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Gaming While Black

I feel everything from these tweets. Playing pokemon Sun I felt like it was cool..but still, only brown or mega darkskin. The cornorows to a bun was a nice touch and the regular cornrows was cool too but thats where it stopped. Blacking games online with character creators usually leaves me being polished copper or zombie brown when i make characters.

Yeah, I never thought she was black. That's news to me, if she is.

It's crazy how many non-black FF fans actually think that Fran is a black woman. :/

I cant lie, I clung to her as a black woman cause there wasnt anything else.
 

DR2K

Banned

Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities. Similar to blacklivesmatter, completely ignoring latinos, who share similar injustices. There's a reason alllives picked up and reasonated with more than whites with an agenda, because ironically is was a much more inclusive message.

Like I don't see the point in making a thread about arabs/women/other in gaming as previously mentioned. Because segmenting my issues and calling on one specific community to raise awareness isn't effective in a multi cultured nation.
 
Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities. Similar to blacklivesmatter, completely ignoring latinos, who share similar injustices. There's a reason alllives picked up and reasonated with more than whites with an agenda, because ironically is was a much more inclusive message.

Like I don't see the point in making a thread about arabs/women/other in gaming as previously mentioned. Because segmenting my issues and calling on one specific community to raise awareness isn't effective in a multi cultured nation.

You are wrong.

Black Lives Matter =/= only black lives matter.

Gaming While Black =/= ignoring other minorities.

Have some perspective.

If those are your takeaways after some reflection, then you are only seeing what you want to see.
 
Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities. Similar to blacklivesmatter, completely ignoring latinos, who share similar injustices. There's a reason alllives picked up and reasonated with more than whites with an agenda, because ironically is was a much more inclusive message.

Like I don't see the point in making a thread about arabs/women/other in gaming as previously mentioned. Because segmenting my issues and calling on one specific community to raise awareness isn't effective in a multi cultured nation.

Sorry but you're clueless
 

JordanN

Banned
Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities.

I would say black movements have always targeted white supremacy or wherever systematic racism exists.

This in itself is inclusive, because the benefits of removing white supremacy affects everyone.

When laws that banned blacks from marrying whites or from sitting at the front of bus were repealed, did it only benefit them? No, you never saw a law that allowed any racial discrimination under the same category.
 

Kwame120

Banned
Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities. Similar to blacklivesmatter, completely ignoring latinos, who share similar injustices. There's a reason alllives picked up and reasonated with more than whites with an agenda, because ironically is was a much more inclusive message.

Like I don't see the point in making a thread about arabs/women/other in gaming as previously mentioned. Because segmenting my issues and calling on one specific community to raise awareness isn't effective in a multi cultured nation.
The reason "alllives" picked up is racism, ignorance and moderation. People either wanted to diminish black lives matter due to racist sentiment, were ignorant to the message due to a general ignorance regarding systematic racism, or wanted to keep the status quo.

It's foolish to see no point in creating a thread specific to issues of one demographic, because if you merge them all into one you have a reduced focus, so may be more effective in raising the issue of representation as a whole, but it will lack depth - so at worst would only become a talking point. A unified movement has its merits due to its scale, but the existence of such a movement and more nuanced movements are completely independent. Effectively, why not have both? If you're really concerned about this matter, and don't wish to prevent any minority gaining ground because then they may be further up than you, then what you should be doing - as others have suggested - is creating threads about the representation of other minorities, and encouraging others to participate in them. That way, we can share our experiences - which won't be identical, but similar - in order to work for the betterment of all of us. Your approach thus far has been to prevent any minority from succeeding because others have not, rather than helping each other to succeed so that we all can.

I myself can relate this to my particular experiences. In my field of work, black people are a minority, as are women. There are efforts to improve the uptake of women in this industry, and my response isn't to cry out because it doesn't also increase the uptake of my particular minority, but to take steps to improving representation of said minority as well.
 
Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities. Similar to blacklivesmatter, completely ignoring latinos, who share similar injustices. There's a reason alllives picked up and reasonated with more than whites with an agenda, because ironically is was a much more inclusive message.
oUNvyZN.png
 

JordanN

Banned

I was about to say this too.

If alllivesmatter cared about you, where are they? When I see the term used, it's usually by an alt-right nazi in the youtube comments who posts it in direct response to a blacklivesmatter video.

Hey, how ironic is that? It's the BLM that gets people caring about racial issues again!
 

diaspora

Member
Can't even think of a single brown main character.

Edit: I can't even think of a brown side character in
a video game. :|

Edit2:Forgot about fighting games. But for single player eh.
Far Cry 4 main character was Ajay iirc, and Henry Green in Assassin's Creed Syndicate was south Asian.
 
The reason "alllives" picked up is racism, ignorance and moderation. People either wanted to diminish black lives matter due to racist sentiment, were ignorant to the message due to a general ignorance regarding systematic racism, or wanted to keep the status quo.

It's foolish to see no point in creating a thread specific to issues of one demographic, because if you merge them all into one you have a reduced focus, so may be more effective in raising the issue of representation as a whole, but it will lack depth - so at worst would only become a talking point. A unified movement has its merits due to its scale, but the existence of such a movement and more nuanced movements are completely independent. Effectively, why not have both? If you're really concerned about this matter, and don't wish to prevent any minority gaining ground because then they may be further up than you, then what you should be doing - as others have suggested - is creating threads about the representation of other minorities, and encouraging others to participate in them. That way, we can share our experiences - which won't be identical, but similar - in order to work for the betterment of all of us. Your approach thus far has been to prevent any minority from succeeding because others have not, rather than helping each other to succeed so that we all can.

I myself can relate this to my particular experiences. In my field of work, black people are a minority, as are women. There are efforts to improve the uptake of women in this industry, and my response isn't to cry out because it doesn't also increase the uptake of my particular minority, but to take steps to improving representation of said minority as well.
Thanks for this. Echoes my sentiments.

It's sad to me that anyone can pit marginalized groups against one another like DR2K has, intentionally or unintentionally. The only way someone can say that black people ignore in any capacity what, say, latinos are going through is by having never paid close attention.
 
Japanese games are trash at this, in general, I feel. Booted up the new Pokémon game and saw they allow racial options for the character selection process. Someone should introduce the devs at Game Freak to a non-white person.

I feel like you could present games to people of color and they could accurately tell which games had no diversity on staff purely by looking at the character designs.
It's easy to do something that looks like discrimination by simply saying the non-white people don't speak Japanese. Then continue as normal making these mistakes
 
Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities. Similar to blacklivesmatter, completely ignoring latinos, who share similar injustices. There's a reason alllives picked up and reasonated with more than whites with an agenda, because ironically is was a much more inclusive message.

Like I don't see the point in making a thread about arabs/women/other in gaming as previously mentioned. Because segmenting my issues and calling on one specific community to raise awareness isn't effective in a multi cultured nation.

Wow. Way to make a completely off base generalization. This isn't a competition to see who has it the worst; you need a lesson in empathy.
 

Gator86

Member
Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities. Similar to blacklivesmatter, completely ignoring latinos, who share similar injustices. There's a reason alllives picked up and reasonated with more than whites with an agenda, because ironically is was a much more inclusive message.

Like I don't see the point in making a thread about arabs/women/other in gaming as previously mentioned. Because segmenting my issues and calling on one specific community to raise awareness isn't effective in a multi cultured nation.

I know other people have already made solid comments on this, but I would just like to add one more saying this is a trash take and you should probably educate yourself.
 
Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities. Similar to blacklivesmatter, completely ignoring latinos, who share similar injustices. There's a reason alllives picked up and reasonated with more than whites with an agenda, because ironically is was a much more inclusive message.

Like I don't see the point in making a thread about arabs/women/other in gaming as previously mentioned. Because segmenting my issues and calling on one specific community to raise awareness isn't effective in a multi cultured nation.

This isn't ignorance. This is deliberate misinformation.
 

Sai-kun

Banned
Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities. Similar to blacklivesmatter, completely ignoring latinos, who share similar injustices. There's a reason alllives picked up and reasonated with more than whites with an agenda, because ironically is was a much more inclusive message.

Like I don't see the point in making a thread about arabs/women/other in gaming as previously mentioned. Because segmenting my issues and calling on one specific community to raise awareness isn't effective in a multi cultured nation.

it's not black people's job to make latino injustice heard. it's OUR fucking job, as latinos. i see my latino cousin complaining about this all the time, but he doesn't share shit about the injustices and marginalization of latino folks happening in our city, he just whines and complains that no one else is speaking up (as far as he knows)

i know this is probably tough, but please fucking learn before you run your mouth off about shit you don't know.

and if black people (and allies) speaking up for black representation is enough to make you less likely to empathize with their plight, then you can head off back to wherever you were before you sauntered into this topic, because you aren't much of an ally anyways.
 

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
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.

Seth from Lost Odyssey is the only one I can think of. Aside from the NPC who has you go on all the frog hunts in XV...

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.

Front Mission 2 has a Bengali lead, one of the other few south Asian leads I can think of. Too bad it never got a US release...
 

shoreu

Member
Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities. Similar to blacklivesmatter, completely ignoring latinos, who share similar injustices. There's a reason alllives picked up and reasonated with more than whites with an agenda, because ironically is was a much more inclusive message.

Like I don't see the point in making a thread about arabs/women/other in gaming as previously mentioned. Because segmenting my issues and calling on one specific community to raise awareness isn't effective in a multi cultured nation.

The issues black lives matter brought up would directly impact Latinos as well. Because in several situation we are in the same boat.
 

PSqueak

Banned

The second one in this one is the prime reason why more representation (whenever racial or LGBT+ or any other kind) is needed, it's incredibly sad that people have to cling to incredibly badly written characters just because there are no other options out there.

also


Examples of this? The only thing that comes even close to it for me is Mass Effect, except the xenophobic piece of shit, Ashley, was white.
 

alternade

Member
Most black character creation options are just white people with the melanin contrast turned up. They don't even make an effort to allow a believable ethnic person to be playable without looking ridiculous.

Would it kill them to give us a bald fade option?
 
it's not black people's job to make latino injustice heard. it's OUR fucking job, as latinos. i see my latino cousin complaining about this all the time, but he doesn't share shit about the injustices and marginalization of latino folks happening in our city, he just whines and complains that no one else is speaking up (as far as he knows)
.

Except being latino ain't a race, lol, so we can't really complain about things such as character customization and others.

Now, latino characters are far more common than I'd expect
 

yunbuns

Member
Examples of this? The only thing that comes even close to it for me is Mass Effect, except the xenophobic piece of shit, Ashley, was white.

Some people believe that Ashely was latino based of the first game and was whitewashed in ME3 but I've never really seen any in-game proof of this. Also Ashely spoke out against racism against aliens (the scene with Terra Firma and refusing to join Cerberus), she just believed that the Council and aliens would choose themselves over humanity when it came down to it and that's pretty much what happened in ME3.
 
Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities. Similar to blacklivesmatter, completely ignoring latinos, who share similar injustices. There's a reason alllives picked up and reasonated with more than whites with an agenda, because ironically is was a much more inclusive message.

Like I don't see the point in making a thread about arabs/women/other in gaming as previously mentioned. Because segmenting my issues and calling on one specific community to raise awareness isn't effective in a multi cultured nation.

This is bait. And no one should take it.
 
The sad thing is some people actually believes that.

Pretty much any discussion about diversity in gaming section yields those types. Lots of people believe. It is what it is I guess.

calling it 'bait' presumes that dr2k doesn't actually believe the shit he posts. please let me assure you that he does.

Bait in the sense that he only said it to get a whole bunch of pissed off people quoting him and get a shit post about all lives matter. (he succeeded too) I'm sure he believes that racist bullshit.
 

i-Jest

Member
This should be quoted in the OP along with the first question "What is black hair?"

That said, this thread gives me LIFE and I hope it never dies. Good God, this has been something I've been conscious of my entire gaming career.

Where do I even start?

Evan Narcisse ok Kotaku wrote in 2012, Let's See some Black Characters I'm Not Embarrassed By. I think he has others like it, too.

Last year, one black dude on a friggin Christian website was brave enough to write an article called Blerdvision at the tail end of Black History Month.

We're getting there, fam!


Yall need to play Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan. African-developed (Cameroon) indie game that hits all the checkmarks, including black hair. I dare you to find a game that is more "black."

african%2Brpg%2Baurion.jpg

I remember this. There was a thread about it when it was still in development. Another reason for me to get a gaming PC.
 

Apt101

Member
What are some examples of gaming fandom being "anti black as shit"? I'm trying to come up with some examples, but every game I can think of with black characters were really well received, and the characters well liked. The Walking Dead, GTA: San Andreas, Demoman in Team Fortress 2, Jacob in Mass Effect, Lucia in Overwatch, etc.

And why does she consider writing about some of the issues PoC deal with "co-opting"? Novelists, television writers, playwrights, etc, of all races tell the stories of people of other races. That's art, culture.

The character design criticisms are pretty funny. As a brown-skinned person myself, I basically end up just putting together a white person that looks most like me once I give their skin color a vaguely olive hue.
 
What are some examples of gaming fandom being "anti black as shit"? I'm trying to come up with some examples, but every game I can think of with black characters were really well received, and the characters well liked. The Walking Dead, GTA: San Andreas, Demoman in Team Fortress 2, Jacob in Mass Effect, Lucia in Overwatch, etc.

I remember people here vehemently arguing Clementine wasn't black, and I take it you've never seen the infamous GTA:SA GAF thread
 

Hesh

Member
Black people tend to put their issues into a bubble, completely ignoring the shared pain from other communities. Similar to blacklivesmatter, completely ignoring latinos, who share similar injustices. There's a reason alllives picked up and reasonated with more than whites with an agenda, because ironically is was a much more inclusive message.

Like I don't see the point in making a thread about arabs/women/other in gaming as previously mentioned. Because segmenting my issues and calling on one specific community to raise awareness isn't effective in a multi cultured nation.

What a disgusting thing to say. Why does the betterment of others being marginalized bring out hatred in you?
 

Lime

Member
What are some examples of gaming fandom being "anti black as shit"? I'm trying to come up with some examples, but every game I can think of with black characters were really well received, and the characters well liked. The Walking Dead, GTA: San Andreas, Demoman in Team Fortress 2, Jacob in Mass Effect, Lucia in Overwatch, etc.

See:

Some in this thread
Online multiplayer
RE5 criticism of racial dynamics
Any Twitch gaming chat as soon as a brown black person appears on stream
Any call for more representation in games
Asking for more brown people in The Witcher 3
E3 conference presentations except Ubisoft
GTA San Andreas reveal thread
Mafia 3 reveal thread
 
See:

Some in this thread
Online multiplayer
RE5 criticism of racial dynamics
Any Twitch gaming chat as soon as a brown black person appears on stream
Any call for more representation in games
Asking for more brown people in The Witcher 3
E3 conference presentations except Ubisoft
GTA San Andreas reveal thread
Mafia 3 reveal thread

I also recall some negative reactions around the internet when TT's The Walking Dead announced you played as a black male. It's really hard for some who have never experienced racism or discrimination over the color of their skin to empathize and recognize hate.
 
I can atleast understand Japanese media, cause they have like 1% Black people in the whole country, and they are usually scared of us through stereotypes and shit(not to mention there are a few shitheads there that spoil the perception of the whole bunch)

But western games really have no excuse not to be inclusive. It feels like you can only really get some customization if your playing a basketball game, which is sad in of itself.

Pretty much all Japanese anime and game characters are white and have colored eyes. Japanese people don't have blue eyes. Being in a xenophobic country is a crappy excuse. I highly doubt it's 1%. It's probably a lot lower than that.
 
Pretty much all Japanese anime and game characters are white and have colored eyes. Japanese people don't have blue eyes. Being in a xenophobic country is a crappy excuse. I highly doubt it's 1%. It's probably a lot lower than that.

This might be a little off topic but I don't think the Japanese view their characters as "white," that seems to be an American/European perspective. To the Japanese they look Japanese. I mean, it's pretty obvious to me when a Western character is introduced in anime or video games. They generally have larger noses, blond hair, and talk differently.
 

Daingurse

Member
See:

Some in this thread
Online multiplayer
RE5 criticism of racial dynamics
Any Twitch gaming chat as soon as a brown black person appears on stream
Any call for more representation in games
Asking for more brown people in The Witcher 3
E3 conference presentations except Ubisoft
GTA San Andreas reveal thread
Mafia 3 reveal thread

First time I was ever called a nigger was online in Halo 2. The casual racism present in a online games has truly been a blight.
 

shoreu

Member
What are some examples of gaming fandom being "anti black as shit"? I'm trying to come up with some examples, but every game I can think of with black characters were really well received, and the characters well liked. The Walking Dead, GTA: San Andreas, Demoman in Team Fortress 2, Jacob in Mass Effect, Lucia in Overwatch, etc.

And why does she consider writing about some of the issues PoC deal with "co-opting"? Novelists, television writers, playwrights, etc, of all races tell the stories of people of other races. That's art, culture.

The character design criticisms are pretty funny. As a brown-skinned person myself, I basically end up just putting together a white person that looks most like me once I give their skin color a vaguely olive hue.

Any time there an attempt to appeal to black or other minorities its pandering.
 
A lot of truths in those tweets. Google Images is only a click away, it's really not that hard for character creation options if you need references. Also the whole "no minorities allowed in fantasy works" doesn't sit with me as I don't understand why a minority needs to justify their existence in something fictional.
 
A lot of truths in those tweets. Google Images is only a click away, it's really not that hard for character creation options if you need references. Also the whole "no minorities allowed in fantasy works" doesn't sit with me as I don't understand why a minority needs to justify their existence in something fictional.
That's actually a really good point I have never really thought about or explored. It's extremely odd that you don't see minorities represented in many of these fantasy settings. I blame the developers; I assume most are white males so the characters they create fit that mold. If there does happen to be somebody brown it's pandering. Or at least it feels that way to me.
 

Ashtar

Member
Any time there an attempt to appeal to black or other minorities its pandering.
It's hard to take this sort of reply seriously when plenty of games are lauded for inclusion which itself is telling that it happens so rarely that a games like that have to be pointed out.
If I'm an author and write about whatever I want that's fine but if I'm writing a historical fiction youd probably expect that I'd do research and maybe even speak to experts in the field or consultants, for example although watch dogs 2 has been disparaged they talked with IT specialist and hackers or black ops 2 they spoke at length with futurist etc.
I'll make it simple though, if you have a game with a minority lead 👍🏾 great, but if you want to take a deep dive into race relations or systemic racism like mafia 3 then yeah I'd expect that they would have input from actual black people.
Another example no one took issue with a sleeping dogs not having Asian writers (as far as I know)
 
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