the sentiment, but I've seen enough of your posts to know your mind is made up about the subject, and don't wish to continue.

I'm sure we can both be adult about that.

 

[Olas]

I dont know...
I usually dont care whether I am a flying reptile, man, woman, white, black or purple. As long as he/she/it can have a british accent, I am pleased. Or speaks in Vodka. Or can wear badass clothes.

I've heard responses like this a lot, and I think it's worth addressing the problem I have with them.

While I can only speak from my own perception, getting to play as a race or species that is totally fictional is fundamentally different than playing as an actual minority group that exists here on earth. Fictional races carry none of the historical and even modern-day baggage and significance of actual race relations. Ya sure, the story may feature discrimination between these groups that attempts to mirror real world prejudice, but it's still fictional and therefore ultimately lighter than anything with a foot grounded in reality. So saying that you're willing to play as a "purple" person doesn't really speak of any sort of extreme openness the way people often seem to think it does. This is especially true if the purple person has all the physiology and mannerisms of a stereotypical white person who looks like they just painted their skin another color.

edit: Although with that last point in mind, I would also say that past a certain point, it becomes EASIER, not harder, to identify with a character as they become more and more far removed from humanity and therefore recognizable reality. Most people, even total bigots, don't have much of a problem with pac-man.

 

[K12]

To me this is the more important aspect of the diverse protagonists issue.

Giving people the option to play as a version of themselves in games which have a blank (or semi-blank) protagonist won't really make better games. It just stops some people from needing to compromise on an already good game.

From a purely selfish point of view (I'm white, male and straight so I can always play as myself if I want to) I want to play as as many varied types of protagonists as I can rather than creating the variety myself.

It's like a diverse group of friends going to the same restaurant every week and asking them to put curry on the menu for the Indian guy; spaghetti for the Italian guy etc. rather than just eating at a bunch of different restaurants and everyone ordering their speciality.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Interesting piece. I'll note that it doesn't apply only to straight white guys;

Most people who read and write these articles believe only white people can be racist and having a non-white heterosexual male character is somehow virtuous.

Truer words...

I dont care what kind of character I'm playing as long as its a good one.

I'd love to see Black Panther on the silver screen. Not because he's black, but because its an interesting character with a potentially exotic and different setting.

I'd love to see a Wonder Woman movie. Not because I want to secretly be a girl, but because I love the character.

If I CAN choose, I will almost always choose to play as something ELSE than a white male, because thats what I am, and I enjoy imagining to be something else. In RPGs I've played females, dwarves, gnomes, elves, aliens...you name it. One of my most interesting characters ever was the Dwarven Princess I played in Dragon Age: Origins. And she was that interesting not because she was female, nor because she was a dwarf, but because of the fantastic intro-quest with the dwarven nobility and the resulting relationships with my/her siblings.

I will respectfully disagree a tiny bit with the article author and repeat myself from similar threads: We dont need more diverse protagonists, we need more INTERESTING protagonists. Interesting characters are not interesting because they are white or black, or a dwarven princess. They are interesting because of the situation they are put in and the experiences they have had/have.

I don't know if they are truer words.

Simply because there are truths that we casually look away because we say 'well, we didn't do it'.

How many movie companies and game companies have to come out and say '... uh... we don't want to touch anything but White, Straight Males because of sales'?

I don't think anyone NEEDS to play a different race. If I can, I pick Black Straight Guy all the time. Sure, I can go with the tired and true "Well, there not that many of us in gaming, so it's nice to have the difference." But the simple fact is I like who I am. I like to connect with who I am. I'd like to be me in these different, fantastic scenarios. There's nothing wrong with that.

Back to why it's not truer words.

Anyone can be racist. I can be racist. Anyone can. That's not a white only thing.

But by and large, most of the world is still a Good Ole Boy's club. And to even join, you have to say things like "Oh, I just enjoy doing what I'm doing" and not have an hidden feminine, black, gay, latino, asian, Native American agenda. Just follow suit with what we want and what we believe will sell.

It's Casually Accepted Prejudice. It's "Well, we're in charge.. why shouldn't we want to see what we want to see?"

And the answer is frankly you should see what you want to see.

But the issue comes with the Casually Accepted Prejudice. It swings both ways. While I shouldn't demand white people in charge to "include me, please, please, please YOU OWE ME", it can't be helped that I and others are bothered by the fundamental lack of understanding how to deal with other people. Those people (not you) who act like anyone with a different skin color or background are a world apart. They might not hate or even dislike these people, but they have such a lack of understanding on how to even relate to these people that it's unnerving.

I remember my old boss talking to me about how I felt about Trayvon after the shootings to make sure that I was not going to bring it up with the Rich White Clientele. I remember those Republicans shutting up any time I got into the room because it was another round of Bash Obama.

To sum up the point, when we allow the Casually Accepted Prejudice to seep into things, we create worlds that don't really need to exist. When game designers or movie execs have to Whiten up the cast of characters because they think it sells, and we go 'INB4 ANYONE TALKS ANYTHING PC BECAUSE I'M SICK OF THAT SHIT'... that creates differences. We don't need any more.

Captcha: Glass Ceiling. You know what? Fuck you, Internet. I know this Captcha thing is a real being. What the hell, man?!

 

[Tsun Tzu]

I always play a female character, whenever the option is available...so. I'm not sure that this article is directed at me, as a straight, white male.

Seriously now. Throw any protagonist at me, black, white, yellow, brown, gay, straight, bi, female, male, terrier, octagon, human sized almond...I don't really mind. So long as the writing is good and the gameplay can back it up, in the words of Mr. Lewis Black, "Fire that son of a ***** up and throw it at my head!"

But this article...why does it always feel like I'm being talked down to in articles on this subject? Not once while playing Walking Dead did it even enter my mind that I was playing a "black protagonist." It was a dude with a good VO.

It sincerely feels like the inference is that, because I and others are white dudes, we view things in a racially biased fashion or are incapable of recognizing, on our own, that "different" walks of life exist within the human spectrum...what the hell, man?

 

[Jacked Assassin]

The only place where I still (try) to play as a Male Heterosexual Caucasian is Saints Row 2.

Once I got into Saints Row The Third I switched to an Orange Russian Cat Girl because there were things in the game I didn't want to do as a Male Heterosexual Caucasian. Oddly enough as my Orange Russian Cat Girl I ended up with a crush on Pierce Washington. Then Saints Row 4 happened. Dang it Volition you ruined my fan-fic.

....

I mean.... Yay!.... I'm glad that's over!....

Also I'm still mad about not having my own Lesbian Khajiits in the console version of Skyrim.

 

[DEAD34345]

Weird. I played all the way through The Walking Dead without giving one tiny thought to Lee's race. There was that one inappropriate comment by Kenny played for laughs, and other than that the fact that Lee was black didn't come into the story at all as far as I'm aware.

His race "tints almost every interaction with game"? I'm genuinely surprised that anyone could take that from the game at all.

This whole article has just made me suspect I'm operating on a totally different wavelength to many other people on this subject. To me, unless it specifically directly affects the story, things like race and gender are mostly irrelevant in games. Playing as a black guy generally doesn't affect my experience of a game in any way whatsoever, same with playing as gay people, women, muslims, or probably anything else you can think of. More variety would be nice, I suppose, but it just doesn't matter much to me.

I never understood why it was such a big deal to some people, but I guess I'm just experiencing games differently. I'm not sure if that makes me the weird one, or them.

 

[the December King]

You know what? I'm tired of human beings anyways. In games, I mean.

Let me experience something totally different and new. Give me a protagonist with more than one head/information input. Imagine that- a split screen for your characters vision! Or four or more limbs, that respond to different inputs- getting used to that would be so tricky, but if you could master it, how weird and different would that be?

Don't give me a human who rose to the challenge in an oppressed world of blah-de-blah. Give me a giant monstrous spider, who has webs and poison and can hide like no one's business in the shadows, and can naturally climb cielings and has dozens of really tiny male suitors, just hanging around willing to wait on her hand and foot, because she's that cool and it's totally culturally acceptable in their giant spidery society, and...

Dammit, waaay off topic. Sorry.

So, in summation, I want to play a game as a spider.

Stuff your humans.

 

[Nieroshai]

I think your words say far more about you than anything else. Just playing a black character tells me nothing about black people or what it's like to be one. Playing the opposite gender is exactly the same. To me, despite gender dysphoria, male characters are still as alien as ever to me because I don't FEEL their perspective.

If you were to have your way, people wouldn't be able to tell the story they want without worrying about a quota list. People write what they know, and we shouldn't fault them for that What we NEED is designers and writers who have these other perspectives to enter the industry.

 

[Natenanimous]

I always choose a female character if there's an option. I like to role-play in my games, and I simply find female characters to be more interesting for that purpose, since I can imagine a different experience from what I'm used to in my own life as a straight white male. And I should note that I can imagine that different experience whether or not the developer built it into the game. In Skyrim there's no real change in the game if you choose a man or a woman, nor if you choose a human or an elf or an animal race. But I play a female Bosmer and I imagine my actions in the game based on that choice. If a Nord likes me after I help him out, I think that Nord's an okay guy and decide that the whole racist Nord thing doesn't apply to everyone. But then later I'm sitting at the bar in an inn and the innkeeper says, derisively, "What do you want, elf?" So I get up and leave, and don't give him my business. I sleep under the stars that night, aware that there are people in Skyrim who don't like my character. I love that stuff. I enjoy building my own context and meaning.

Some of my favorite games are those where a female character is the default and only option. The latest Tomb Raider is a good example. Beyond Good and Evil is another. I also loved Oni (does anyone remember that?), a fun action game with a kickass female protagonist. It's just ... more interesting to play things from that other side, to consider that other perspective. I'll take female characters in fighting games. I always played Peach in Mario Kart. All my WoW characters were women.

But I can also appreciate playing a male character who's different from myself (which would be all of them). I role-play the hell out of Geralt of Rivia, or Booker DeWitt, or Solid Snake. The important thing, in the end, is that the character is well-written, and that there's enough in the game for me to form my own experiences with. Stepping out of my own life and into another life, experiencing and creating stories in a way that I could never do in reality, is for me the primary joy of gaming.

 

[The_Amazing_G]

I already do this whenever I get the option. I mean that's the thing; so many games have a non-optional white-bread heros that I just get bored with it. So, whenever I have the choice, I break the monotony.

But then again, when I played a woman in the Elder Scrolls Skyrim (I always play women in all the Elder Scrolls) I was accused of "taking advantage of my lust for the female form". Yes, seriously.

However, I am going to continue playing women whenever I feel like it, and if I get the chance to play someone of a different race, I will take advantage of it. In Saints Row 2 I played as a black guy, and those were fun times. There is a scene in the game in which the leader of the gang (my black character) and an intentionally annoying sidekick type character(who also happened to be black) are driving in a car and arguing about the radio station. So it led to the situation of two black gangsters arguing over whether classical music or Paramore was the better choice. It was pretty funny.

 

[hentropy]

Putting aside the normal reactionist "rabble rabble" normally found in these threads, I do agree with the premise that playing as characters that are of different races is a good idea, and I speak mostly from experience.

Probably the sentiment that bothers me the most is that RPG characters don't really change much when you give them a different race- and that's true if you are talking simply about what is programmed into the game. But I've always liked the story aspect of RPGs because I can come up with my own motivations and even backstory for the most part. I was always under the impression that it was the way you were supposed to play those games dating back to the tabletop roots- you were never truly supposed to be playing yourself as much as a role outside of your own.

Probably the most interesting experience was playing as a black woman in Mass Effect (who I also gave the external characteristic of being Muslim, although that didn't come up much, though in the one or two spots where it did it added a lot to the story as I saw it)... who knows what human race relations are in the 2180s, but it's doubtful that it is completely resolved and there is tension at all. She was a do-gooder in the first game, trying hard to represent humanity in the most ethical and peaceful way possible, but cracked a bit in the second after seeing the worst of the Terminus and then gained back a good bit of her do-gooder conscious in the second. Even if I would have played more or less the same game with different personal attributes, it just wouldn't have felt quite the same. She was her own character with her own story- she wasn't me or anyone else. And I feel the same way about my other RPG characters. If someone says that it doesn't matter because it's just a different coat of paint and it's just an empty sack, I would say they're not truly getting the most of the setup.

I truly don't know if I can map out the things I learned about myself or others by doing that, but I have to say that it was one of the most enjoyable playthroughs I had. It's perfectly possible to have a similar experience with a straight white cis male, but it just seems like we've been made to play very many angles of that, forcibly, over the course of the gaming history. There have been good character, bad characters, complex character, polarizing characters, and 'love-to-hate-em' characters who all fit the white straight male archetype- and there will be more. I would simply say that you should play as a variety of characters not because of some kind of social importance- but simply because it's more fun and interesting that way. And I should be allowed to say that adding in more female and minority characters into games that don't allow for character customization makes them more interesting and better without being accused of being some kind of tumblr activist and SJW.

 

[Olas]

snip

I get that. Good thing I also stated black and white in that.

I know, I wasn't trying to accuse you of anything, I just wanted to illustrate something that a LOT of people overlook.

I notice race only when its brought up in the storyline. If I were to be a black person and someone is acting racist against me, then sure I will notice it.
Otherwise I will not .
Almost the same goes for gender.

There's nothing wrong with "noticing" race (or gender), and frankly, even if I take seriously the notion that anyone CAN be completely ignorant of it, it's probably not even desirable. Being 'color blind' as well intentioned and idealistic as it might be, can also make someone not see racism in the world when it clearly exists. If 7 out of 20 people are all 'randomly' stopped and checked for drugs, it shouldn't be treated as a minor detail that those 7 people happened to be black while the 13 people who passed through undisturbed were all white.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I do feel quite bland and boring to others when i admit im straight and pasty white and male. It is a self conscious thing. However, i like to think the almost non-existant self-esteem, chronic depression and anxiety and willing to self destruct, sort of makes up for that...right?

...Right?

We like our heroes for their virtues, but love them for their faults?

Hehe. That being a question makes it quite amusing.