Vidya games is racist.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

The new Assassin's Creed for Vita stars a black chick.

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She's mixed. She's half French and half African. They couldn't even make Connor fully Native American. No he ALSO had to be half white as if it's too much of a risk to make a main playable character completely of a different race.

Yep. Risk is probably the biggest "problem". Game companies want to make money, and (at least they think) white guys are going to be less likely to buy a game with a black character as the main character. I don't know if they're right, and I don't know if they've even got statistics showing this or if it's just a hunch they've got, but as long as they think a black (or whatever other race) main character won't earn them as much money, we won't see many of them.

Maybe if there was a way for us whiteys to convince them that we'd buy the game regardless... I don't know how we could do that. Make a facebook group?

Although the real question isn't if less white people will buy the game, but if this reduction of white buyers is going to be greater than the increase in nonwhite buyers. I doubt it would be.

I feel like if developers went out of their way to include minority characters, there would inevitably be a lot of developers trying to make the character's personality fit the stereotypes associated with their minority. In that sense, diversity wouldn't necessarily be good if they just end up perpetuating stereotypes. (Or if a minority is represented by a single token character. Barret.)

"I don't like Jews. Or colored folk. Or natives, now that you mention it...I bet you like Catholics. Can't stand them either. Nor women, Fabians, Socialists, homosexuals, Asians, or British." - Herbert Moon, gaming's greatest equalitist.

Seriousness aside, I long for when the entertainment industry disregards character models in favour of character traits. Write a character, then roll a dice to decide its race, gender, moral alignment, religious views, hair colour, and the extent to which they love bacon.

The kid in Ico is the only darker skinned Asian I can think of in any game at all NPC or PC.

i didn't even realize he wasn't white
what does that say about me

The vast majority of developers are white and asian, as are the vast majority of gamers, so naturally, the majority of protagonists end up being white or asian. You pander to your audience, racism has little to do with it.

What I find baffling is all the Japanese games that are full of European/White looking people, with not a Japanese looking character to be found. Does that make the Japanese racist against themselves?

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Originally Posted by DMKA

What I find baffling is all the Japanese games that are full of European/White looking people, with not a Japanese looking character to be found. Does that make the Japanese racist against themselves?

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I vote yes.

There's that Asian chick in Mirror's Edge

Chell in Portal looks pretty Latina to me (granted you pretty much never see her) but I don't think her origins are ever confirmed in the games. The actress she was modeled after is multiracial (Brazilian/Japanese).

Strategy games are the obvious easy way out because many of them allow you to play from several historical nations across the world. Even sci-fi strategy games are good this way (examples: CEO Nwabudake Morgan or Corazon Santiago in SMAC). Some strategy games are even set in specific parts of the world (Sengoku) or have expansions specifically devoted to them (CK2: Sword of Islam).

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Originally Posted by DMKA

The vast majority of developers are white and asian, as are the vast majority of gamers, so naturally, the majority of protagonists end up being white or asian. You pander to your audience, racism has little to do with it.

What I find baffling is all the Japanese games that are full of European/White looking people, with not a Japanese looking character to be found. Does that make the Japanese racist against themselves?

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i know, right! I think this is where the "pandering to the audience" part comes into play. White american kids have more money than they know what to do with so they're targeted to spend their money on the games with characters that look like them.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

Oh i just remembered something

The world of FF11 bursting at the seams with racism from NPC characters, and the galka race has a history of discrimination and hard manual labor, as well as living in the poor district of the predominantly human city of Bastok.

There's also an elvaan npc that called me a repulsable ball of fur! That is totally racist, only my tail and ears have fur.

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I think that's one of the best examples of how fantasy games are actually in the unique position to highlight problems and issues like racism, apartheid-ism and discrimination. Consequentially, in exposing the player to the issue but removing it from the standard black v white/ white v black and showing it as differences such as elvaan and galka it can be used to educate a player on why something is wrong. Furthermore, if the player is suddenly in the minority and becoming clearly the victim of discrimination on the basis of their race they learn that it is not funny or harmless and in turn it will educate them to think of others before they speak.

I bet the guys who drive the cars in Gran Turismo 5 are black (or as foa so brilliantly puts it, 'people of colour').

I'm more apalled by the fact that all the GT5 drivers are men. There's not a single girl, and that is sexist!

But everyone knows that women can't (SPOILER)be easily modelled in a 3D moving environment due to their upper body physique

Someone brought up the fact that Japanese always have white people in their own games.

Which makes me wander about anime. Most anime actually takes place in Japan, but I seriously don't think there are that many blonde haired, blue eyed women in Japan.