After my first blog post about females in gaming, a lot of people come forward expressing the same views as me. This lead me to think.. hold on, Who else feels left out? not just in the industry but in the games themselves.
We do not see a diverse representation of ethnicity in fictional gaming. Even character creation games seem to be creating a problem with different ethnicity, I spoke to keen gamer Ravi Palmer, he said
"I think for me it's been difficult to get my likeness into a game like PES or even games like Top Spin. "
So not only are we not seeing this diversity in fictional gaming but in a number of customisable games POC are still not being represented properly. Personally I found it easy to find a suitable GTAO character that fit my description however RDRO seemed somewhat impossible, and considering I’m a mixed race black female, my character looks Cherokee and these are from the same game creators? Where is the effort?
Ask yourself this, when was the last time you seen a game with the mainstay character being someone of colour Male or Female? Or since we are in 2019 a none gender-specific character.
When POC are depicted in games, unfortunately it comes down to us being portrayed as common stereotypes. Black people in games are usually some sort of street gangster or obnoxious female. Often black characters are there just to tick a box. It’s very rare to find a black character that has an impact and even more rare for that character to be a female. Even if we are talking about Billie Lurk from Dishonoured, although she is black and from what I understand is identified as LGBTQ, she still comes from that single parent, dad walked out, alcoholic mother stereotype.
With Asian characters, they’re usually some sort of broken English speaking china man or martial arts specialist like Chun Li, a badass female who is sexualised by the oversized breasts and appears in weird fan fiction. I mean China has the biggest population in the world followed by India, so why are these stereotypes still acceptable to use, why where they ever? India has one of the fastest numbers of growing millionaires and billionaires so why are they being depicted as taxi drivers or extras? Yes we can name a few POC who have played influential roles in gaming, but there isn’t many, nor are they lead roles.
the gaming industry is bigger than the film and music industry combined, by 2021 its speculated that the gaming industry will have made over $180 billion, So if we are seeing a diverse cast in a movie with lead roles of every ethnicity and films like black panther that celebrate black culture then how come these not being translated into the gaming world.
Why are there not many ethnic protagonists in gaming? Especially in big budget games. One theory I’ve come across explained the technical difficulties in capturing dark skin. Apparently changes of lighting and rendering in the game racks up a hefty fee.
Unfortunately it’s much easier to create a sense of realism when making a white character by adding shading and shadows to their skin and surrounding areas this means they are easily visible in any setting whether it be a well lit field or a dark room. The theory explained using these same methods for creating a dark skinned characters does not prove as effective and sometimes certain characteristics can be lost or the whole character themselves can almost disappear in poor lit rooms. Now as much as I understand this theory, for me this is not an excuse. These large budget games are called LARGE BUDGET for a reason. Are we not worth the spend?
Another theory is that the gaming industry just does NOT want to incorporate ethnically ambitious characters whether its down to racism, targeted demographics or cost management. It could be that they do not want the ear ache from a larger demographic refusing to play as certain race or gender or it could possibly be that they do not want to face the backlash from the ethnic community they are portraying by not doing the character justice. In any of those scenarios it all comes down to the fact they just don’t want to do it.
I reached out to Founder of @NNESAGA about this topic and during the conversation this passage really stood out to me
“There isn’t enough representation because the industry don’t want to come out of their comfort zones. They are so scared that we are the future. It’s not nice having an industry shun you away from things but pick and choose what is your culture and put it in their games without having your opinion”
As Stephanibe is a black female in the gaming community I was curious to hear her thoughts on whether or not it puts her off purchasing certain games due to poor representation, her views where similar to mine in that she said:
“I want more representation in games. When I was younger, I wasn’t so fussed because I just adored the concept of the game, the look and feel of it. Nowadays, I do a get put off if I can’t see someone who looks like me or someone I can resonate with”
I’ve also had the pleasure of this topic reaching other gamers and content creators.
Tejal Parmer a gaming enthusiast kindly gave me an insight as an Asian gamer Into her feelings towards to lack of POC in the industry.
"As a WOC, it's rare to find female protagonists, let alone one of colour. When WOC are featured in games, they are mostly side characters/love interests and oftentimes are victims because they're seen as either damsels to be saved or too tough and unemotional.
Ultimately it shouldn't really be that hard to create more that are of colour and/or female. Sometimes it feels like developers only think of catering to white males rather than understanding how far the industry reaches."
And reading these statements I couldn’t agree more. As much as I will always love video games and I couldn’t imagine anything to put me off. It is unnerving and unsettling to know that the technology is out there to create games for every race and gender including none gender specific characters yet we are not seeing it.
Before writing this piece I went to a friend Shogun Ash, who happens to be black Male gamer and content creator and I spoke to about this topic to him. To round off an in depth conversation he said
“I feel like we're slowly getting there, but we have a long way to go and it needs to be done well and with effort and pride. We can't forever pigeon hole black characters as sassy or aggressive, there's more to us than that”
And I feel this is the perfect way to end this piece. We are going in the right direction, our influence as people of colour has become contagious in every aspect of every industry. We have Watch Dog 2 coming out which features a black lead character, Apex Legends which features Male and female characters of different ethnicity and the highly anticipated Call of Duty Modern warfare which by the looks of the reveal showcases Male and female POC as part of the military and police force. All we can hope for is that this diversity spreads. And as Shogun said "It needs to be done with effort and pride.”
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