Though potentially volatile, this topic will stay open as long as folks remain civil and don''t stray wildly off-topic. Please keep that in mind when replying.


I think that it''s a fair question (if not exactly worded politely), and the same type of question women ask when it comes to women in games. As people have already noted, though, the two driving forces are the creators and industry economics (the buyers).

As a science fiction fan, this question has irritated me for as long as I can remember. Books and movies that were supposed to be representing the collective future of humanity seemed to be implying a disturbing, monolithic Aryan future. It was actually a sarcastic in-joke with several friends that all the other peoples of the world must have died out, because you never saw them, or saw only a few of them here and there. Games disturb me the same way (just saw this again in an FMV in the form of an all-white starship crew in Conquest: Frontier Wars).

Some people might denounce a request for a more inclusive representation of ethnicities in games "political correctness." I tend to think the opposite attitude, though, is ugly provincialism. There are really only two elements to this equation: the buying public, and the creators.

The argument that the audience won''t accept or welcome more diverse characters doesn''t wash when you see that a sizable chunk of the audience is people of color (maybe not as much for PCs, but definitely for consoles). Games are becoming more global, and especially in the US reaching a wider, more diverse audience. So you''re left with only the mindset of the creators.

When you only represent someone a certain way, it not only shows disrespect, it shows profound ignorance of who they are as a people (Japanese console games really seem to have this problem). While this, in my experience, is probably just benign, I don''t see it as excusable. If the audience is increasingly diversifying, then an ugly, provincial attitude will only lose sales, and make games more of a niche than they already are.


For the other part of the equation, though, I completely agree with Oluseyi and Tha_HoodRat. If you''re a person of color and you don''t like the lopsided representation in games, as a creator of media it''s your challenge to do something about it. (So if you were thinking about making your typical medieval cRPG, why not throw in some Moors? )


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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by Sandman
You can never win with political correctness.

If you only develop games with white leads then everyone says you are being racist for not including other racial groups.

If you develop games with a lead belonging to some other ethnic group then some clown comes along and starts babbling about it being a stereotype.

It''s true to some degree that somebody''s always going to complain.

But that, to me, doesn''t seem to justify dismissing complaints altogether. I think the most fantastic way to do this is when it''s no big deal. There was an old space RPG called Solar Winds whose main character was black. It was completely understated, as in, "Yeah, it''s the future, you''re a black person, so what? Go shoot some pirates!"

I think if you dismiss something like this out of hand, not only would your audience lose out, but as a creator you''d lose out as well.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by granat
Thats funny I thought that we were all human. But I sense that you feel that there are fundamental differences between black/white/asian people ??

What are those differences (other than appearance)? Please tell me ?

Remember the question was not about different cultures but only different skin colors/races. And why would that make a difference big enough for a "white" designer to go that way ?

I have a challenge for you: If you truly believe this, make all of your characters Samoan females. I''m serious. Where you begin to balk when thinking about this will show you the boundaries of your beliefs. (Now, I could be wrong, and you''ll bust out a non-offensive Samoan Laura Croft on us, at which point I''ll publicly eat both the box and the shrink wrap it came in.)

It''s very difficult to understand exclusion if you''re not on the outside. But the Samoan females example, if you seriously imagine it, might give you just a sense of what its like.

If ethnicity didn''t matter in characterization, then technically all designers could role a die and determine the race of their main character without incident. If characterization didn''t matter, we''d see a rainbow spectrum except in games that are trying to be faithful to real world situations-- say, like the Civil War.

But even the Civil War gives us an opportunity to exhibit inclusivity or exclusivity. I think everything depends on what you''re willing to see, and what you''re willing to choose to overlook.

quote:
I don''t like the original question because it implies that people who do games with white characters are racists !!

I won''t imply this, but I think that anyone who makes monoculture games is just being very provincial.


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quote: Original post by Hase
I´m not sure whether this was directed at me, but I thought I had made it clear that "I don´t want to", for the various reasons I have already mentioned.

Making games, in opposition to writing books is not about "doing the right thing", or "putting the right message across". If you make games, you have to make games that sell (unless you´re a hobbyist), and in order to do that, you have to look at the market and your customers.

Look at the penetration of the Playstation 2. At a <$300 price point, the audience is far more diverse (and hence the market more lucrative). You might think PC games are an exception, and maybe they still are, but the prosperity of the last decade as lifted all sorts of groups you normally would not expect to see into the middle class.

quote:
I have no problem with lead characters of whatever ethnicity you want, but I also think that the deceision to have a non-standard lead character will always be seen as a conscious one, which then puts you in the spot to make that aspect relevant to the story.
If you have a story that requires the main character to be black/green/whatever, then it´s a different pair of shoes. Native American stories, ganglife, you name it. The only problem then is that your story will have to be perfect, in order to avoid the "ho, a stereotype!" kind of criticism.

The interesting thing I find here is the subtle thinking that if the ethnicity doesn''t apply directly to the story, the character should then be European-- as if that were the default. That is, a gangster should be black, a hitman should be white. Why? I think that''s the quietly implied assumption, intentional or not, that gets people up in arms. (Hase, btw, if I know anything about you from your other posts, I know this is not what you''re saying, but this is how it can be viewed).

When we represent something in media, to some extent we''re saying, "this is the world. This is how the world is. This is what''s possible, this is what''s impossible."

Games might be a small niche right now, but when the first thing somebody thinks about when considering a black character is, "is this game about gangbanging?" I know we have far to go.

quote:
I am totally against having black/green/whatever lead characters in a game just because someone felt it was necessary to finally have one, or because some minority felt excluded.

Okay, fair enough. And, on that same note, you should have no problem if the characters were non-white, right? (I''d think the answer is yes)


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wow..........i think that is where the conversation ends?

quote: Original post by Wavinator

I have a challenge for you: If you truly believe this, make all of your characters Samoan females. I''m serious. Where you begin to balk when thinking about this will show you the boundaries of your beliefs. (Now, I could be wrong, and you''ll bust out a non-offensive Samoan Laura Croft on us, at which point I''ll publicly eat both the box and the shrink wrap it came in.)

Remind me to send you a copy of my game with it''s all-alien hermaphroditic characters when it''s done. Unless they count as diverse because they come in spots, stripes, patches, dun, and various other color patterns? But they are from a monolithic culture.


(If anybody thinks this is an interesting idea I''m currently recruiting, email me: sunandshadow@excite.com.

I wonder , would the game be any different if Mario was African American ?

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
Remind me to send you a copy of my game with it''s all-alien hermaphroditic characters when it''s done. Unless they count as diverse because they come in spots, stripes, patches, dun, and various other color patterns? But they are from a monolithic culture.

!

My challenge stands for humans only! (I''d better research the medical issues surrounding the digestion of plastic, just for you s&s!)

quote: Original post by Tha_HoodRat
I wonder , would the game be any different if Mario was African American ?

NONE!!!! And that''s the funny thing! I have known folks who seem think that as soon as you change the character''s color something horrible happens-- as if terrified youngsters are going to be sobbing, holding their parent''s pant leg, and pointing at the screen if the character is non-white. *exasperation!*



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quote: Original post by Wavinator

Look at the penetration of the Playstation 2. At a <$300 price point, the audience is far more diverse (and hence the market more lucrative). You might think PC games are an exception, and maybe they still are, but the prosperity of the last decade as lifted all sorts of groups you normally would not expect to see into the middle class.

I think that a wider and more diversified audience will not call for more variety in skin color, but rather the opposite. The lead characters will have to become more generic, in order to allow everyone to identify himself with him/her. And identification doesn´t happen through skin color, character is the main point. So i think, in order not to step on any overly politically correct toes, the future lead characters will become more bland in appearance, someone above mentioned the afro-asian indo-caucasian of indeterminate skin color. There will have to be some (but limited) visual appeal to everyone, as every strong example of one ethnicity will invariably cause someone to feel excluded.
This does not just go as far as color, but also culture. If you want to cater to the ever-growing audience, you have to make EVERY character understandable, even to a person of a vastly different cultural background. To attain that you have to either
a) explain everything (which might annoy people of the same cultural background)
b) oversimplify (which might annoy people of the same cultural background)
c) use a background which is generic enough to be understood by everyone

Thanks to the American film industry, which is successfully exporting its stories all over the world, we can rely on some common elements to be understood in many parts of the world. And, if you dig deeper, you will see that Hollywood itself is not using any new stuff, but rather redoing much older narrative structures. These have been researched quite well, and can, should and will be used in games to a far greater extent than before.

quote:

The interesting thing I find here is the subtle thinking that if the ethnicity doesn''t apply directly to the story, the character should then be European-- as if that were the default.

You´re right in some aspects, but I wouldn´t have used the word "European" for the "default" character. I think it is true, and somewhat obvious that there is some standard as to what lead characters are like. And included in that set of assumptions is (at least for the time being), that the "default" is something along the lines of a heterosexual caucasian. I´m not saying that I particulary agree or disagree with that choice (which is becoming more and more the "indeterminate" ethnicity), but if you use anything else than that "default", you automatically make the characters ethnicity part of the story. Not because you intend to, but because people will assume that it is significant, because it is a break from the norm.
And that is exactly what I want to avoid. In making commercial games I have to entertain, not make political statements. If it is seen as such, it invariably means that someone will be pissed off. Either some minority, for being misrepresented, or the larger audience, for having to put up with stereotypes, or even worse, for having bought a black/green/whatever-rights activists game.

quote:
Okay, fair enough. And, on that same note, you should have no problem if the characters were non-white, right? (I''d think the answer is yes)

Personally I have no problem with non-white characters, actually I would like to see more of them. This does not only extend to skin color or cultural background, but also to various other aspects. For instance, I would have no problem with a gay black Duke Nukem. However I am sure that the mass market (which is what you are working for, unless you´re a hobbyist) will have a problem with that, as only very few people will be able to identify with gay black superheroes.
Actually its kind of sad, but I think that when it comes to conventions and stereotypes, the games industry is heavily influenced by Hollywood. I also think that innovation-wise the games industry is lagging behind a few years. So even if gay black superheroes were introduced into American film (NOT just as an oddity, but as a regular and unremarkable feature) it would take a few years until they would start appearing in games.
You can of course go for the "novelty" effect, but I am personally against that for the same reasons I find freakshows offensive. I want to make games that sell because of story/gameplay/immersion, and not because it says : "First game ever with more than 50% gay homosexuals inside!!!!"

Um, wouldn''t Mario and Luigi be classified as Italian-American? Do they really count as white seeing as there''s so few Italians potrayed in any way in most games? Mario and Luigi are made to not look like the average white American. Does that count?

If you here a person''s name, what colour do you automaticly assume their skin is? I don''t think the reason for whatever answer you come up with has as much to do with race as it does with mental conditioning. You get into one habit or another and that''s that. Application of a little effort to notice if you''re doing it should solve things. Thing is, in a game like the traditional jump and run, the character is pretty much the least of your concerns so it get''s over looked. You''re more concerned with churning out the one feature which makes your game unique.