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 Azazelx wrote:
Even Captain Whatsisface from Space Marine could have had a skin-tone slider (and maybe a few haircut options) without harming the game or going against the fluff.

I am not sure GW would agree with that .
(Kidding, if we can have black sisters in official artworks, I guess we can have black ultramarines too.)

 Psienesis wrote:

 Frankenberry wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Lotet wrote:

 Frankenberry wrote:
So...people WANT to play the 40-something, beer-gut having, balding, bad-skin sporting, deadend job-having majority?

Thank god you people don't make video games because jesus christ would they be depressing as hell.

I feel like there's a fallacy of some sort that deals with making an extreme, absurd version of what people are saying to make the argument look ridiculous. But I can't find it, so maybe not.

Also, someone did make just such a game and it is about depression. Actual Sunlight.

I think it's a strawman. I'm not quite sure.

Also, Frankenberry, you are being purposely ignorant. It's very possible to have a game with a non-generic protagonist without having it be something like that. Using extremes like that is not an actual argument.

It's a strawman in totality, I haven't misrepresented anyone's argument, I'm merely exaggerating. My point is that I'm tired of reading about how people seem to think that playing a game based on every day lives would somehow be fun. I think that is beyond ironic, seeing as how we play video games to escape our reality, and yet...people bitch when that escape isn't realistic enough.

I'm frustrated is all, I'm tired of seeing people whining.

You represent everything that is wrong with modern game design.

And you represent everything wrong with people on the internet. There, I can be an ass too.

"My point is that I'm tired of reading about how people seem to think that playing a game based on every day lives would somehow be fun"

You realize that the Sims is one of the most popular and profitable series in videogaming, right?

I think the issues have been there since the beginning, but as games have started being more accessible, people are now stating their preferences. Like Melissa stated, in games where the protagonist's sex and race do not matter, customization is a relatively easy solution to allow the player to feel closer to their avatar.

Are there even any examples of a black protagonist who isn't in a stereotypical game role?

Like a Black P.I. or Black Soldier or something?

Unlike women, nothing comes readily to mind.

 Slarg232 wrote:
Are there even any examples of a black protagonist who isn't in a stereotypical game role?

The black characters from L4D and L4D2, I guess.

There's Adéwalé from that Assassin's Creed DLC, if that counts.

Define sterotypical game roll. Its certianly true that there are far from an abundance of black video game protagonists.

A few black protagonists I can think of are

Lee from The Walking Dead

Adewale from Assasins Creed Freedoms Cry DLC

Avalaine from Assasins Creed Liberation

But thats really not a lot

It's also interesting that Lee was a criminal. We could easily do a whole thread on race in gaming.

OT, but was anyone else annoyed that in the Extra Credits episode about Race in games did not actually talk about Race is games?

 carlos13th wrote:
Define sterotypical game roll. Its certianly true that there are far from an abundance of black video game protagonists.

A few black protagonists I can think of are

Lee from The Walking Dead

Adewale from Assasins Creed Freedoms Cry DLC

Avalaine from Assasins Creed Liberation

But thats really not a lot

Stereotypical roll woulda been a "This is how we do in the Hood, YO." type of character.

I admit I shouldn't have forgotten Lee ( I blame Clementine), but AC lost my interest around 2, so there's that.

The 'main' character from State of Decay is a black dude. Pretty non stereotyped.

 Bromsy wrote:
The 'main' character from State of Decay is a black dude. Pretty non stereotyped.

Aint no main character in state of decay.

Well current games are made by bean counters and always go for the "safe" route.

I wished they made a follow up to 50 cents blood in the sand, the banter the rappers blurt out when you playing co-op is damn funny.

I think Asian (RPG's) games are one of the few instances where the main characters are not muscled hulks, but are somewhat feminine males.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Well current games are made by bean counters and always go for the "safe" route.

I wished they made a follow up to 50 cents blood in the sand, the banter the rappers blurt out when you playing co-op is damn funny.

I think Asian (RPG's) games are one of the few instances where the main characters are not muscled hulks, but are somewhat feminine males.

Very.

The word you are looking for is Very.

Japanese game characters don't even have a gender anymore

On the other hanad, though, that also has a lot to do with culture. Being fit isn't a large focus in the East whereas it is in the West.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Japanese game characters don't even have a gender anymore

On the other hanad, though, that also has a lot to do with culture. Being fit isn't a large focus in the East whereas it is in the West.

uhm? what being fit is a big thing in Japan and Asia, they just don't want to look like Albert Schwarzenegger

Yeah, I am quite surprised by this argument. Japan gave use Ryu, Ken, Astaroth, Bass Armstrong, …
Okay, those are from fighting games, not RPG. That is because I am not into Japanese RPG. But a google image search with Final Fantasy barechested give me those images:

That seems like very fit and attractive characters to me. Not “muscled hulks”, but is it not more fit than, say, 90 percent of the German population? Also, how is that feminine?

I think the word you were both looking for is attractive. Japan is designing attractive male characters .


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(Also, that first image… should go to bikini armor battle damage if it is not already there . Sexualized “armor” male version!)

The guys don't have square jaws, looks like they wear make up, hairstyles are not like standard males, extremely fashionable outfits, male model body type.

I don't see many Japanese males like except as male hostesses.

Attractive is a subjective term, there are females who are not attracted to the ueber feminine males. Same with lots of females in RPG that are kawai (cute) to the power of ten.

It is not for everyone.

 Melissia wrote:
"My point is that I'm tired of reading about how people seem to think that playing a game based on every day lives would somehow be fun"

You realize that the Sims is one of the most popular and profitable series in videogaming, right?

That doesn't mean it's good. Firefly only aired 5 episodes (I think) compared to the many years of Jersey Shore, it's arguable that just because something is popular doesn't mean that it's actually of better quality than the next thing.

 Frankenberry wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
"My point is that I'm tired of reading about how people seem to think that playing a game based on every day lives would somehow be fun"

You realize that the Sims is one of the most popular and profitable series in videogaming, right?

That doesn't mean it's good. Firefly only aired 5 episodes (I think) compared to the many years of Jersey Shore, it's arguable that just because something is popular doesn't mean that it's actually of better quality than the next thing.

She never said it proves it's a good game. It just proves that people want to play it and find it fun.

People enjoy watching jesery shore. feth knows why but they do.

I am disappointed with far too many games these days. We need to be tall and slim but powerful. Dominating and mysterious. Just a touch of eccentricity also.

Maybe white hair, 10' masamune blade, and random old school hockey pads.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, if we could always kill the protagonists girlfriend, that would be good.

 Frankenberry wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
"My point is that I'm tired of reading about how people seem to think that playing a game based on every day lives would somehow be fun"

You realize that the Sims is one of the most popular and profitable series in videogaming, right?

That doesn't mean it's good. Firefly only aired 5 episodes (I think) compared to the many years of Jersey Shore, it's arguable that just because something is popular doesn't mean that it's actually of better quality than the next thing.

Some things that are bad are still quite fun. See: World of Warcraft, which many people find to be fun, even though it's one of the worst MMOS ever made.

My point is that I'm tired of reading about how people seem to think that playing a game based on every day lives would somehow be fun. I think that is beyond ironic, seeing as how we play video games to escape our reality, and yet...people bitch when that escape isn't realistic enough.

IOW: I came into a thread that was people discussing their viewpoints on gender/race inclusion in video games, and found that people have a problem with that, and I don't like it so I'm going to make a blanket statement and act like it's a universal truth.

...

There's a growing number of games that are very much "realistic" or "based on realistic people", because studios (especially independent studios) are realizing that video games, given their cultural ubiquity, can actually mean something more than disposable entertainment.

Although we aren't "there" yet with a truly great work of art, video games are being seen more and more like a work of art, akin to a novel or a play, than simply moving some pixels around on the screen. Even some of the AAA studios are starting to touch on this, to dip their toes into more-serious storytelling, dealing with more-serious themes and over-arching plot elements.

The push to realism is, basically, a fact of video games from the beginning until now, and will continue.

Compare "Adventure" on the Atari 2600:


To the much-more-recent game Skyrim:



Not only have the graphics gotten closer and closer to photo-realism (and, in some cases, almost as real as real), but audio tracks and voice-over work, too, have advanced right along with the graphics. Realistic lighting and physics engines, avatar ragdoll effects, analog movement controls that let you either tip-toe along, or sprint flat-out, rather than move at a constant, invariable pace. With the advent of "augmented reality" systems, we are taking yet another evolutionary step to making video games "as real as real".

... and this doesn't even touch on the crapload of "Realism" mods available for games like Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, etc. that require the player to attend to the human needs of their character during the course of game-play.

The demand is there. Players want their adventure-time to adhere as closely as possible to real life. Some, obviously, do not. And that's fine, but don't act like people who want their games to be more like real-life are somehow the odd ones, or are somehow "whining". There are definite issues in the gaming industry, and among the fandom, in that very large swathes of the games, and a very vocal subset (minority? majority? Does it matter) of the fandom are practicing, or are attempting to practice, a form of segregation, where things are pretty fine, as far as representation goes, if you're a white male, and there's a few white female roles, but only 2 major, non-caricature depictions of black males (one in Valve's L4D... and it isn't Coach, that character's a trope... one in Tell-Tale Games' "The Walking Dead") and one black female (in Valve's L4D2). While I'm sure there's more, the fact that I cannot easily think of them should indicate the scope of the problem. The number of games that permit character customization is fairly low (compared to all games with recognizably-human characters), and in some of those games, your customization options are often "some variation of white guy".

MMOs, obviously, are an exception to this, though MMOs often have the same problems that comic books and fantasy art have with female representation.

Can you imagine growing up a huge fan of video games but being a person of color? Where's the video game heroes for you? Where's the video game characters that even suggest that people of color exist in these fantasy worlds? Where's a character that's not a caricature? Only recently have we started seeing characters who were people of color in major, pivotal roles that were not caricatures, like some wannabe-Dennis Rodman or a Mike Tyson clone, or a character that walked out of a 1970s blaxploitation film.

To quote Jamin Warren (co-founder of Kill Screen) "When the time comes for a child to ask "Who am I?," games, like all great art forms, should have an answer. The worry is that the response, more often than not, is nothing at all".

And that's really, really sad that this artform, now approaching its 60th birthday, has that as an answer to that question... in that it really doesn't have an answer, both for people of color and for girls and young women. This is changing (slowly), but there seems to be an absolutely *deplorable* amount of push-back against it, as if video games including more women and more minorities somehow means that other games won't be made... which is both counter-productive and stupid.

So I'm going to hop into this because I haven't learned not to play with fire!

As per Franken's post. Now then, I'll say I don't think really there's a big market for realistic games. Games with authenticy? Most certainly. Realistic where you just go about a completely ordinary life? No. Games strive often for authenticy in their sense of realism and touch on different subjects. Even Sims is, in reality is often played to just god over some people and screw with the people. Basically play a really fickle god that can't decide whether he loves them or loathes them with a passion of a thousand blazing stars. That said, there is a massive demand for games with an authentic feel to them as Psi mentions. Heck, I'm playing Fallout NV again and I almost always have Project Nevada on. A mod that really fleshes out the game and makes it feel less clunky, more gamey, head shots against enemies without helmets are gruesome, leg crippling is significantly worse, and edits to survival mechanics which is in a game that already had them in it. Does that mean tossing aside the dragons, the robots, and the energy guns or wacky stuff? Not really. Gonna kill the murderhobo adventuring around? Not really but it's something that's become popular or has been. Not that you won't also have Borderlands games where they decide to make ammo shoot super slow and inaccurate.

That said, I would like to direct a question at Psienesis as to the push-back against people of color and females. Where have you seen it? I mean, I've just never really seen full blown rage against it besides small pockets throughout the years which, considering how the internet functions, this seems to happen in basically everything from cinema to tv shows to games when they come online. Along with this odd sense of the internet hates absolutely everything at the same time .

As per myself, I think that there's almost a negative feedback loop. Games are getting pricey in development where games can be considered failures despite great sale numbers. A combination of developers originally being white males developing games for people that were primarily white males lead to a pretty significant bias. Toss on cultural upheavals, the fact that there's still flaws in filming and music further exacerbating it, and then toss on the fact that, at the moment women are statistically focused upon games such as the facebook sort, solitaire, etc with one significant exception being WoW where it's a closer balance between the two sexes (which might or might not show signs that further inclusiveness could boost up interest although to what degree I don't quite know). Is it biologically a general assumption of preference, life teaching you cultural values that inclinate these things, some mix of the two, or something else entirely? Frankly I'm just tossing out guesses at this point. Then there is the fact that games are so risky in general that companies step it cautious, publishers worry and further block certain aspects and you can see drops. Companies start thinking that putting some female character on it won't work possibly from faulty calculations, and so on.

Really I think the biggest thing to influence it would simply be an increased number of Colored people and Females in game development. I really do think that's part of the reason it's been on rise (honestly almost feeling like it's made more progress on females in comparison to colored people in general). Also big successes with good representations will probably encourage more to follow it. That's my best bet.

StarTrotter wrote:Now then, I'll say I don't think really there's a big market for realistic games. Games with authenticy? Most certainly. Realistic where you just go about a completely ordinary life? No.

That's a good point, to a degree. Realism makes an experience more authentic, and games are about providing experiences different than your everyday life.

That being said, there are games like Train Simulator or Farm Simulator etc that seem to be at least somewhat popular (in that they are successful enough to be widely known and get more and more DLC every year). The truth is that "completely ordinary life" is something very subjective, and what can be boring for one person (because they do it everyday) can be exciting for another. So much so that people pay good money to be allowed to work on a farm and call that a vacation.

I actually agree that Sims is not an ideal example, although I think that's true for a different reason, namely that Sims is (or at least can be) about ordinary life, but it's not realistic as you have much more control over it and good things just fall into your lap. In essence, the game is heavily biased towards making your characters lead an exciting, happy life in the lap of luxury. But it's still about living a civilian life, not saving the world.
In this, the Sims is like the polar opposite of Fallout or Skyrim, where things are much more realistic (as per their own world) and grim, but you still get to play the hero. And then there are quasi-sandbox games like Elite, that let you be a merchant or a miner or an interstellar bus driver - a fairly ordinary profession, except that it's IN SPACE, which makes it far more exciting for us than it would be for the people who may do this sort of job in a thousand years from now.

I suppose this entire sub-debate about ordinary lives has become somewhat off-topic. The bottom line is that greater variety between character types makes for improved authenticity, and for some people that is a huge bonus to immersion.

StarTrotter wrote:That said, I would like to direct a question at Psienesis as to the push-back against people of color and females. Where have you seen it?

I'm gonna take a guess and say various gaming site comment fields, youtube, his facebook feed, and even dakka. Gamergate anyone?

This belongs more into the other thread, though, even though the issues are connected (which is why I feel it may have been a mistake to split up the topics, given that both have the same source of the problem: the "default protagonist"), for I haven't seen as much in terms of pushback against people of colour - albeit the most likely reason for this would be that there hasn't been much in terms of a push FOR them, either, compared to the current conflict in gender equality which is raging on multiple fronts simultaneously, so it may just be a question of timing.

There is an interesting article touching on that subject here, though:
http://newamericamedia.org/2011/09/gamer-to-game-makers-wheres-the-diversity.php

StarTrotter wrote:Really I think the biggest thing to influence it would simply be an increased number of Colored people and Females in game development.

And publishers, for as it turned out, even a studio willing to go for less conventional characters can face quite a lot of resistance - and no money means no game being made.

There is no variety in male character

All huge bulky tough grizzled war veterans.

Pretty much every video game protagonist

Kind of makes it boring and dull

 StarTrotter wrote:

Really I think the biggest thing to influence it would simply be an increased number of Colored people and Females in game development.

What's so sad about it: the only constructive thing about #Gamergate and anything surrounding it, aka female developers being supported to make an own game, was initiated by a group of men.

There actually are more women involved in the creation of games than one might assume, they mostly take care of art design etc. They still are in the minory, which mirrors the market. Men are widely dominant in the design of core games because it was mostly men who grew up with video games when they were young and on top of that, they design games for, mostly, men.

When looking at mobile games, that soon changes and women grow more frequent - and again, they mirror the market

This is same issue (diversity) that is seen in the comic book and tech industry: people hire friends/people in the same circles which reinforce the same homogeneous environment. And while having a greater diversity of designers would be good, let's not let the current groups off the hook. People have to learn empathy and being able to expand their comfort zone. I am wary that if that is not supported, women or minority designers will automatically be pigeonholed into being responsible for having to be the flag bearers for diversity. That is not fair to limit them to that.

And I hopeful that we will continue to expand our range of characters.

 Lynata wrote:
That being said, there are games like Train Simulator or Farm Simulator etc that seem to be at least somewhat popular (in that they are successful enough to be widely known and get more and more DLC every year).

Alright then, I'll seccede on some of my points. I still doubt somebody wants a 100% realistic game set on farming where you have to restroom, eat, sleep, take care of a family, take care of crops, etc in a 100% genuine manner (unless we make some neural head one that basically puts you into the world. Then I'd totally buy the heck out of that!) Still, I'll agree with you on that. And as per the last part I'll be honest, I'm totally fine with us moving away from the 30 year old grizzly bearded aftershave brown haired sometimes buzzcut white dude that's in a physically prime stage or dramatically over what could be considered healthy fit. Then again I play a game that has super beefy usually bald Space Marines so maybe I can't really be too critical of it

Joking aside I'm actually playing as a blacksmith orc right now in Skyrim. A bit frustrating (I'd love to find a mod to make a shop). Toss in a bit of adventuring and the mod that turned off me being a dragonborn. It's honestly pretty fun despite it's faulty parts.

 Lynata wrote:
I'm gonna take a guess and say various gaming site comment fields, youtube, his facebook feed, and even dakka. Gamergate anyone? I

This belongs more into the other thread, though, even though the issues are connected (which is why I feel it may have been a mistake to split up the topics, given that both have the same source of the problem: the "default protagonist"), for I haven't seen as much in terms of pushback against people of colour - albeit the most likely reason for this would be that there hasn't been much in terms of a push FOR them, either, compared to the current conflict in gender equality which is raging on multiple fronts simultaneously, so it may just be a question of timing.

This belongs more into the other thread, though, even though the issues are connected (which is why I feel it may have been a mistake to split up the topics, given that both have the same source of the problem: the "default protagonist"), for I haven't seen as much in terms of pushback against people of colour - albeit the most likely reason for this would be that there hasn't been much in terms of a push FOR them, either, compared to the current conflict in gender equality which is raging on multiple fronts simultaneously, so it may just be a question of timing.

 AdeptSister wrote:
This is same issue (diversity) that is seen in the comic book and tech industry: people hire friends/people in the same circles which reinforce the same homogeneous environment. And while having a greater diversity of designers would be good, let's not let the current groups off the hook. People have to learn empathy and being able to expand their comfort zone. I am wary that if that is not supported, women or minority designers will automatically be pigeonholed into being responsible for having to be the flag bearers for diversity. That is not fair to limit them to that.

And I hopeful that we will continue to expand our range of characters.

No offense, but those are empty words. The question is - how do you want to back those up? The premise that more women in gaming will automatically mean better games is foolish and naive.

In order for there to be a change, there have to be women MAKING games. And women making games must make GOOD games in order to be appreciated for their work instead of their gender or their victimization as the latter are sexism. And women making games need to stand up against the very vocal slacktivists who only care for their fame and money. Those people slander the actual work of women in the industry.