This is simply down to where the games are made. For instance, most American games based on an original IP feature an American protagonist, most Japanese games feature a Japanese protagonist. Rare for instance, are British. Joanna Dark, one of their characters is British. etc.
As South America catches up economically with the west, maybe we'll see more hispanics. Same goes for India and Indians, the Middle East and Arabs etc.
One of the problems though is that the biggest language market by far though is English (What with the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa etc.) so having a non-enlgish speaking game is more of a missed sales opportunity than not having more Native Americans or women.
Also, calling 50 Cent Blood on the Sand a "title that reinforces stereotypes" is just plain absurd. The game is made by a black man, about himself, so if anyone is reinforcing stereotypes about black people with that game, it's black people. Something like GTA:SA would have been a better example.
1. In most games you can't even see your char so you could be a damn smurf and it would make no difference!
2. I'm sick of this Diversity crap! There is no difference in people just because of their color, it doesn't matter if you're pink or silver, you're in the game to play the game.
3. the stats are wrong, in MANY games out there the players can choose the color of their skin and if there was a bigger market for it then game companies would market that direction. You don't become a big time game maker not knowing your demographic.
4. In most games there are no midgets or fat people, but I'm sure midgets and fat people still play games.
5. When we have put Blacks in games then we've been said to be stereotyping! Everyone needs just just STFU and get over diversity and stereotyping crap.
-Diversity happens without you making sure we have just enough of every color person in every aspect of life.
-Stereotyping happens for a reason because the group that you're stereotyping has a know provable history of doing whatever the stereotype is.
@Apoc28: Oh man, you got me laughin' on number 4. I'll bet there are fat midgets out there who are pissed, not playing games, and complaining though.
Very true about number 5. Re4 came out and there was nothing. Re5 on the other hand brought some Croal on Capcom's asses. Quiet down Croal, you weren't crying for the last decade when we've been killing white people in our games.
Another point of interest in RE5 is the Africans wearing African clothing. Some people have a problem with this. However, these kinds of Africans have existed, and I believe, still do exist this very moment. There are some things that would be embarrassing about any race/ethnicity, but if those things exist in real life, I don't see why people complain. I'm part Irish, and I happily accept the drinking stereotype and the silly accent.
I'm not sure you can call 50 Cent's games stereotypical. They do seem to be based faithfully on how 50 Cent would want a video game to be, and he does happen to be a black guy; to argue that it is stereotypical would be to call 50 Cent a real life example of a stereotype, which seems like a categorical contradiction.
He might not a great role model, but that is not the question at hand; he is a real person, he is popular, and he is black.
@4xis.black: But one could pose the question: is he popular because he is playing/fitting into/acting on a stereotype? e.g. rap, bling, ghetto, gangsta, showy (tying into bling), certain communication skills
Not trying to accuse or incite anything here, just posing a thought...
This is actually pretty true. We do need more racial diversity in video games. Open-world games come to mind in actually having a diverse set of characters such as inFamous, or the GTA games (unfortunately, this plays off of stereotypes). The Left 4 Dead franchise does a great job of providing an original character that doesn't play off of stereotypes at all. Louis isn't like the "typical brother" wearing baggy jeans and a baseball cap sideways, he's intelligent (due to the contrary belief that most blacks aren't, no clue why though), and judging by his attire (profiling, I know) he has a steady, working, life-style which is a believable and real representation of a black man. I appreciate the inclusion of Hispanic/Latino's in games, because there are so few of them (unless the game takes place in Los Angeles, or the Bronx) disappointingly though, most of them are represented as people with pants down to their knees and and an obsession with cars and saying "homez" I'm glad this article brings this info to light, because I have thought about it a bit, and while it may not change how the game-plays at all...it can certainly change the atmosphere or the story if it's a bit contemporary. Go ahead, mix it up, have a Nathan Drake that black people can resonate with better, or a Hispanic/Latino Just my 2 cents though, I wonder if developers think that some people will avoid playing it if there was a black character on the box....hmmmmmmm.
The biggest problem trying to appeal to people of different ethnicity isn't the color of a person's skin.
It's the language.
What these groups don't realize is that gamers don't really give a flying fuck about what skin color the protagonist is - they care that they can play the game in their native language.
I'm from Mexico and I can't tell you how many friends of mine ask me to buy certain games for them - as long as they can get by with gameplay and not have to read too much. They don't know English.
You want to not have a "missed sale opportunity"? Start offering games with languages other than "English" and "Japanese".
There's a few games that did it, but the game sold unexpectedly low - Heavenly Sword, for one. Or Recently, King of Fighters XII. But the latter is just a pos incomplete game and I don't feel bad it hasn't sold at all.
Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, that the USC Annenberg School for Communication acted stupidly.
When game companies try to include characters of any race in all venues of the title, people will peer through it under an atomic microscope and find it racist in their viewing (Too stereotypical, Not ___ enough) or pandering.
But when companies decide that it's too much of a hassle to deal with appeasement and just make a damn fun game, well then it has to be racism that just about everyone is white and any other character who isn't doesn't have enough screen time to give the professionally offended a chance to justify their rage.
they think that not having enough hispanic playable characters is a 'missed sales oppertunity'?
i seriously dont think that most gamers really care about what colour a persons skin is in a game. if the game is good then i dont care if they are black,white,yellow,red or fucking purple as long as its enjoyable.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Everyone is dancing around the big problem. When are Cats going to be well represented in video-games? Fable 2, Fallout 3, and other recent games are full of dogs, whether they be friend or foe, but house-cats are nowhere to be found.
I think this is a horrible decision, as the number of cat-owners in the US is rivaling those of dog-owners. It is time for them to be accurately represented. Speaking, as a dog owner, it does get pretty boring.
The thing that legitimately pissed me off was Bioshock. Sure, everyone in Rapture is the best and brightest from around the world -- which somehow means there are no blacks, hispanics, asians, etc...
@Pretty Sneaky Sis: You have to remember that the game takes place in the 50s and stuff. I think the game was trying to pull off some sort of post-World War II picture, so of course everybody with any educational opportunity is going to be white.
I honestly don't even think about race when playing Video Games. The only thing I usually see is Male or Female and I play a lot of JRPGs so I don't even know which is which half the time.
@Etalyx: I say USC doesn't understand the white man's plight. Nathan Drake, Marcus Fenix, Solid Snake... These are men who set impossible standards for most of the white people playing these games and constantly remind the player how worthless he is in comparison. I say celebrate that your ethnicity, nationality, or socio-economic background is underrepresented in games. No one enjoys constantly having it rubbed in in his entertainment what an unfit, unsuccessful loser he is every time he sits down to try to enjoy some game. Take it from me, a white man. :(
@Kobun: You may be right about Snake and Drake, but the Cole Train is superior to Marcus Fenix in almost every way. Actually, Marcus himself isn't much of anything really.
@Trey: Marcus is pure testosterone. Put him under a microscope, and you'll find YY chromosomes. He sets a standard for manliness and leadership that's impossible to live up to. :(
@Kobun: Cole Train is the creation made from extracting samples from every doped Baseball slugger ever, stimulated by the sweat of professional heavyweight boxers, and developed for nine months of growth inside the womb of Rhino.
not all black people and hispanics are sterotypes i mean look at Prohet from crysis and louis from L4D they werent sterotypes...and look at romeo from ODST he sounds like a normal black guy and not a stereotype
dead space had a normal black guy same with rainbow six vegas and alot of other games with black people...the fucking media only look at the stereotype games and not the games were everybody is...dare i say it...NORMAL!
@Masterspeed: The original Rainbow Six games were probably the most racially diverse games I've ever seen. You had people from every country or creed uniting to defeat those goddamned terrorists.
I think why we're seeing a lot more hubbub and talk and research and publicity about minorities and under-representation is because video games have become a lot more mainstream. Many more people -- diverse people -- play games and are gaining more of a voice. Because the 'minority,' which had no real voice, is now finding a voice and a face. Female gamers, GLBT gamers, Black/White/Asian/Hispanic gamers. The market is changing and I see articles/research like this just supporting that show of change.
We're all united under the same banner of gamers, regardless of what or who we are, so what is the harm of seeing more representations of that diversity in our games.
@Limeade: I'm all for games being more widely accepted. I just don't like this whole "Entertainment hazing" that everything has to go through though. I don't think games should be picked apart for political correctness before being taken seriously, because you can't please EVERY minority.
07/30/09
The reason I ask is because I cannot imagine titles like GTA4 or even Super Mario Galaxy as positive tools for "identity formation."
(I would also wager that most games on that list are likely games kids should not be playing.)
Personally, I like to identify with characters that rank high on my Awesome Scale.
Dante? He is a 9. He is RADICALLY awesome.
Tingle? A 3. Needs less of a color palette and more steroids.
07/30/09
As South America catches up economically with the west, maybe we'll see more hispanics. Same goes for India and Indians, the Middle East and Arabs etc.
One of the problems though is that the biggest language market by far though is English (What with the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa etc.) so having a non-enlgish speaking game is more of a missed sales opportunity than not having more Native Americans or women.
Also, calling 50 Cent Blood on the Sand a "title that reinforces stereotypes" is just plain absurd. The game is made by a black man, about himself, so if anyone is reinforcing stereotypes about black people with that game, it's black people. Something like GTA:SA would have been a better example.
07/29/09
1. In most games you can't even see your char so you could be a damn smurf and it would make no difference!
2. I'm sick of this Diversity crap! There is no difference in people just because of their color, it doesn't matter if you're pink or silver, you're in the game to play the game.
3. the stats are wrong, in MANY games out there the players can choose the color of their skin and if there was a bigger market for it then game companies would market that direction. You don't become a big time game maker not knowing your demographic.
4. In most games there are no midgets or fat people, but I'm sure midgets and fat people still play games.
5. When we have put Blacks in games then we've been said to be stereotyping! Everyone needs just just STFU and get over diversity and stereotyping crap.
-Diversity happens without you making sure we have just enough of every color person in every aspect of life.
-Stereotyping happens for a reason because the group that you're stereotyping has a know provable history of doing whatever the stereotype is.
07/30/09
Very true about number 5. Re4 came out and there was nothing. Re5 on the other hand brought some Croal on Capcom's asses. Quiet down Croal, you weren't crying for the last decade when we've been killing white people in our games.
Another point of interest in RE5 is the Africans wearing African clothing. Some people have a problem with this. However, these kinds of Africans have existed, and I believe, still do exist this very moment. There are some things that would be embarrassing about any race/ethnicity, but if those things exist in real life, I don't see why people complain. I'm part Irish, and I happily accept the drinking stereotype and the silly accent.
07/30/09
:)
07/29/09
He might not a great role model, but that is not the question at hand; he is a real person, he is popular, and he is black.
07/30/09
Not trying to accuse or incite anything here, just posing a thought...
07/29/09
07/29/09
It's the language.
What these groups don't realize is that gamers don't really give a flying fuck about what skin color the protagonist is - they care that they can play the game in their native language.
I'm from Mexico and I can't tell you how many friends of mine ask me to buy certain games for them - as long as they can get by with gameplay and not have to read too much. They don't know English.
You want to not have a "missed sale opportunity"? Start offering games with languages other than "English" and "Japanese".
There's a few games that did it, but the game sold unexpectedly low - Heavenly Sword, for one. Or Recently, King of Fighters XII. But the latter is just a pos incomplete game and I don't feel bad it hasn't sold at all.
But at least these people have the right idea.
07/29/09
07/29/09
When game companies try to include characters of any race in all venues of the title, people will peer through it under an atomic microscope and find it racist in their viewing (Too stereotypical, Not ___ enough) or pandering.
But when companies decide that it's too much of a hassle to deal with appeasement and just make a damn fun game, well then it has to be racism that just about everyone is white and any other character who isn't doesn't have enough screen time to give the professionally offended a chance to justify their rage.
It seems you can't really win with PC.
07/29/09
You do enough research, and your end product will be adopted by everyone because it respects history and not stereotypes.
I don't see the same sort of research going into, say, 50 Cent's game.
07/29/09
i seriously dont think that most gamers really care about what colour a persons skin is in a game. if the game is good then i dont care if they are black,white,yellow,red or fucking purple as long as its enjoyable.
07/29/09
I think this is a horrible decision, as the number of cat-owners in the US is rivaling those of dog-owners. It is time for them to be accurately represented. Speaking, as a dog owner, it does get pretty boring.
Let's mix it up, mkay?
07/29/09
07/29/09
I have read your reply, and my anger has passed.
07/29/09
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07/29/09
Fewer white people in games is not necesarily a good thing. Without them, who would star in Damnation? Leisure Suit Larry? Hour of Victory?
Need I say more?
07/29/09
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07/29/09
07/29/09
dead space had a normal black guy same with rainbow six vegas and alot of other games with black people...the fucking media only look at the stereotype games and not the games were everybody is...dare i say it...NORMAL!
07/29/09
07/29/09
True that!
07/29/09
We're all united under the same banner of gamers, regardless of what or who we are, so what is the harm of seeing more representations of that diversity in our games.
07/29/09