Vidya games is racist.

[Jinx]

God, I wish PG was here.

[Old Manus]

This isn't a thread about how it's a right to have a 17 year old girlfriend though.

[Mirage]

Let's turn it into one.

[Madame Adequate]

It is not only right, but a moral imperative, to have a 17 year old girlfriend.

[Mirage]

I had a 17 year old girlfriend once.

When I was 17.98 years old.

Good thing I wasn't a week older, then I would have been a pedophile.

[Old Manus]

[disjointed post about ephebophiles and conservative dogma, followed by a comparison between girlfriend selection and the free market]

[Del Murder]

Good to know PG can still derail a thread even when banned. Let's get back on topic please.

[Miriel]

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 is with this assumption that pandering to your audience is mutually exclusive from being racist? It can be both and it probably IS both.

[Sylvie]

I'm not sure if "racist" is the right word.

Actually, it probably is. People just like to assume that racism = deadly hatred towards one or more races. It really can be as shiny and innocent as naturalized bias.

[Quindiana Jones]

Prejudice would be a more accurate term than racist.

[Dark_Firion]

So...video-games are also homophobic if one is to follow this logic.
And I'll also point out that I have no idea why there aren't so many non-stereotypical black people in games...Lazy devs?

[Sylvie]

People like to slide "prejudice" down on an infectious spear in the same way that they do with "racist" so I don't see any hope for anyone getting over the simple fact that people who make games are a bunch of white people and asian people who have no smurfing idea what it's like to be a cultured black person. Do you want some cracker's interpretation of a black-ass motherf***er? We got it with Barret Wallace and his character was a huge racist joke thanks to Japanese guys wanting (probably required and half-assedly encouraged by management) to be diverse.

Let's call it racist when Bioware or some trout releases a game where you have to capture wild African savages in cages and then keep your funds above the bar by selling them to rich white people; a true quest without virtue.

[Quindiana Jones]

I'd play that game.

[Sylvie]

Me too.

[Madame Adequate]

I want more games where you can be entirely, horrendously malevolent. Not evil because of some greater good, not some historically contextualized thing or something on an alien world where it's okay, just to be sociopathically vile to the point where even people like Pike and I hide playing this game IRL because of the stigma attached. But not just stupid gorefests either.