You see the problem. When white gamers are forced to play people not of their race, it’s “forced politics;” when I’m forced into the same scenario, it’s business as usual. When you complain, you’re making a fuss and being political. The argument is a bit scary when you break it down: The only way games can avoid politics in this situation is to pretend that people of color don’t exist.
We should raise concerns about race, but it needs to be consistent. Race shouldn’t only be an issue for gamers when some white gamers express concerns.
Outstanding article.
Not sure I agree that Witcher 3 has a race problem given its setting, but that’s not an argument I want to pursue here. Of course I would expect nothing less from a polygon article.
I think any white person that would complain about having to play as a non-white person is a fool. I didn’t even realize that was a thing.
I think it only becomes a problem when people try to ‘solve’ it in historical settings.
An example, if the character you are playing is a British naval general in the 1800s it would be odd if they made the character black. Flip side would be if the leader of the Zulus was white. The reality of the time is those characters would not exist.
However, you go to somewhere where history Isn’t relevant, Mass Effect for example. Then it really shouldn’t matter what colour the characters are. Only on commenting here did I consider it in games I am currently playing and Pikmin come in a variety of colours so it may be ok…
That made me think if I’ve played any games with non-white protagonists and I realized that e.g. Telltale’s Walking Dead has a black protagonist. I just had never thought about the fact that I was playing as a black guy, it just didn’t even occur to me. I guess I just am not enough of a racist to even notice such things.
I remember playing Frontier Elite 2, there was some alien races, and also white dwarfs, red giants, black (ass)holes, yet I neither noticed it.
Some people should really be over sensitive/focused on some subjects. That’s the way wars starts, but of course its not their fault, it *had* to be noticed and discussed, matter of mutual (understand one way) respect.
Indeed, one of my favorite game series is Portal, and it never bothered me that I was a man playing the role of a woman in that game. And I never even considered her appearance until after reading this article; is she white or mixed-race (looking at the avatar either seems possible to me)? I don’t know and I don’t care, I just like solving puzzles using portals!
Witcher isn’t historically accurate – you can’t say a black person would be unrealistic when you have a game filled with monsters and magic, and you especially can’t fallback on some artificial “realism” when you have you give Arab names to white people.
I don’t know what you mean by naval general (Since I don’t believe that is a thing), but there was at least one Captain in the Royal Navy that was black during the 18th century – Captain Jack Perkins captured 315 ships in a two year period (1778-79) while captain of a 10-gun schooner. He eventually rose in ranks, captaining larger and larger vessels war vessels before retirement.
This is what I mean. Some random guy writes a story on the internet to get everyone all riled up. People pick up on certain points and take them for gospel…
The 1st witcher game does have a character named Azar Javed. That character is Zerrikanian, and in the Witcher universe they are described as dark skinned. He is not a white guy.
This is what he looks like in the game:
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/erikkain/files/2015/06/azar.png
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vfqMUKycxEc/maxresdefault.jpg
Does that look like a white guy to you? Do the developers have a moral obligation to represent fictional races in ways that align with actual ones? No, he doesn’t look exactly like someone of Arab or African descent – but he certainly isn’t a “white guy”.
This is one of the only Zerrikanian characters in any of the games. I’m all for adding more. Lets do that. But keep it in the story, that is all I’m saying. Maybe they aren’t ready to tell that part of the story yet?
To be fair, in the books Zerrikanian is only briefly mentioned. I think the games at this point have represented Zerrikanian more than the books have…
Let’s all kick them in the teeth for that.
It’s not depicting a real world, but it has a quite well defined world on the other hand (created by Andrzej Sapkowski). So deviating from it drastically is not something that authors ever intended. Therefore your idea isn’t applicable.
See my comment about it below.
Edited 2015-06-05 04:03 UTC
Think Admiral or First sea lord then if that makes it easier. Technically the RN don’t have generals.
True but on the other hand there are plenty of games (and movies, for that matter) where the protagonist is white for no really good reason.
On a related note, I think Rust’s way of doing the skin colour is a pretty neat idea. I have really no idea why any sane person would have a problem with this. “I don’t get to play as my own race”. Oh cry me a river, there are millions of gamers who don’t ever get to play as their own race so shut it and suck it up.
Edited 2015-06-05 06:46 UTC
These people really don’t get it. I want a coherent story that is enjoyable to play while still as credible as possible. I want characters that fit a story, not a story that fits a bunch of predefined characters. It’s all about immersion. I don’t care about a character’s skin colour an sich, I care that it fits the context and doesn’t break the suspension of disbelief. And I think it’s the storyteller’s artistic freedom to decide on what is appropriate for his story.
As a final note, there’s hardly been any outrage about Rust anyway, other than in the media of course. And they all quote the same Steam forum post where the complainer was shouted at by pretty much everyone else for being a bigot.
Edited 2015-06-04 15:10 UTC
What a load of bollocks.
It was a-ok before the rust update for every character to be white, no one seemed to be requesting a character choice, now that its random, its a big deal it breaks immersion, people have the right to hurl insults at their characters because of the characters skin colour … …
I should have really read your comment right the way through before unleashing mine, but all you need to do is play through a few games of COD and listen to the insults being thrown to realise just how widespread racism is, its abundant, the internet allows the closet racists to step out.
I’ve played games for a very long time, I cannot remember seeing a single protagonist character in a AAA game being anything other than white and I’ve played a lot of games, sure where you can alter the characters appearance it maybe possible to alter skin colour, which is a handful of AAA titles at best, even then lets take borderlands, I cant remember any of the characters being anything other than different White character choices. Mirrors edge, she wasn’t Caucasian that’s about the only lead character I can think of.
Taking into consideration that gaming appeals to a global audience with massive followings from all cultures, how often do you hear complaints about black or Asian guys having to play as white characters ? Yet when the tables turned a shit storm brews.
N.B. I really dislike polygon.
Edited 2015-06-04 16:23 UTC
Edit: never mind, you edited your post. I’ll remove my counter argument. I also don’t deny nor agree with the existence of racism in the world of video games. However, I am saying that there are other legitimate arguments as to why some things that are perceived as racism, have in fact, nothing to do with racism. Don’t just dismiss those arguments because they also benefit a group of bigots.
Edited 2015-06-04 16:48 UTC
Meh, I can’t edit any more but I noticed I worded that in a really poor way that may be misunderstood. I meant that I acknowledge the existence of racists in video games (just like everywhere else in the world) but I strongly disapprove of them. As an old admin, I’ve done my fair share of banning these idiots. There’s that
Edited 2015-06-04 16:58 UTC
The main character of GTA: San Andreas, 2 Assassin’s Creed games also, Beyond Good and Evil, Afro Samurai , there is Suffering and Shadowman coming to my head immediately if it is about story oriented games.
In other categories there are lot more…
Exactly. This “controversy” is completely manufactured. No one who actually plays the game really cares, because it doesn’t materially change anything about the game negatively. It’s all the noise and distraction this has generated that frustrates players.
The real story has nothing to do with racism or bigotry. The real story should be about how gamers are getting tired of the media hijacking their gaming experience to make social or political statements that have nothing to do with the game.
Developer decides the need to solve the “default white dude” problem. Instead of introducing character customization, they do something a bit different – assign a random race you can’t change.
Neat. Problem is solved. It adds an interesting flavor to the game that wasn’t there before. I like it. Most players do. But not according to the media. According to the media there is some big divide, raging and sobbing and great nashing of teeth… Bullshit.
This formula is getting old and tired:
1. Developer does something sure to incite a reaction from some tiny demographic of idiots.
2. Media picks up on this and waits with batted breathe…
3. On cue, a few idiots react exactly as expected.
4. Media yells paydirt and spends weeks painting the idiots as representative of the entire gaming community.
5. Everyone feels compelled to take a side because of all the hoopla, so they do…
Its all a bunch of horsesh*t. Had they added the ability to choose a race it would have solved the problem at hand – but they did something a bit more creative… I’m down with that. Its the f*cking media turning this into a giant “controversy” that pisses me off.
Personally I expect they will soon add gender randomization as well. I think that would be a great feature for this game, except I already know I will have to deal with yet another media onslaught over it…
I feel like as a society we are (almost) all past this stuff already. Its the f*cking media that keeps dragging everyone back into the stone ages every chance they get…
And what exactly does forcing a white person to play as a black character solve, exactly? If a particular white player hates black people, does the developer think that by forcing them to play as one, he/she will realize the error of their ways? That would be like if I told you I really didn’t like hip hop music, you locked me in a room and force me to listen to Lil Wayne for three days straight… as if I would come out of an experience like that with my mind totally changed. If anything, it makes the problem even worse.
There are ways to try and deal with racism, but this ain’t one of them.
That’s just it. They weren’t trying to deal with racism. They were trying to make their game better…
It is the media that turned it into a race issue.
No, it wasn’t the media that turned it into a race issue. It was people that were offended that they couldn’t choose to not be black that turned it into a race issue.
One blog post and one article (as far as I’ve seen) talking about it, making the rounds, is not “the media” inventing a thing that didn’t happen.
Google “Rust random race”. I stopped counting the social commentary pieces when I got to 50, but there are plenty more than that.
Contrast that with a search on the Steam comments page for this game… I loaded up “more comments” in the negative reviews section about 100 times. I never found the word “race” even mentioned.
How about this. You go out any hunt for comments from actual players who had a problem with this feature… Come back with a number. I guarentee you I can find more “social commentary” blog posts than that number…
That’s an arbitrary bar to set. What about the post where the guy said he was planning on buying the game, but didn’t because of the race thing? Does his opinion not count?
Attitudes on race (and gender, and religion) aren’t confined to specific markets – gamers who are upset about race in games actually do exist in other elements of society – they vote, they donate to politicians, they interact with me and my neighbors. They participate in society, and do so in public. Why should other members of the public be disallowed from thinking and commenting about other aspects of public society just because they aren’t immediately and directly involved? Were this the 60’s, should I not be upset about segregation at the soda counter, because I neither live in the South nor patronize that shop? “Oh, well, I don’t shop at that Thrifty drug store, so I guess I have no reason to be mad that they won’t serve black people.”
That’s ridiculous. That’s not how society advances.
Edited 2015-06-05 01:07 UTC
I was looking at reviews, not the discussion forums, but whatever. I see a few remarks in there about the random race feature, but most of them are not posts voicing offence, they are questions about why it was done this way. Only a handful sound racist imo – but fair enough, there are a few… Given the game has almost 2.5 million players I think the amount of outrage is pretty insignificant.
Anyway, I don’t want to argue over minutiae – because that is my entire point. The people who are really offended about this are minutiae, we would be better served as a society to ignore them rather them give them voice by amplifying their statements every time one of them squeaks.
The hundreds of bloggers writing all of these social commentary pieces don’t care about advancing society, they care about advertising dollars and the sound of their own voices in the wind.
I still say the problem is the media.
Oh, okay. I was under the mistaken impression that the entire reason they did it was to make a political statement. Maybe just me misreading the original article Thom put up about this.
Not surprised… All the articles make it sound like this was some form of political statement, because all the “social warriors” can’t fathom any other reason to do something like this… It it isn’t a political statement they can’t wrap their minds around it, and it certainly wouldn’t be worth reporting on…
Fact is they did it primarily for the reasons I described. Its buried in the quotes in just about every article about this. So is the fact that most of the users were just fine with it, and the fact that the user base largely self policed any people who start mouthing off about it.
Yet I don’t see any articles titled:
“Rust Devs Demonstrate That Maybe Gamers Aren’t All Bigots”
or
“Rust’s ‘Random Race’ Feature Shows that There is Still Hope”
nope. What we see is:
“Rust Chooses Players’ Race For Them, Things Get Messy”
and my favorite
“Yes, Race Matters in Gaming: Rust Reveals That”
…when the whole entire point of randomizing race is to make it not matter.
Sure, some other articles were written responsibly and just reported the facts. But we aren’t here talking about those are we? We are talking about this one…
Edited 2015-06-05 02:59 UTC
Eh, it’s click bait. Seems like you care about this a little too much. Not like these bloggers are journalists or anything …
I share his frustration. To you and me they’re just bloggers who don’t know what they’re talking about and like to stir up controversy where there is none, but to the rest of the world they’re received as insightful, objective and bringers of the plain truth. People now have the impression that gamers (and often nerds in general) are racists, sexists, sadists, sociopaths; all based on … exactly nothing. But clearly those gamers must be protected from themselves, let’s ban some games before it gets worse! It’s annoying to see all these discussions based on deliberate misinformation.
Yeah, there are a few rotten apples, you find them everywhere in the world. But they’re a tiny fraction, a non-issue, everyone ignores, kicks or bans them. Except in the media, because it’s a juicy story.
And the thing is, I noticed this isn’t just the games media, but the media in general that suffers from the same controversy/outrage disease. It’s really hard to find out how much of a story and its context is true. The ones writing the stories are often not the ones doing the investigating. They’re hardly more informed than you and I.
Edited 2015-06-05 08:09 UTC
On another note…
I’m very much opposed to the general swing towards political correctness just-for-the-sake-of-it in gaming. You can read lots of comments I wrote here about that. So we are probably on the same page in many regards. But…
If I’m a game developer, should I really be concerned about how white players that hate black people feel about anything? At all?
Aren’t those people the tiny little demographic (and throw in the sexist asshats while we are at it) that causes everyone all the grief?
Seriously. F*ck them. Who cares?
This is similar to the media kerfuffle over “angry misogynists” supposedly “boycotting Mad Max” because of Imperator Furiosa. There were articles on numerous well known blogs and websites, and it was even picked up by the mainstream media, with them all making it sound like a significant number of men were freaking out over the film featuring a strong female character.
Here’s a sample copy/pasted from a quick Google search, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/13/mad-max-fury-road-mr…
http://www.dailydot.com/geek/reviewer-reaction-mad-max-sexism/
http://www.themarysue.com/mra-to-the-max/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/20/mad-max-how-mras-k…
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/mad-max-…
http://www.avclub.com/article/mad-men-mad-mad-max-having-mad-women-…
http://screencrush.com/mad-max-fury-road-feminism-mras/
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/13/always_maintain_your_masculinity_mi…
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/15/the-man-o-sphe…
http://www.alternet.org/media/mens-rights-activists-pissed-about-ne…
But when you actually go looking for what triggered those articles, the many more written about it, and the thousands of comments and forum posts they spawned, it turns out it was just one article on an obscure traditionalist conservative blog, along with a couple of Youtube comments.
That was somehow enough for them to portray it as a serious backlash against better representation of women in movies. In fact, there were easily as many feminists who had criticisms of the movie — its violence and arguable objectification of women got it savaged by Anita Sarkeesian — but they weren’t mentioned as they didn’t fit the “angry misogynist men” narrative.
Perhaps unintended but you mentioned another good point there. Media manufacture outrage => people talk about the media and get outraged and angry with each other => suddenly there is ‘proof’ that there is a real outrage because “look at all these comments talking about it!”. Duh. If they hadn’t made it up, there wouldn’t be any comments.
And of course, Wikipedia then puts all the media sources in there and the fabricated story suddenly became truth.
I agree with the rest of your post as well.
Edited 2015-06-05 10:07 UTC
It is necessary to impose a minimum of n% coloured characters in every game/movie! LOL
And of course one or two lgbt characters too.
Gamers, by their nature are basically large enough to be a more than accurate representation of society at large. So, to be fair when ever you see “Gamers” feel free to put in “people”.
The best way to say this to appease gamers, is to focus on something they usually want: the games to be immersive and more “real”. No one would argue that today’s graphics are perfect and can’t be improved or the stories are the best ever, or the animation and immersion can’t be improved. So basically, the race of the characters can also be tweaked to improve the experience for everyone. Don’t frame it as “Gamers and video gamer producers are racists”. Even though it might be true, no one wants to be called something that everyone sees as a negative weather they are or not.
No. no. no.
Don’t tweak races – that doesn’t improve the experience for anyone. It also directly interferes with your first point…
We need new stories.
Rust is a perfect example. They had the “everyone is a white dude” problem. Making everyone a random race that you can’t change not only fixes the problem, it improves the story. Everyone being a white dude is not only racially biased, it is totally unrealistic. Random races fit the game perfectly. Your only objective is to survive, and you don’t get to choose who you are.
But Witcher 3??? It is a story that takes place in a real setting and in a real time. At that time, in that place, there were virtually no people of color. Tweaking the race of characters in a game like this is silly and destructive… It serves no purpose other than ticking a political correctness checkbox.
Now if it were a game taking place in ancient Egypt and everyone was white??? Yeah, that is a problem – because everyone was black. Do we need to add a few token white guys to it? No, not unless the story calls for it.
My point is the lack of characters of color in a game like Witcher 3 isn’t really a problem. The problem is we need more diversity in the stories.
I’m all for credible stories that explore cultures different from mine – that is the whole point of games. We need more diversity, absolutely. What we don’t need is “tweaking” of races for the sake of political correctness.
Edited 2015-06-04 17:49 UTC
Realized I worded something very poorly – too late to edit.
“Real” is as in established in the books. It is Slavic mythology. I am quite aware it is fictional
I didn’t mention any video games by name. I merely said that the choice of the race of the characters is an area that can be improved to make games better.
Sorry, I wasn’t trying to direct any angst at you.
I just think the choice of race should be driven by the story and the circumstances – not by political correctness. It seems everyone wants to deal with this by marginalizing race, instead of embracing what it represents.
People are different. Cultures are different. I feel like the current drive to change this is to make everyone the same by artificially making everyone different, so that the differences don’t mean anything anymore. Everyone seems to forget that games are supposed to be entertainment…
I don’t want to be denied a good gaming experience that tells a interesting story from the point of view of a particular ethnic group. If some race is under represented in it, and that representation is accurate in the underlying story, why is that a problem? Where does that end? Do we make Ceasar black in a game about ancient Rome? Is the Pharaoh an Asian guy in a game about ancient Egypt? Why???
No, but he should be middle eastern or African in appearance.
That isn’t political correctness, that’s just correctness.
Totally agree.
He should look Mediterranean (North African/Greek). The ones who looked black were Nubians who lived in far the south (Sudan), but were part of Egypt nonetheless. They were around as soldiers and workers and were definitely not related to the ruling Pharaohs who had Greek/Egyptian roots (and often pretzel-incestuous to keep the bloodline pure).
This wasn’t really addressed to anyone, just some information for those who care. I only wanted to clear some misconceptions about ancient Rome and Egypt. History is quite entertaining
Even more unrelated but talking about accuracy and credible stories: one thing I really dislike is the common representation of Viking helmets as having horns. They’re completely impractical for fighting! It was a fashion thing started in the late 19th century. It’s so factually wrong it hurts and ruins a story way harder than any out of place skin colour (to me at least). Damn you Skyrim.
Edited 2015-06-04 21:20 UTC
You need to see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24qJXgiuO1E
was actually a thing. It’s a small place and people traveled, even then. This is reflected in the art of various eras. Take a look around this tumblr. It’s nice. http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/
Make all game characters blue. There, problem solved.
Oh wait. Cameron will sue us all.
I know you’re just being sarcastic, but that would actually only solve half the problem. It would end the “I’m forced to play a white dude” issue but does nothing for the “I want more diversity” side or the “I want to play my own race” side; you’re just replacing whitewash with bluewash. It also removes some of the immersion from the game, especially if the avatar is supposed to be a human (there are no naturally occurring blue-skinned humans (yet)).
Maybe I’m just different, but I prefer to play non-human characters in games that allow for it, especially MMOs; I feel more immersed that way. In games where the avatar is fixed to one race/gender/species, I don’t even think about it, I just play the damned game.
Because I recently saw something about this on tv I couldn’t resist.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/blue-skinned-people-kentucky-reveal-to…
Edit: Sorry, let me expand. Their condition is a genetic anomaly. Yes, it is “naturally occurring” to them, but it’s not an entire race of people, just a fraction of a subset of a local group of people, so it doesn’t really apply to this discussion in my mind.
Then again, the differences among all of us are genetic, so maybe I’m in the wrong here.
Edited 2015-06-04 22:05 UTC
Article misses the point. In Witcher world other people races live far away in the south (in places like Zerrikania and beyond). In the Northern Kingdoms (where the games take place) there are various races of non humans however. Zerrikanians do appear in Witcher books / games, but they are as exotic as Africans appearing in the world of medieval Vikings let’s say.
Example: http://witcher.gamepedia.com/Azar_Javed
What irritates me about such self proclaimed critics is their total lack of any knowledge about what they are criticizing. Did they even read Witcher books or researched the world of the games they are talking about? I’m sure they didn’t. It totally discredits their criticism and makes one ignore them altogether.
Imagine someone making a book or game about Vikings, and critics complaining that there wasn’t enough race variety presented. It’s beyond idiotic.
Reminds me how Anita Sarkeesian criticizes games without having any clue about actual games she is criticizing. Such people aren’t critics – they are frauds. Proper critics do research first.
Edited 2015-06-04 19:54 UTC
But why doesn’t white people whining about not getting to play as a white person irritate you?
Edited 2015-06-05 06:54 UTC
If some criticize what they have no clue about – they irritate me all the same, no matter the context. It means they are doing it for PR, and not because they really have something valid to say.
Edited 2015-06-05 07:34 UTC
I’ll give the witcher a pass due to having a time and my this behind it. It would have been plausible to have geralt customization of face, skin tone and such since he could have gained the appearance as a mutation since the first game.
But on that same vein: I go a step further: custom race and gender should make it to more games, and other colors if they’re mutants and robots for example.
Yeah sure it makes the game have either a generic script or more writing and voice acting, but that opens a whole lot more of buyers and empowers a new generation of gamers that might finally level the field. Not only that, I personally like staring at a female ass if given the choice, and so would a lot of people…
You know, Witcher 3 is based on eastern-europe legends and traditions from a book. There weren’t much color people during the time period when those legends were created, man, there aren’t even today. I respect the setting where the game story is set on the same way I resped Assassin’s Creed Freecom Cry that I loved to play and kill those white bastards the were enslaving color people. Because you know, this was the setting of the game.
What it seems to me, is that people want to impose their modern 21st century vision over game stories that are NOT set nowaday no matter what.
I can accepct that for GTA games that are also set on modern times.
But when I play a game set in ancient China or Japan, I want to play with yellow color people, when I play a game set in Africa, I don’t want to play with a europen-white guy, when game is set in Brazil I accept anything (our country have all of them), when the game is set in middle-west I want to play with an arabic that is NOT only described as a islimic fanatic, I want to defend tribes with a red skin using an axe. I want to play with all of them, with their places and stories, I want to learn about them, I don’t want to impose to any of them my vision of word, white, black, red, or yellow.
Here’s the thing though, often when you play a game set outside of Europe you still play as a white guy, even when this barely makes sense.
Yes it is. It is exactly the same thing. Both practices are stupid.
People are not all the same race, and many stories (both fictional and real) hinge on there being both differences and disparities between races. Cultural differences define most stories, it isn’t a trope, it is a fact of life.
Does the story of Django make sense if you switch Brad Pitt’s part with Jamie Foxx’s? Should we disallow this kind of story because it centers on racial bias? There are countless examples of movies made every year where race or gender bias plays a prominent role as a story telling device. Why should games operate under different rules?
You don’t fix this by race bending, you fix it by being inclusive in your story telling. You shouldn’t bias race when it isn’t part of the story, but you also shouldn’t eliminate cultural or racial differences as a story telling device. Instead call for more diverse stories, not artificially limited ones. I’m all for that.
Race bending simply makes everything racial. There are hundreds of games where race is either not part of the equation or can (and should) be used as inclusively as possible. Do that. When race does matter, use it accurately. In the Witcher 4, maybe utilize the Zerrikanian race more. I’m all for that too.
But don’t make Eastern European characters black in a game when they are not supposed to be… That isn’t being inclusive, it’s just being dumb.
And if you want to play social warrior and point at a game to use as an example of whats wrong, at least do your research and get your evidence right.
I can’t see why they couldn’t just let the damn players choose their freakin’ avatars as they want. Nobody would’ve complained (well, there always are those who just can’t stop complaining, but still).
However: “Concerns of minority groups are not only ignored[…]” – now come on. If every game considered the concerns of all minority groups, we’d only have non-figurative scrollers, puzzles and, oh yes, candy crush.
And then “games media itself is, like the tech world, a very white-male dominated area […] not a single article asking them about no people of color” – and at this point I nearly gave up. It’s like with all the damn “reviews” and “discussions” about the mad max movie, where most people feel more inclined to talk about all kinds of [mostly] made-up discrimination issues (like “the necessity of dismantling patriarchies”, oh my) than the bloody movie. Boatloads of crap. Looks good? Yes. Charlize Theron in it? Yes (I don’t see how any man or woman – or whatever – could complain about that, but I could be surprised). Winner. Move on.
Well, we are in a world where a director actually apologizes for casting choices, which I find insane. I don’t say all kinds of people shouldn’t be cast in whetever roles they could fit in, on the contrary, I say they should have the freedom to cast whomever they want, and the bloody viewers should judge the outcome on its merits, not on the race of some actor.
Now, back to the current issue – my general view is that NPCs should be created to fit the story, however, if skin color doesn’t matter, then even if the devs would randomize each character, they’d still be criticised so I can’t really see a solution here. But the more important issue, the players’ avatars, well, there just isn’t any sane reason to limit free choice.
I don’t see why it matters.
Because they were making a story about a particular character, and not a generic story. Nothing new here, there are tons of games like that, in adventure genre especially. And Witcher games can be classified as action-adventure RPGs.
Do you also complain that Planescape: Torment has a predefined character? Or may be lack of choice in Indiana Jones adventures annoys you? And etc.
Edited 2015-06-05 07:36 UTC
Meh, such a nonissue.
When white gamers are forced to play people not of their race, it’s “forced politics;” when I’m forced into the same scenario, it’s business as usual.
In terms of how the internet talks about it, sure. But at its core, it’s the same issue: A person of a certain race wants to play as something else than the option(s) presented to them.
Make the issue about the issue, not about how it was a bit more specific in a certain case. Otherwise people will feel targeted and will not be willing to cooperate.
If you want a game with a protaganist of a certain gender/race, make it yourself. Go and find investors for it and make it.
And then don’t get sued as people find your portrayal of the character to be offensive.
I see this an incredibly good sign. If people now have nothing better to get upset about that than the skin tone options for a fictional character in a video game, then clearly it must mean that all other, more egregious & blatalnt forms of racism have been erradicated. Otherwise, this “issue” would be on par with complaining about rude waiters in the dining room on the Titanic.
Why, it seems like only yesterday that many gamers considered it acceptable to toss around racial slurs as casual smack-talk, and it would take less than minute of searching to find youtube videos or Facebook groups with blatantly racist titles (not even getting into the content & comments), and there was a certain otherwise-progressive European country where one of the most popular Christmas icons was a racist, blackface minstrel stereotype named “Black Peter.” Good to know those problems no longer exist!
Ah please, stop your American imperialism, and actually look at the historical context.
1) He’s only a blackface stereotype minstrel to you, Europe had nothing of the sort.
2) Sinterklaas actually precedes “Santa Claus”. Guess why the name is similar? And you find a similar version of him and Black Pete (again, not a blackface stereotype) in several other European countries. The Black Pete character is a merge of several stories and none of them is racist. He’s only “racist” when you look at it from your American historical context where you were actually full blown racists towards blacks and mocked them by that character. We had nothing to do with that so don’t blame us for your sins.
3) Black Pete (happy and fun) is actually more popular to children than Sinterklaas (old and serious). But you can’t have one without the other. You’re basically degrading a respected and great friend of children into a slave. Who’s the racist here?
4) The way this blew up is exactly the same as in this story. The media has nothing better to do that stir up controversy where there was hardly any. And then uninformed idiots believe them.
I’m so tired about all these outsiders actually americanowashing another culture because they’re too dumb to even look at the context. Learn some history and stop enforcing crimes from your own past on other unrelated cultures. You’ll make the world a better place if you open your mind to other cultural perspectives first without condemning them for things your ancestors did wrong. Thank you.
Edited 2015-06-06 12:52 UTC
There is only one race (human beings) but of different colors.
Some white people in the past seems to think that the the universe was only filled with white men and everything else are sub humans. This happened, being inspired by the faulty evolution theory. I don’t know if there are some white people that still do believe this.
This article is actually very bad. The witcher looks to be completely infused with culture from the developer’s nationality, so as can be expected everyone looks (gasp!) Polish. This is cause for celebration, not complaints that the diversity is not the kind you would like (in the case of polygon: black).
Instead of bashing a developer, accusing them of racism, polygon should be asking why there are no big titles like the witcher whose culture is inherited from, say, Africa.
Martin Luther King Jr. said something about the quality of a person’s character being the focus, and not the genitals they have, or the color of their flesh.
Sadly, all I ever here about is which genitals a person has, and what color their skin is.
In effect, people have created forms of reversed racism, reversed sexism, and they no longer look for the right person for the job, they look for a color, or a gender which specific traits that match those of their agenda, then they put them in the position that needed filled and in their hearts, they believe they are doing good.
Please, don’t infect videogames with this bullshit.
I’m sick of it.