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hardcore_gamer

Why do females/gays/non-whites have to be in video games?

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Nearly every industry in the world is dominated by white males. I don't really expect them to understand what would make a compelling character that isn't also a white male. On the one hand, I think it's kind of stupid to tell them, "Hey, white guys, include non-white guys in your games, even though you, in all likelihood, lack enough cultural information to do so without seeming forced." On the other hand, the black characters in GTA5 were written by white guys, but the black voice actors added their own ethnocentric variants. So it's hard to say what the solution should be. If you're a white male, you might be more likely to center your game around white males. Perhaps the industry should be more open to letting other demographics enter the field, provided they have the skill.

Developers just need to be informed of something they are probably not fully consciously aware of. Or maybe they're just scared of change. In either case, change can occur, but merely bitching and whining about it won't get much accomplished. Here's the crux, though: Devs may be pressured to include other demographics out of pressure, rather than a sincere desire. A forced black female character in a video game would be embarrassing.

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geo said:

Why are women considered pushy and bossy when they have positions of power and men aren't considered those things?


Yes if only there were terrible male bosses constantly portrayed in the media. Oh wait there are, in fact the shitty bossy male middle manager is one of the most frequent go to stock characters.

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GoatLord said:

Nearly every industry in the world is dominated by white males.

this isn't true nowadays. White Male is definitely doesn't make more than 50% of any audience, though is probably the majority by some extent.

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hardcore_gamer said:

I could just as easily ask you the exact same thing. If race doesn't matter, then why do you people cry so much about race in the media?


Not to place a label on anyone,

But generally, social libertarians agree that race does not matter. That even bring up the argument of race only serves to perpetuate a racist society. While liberals claim that race does matter, and something needs to be done to ensure racial equality. Therefore, these are two different opinions.

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esselfortium said:

Because we're not discussing a single, individual game, but overall trends. If the overwhelming majority of games were about black women to the near-exclusion of all other groups, you would surely find that a little bit strange?

Good point there. A game featuring all black women would be so different to the constant barrage of all white men games (that we are all used to seeing) that it would be like a finding a van in a bike shed. It is probably because all we really get is men (usually white) in most games.

But knowing this endless morality struggle everything seems to be stuck in, a game involving nothing but black women would also be branded both sexist and racist for entirely different reasons?

geo said:

Why are women considered pushy and bossy when they have positions of power and men aren't considered those things?

Men are called that just as much as women, it all depends on the personality of the boss (and usually, ALL bosses are considered pushy and bossy).

geo said:

Why do so many video games have female community managers?

I have no idea with this one, I actually didn't know about that.

geo said:

Why does road construction force women to hold the stop and slow signs when they can do anything else?

Ditto.

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As someone who works in a blue collar industry and worked construction it's not male dominated because "these are men's jobs honey" it's male dominated because women are free to choose not to destroy their bodies pounding the pavement. Construction has the highest rate of drug addicts for a reason.

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Anyone else notice how blue hedgehogs are massively over represented in video games? I've never even seen one in real life.

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Tarnsman said:

As someone who works in a blue collar industry and worked construction it's not male dominated because "these are men's jobs honey" it's male dominated because women are free to choose not to destroy their bodies pounding the pavement. Construction has the highest rate of drug addicts for a reason.


I didn't know about the drug addicts part. I assumed there weren't many female construction workers due to the toll it takes on their body.

Two firefighters fired for sexist tweets

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/09/16/two-toronto-firefighters-terminated-over-unacceptable-sexist-tweets-third-reportedly-fired-over-facebook-post/

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I feel like putting this in this thread.

Honestly I agree that the rugged manly American hero with military background is overdone and I'd be glad to see more variety more often, but maybe if games with different characters sold better, maybe there would be more of them?

Like take this. Good game, everybody loved it. Sales weren't that exciting though. Or here, you're a black woman. I only heard about that game when it got on GOG.

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Tarnsman said:

As someone who works in a blue collar industry and worked construction it's not male dominated because "these are men's jobs honey" it's male dominated because women are free to choose not to destroy their bodies pounding the pavement.


That, and because not all women are particularly keen on working in an environment where they'll be surrounded by unsupervised big, sweaty, horny men which might do more than just wolf-whistle at them if they manage to corner them.

Even in the Army, mixed-gender staffing only works well, let's say, at the NCO level and above, at highly specialized posts, or in relatively civil, non-combat units, but not at the "dirty foot-grunt"'s level, and for good reason.

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Man, this thread title. Before reading the first post, it sounded as something like "Why do females/gays/non-whites are allowed at restaurants?"

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purist said:

Anyone else notice how blue hedgehogs are massively over represented in video games? I've never even seen one in real life.


Yeah someone else pointed that out and so we've got a black hedgehog now. I can't believe no one brought up how racist it is to have a black villain.

To top that off, is it racist to be afraid of great white shark attacks while swimming in the ocean? Like I know sharks are people too, but why is it we only hear about white shark attacks? Have black sharks never injured anyone? Just this weekend a white shark attacked a Mexican American. Is that a hate crime? Seems like every time a white shark attacks a person that isn't white, I always hear the excuse of that guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-swimmer-talks-about-surviving-great-white-shark-attack/

Why can't we pick a villain in games? You always get to make your character, what about make your villain?

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Darch said:

Man, this thread title. Before reading the first post, it sounded as something like "Why do females/gays/non-whites are allowed at restaurants?"


It might as well be.

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Kontra Kommando said:

Not to place a label on anyone,

But generally, social libertarians agree that race does not matter. That even bring up the argument of race only serves to perpetuate a racist society. While liberals claim that race does matter, and something needs to be done to ensure racial equality. Therefore, these are two different opinions.


I think the issue with race is a hot one with liberals because while race is a terrible way to sort people (when nationality or similar would be a much better descriptor), in America it is more of an identity. America is still quite a "young" nation. Because of that, there's a good chance (almost 100%) that any African American you see has a history involving the slave trade and the culture that surrounds it. Same with Native Americans and even Anglo-Saxons/"whites" (For debate purposes, let's say that either your ancestors checked in at Ellis Island or got on the first wave of boats). In a nutshell, what I'm saying is that race and culture are linked in America and there's not much that can be done to separate them. This has caused lots of conflict as well as a sense of American identity. Immigration is how the country started, for the most part.

So, the natural conclusion from this is when one dismisses race, one dismisses the history behind it. Not that everything has to be a political/civics/history lesson, but when just being who you are has political tension involved, you'll see things through that lens all the time, and for good reason. After all, it's really not that long ago that some in America weren't allowed to go to a fucking bathroom, and unlike DnD, you can't just crumple up your character sheet and start over.

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Csonicgo said:

I think the issue with race is a hot one with liberals because while race is a terrible way to sort people (when nationality or similar would be a much better descriptor), in America it is more of an identity. America is still quite a "young" nation. Because of that, there's a good chance (almost 100%) that any African American you see has a history involving the slave trade and the culture that surrounds it. Same with Native Americans and even Anglo-Saxons/"whites" (For debate purposes, let's say that either your ancestors checked in at Ellis Island or got on the first wave of boats). In a nutshell, what I'm saying is that race and culture are linked in America and there's not much that can be done to separate them.


And yet, according to liberals only non-whites are allowed to relate to their race. Either everyone should be allowed to feel their race matters to them or nobody should. It really is that simple.

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hardcore_gamer said:

Yes, but I would find it strange only because these people make up only a minority of the population. If one out of every 10 people is black for example, then it would be odd if in a movie or a game 1 out of every 10 people would be white. It would not however be odd of only one out of every 10 people were black.

Yes, but one in ten games don't have a black protagonist, one in a few out of hundreds do! It's even more baffling when it comes to gender, with statistics on the percent of female players ranging from %38 to %50 of the player base aaaand how many lady protagonists do we get? Do we even pull one a year anymore (from AAA titles)? That's not how you represent, homie.


Or if you're making a blank slate protagonist give us a character creator to make our own strong, independent black woman who don't need no man. Or an abomination unfit for gods and men.

hardcore_gamer said:

And yet, according to liberals only non-whites are allowed to relate to their race. Either everyone should be allowed to feel their race matters to them or nobody should. It really is that simple.

and, like, why there isn't there a ~white~ history month?

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Race only matters when you spent centuries being oppressed and marginalized by it. Yes if you consider your race, gender or sexual orientation to be a critical part of your person you are wrong because those are unimportant traits, but you do not combat the marginalization of those traits with further marginalization, you combat it with normalization.

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Tarnsman said:

Race only matters when you spent centuries being oppressed and marginalized by it. Yes if you consider your race, gender or sexual orientation to be a critical part of your person you are wrong because those are unimportant traits, but you do not combat the marginalization of those traits with further marginalization, you combat it with normalization.


Wouldn't normalization be a case of representing said races, genders, etc. along the same lines as they appear in real life? The US military is currently comprised of roughly 15% women. Likewise, about 30% of the entire military consists of those who identify as a racial minority. (That's discounting Hispanics, who are separately classified as an ethnicity.)

It is, of course, obvious that not every game is a military shooter or even relates to the military. But those that are certainly don't have nearly the amount of representation as they should realistically. So please, tell me why that isn't absurd?

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hardcore_gamer said:

Aren't whites the majority in most Western nations? Where I live I don't think minorities make up even 10% of the population. So why should they be represented the same in the first place?

Most of my life has been spent living in areas where whites aren't the majority. So having majority-white does not represent real life from my own personal experiences. Not that that means anything, but just to show neither does saying, "Well everyone's white in real life, so it should be that way in games."

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Gez said:

Honestly I agree that the rugged manly American hero with military background is overdone and I'd be glad to see more variety more often, but maybe if games with different characters sold better, maybe there would be more of them?

Like take this. Good game, everybody loved it. Sales weren't that exciting though. Or here, you're a black woman. I only heard about that game when it got on GOG.

This game was supposed to be a really big thing and it didn't produce the expected numbers despite meeting the quality criteria. Mirror's Edge was hyped massively and it was a good enough game when compared to other megahit franchises, but it flopped as a flagship game. No One Lives Forever was awesome, but a modest commercial success at best. The Longest Journey is one of the most beloved adventure games, but it was only successful as an adventure game in times when the genre was dying, so not at all in the big picture.

Now, it would be unfair to say there aren't successful games with a female protagonist. Look at Tomb Raider, Bloodrayne or Bayonetta. Shake it, baby!

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Membrain said:

Wouldn't normalization be a case of representing said races, genders, etc. along the same lines as they appear in real life? The US military is currently comprised of roughly 15% women. Likewise, about 30% of the entire military consists of those who identify as a racial minority. (That's discounting Hispanics, who are separately classified as an ethnicity.)

It is, of course, obvious that not every game is a military shooter or even relates to the military. But those that are certainly don't have nearly the amount of representation as they should realistically. So please, tell me why that isn't absurd?


That's what I'm saying, I was responding to Hardcore_Gamer's bullshit about why race shouldn't matter. Also most representations of the US military, even in Video Games have been pretty diverse.

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ClonedPickle said:

I don't get this sentence. Of course it has to do with it being a badly-written game. But it's also because it changed Samus from being a self-sufficient lady badass into a submissive fuckwit who wouldn't turn on her suit's ability to not fucking die in lava until ~the man~ told her she was allowed to. Which was like, halfway through the boss fight with the giant lava monster after you traversed deeply into the lava area.

Because bad writing is not a gendered issue. In a broader sense, bad things, alone, happening to women is not misogyny. Bad things being done to women and only women and/or because they're women, or shitty attitudes towards women for the same reasons, that's misogyny. Because Other M Samus is not the only badly-written character, and not all badly-written characters are female, and bad writing generally happens due to poor skills or meddling, it is not misogyny. I think it's only being called that because there aren't as many female characters. They're considered worth more and so bigger guns get taken out, like claims of sexism.

This goes doubly so in the case of Other M, where it's the "orders" (or lack thereof) garbage that inevitably shows up whenever any sort of military-esque command structure appears in fiction for more than 10 seconds. A character spontaneously becoming a fucking donkey is so common in fiction (and sometimes non-fiction) that I actually use the lack of such a thing as an important point when recommending shows, books etc. to people.

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White males, black males and women do not deserve to be in any games, it should stay as a choice by the developer. Who really gives two fucks? If I'm playing a good game and the character is a woman or black, cool. If the game sucks it sucks. I've always viewed this whole argument no matter what subject to be an extremely low frequency level of brain function, injected into the mainstream mind by TV and moron CEOs trying to sell something or create conflict.

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Akira_98 said:

Because bad writing is not a gendered issue. In a broader sense, bad things, alone, happening to women is not misogyny. Bad things being done to women and only women and/or because they're women, or shitty attitudes towards women for the same reasons, that's misogyny. Because Other M Samus is not the only badly-written character, and not all badly-written characters are female, and bad writing generally happens due to poor skills or meddling, it is not misogyny. I think it's only being called that because there aren't as many female characters. They're considered worth more and so bigger guns get taken out, like claims of sexism.

This goes doubly so in the case of Other M, where it's the "orders" (or lack thereof) garbage that inevitably shows up whenever any sort of military-esque command structure appears in fiction for more than 10 seconds. A character spontaneously becoming a fucking donkey is so common in fiction (and sometimes non-fiction) that I actually use the lack of such a thing as an important point when recommending shows, books etc. to people.


Yeah actually Tarns pointed that out to me on IRC after I posted that Other M's shit still probably would've happened even if Samus had been a dude all along because ~Japan~ (namely, Sakamoto). I personally have yet to encounter most of these cool-hero-becomes-donkey situations in fiction, so I guess I'm lucky.

It's just that Samus used to be one of the best if not the best examples of Unironically Cool As Hell Video Game Women and Other M (and the more recent zero suit designs too, honestly) went and spoiled that quite a bit, which is probably where most of the outcry is coming from. It's one thing to introduce a character who's completely emotionally empty and submissive, but it's another to take a character that was simply assumed to be a badass through their actions and then decide you need to ruin them.

e: agh I skimmed your post and ended up basically echoing you. welp

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I just discovered that White American Males are not represented in Greek Karagiozis shadow plays (not 100% sure though, there might be the occasional "Uncle from America" character). I'm fairly sure the Amish aren't properly represented, though. There certainly are traditonal arab and black characters in there (Ottoman soldiers) and maybe even Asians (there's a "Karagiozis Karateka" play...)

Also, did you know that asian and black men and women weren't represented in ancient Greek theater? Oh, tragedy! (pun intended).

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TheCupboard said:

I actually feel nauseous after entering this thread.

This shit just pisses me off. Somebody has an opinion that's so not yours that you have to tell us you feel sick? Bullshit, you're just trying to get "righteous" in on your indignation.


My honest opinion on this is that the only reason these representational disproportions exist is because games are made predominantly by white guys of a certain age range. They write what they know, because it's what easiest, it's what interests them and because it's a proven seller. Maybe if all the people who feel so strongly about this actually took the steps required to make their own games and make the difference, you'd then have more of the representation you're after. Sexuality barely even comes into it, when you consider how little sex is in games - I honestly view that as a perceived problem being projected on to games.

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Well, even if nothing else I would say the thread has at least become a hot topic on the Doomworld forums. I was honestly not expecting this massive shitstorm to happen. Leason learned: Never make any political threads on Doomworld again.

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Sexuality barely even comes into it, when you consider how little sex is in games - I honestly view that as a perceived problem being projected on to games.


It's funny how often the criticism of protagonists being "straight" white males comes up, considering so many AAA FPS love to throw barely repressed homosexuality subtext with their squads of overly muscular space marines and ridiculously fit military men sharing the occasional emotionally charged moment despite their tough testosterone-fueled machoness, any woman in sight if any being addressed like she's either pestiferous or a very obvious beard.

Of course it makes sense as "straight" stuff if you picture a target demographic of 14-18 years old boys; but playing those same games as a grownup, if you're not seeing those NPCs love doing it in the butt (and likely the very butt of our male protagonist), your gaydar might just be broken.

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