Old news is no news is good news, eh?

[Mercen-X]

A study done in 2004 on video games, seemingly pertaining mostly to video game violence, told that majority of video games, the majority of the most popular video games particularly, depicted violence in some way. I don't care.

However, it also stated that most player characters are the archetypal white male. When I consider the mindset game designers are in to go that route, it makes me a bit dizzy as I think back to my childhood when I would pretend to be Bruce Lee. Yet, Asians as central protagonists proved to be a rarity in games just as much as blacks and women.

Personally, I love the idea of being able to play games outside my race or gender. I already play games that feature character whom are outside my age-range, state-of-mind, physicality, etc. Granted, I find myself somewhat more on the fences about playing as Latino characters despite half my family being Latino (they're married in). If they made a game version of Desperado, however, I'd love to play as the Mariachi and honestly, I loved the character of Ricardo Mariachi in Shadow Hearts: From the New World.

Games like GTA San Andreas and True Crime made blacks and Asians central "protagonists" though whether you could really call them that in these particular titles is questionable if not laughable. The game Stranglehold allows for a somewhat more heroic Asian main character.
Heavenly Sword was an awesome game in the vein of God of War which featured a female protagonist, Lara Croft has had her own series, and Aya Brea has at least had a sequel. Kasumi is the main protagonist of the Dead or Alive series and Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII is getting a third game. There's also news of a remake or sequel for Beyond Good & Evil starring our favorite photographer, Jade.

As for blacks as main protagonists, male or female, in video games, the closest one may find is ShadowMan from the namesake game for Sega Genesis.

I'm not counting RPGs, FPS, RTS, Army-sims, or Fighters where a black person just happens to appear in the cast and may be a "good guy". I'm talking about a game that acknowledges the main protagonist is The Black Guy. First-Person games and Driving-sims will never count because you can't see your character's face. Has Black Panther been licensed for a video game yet? It may be our chance to see a black guy in the main role.

Am I missing something?

What other games can you name where an Asian is the central protagonist, male or female (not including games wherein the character's race is ambiguous, as in not stated in the game or manual)?
What other game can you mention that provides an African-American in the lead?
Do you feel there are enough games lately representing the other side of the gender coin?

[Bolivar]

It all depends on what kind of game we're talking about here. If it's military shooters, or games that simulate a section of society, today they're probably representative of that demographic. In Call of Duty and Battlefield, you get a couple white guys, a couple black guys, and a woman piloting an aircraft or on the radio every now and then. But if we're talking about games with fantastical settings where the character can be anything but ends up being a white male, yeah there could be some kind of a problem.

The truth is in America, most game developers are white men. They're going to make experiences that relate to them. It's natural for people to make stories based on what they know and where they come from. In the law, when it comes to discrimination, it's usually not enough to find a disparity and scream racism. You have to show there actually was a discriminatory intent.

Recently, I have noticed a trend to have strong female protagonists, or at least strong females front and center in the story. This probably started with Portal. People love Chell. But of course there's FemShep being a big part of the Mass Effect experience and Blizzard feeling they needed to retcon Leih into the story of Diablo.

As far as the race thing, I think it's going to change on several fronts. On the one hand, you have different people gradually coming into the industry from different backgrounds. But also, I think a lot of developers are interested in exploring different perspectives and telling different stories. Assassin's Creed III stars a Native American protagonist from what I've heard, I think that's another big step.

[Pike]

>Ctrl+F
>No Mirror's Edge

Mirror's Edge. Faith is great.

[krissy]

Assassin's Creed III stars a Native American protagonist from what I've heard, I think that's another big step.

he's only half native american

cause WE DON'T WANT TO GET CRAZY HERE

check out Beyond Good & Evil

[Mercen-X]

Is there something weird with the main character of BG&E? or are you referring to the number of aliens in the game that don't represent any race at all among the human species?


Assassin's Creed III stars a Native American protagonist from what I've heard, I think that's another big step. Sounds righteous. I wonder if my old "friend" Jerry will end up owning that.

[krissy]

Godheval.com » Black, White, and Jade: Race in Video Games (http://www.godheval.com/black-white-and-jade-race-in-video-games/)

[Tigmafuzz]

Why is anyone concerned with the level of racial or specific-gender representation in games? Just play the fucking games.


>Ctrl+F
>No Mirror's Edge

Mirror's Edge. Faith is great.

>two posts
>ctrl+f instead of reading :p

[Pike]

Why is anyone concerned with the level of racial or specific-gender representation in games? Just play the fucking games.


>Ctrl+F
>No Mirror's Edge

Mirror's Edge. Faith is great.

>two posts
>ctrl+f instead of reading :p

Bruh

The first post was a wall of text

[Jiro]

Totally right.

I often choose to be a non-whitey in games where you can choose race. Usually always pick azns tbh. Especially where I'm a villainous character because Oceania always fears them slanty eyes invading. Totally joking here don't get mad bro.

[Balzac]

Eh, Prototype 2 has a black male lead. There are plaenty of games out there that give you the option, but whatevs. I don't really care as long as the game is good.

[Slothy]

Godheval.com » Black, White, and Jade: Race in Video Games (http://www.godheval.com/black-white-and-jade-race-in-video-games/)

I only had the chance to skim bits of that, but I'm not sure what's worse: that the developers changed Vanessa in VF5 like that, or that I don't remember noticing despite owning both VF4 and VF5. Granted, I didn't like VF5 much and didn't play it a lot (maybe a handful of times over the run of a month, and I didn't play as Vanessa in VF4 so I doubt I used her in 5) so maybe I did notice but just don't remember almost 6 years later.

[Mercen-X]

They should retcon Superman into a black guy. :radred:

[Slothy]

They should retcon Superman into a black guy. :radred:

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/ACTION-COMICS-9-BLACK-SUPERMAN-/00/s/MTYwMFgxMDc3/$(KGrHqNHJEoE912FcOh1BPpEPwKVwQ~~60_57.JPG

[Bolivar]

Haha, of course it's Grant Morrison. That guy's a nut, but it's probably actually a good story.

[Slothy]

It was actually, even if it was kind of a Superman is Barack Obama sort of thing (the black Superman of that parallel Earth was president of the US). It was just a one off parallel universe story, though I actually found myself hoping he shows up again down the road. Morrison is a wacky bastard and I love him for it.

[Arizona Lively]

Eh, Prototype 2 has a black male lead. There are plaenty of games out there that give you the option, but whatevs. I don't really care as long as the game is good.
As a white male, your oppinion doesn't count. I believe Merc wants to "blackmale" the game industry. :semicolonpee:


Seriously, though i like the games available with fem-centric player characters, I would really really like more.

My favorites are Tomb Raider, Kameo, Heavenly Blade, and X-Blades (wasn't horrible). Technially Okami's wolf character is a femlse but it's also white. lol

[Iceglow]

Totally right.

I often choose to be a non-whitey in games where you can choose race. Usually always pick azns tbh. Especially where I'm a villainous character because Oceania always fears them slanty eyes invading. Totally joking here don't get mad bro.

Someone's been watching/reading Tomorrow, The Day After The War Began a little too much if you ask me!

I'm going to name Shenmue here, I'll also point out that in games such as Dragon Age, Never Winter Nights, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls so forth colour is irrelevant as it can be chosen by the player.

[Mercen-X]

Games in which the player character can't be seen/heard or games in which the player chooses the character's race/gender don't count.

Why? Because you never get a true sense of who the character could really be as an individual. No matter what race/gender you choose, you're destined to walk the same path and speak the same dialogue (minus experimenting to reach branching paths, but those are still the same actions and same dialogue no matter your race/gender). A designer having the sense to decide a character's race/gender before the game finishes development means more consideration went into that character's characterization/what makes he/she an individual set apart from the rest of the NPC-schlubs in the game or even apart from the characters of other games. Without that consideration, the character is just a mindless clone with no real role to play save to serve as a host to a player who may or may not really care about the events taking place in the game. So, then, what was the point of writing a backstory, a continuing story, a plot? What was the point of creating a world?

[Jiro]

Someone's been watching/reading Tomorrow, The Day After The War Began a little too much if you ask me!

I'm going to name Shenmue here, I'll also point out that in games such as Dragon Age, Never Winter Nights, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls so forth colour is irrelevant as it can be chosen by the player.
Never read Tomorrow, When the War Began or the rest of the series but I did watch the movie. :monster: It's been a prevailing fear in white-Australians since the Chinese flocked to Australia during the Gold Rush.

[Iceglow]

Someone's been watching/reading Tomorrow, The Day After The War Began a little too much if you ask me!

I'm going to name Shenmue here, I'll also point out that in games such as Dragon Age, Never Winter Nights, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls so forth colour is irrelevant as it can be chosen by the player.
Never read Tomorrow, When the War Began or the rest of the series but I did watch the movie. :monster: It's been a prevailing fear in white-Australians since the Chinese flocked to Australia during the Gold Rush.

To take this further off topic here, I know that it's part one of like a series but I've never heard if they're making the rest of the books in to films. It'd be silly not to since the first book/movie adaptation ends on a clear cliff hanger.

[Jiro]

The film was moderately successful but I don't think there's been any progress on making the follow-ups. I'm not sure why. It's really disappointing. I liked what was going on, Australian filmmaking doesn't usually have that much success.

[Mercen-X]

The main character of the next KH trilogy should be a black girl, lol.