From The Department Of Obvious Research:

[theweaselking]

Video games overwhelmingly favour white people as the only viable player choices, and in the cases where you get to be non-white, your family are still overwhelmingly white.

For bonus points, take a guess as to how many comments it takes before you hit the Dork Tower Trifecta of unbathed and overprivileged gamers defending the practice, and then click through to see if you were right.

Comments

[anivair.livejournal.com]

I have noted before that it seems to be that contemporary and sci-fi games seem to have a way better mix of non-white races as well as not straight options in both games and fiction. The further into classic fantasy you get, the harder it seems to be to insert these things into the setting in a lot of games and fiction. Even in my own games, I noticed that I was doing this (though I hope it's more because I'm basically regurgitating things I've seen before in fantasy). Since I noticed, I've rounded out my games a lot racially and along gender/sexual orientation lines. Granted, it's not all happy-frappy egalitarian because that would make for a boring story (if a fine place to live) but at least now I have given thought to it and don't just handwave it.

I suspect a ton of this also have to do with how white the video game audience is (or was, for the majority of the evolution of games here).

Also, as we have seen often in anime and other forms of entertainment, people tend to look how you want them to look. Many white people (myself included sometimes) see anime characters with distinctly asian features as looking white. Hell, even after I look back and forth at actual photographs of asian and white faces, and see how they match up, it STILL sometimes looks white to my stubborn indoctrinated brain which, deep, down, just wants to see me and my family plastered all over the place. Having played fallout, a lot of those faces he claims look white are not really white at all in game play (though in creation, they do all lighten up a bit. that's because the game is designed to b e played with low light all around you, i think).

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that last point reminds me of when Final Fantasy: Advent Children came out, and suddenly Cloud was an Asian guy with bleached hair, rather than Generic White Dude. It was surprising, but cool. (I'm still not sure about Sephiroth though!)

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Was he portrayed as white or did people assume he was white?

[anivair.livejournal.com]

I really think it was the latter, though in their defense he DID have blonde hair and blue eyes. It's hard to make the leap from that to "totally looks like the image I have in my brain of Asian people" even if you have a pretty healthy one. Maybe if you live in Tokyo and regularly see the double rainbow that is the normal cultural faire there (insofar as hair colors, hair styles, eye colors, clothing colors, etc) it would be more obvious. But then again, maybe if you were asian you would be making the same assumptions that white people do. I think cloud looks pretty white when we first see him, anyway. Recent images are clearly asian.

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

This, plus the art style for him at the time of the game didn't really scream "Asian" either, but that was probably more the style than his actual specific depiction.

But yeah, I like probably many others just assume "oh, white guy," until Advent Children.

For the record, there's an older pic here, and here is a newer image.

[dreamshade.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in retrospect, the race thing really comes into play with anime characters - especially when they try to do black people in anime, which ends up just having an anime character that looks like she's got a really deep tan.

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

I'm going to say 2. And thats because I think someone made a "first" comment...

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

They actually warn/suspend people at the Escapist for a "first" comment, so I would say take one off from your estimate.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Notably, the first comment on all threads at The Escapist is also a synopsis and link back to the article itself.

So you might want to add that one back again.

[dreamshade.livejournal.com]

And just today, I was also linked this article on the reactions to criticism of a particular female game character's personality. ...And then saw this forum post of people making the expected comments.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

The expected comments come from someone who got their macho knob turned all the way up and broke it off. it's a sort of interesting read.

Is that person the core audience of video games? I think maybe they used to be (though make whatever cause/effect conclusions you want about the video game culture helping to create his own detachment issues). I'm not convinced that's the case anymore, though. Even if the video game audience used to be undersexed and overcompensating white teens, I don't think it is anymore. Games are increasingly for adult audiences with a wide range of backgrounds. I hope that articles like this point toward a maturing of the genre.

Then again, take a look at box office records. Every time I think that people are getting more mature I notice that good and thought provoking movies get outsold by cats crapping on their owners and aging comedians making gay jokes for a few hours.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

It's disappointing and occasionally infuriating watching a company run a previously good franchise into the ground (and doubly infuriating when they start blaming their customers for staying away in droves), but the crap to awesome ratio is and has always been enormous, in video games and movies.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

You're right, but what bothers me is not the ratio, it's the fact that he public seems to be allergic to good movies. Well done movies with depth and well defines characters (even if those movies are comedy, fantasy, etc) tend to flop, while movies that are mass market crap do very well. I get that movie makers make crap. I just don't get why people seem to prefer it.

[kowh.livejournal.com]

I always figure it's a least common denominator thing. They make the movies that the most people will pay for, not that most people prefer.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

You're not wrong. but is there a difference? On a grand scale, what's the difference between the movies that people are willing to pay to see and the movies that people WANT to see? It's not like bad movies cost less to see. If they did, that would explain it. The McDonald's effect.

But going to see a good movie is just as expensive as going to see Old Dogs or a terrible Jennifer Aniston movie.

[kowh.livejournal.com]

Bad movies don't cost less to see, they cost less to make. Meaning there's a lot more of them, and people picking a movie to see based on useless predictors like trailers and posters are far more likely to end up watching a mediocre movie.

Or maybe it's just that most people have no taste? See: the wasteland that is TV.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they go straight to "bitch must be ugly hurr" without ever heading in the DIRECTION of "Go", don't they.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

...given where this link showed up, and theweaselking's summary of it below, I think that forum posts's going very firmly on my "read when I have more time to cope with constant petty attacks on how wimminz what criticize accepted stuff get smashed for it" list.

(The article was neat, though. Thanks. Thinking I may scrape some of it for an RPG idea; I've been kicking around pregen characters.)

[dreamshade.livejournal.com]

There's also this article on the new Metroid game, which linked to the other one I posted, and induces just as much pain in the comments.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

Noted Correlation: Video game programmers overwhelmingly white.

[almostwitty]

Not necessarily - a lot of Asian geek developers out there.

Also Asian customers. At least for games with a worldwide appeal.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

True, though there's no huge shortage of Asian characters either, especially if you count final fantasy. However, as I said above that number feels off because so many white players assume those characters are white.

[gygaxis.livejournal.com]

Having trouble digging up numbers to support ethnic breakdowns in the game industry, gender is easy enough roughly 10% women in any given position, topping out at the biz dev/legal/marketing side at a whopping 25% women =X

Seem to recall seeing some game player demographics recently that showed white male gamers do not make up anywhere near the percentage of the market that the industry's catering would make it appear though.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

On the Dork Tower writer's eljay, I tried to point something out and pretty much got the derailing hot mess. I didn't even have time for that.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Geeks are generally "geeks" because, among other things, they're clueless, privileged, AND defensive, all at once.

I blame the school system. No, really - poor social environments + social punishment for being at all off + overwhelmingly conformative definition of "normal" + a hobby outlet that's considered "safe" + a decade and a half or so = MASSIVE HOLY CRAP DEFENSIVE AT THE HINT THAT ANYTHING COULD MAYBE BE WRONG WITH YOUR ACTIONS OR THE CONVENTIONS OF YOUR HOBBY HOLY CRAP.

(Me, I'm a wealthy, neurotypical, non-obese white male. I'm privileged as fuck - but I try to be aware of it and I try to notice when I'm stepping on someone else's toes and be sorry for it and work to not do it again, even if I missed it the first time.)

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

The worst part was, the comic writer seemed to at least get it. It was just one guy who flipped because I didn't immediately give him a cookie for trying.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Also: Wow. (http://muskrat-john.livejournal.com/270105.html?thread=6356249#t6356249)

[anivair.livejournal.com]

For the record, I suspect the problem he ran into with black armies looking racist is the same problem that was talked about elsewhere here with white people often assuming that yellow skin and squinty eyes = Asian, when in fact, it couldn't be further from the truth. Plenty of Asians (probably most) are way lighter than even white people and have larger eyes, if anything. I suspect he wasn't painting them based on what he actually saw when looking at black people, but based on his brain's mental steryotype.

I'll freely admit that those steryotypes are in my brain. I grew up seeing them and they're hard to dislodge, but if you look at someting you created and say "hey, that looks pretty racist" then odds are good the problem is your work, not the race.

[gygaxis.livejournal.com]

For further contribution to this, Other M Review backlash @ Brainy Gamer (http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2010/09/backlash.html) Basically a bunch of gamers getting indignant that a female reviewer offered legit critique on Team Ninja's take on Samus and being annoyed by the deterioration from badass space bounty hunter -> insecure mother of mothered mother needing motherless orphans: PS Mothering BABIES EVERYWHERE.

[chaosrah.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'm gone of those overprivileged gamers who would defend the practice. Meh, whatever, it's fantasy. Who said fantasy had to coincide with real life? FANTASY. However, when he moves on to things that are SUPPOSED to be like real life- like Sims- whaddya know, we can create races! I enjoyed this:

"Of course, the muffin-headed Sims all sound the same: like some white goob suffering from aphasia after he was kicked in the head by a cranky mule."

I'm betting most of these fantasy game creators are white, and that's why we end up in a white fantasy world. I'm too lazy to do research on this, but would love to hear about it if anyone checks into it.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Defend the practice as totally justified and entirely reasonable given the arguments specified in the linked comics and blog posts? Or simply ignore it?

There's an important difference.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

And it says so much when the happy fantasy life you go to, where things can be fun and easy and just the way you want, is one where you don't need to worry about icky brown people.

[chaosrah.livejournal.com]

I dunno about your MMOs, but when I played EQ, we had Erudite race, where they were ALL brown, and happened to be the race with the highest intelligence. I played EQ for years, the longest out of any MMO I ever played. And brown people happen to be the smartest race? Hmm..

[snakey.livejournal.com]

Associating skin colour with intelligence is *totally* unproblematic in *every* way!

[opaqueplanet.livejournal.com]

Racial based ability score mods are pretty inherent to Fantasy RPGs (see D&D). Is it racist? well, yes, I guess. But Druids getting poison immunity at level 10 is classist. If one directly conflates, say, gnomes with Asians and half-orcs with blacks, then yes, it's very problematic. But if one simply takes these races as evidence of a diverse and multicultural (and multicoloured) in-game world, then it can be a very affirming thing.

That is not to say everything is hand-holding and campfire songs in these worlds. In the Forgotten Realms (D&D) racism is something characters have to deal with. Half-orcs are often met with suspicion and thought of as barbaric, due to their parentage. Gnomes are the butt of jokes. Halflings are considered sneaky, thieving scoundrels. Elves are flighty airheads. Half-elves and humans, being the more common races in the main playing regions, have to deal with this less. Some regions are more metropolitan and diverse, some have clusters of one race or another.

My point is, it can be heartening to see one's own racial experiences reflected in-game, be they positive (a group of friends/adventurers who get along despite racial differences) or negative (a tavern-owner refusing to serve gnomes). It can even be educational (assuming an enlightened DM) as privileged players play marginalized characters.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

Black guy I talk to occasionally claims that this is about right, because in his culture (his words, not mine) gaming is concidered extremely out there, and not remotely acceptable unless it is sports based games.

Says his mother gives him a huge amount of crap for playing Legends of the Five Rings, and ignoring his People.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

That was one of the things that most annoyed me about Dragon Age. Sure, you could make the PC black, but the family you were fighting so hard to protect (or whatever) were all white. Grr.

Also, I guess 5.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Ha, I was more-or-less right.

Man, comment 5 needs a kick in the butt. Lots of powerful black men in medieval england.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

Bah. Don't ya know the only powerful blacks in England were heathen heretics trying to steal their souls and their land?? >.> Yeah... Lots of folks don't read their history books much. How much of spain was ruled by blacks, and it was concidered the most civilized part of Europe at the time?

[jerril]

I noticed that in Warcraft. Tried to make a non-caucasian non-generic-asian human. Had to settle for "Good suntan, only face that possibly has slightly different lips from faces 1-9, dark (straight) hair". Could have been anything from Spanish, through the entire Med, into the middle east or south Asian.

Nothing even remotely African or Polynesian.

And then I got followed around by creepy people who wanted to be my friend forever. In retrospect, it could have been a 12 year old who was THRILLED to see someone that looked sort of like them in real life, and I feel sort of bad about that, but I'm a female gamer. People that start sending out the clingy creepy stalker vibe send me into IAMINVISIBLE mode.