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[Sir Ilpalazzo]

But alas, people just had to convince themselves RE4 was God's greatest gift to man and RE5 was the KKK's?

I feel like there's room for debate on whether or not the representation of black people in the earlier parts of the game is offensive or problematic, but I mean, once you get to the swamp you literally start fighting black people in tribal gear chucking spears at you. Capcom really didn't think that one through.

 

[JC Sera]

I'm a white dude, and I find the writing of black characters terrible, particularly the use of the N-word. I find I can tell if a script is written by a white person by overuse of the N-word. I would love to hear some input on this matter from an African American perspective, or fictitious representations of other ethnic groups.

Side note: I love having my multinational rainbow-coloured team in the Xcom games. It's also great how each country has people of varying skin tones and appearances.

I feel like x-com works so well cause they don't focus on "pretty/beautiful" which modern idea of beauty tends to be very white-centric, at least in US, Australia & Europe.

 

[Mesoian]

Oh yea well Terra Formas says hi

It's kind of gross and sad how popular this fucking thing is in Japan.

 

[GhostOfSparta305]

I feel like there's room for debate on whether or not the representation of black people in the earlier parts of the game is offensive or problematic, but I mean, once you get to the swamp you literally start fighting black people in tribal gear chucking spears at you. Capcom really didn't think that one through.

And in RE4, once you reach the rural town, you literally start fighting Spanish farmers who chuck pitchforks at you...racist?

I'm curious what you think would've been the "non-racist" option, then?

 

[Prototype Viktor]

You mean like Resident Evil 4?



Seriously? The first time you meet an infected, he's a black man being held down by another black man shoving the virus into his mouth. But once they do it to a white woman, that's racist?

And the scene you're talking about never appeared in any trailer. Only ones that did depicted zombies chasing an American guy with a gun...aka the same premise as RE4.

But alas, those zombie hordes were black, so people just convinced themselves that RE4 was God's gift to man and RE5 was the KKK's?

No clue what either one of you talking about but none scene could be inspired by something that was racist and the rest of the game wasn't. The scene is still racist the entire game eh

 

[NoHeDidn't]

Oh thank goodness this wasn't about a black person getting shot by cops while playing games. I got that vibe when I read the thread title.

Kinda says alot when we arrive at that conclusion before any other of the thousands available and it wouldnt surprise us.

 

[GhostOfSparta305]

No clue what either one of you talking about but none scene could be inspired by something that was racist and the rest of the game wasn't. The scene is still racist the entire game eh

The scene really wasn't racist.

Capcom giving you 50 points for every black person you kill, but 100 points for every white person you kill, for no reason other than their color? That's racist.

Capcom depicting zombies infecting non-zombies isn't.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Shout outs to Dragons Dogma for letting me design an honest to god black man and woman despite being a Japanese game. Multiple hairstyles, an abundance of skin tones, and genuine African facial features are all present. Not to mention the black preset are realistic as well.

Yesss

The day I can get this hairstyle in a game will be a good day.

See above! Play Dragon's Dogma!

Spoiler

Also daaaaamn @ that guy <3 awesome fucking hair too

 

[Prototype Viktor]

The scene really wasn't racist.

Capcom giving you 50 points for every black person you kill, but 100 points for every white person you kill? That's racist.

Capcom depicting zombies infecting non-zombies isn't.

If it mimics the structure of a old Hollywood film structure in the obvious racist time period. It hards feels accidental. Once again that was his argument not necessarily for the entire game but at least that scene
It's not the idea of them infecting but how it was shown.

 

[purpleturtle]

I don't think this is going to get better until we get more black people in the development side of the video game industry. Until then, the most representation we'll see is as background characters, sports players, or in the latest gta/crime/urban games. Black folks rarely get the chance to be fantastic or magical unless it's to solve somebody else's problems.

 

[GhostOfSparta305]

If it mimics the structure of a old Hollywood film structure in the obvious racist time period. It hards feels accidental. Once again that was his argument not necessarily for the entire game but at least that scene
It's not the idea of them infecting but how it was shown.

I understood his point, and I never said it was accidental. I said it was nonsense to think that's racist.

Even if Capcom intended to mimic an old Hollywood movie, that's not racism. That's called a depiction. Or satire.

Django Unchained depicted the racist setting of the 1800s. That doesn't make the movie or its film crew racist.

 

[Striker]

GTA V definitely has some afro hairstyles for Franklin.

Sadly the GTA Online hairstyles are incredibly limited in this area, there's like 1 dreadlocks, 1 cornrows, and then 9 billion straight shiny white people hairstyles.

There is several cornrow styles. I think they added another dreadlock and there is also a throwback flat top fade. Have you played GTA:O in a while?

They added a mullet which they never had, and still absent long hair (past shoulder length) and only one shaved look.

 

[Lime]

The only black/brown people at Game Awards were RTJ and Rae Sremmurd

And this is despite the fact that there are a ton of talented people in the industry, in the media, and youtubers that they could've drawn upon.

 

[Mista Koo]

I recently found out there were "diversification" mods. The one I found was for Stardew Valley to have more than one black guy and his biracial daughter. Needless to see there were mods that make these two characters white and some people are whining about why one is ok and one isn't.

I too despise that ashy look you get when you pick the darkest available skin tone in western games with character creation. Devs need to discover undertones.

At least Pokeomon S&M has a nice and dark skin color. Now they just need to get some hairs in!

My brown S&M trainer looked weirdly ashy compared to his rival:

(I couldn't find a pic of them together. Or many pics featuring non-white trainers.)

 

[Kuraudo]

Last one is probably the most insidious.

The new Deus Ex was particularly bad for it.

 

[Lime]

@GhostOfSparta305, read this and this if you still don't see why RE5 is racist. There's basically academic papers explaining in detail why it's racist.

 

[KingV]

The day I can get this hairstyle in a game will be a good day.

Long hair styles always suck or are nonexistent in character creators. Even the women usually only have some form of updo, or a longish Bob that stops above the shoulders.

I'm guessing because the hair is typically static, and they don't want it to clip through the models. I guess I'm just thinking hair past your shoulders is probably the last haircut to be implemented.

 

[Eumi]

(I couldn't find a pic of them together. Or many pics featuring non-white trainers.)

...wait hold up. Are you saying S&M isn't very diverse? It's one of the most diverse games that came out this year!

 

[DonMigs85]

This is one thing I admire Watch_Dogs 2 for doing, having a smart black man. It also has an autistic supporting character.

 

[Morinaga]

Most games cant even include controls that cater for left handed people. And to be honest if this cant be done then the hopes for equality for representation in all games for all people is ridiculously low.

There are games that try and represent people from all over the world, the Street Fighter series being a prime example. Unfortuantly Then that game doesnt get any recognition for it.

So until western more games are developed by people who are not Right handed, White males aged between 20-30 from a middle class background, the representation for anyone else is going to be low.

 

[Ran rp]

I'm sorry but this would be HARD to anime effectively. The guys and gals who worked on BRAVE made a huge deal about the hoops they had to jump to master coily springy hair. Perchance in a hand drawn game?

fuck that excuse

 

[Infinite]

...wait hold up. Are you saying S&M isn't very diverse? It's one of the most diverse games that came out this year!

He literally said he couldn't find a picture.

I think Fantasy Life had a decent character creation for a cartoony Japanese game. The hairstyles was lacking a bit but I think I was able to give my character a high top fade or something close to it

 

[Catalix]

Real talk, Kingdom Hearts be pissing me off with this type of shit.

The series' main villain just happens to be the darkest skinned mofo around. Even weirder, any host body that he permanently possesses also magically contracts his distinctive deep tan. Because how else can you depict the ultimate harbinger of DARKNESS? It's only natural, right?

Meanwhile the dozens of newly created do-gooders throughout the series are all fair skinned, often blue eyed, youths. I don't know what Nomura was truly getting at with these various design decisions, but it's disappointing how it all comes across.

 

[Par Score]

Real talk, Kingdom Hearts be pissing me off with this type of shit.

The series' main villain just happens to be the darkest skinned mofo around. Even weirder, any host body that he permanently possesses also magically contracts his distinctive deep tan. Because how else can you depict the ultimate harbinger of DARKNESS? It's only natural, right?

Meanwhile the dozens of newly created do-gooders throughout the series are all fair skinned, often blue eyed, youths. I don't know what Nomura was truly getting at with these various design decisions, but it's disappointing how it all comes across.

I mean, a lot of this is potentially thanks to the Disney source material, and beyond that the cultural undertones that cast light as good and dark as evil.

Making the heroes lighter/whiter and the villains darker/blacker was and largely is standard practice, with all the attendant grubbiness that perpetuates.

 

[WrenchNinja]

And in RE4, once you reach the rural town, you literally start fighting Spanish farmers who chuck pitchforks at you...racist?

I'm curious what you think would've been the "non-racist" option, then?

How is that remotely equivalent?

 

[RRockman]

I don't watch enough anime or play enough games apparently, but you simply can't say they haven't been improving at all. We still got Michiko & Hatchin among other examples, and if you looked at the cast for Pokemon as it changed over the years you'd see it there too. Marshall was one of the ones I previously mentioned

And He looks cool.

There is also the vast majority of Gundam series and meta series that have dark skinned characters sprinkled in that are mostly positive role models(we do have folks like Agrippa Maintainer, who are bad guys but aren't racial caricatures) and many of them survive-

Shoot Sanders(8th ms team please watch it if you haven't)

Spoiler

was that old trope inverted: He was always the only survivor out of all of his troops.

But it's still very much a problem. Don't get me wrong, while we have a few companies like Nintendo (Anthony Higgs from the much hated Other M was pretty cool and

Spoiler

he didn't die

) and Capcom (funnily enough, Turn A's and Gainer's character designs were done by Akiman, an ex capcom artist). Bucking the trend, There are still negative examples. I'm not saying it isn't an issue as it still is, proven by the very posts you guys have made. It's just that we've been slowly seeing more good representation out of japan and really think that things are changing for the better.

Also I think my initial post came off way more mocking than I intended but I'm going to leave it up because I hate when people delete/edit their old posts when discussion spirals out from them. I'm also glad to see more well done hair in games, though the example from Uncharted is more controlled that the picture that was posted earlier. I wasn't trying to say african hair is hard to do, (God knows I love afros in particular ) but more that crazy springy kinda loose style exactly like the picture would be. I should have been more clear.

 

[Shredderi]

I've shared this story before, but the moment I realised just how bad this sort of thing was involved Zasalamel from Soul Calibur. I saw a topic on some forum talking about the roster of the first game he was cut from, and a poster lamented, heartbroken, how there had finally been a character who kinda looked like him in his favourite series and now that character was cut and he had no one again.

I fucking loathe Namco for cutting out Zasalamel, my favourite character in the whole series.

 

[ClevieSoul]

I've been long waiting for a black woman in a FF game or a JRPG with multiple ones in general. Doubt Square would do it, so looks like I'm on my own for seeing that happen.

edit: pic too big, don't know how to make small. pic of Fran, ff12.

 

[RedFury]

I'm still waiting for this hairstyle. Pretty much non existent.

No clown afros don't count

Damn, she's absolutely gorgeous. I thought Nadine was pretty great (powerful) character, and she looks to have a bigger role in the upcoming Uncharted DLC.

edit: pic too big, don't know how to make small. pic of Fran, ff12.

I was going to post her but...
1. I always saw her as Blasian.
2. She's exactly an example of tweet #1 in OP.

Also only main character I can think of is the guy from Prototype 2.

 

[GhostOfSparta305]

How is that remotely equivalent?

*sigh*

Maybe because I literally just took his exact sentence and replaced the words with descriptions of the Spanish zombies' appearance & cultural heritage from RE4...thus proving it has nothing to do with racism?

once you get to the swamp you literally start fighting black people in tribal gear chucking spears at you.

once you reach the rural town, you literally start fighting Spanish farmers who chuck pitchforks at you

 

[GhostOfSparta305]

@GhostOfSparta305, read this and this if you still don't see why RE5 is racist. There's basically academic papers explaining in detail why it's racist.

Seeing as I already addressed & disproved the first few points of the first article you linked, it seems you're more interested in just throwing walls of text at me than having an actual discussion.

I'm good.

Though I have to say, if laughably trivial things like this offend you, I wonder how you'll have the energy to react to things that are actually racist.

 

[adversarial]

I tend to go straight for the dreads and dark skin-tone as that's how I appear IRL.

As someone who plays MMOs, I actually made a similar topic about the lack of African / African-American hairstyles in Archeage on the Archeage forum and got the usual "It's Korean, don't expect it." response.

I never understood the limitations of Character Creators and games that let you pick what you look like (unless you're black).

Is this another one of those marketing things? Like how Naughty Dog was told to remove the female from the cover or whatever because it would sell less? Does the general gamer public not want to buy a game that has a minority lead character?

 

[DedValve]

But alas, those zombie hordes were black, so people just convinced themselves that RE4 was God's gift to man and RE5 was the KKK's?

I love Resident Evil 5 and still consider it one of the best co-op games of all time but lets not pretend this game was racially insensitive as fuck and I'm glad Capcom took that to heart. Its why Edonia feels so different from either Kijuju or El Pueblo.

Also Sunset Overdrive, while anemic on content had more unique styles that I really appreciated. Especially since curly afros are my weakness.

Being Japanese is no excuse really though. They pull from cultures other than their own all the time. Look at Castlevania, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Shin Megami Tensei, etc.

I was mad disappointed when I looked up the hairstyles in Sun & Moon and the only black hairstyle they had was cornrows. And why was that shit spoilered? I thought that was a spoiler for the game.

THANK YOU.

I was honestly shocked and astonished to see that there were even cornrows in sun moon. But being Japanese or Korean does not excuse anything as these games are made with the western and eastern market in mind but I guess if theres one thing the two markets have in common is the willful blindness of seeing black.

 

[Ronin Ray]

I would just love to play more games where the one black character shows up and he's not written like a horrible racist stereo type .

Played and beat gears of war yesterday for the first time and of course when Cole shows up and I begin to shake my head.

What's sad is I thought well at least he's not as bad as other games. ( see the savages in Risen 2)

 

[Jeronimo Jones]

3 hair styles + bald. So true.

Like, Do devs not know about the black hair style barbershop chart?

Just give us these or cuts from any of the other 20 style charts out there.

Damn, one of my homies from college is on here. I was at his wedding, that's random as hell.

I agree, hairstyle and skin tone choices are not often good. I was kind of impressed by the fades in FO4 and recently I started Skyrim again and gave my dark-skinned character a dread mohawk thing appropriate for a warrior.

 

[flkraven]

Its not an excuse. Not every place in the world is as used to dealing with race as America is. There are such things as homogeneous societies that don't have the experience or the mindset to actually think about things outside of what they know directly.

In America, the conversation about racial topics in the society in which we live is actively forced into the limelight every day and is something that does not have the right to be ignored.

Well if you choose to market and sell a game worldwide you will get worldwide criticism, not just regional-specific criticism.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Can someone give me an example of the romance thing? I don't think I've ever seen that.

Uncharted 2

 

[GhostOfSparta305]

I love Resident Evil 5 and still consider it one of the best co-op games of all time but lets not pretend this game was racially insensitive as fuck and I'm glad Capcom took that to heart. Its why Edonia feels so different from either Kijuju or El Pueblo.

Who's pretending? Capcom responding to tons of unfounded claims of being racist doesn't prove that they actually were.

Tons of people called Naughty Dog "racist" for using a white voice actress to voice Nadine, a black character, and Neil Druckmann had the balls to call them on their shit.

Capcom should learn.

 

[Fuchsdh]

While I think this is a topic for another thread, the lack of Indians and other south asians in video games is basically a shot through the heart of the false rationale that game characters aren't already made to pander to an audience. People believing that we just randomly lucked into straight white dudes being the default can't find an excuse for there being a billion Indian people in the world yet the only video game they can come up with that has an Indian lead is Far Cry 4.

It's not a false rationale. Video game makers are selling to the west, predominantly. The one billion Indian people or 1 billion people of Africa aren't their market and thus aren't relevant.

We didn't "luck" into white guys, it was certainly intentional, both as a reflection of the people creating the games and the largest demographic in the market they were building games for.

The specious argument is that diversity plays a huge role in the sales of a game and thus you have to "play it safe" for sales. Of all the elements detrimental to a game's success, the color of its characters or protagonists is probably below stuff like the graphics, gameplay, story, et al. But publishers and devs act gunshy because of "common knowledge" that's more self-fulfilling prophecy than any real market law.

 

[MyleMan1010]

The only time I really try to make my character look like me is in NBA 2K. And of all games to lack in the hairstyle department, NBA 2K is probably one of the worst. I still can't get a crispy, mid length beard in that game... Why? And I tried using the face recognition thing, but I'm pretty sure my eyes aren't in my chin.

 

[ANDS]

I'm a white dude, and I find the writing of black characters terrible, particularly the use of the N-word. I find I can tell if a script is written by a white person by overuse of the N-word. I would love to hear some input on this matter from an African American perspective, or fictitious representations of other ethnic groups.

What a stupid comment. First, I don't know any game that is dropping n****r all over the place with it's black characters. Franklin says n*gga every time he and Lamar are together and none of ran hollow to me. Second, I don't need a black person to write black characters as long as the material is treated respectfully. The writers for GTAV did that pretty well (within the context of GTA and it's satirical approach) if you ask me.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Who's pretending? Capcom responding to tons of unfounded claims of being racist doesn't prove that they actually were.

Tons of people called Naughty Dog "racist" for using a white voice actress to voice Nadine, a black character, and Neil Druckmann had the balls to call them on their shit.

Capcom should learn.

Druckmann explained the process though which they developed that character—they made the character black after the casting was done. In doing so, he acknowledged that had they locked down the character first, their casting could've been different.

He was able to respond to the concerns of possible Bypassing of casting a black actress because he is an adult who can recognize the importance of the discussion, not a child who thinks it's a matter of "calling people out on their shit" for questioning human, fallible game developers.

 

[Wavebossa]

I'm a white dude, and I find the writing of black characters terrible, particularly the use of the N-word. I find I can tell if a script is written by a white person by overuse of the N-word. I would love to hear some input on this matter from an African American perspective, or fictitious representations of other ethnic groups.

Side note: I love having my multinational rainbow-coloured team in the Xcom games. It's also great how each country has people of varying skin tones and appearances.

It will sound unnatural if it sounds unnatural.

I hear where you're coming from, but the number of times the Nword is used is not the end all be all in determining that.

I'm black.
I have black friends who say the n-word every sentence.
I have black friends who I've never heard say it.

They are all still black

 

[Euron]

I've realized that a significantly better way of approaching the "Only if the writing is good" sentiment is by hiring black and LGBT writers to write the characters in question.

"But Euron, just becuase they're minority/LGBT writers doesn't mean they're any good"

It isn't to write the entire plot, just the characters at least. We're looking for authenticity here, which in turn will bring stronger characters, thus bringing about "good writing"

"But Euron, why should we shoehorn minority/LGBT characters into games?"

Because games filled with only straight white males tend to (not always but tend to) become so god damn boring, and this is coming from a straight white male. Adding characters from different backgrounds inherently adds more depth to the story, making it more memorable. Challenging ourselves by experiencing different perspectives is how we grow.

"But Euron, we should just let game developers stick to their vision."

Letting someone create a piece of entertainment without taking any feedback into account is how we get things like the Star Wars Prequels.

"But I liked the Star Wars Prequels"

No you didn't, you liked the Darth Maul fight and Obi vs Anakin. If you liked the writing at all in parts other than those, you probably haven't watched them since you were 10.

 

[GhostOfSparta305]

Druckmann explained the process though which they developed that character&#8212;they made the character black after the casting was done. In doing so, he acknowledged that had they locked down the character first, their casting could've been different.

He was able to respond to the concerns of possible Bypassing of casting a black actress because he is an adult who can recognize the importance of the discussion, not a child who thinks it's a matter of "calling people out on their shit" for questioning human, fallible game developers.

Sorry, but that's actually wrong. So wrong.

What Druckmann actually said in defending the choice was that any actor's physical appearance has nothing to do with their in-game appearance.

If it did, he explained, the older, dark-haired & muscular Joel wouldn't have been portrayed by the younger, skinnier, blonde haired Troy Baker. And the red-haired, teenage Ellie wouldn't have been portrayed by the adult, blonde Ashley Johnson.

He then also went to mention a white character played by a black actor. And that he wouldn't change a damn thing about the casting.

Hence, calling people (like you) on their shit for trying to see racism that wasn't there.

 

[BitStyle]

All I want is a proper fade for my character, is that to much to ask for?

It's our eternal struggle.

 

[Nottle]

As a person who likes to play as ladies in Pokémon games, for Sun and Moon i asked my girlfriend what I should look like and she said make him look like you. So I made tre white kid with brown hair.

Getting to the barber I was disappointed with the lack of hair(and clothing) options.

If I made a black dude I'd be even more disappointed. Give us more hair next time. I'm sure a lot of little black kids don't have cornrows or buzz cuts.

I'd imagine it's even more frustrating as a black lady. Why can't a Lalafell have more than cornrows for black hair in FF14? Why is the option in character creators to have the comically large fro or really nothing else?

 

[Akainu]

I feel bad for laughing at that second tweet.

I had a friend and a youtuber I watch complain about how their is only really one black skin tone as an option in Pokemon S&M.

Link to the youtuber: https://youtu.be/bbApZJwfLxo?t=166

22 hair styles for the female? Is that the whole game?

Funny thing about the guy from one punch man.

Spoiler

He isn't even black he just looks like that cause of his training. In the manga he was pale as shit in the past. So I was a thrown off by his voice in the dub.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Wrong.

What Druckmann actually said in defending the choice was that any actor's physical appearance has nothing to do with their in-game appearance.

If it did, he explained, the older, dark-haired & muscular Joel wouldn't have been portrayed by the younger, skinnier, blonde haired Troy Baker. And the red-haired, teenage Ellie wouldn't have been portrayed by the older, blonde Ashley Johnson.

Hence, calling people (like you) on their shit for trying to see racism that wasn't there.

In the very video you linked, Druckmann says they cast Bailey, THEN chose to make Nadine a black South African person after he saw one of his concept artists depiction. Perhaps watch the evidence you're providing before posting. Maybe learn how to recognize an "accusation of racism" and without perceiving it as some personal attack.

Druckmann admits they cast the actor before finalizing the character's appearance. He says that any person can play any character, and that doesn't preclude hiring black actors for their black characters like they've done in TLoU. Not sure what about "finalizing a character first can inform casting" set you off, unless you're one of those Social Injustice Warriors and the mere existence of these discussions hurts your feelings.

 

[GhostOfSparta305]

In the very video you linked, Druckmann says they cast Bailey, THEN chose to make Nadine a black South African person after he saw one of his concept artists depiction. Perhaps watch the evidence you're providing before posting. Maybe learn how to recognize an "accusation of racism" and without perceiving it as some personal attack.

Except I did watch the whole thing. It's clear that you, however, didn't.

You were wrong in saying that the casting order would've made a difference in the actor's skin color. Druckmann later went on to say that it wouldn't have, and that he wouldn't have changed a thing.

Druckmann admits they cast the actor before finalizing the character's appearance. He says that any person can play any character, and that doesn't preclude hiring black actors for their characters like they've done in TLoU. Not sure what about "finalizing a character first can inform casting" set you off, unless you're one of those Social Injustice Warriors and the mere existence of these discussions hurts your feelings.

You clearly haven't been following my posts in this thread if you're going to accuse me of being an SJW.

And I'm actually not "set off" at all, you're the one flailing personal insults. Perhaps because you're having a hard time accepting you were wrong on this topic?