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[MisterShine]

I just disagree with the conclusions of their "findings", especially after having read the actual thesis.

Well now I have to do some research! I did some googling to read the papers cited by the article and it seems to flip back and forth between Trepte, Reinecke & Behr, 2009 and a similar study by Trepte & Reinecke 2010. Unfortunately both are behind paywalls, but here's a link to the abstracts and a quote from each I think is interesting:

http://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/full/10.1027/1864-1105/a000022 (2010)
"Avatar-player similarity was hypothesized to determine identification with the avatar, which in turn was suggested to enhance the enjoyment experience. In a quasi-experimental study, (N = 666) participants were asked to choose the personality features of an avatar for six different game scenarios"

So this study focuses on the players personality and not on their outward appearance. The abstract also specifies that in competitive games the avatar's dissimilarity to the player is actually favored. Only in cooperative games do people prefer characters similar to themselves. I'm curious what this could mean for single player games.

http://www.igi-global.com/article/creating-virtual-alter-egos-superheroines/3955 (2009)
"Participants created an avatar they would like to play with for five game descriptions and two gaming scenarios by choosing from a list of (pre-tested) masculine and feminine avatar features. Additionally, participants chose their avatars’ biological sex. The results reveal a mixed strategy: On the one hand, the avatar’s features were chosen in accordance with the game’s demands to facilitate mastery of the game.On the other hand, players strived for identification with their avatar and thus preferred avatars of their own sex. "

For the second study, it focuses on the balance between sexual identification with the avatar in contrast to what assists you with the gameplay. This is pretty interesting to me, but this doesn't seem to support what the Gamasutra article is saying here:
"While of course some players sometimes want to play as characters that are dissimilar to themselves, studies show that most players find gaming scenarios more entertaining when they can create characters that are more in accordance to their own appearance (Trepte, Reinecke & Behr, 2009). "

and here:
" but at the same time, the player’s identification with the avatar is very important for the enjoyment of the media (Trepte, Reinecke & Behr, 2010)."

I'm not sure if that is their own stretching of the results or if perhaps the research authors themselves made such claims in the full paper. Now I'm just more curious..

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Well now I have to do some research! I did some googling to read the papers cited by the article and it seems to flip back and forth between Trepte, Reinecke & Behr, 2009 and a similar study by Trepte & Reinecke 2010. Unfortunately both are behind paywalls, but here's a link to the abstracts and a quote from each I think is interesting:

http://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/full/10.1027/1864-1105/a000022 (2010)
"Avatar-player similarity was hypothesized to determine identification with the avatar, which in turn was suggested to enhance the enjoyment experience. In a quasi-experimental study, (N = 666) participants were asked to choose the personality features of an avatar for six different game scenarios"

So this study focuses on the players personality and not on their outward appearance. The abstract also specifies that in competitive games the avatar's dissimilarity to the player is actually favored. Only in cooperative games do people prefer characters similar to themselves. I'm curious what this could mean for single player games.

http://www.igi-global.com/article/creating-virtual-alter-egos-superheroines/3955 (2009)
"Participants created an avatar they would like to play with for five game descriptions and two gaming scenarios by choosing from a list of (pre-tested) masculine and feminine avatar features. Additionally, participants chose their avatars’ biological sex. The results reveal a mixed strategy: On the one hand, the avatar’s features were chosen in accordance with the game’s demands to facilitate mastery of the game.On the other hand, players strived for identification with their avatar and thus preferred avatars of their own sex. "

For the second study, it focuses on the balance between sexual identification with the avatar in contrast to what assists you with the gameplay. This is pretty interesting to me, but this doesn't seem to support what the Gamasutra article is saying here:
"While of course some players sometimes want to play as characters that are dissimilar to themselves, studies show that most players find gaming scenarios more entertaining when they can create characters that are more in accordance to their own appearance (Trepte, Reinecke & Behr, 2009). "

and here:
" but at the same time, the player’s identification with the avatar is very important for the enjoyment of the media (Trepte, Reinecke & Behr, 2010)."

I'm not sure if that is their own stretching of the results or if perhaps the research authors themselves made such claims in the full paper. Now I'm just more curious..

Interesting...

Although I'll admit, I'm more interested in the motivation to disbelieve the connections when these types of threads are made. It just feels like some people are REALLY averse to more representation of different types of people in games, even in games where you're supposed to be able to make an avatar of yourself.

 

[MrRudiMentary]

I was watching the Best Friends' NBA 2K16 video the other day and they pointed out that the character creator in that game is probably one of the only ones where the default character is black. And more than half the presets were black. I think it's pretty clear that these companies definitely pander to what they think their demographic is.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

It just feels like some people are REALLY averse to more representation of different types of people in games ...

Yep and there are always people who show up just to tell everyone they're [insert minority] and don't understand or agree with the desire for greater representation. Some of them even call it a vocal minority whining. Why does anyone want to perpetuate status quo when improving options never negatively affects anyone.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

It is a common misconception that all black people have the same facial features and hair when that isn't the case. Africa is a big continent so there is a ton of diversity.

This point kinda interests me in discussions like this, because I feel like it into a common symptom where a lot of people unwittingly mean something a lot more narrow than what they're technically saying; not helped that the continental definitions are, admittedly, a little arbitrary without the very specific historical and cultural contexts, and that outside of those continents, it is exceedingly tempting in modern racial discussions to lump them all together.

WRT the discussion proper, I kinda wonder what effect it has on the development of character builders, even when the devs might remember to aim for ethnicities outside of European and/or just straight up ambiguous. Ie, when they imagine 'Asian', do they largely think of more 'East Asian' (I realise, itself still pretty broad) features and archetypes, rather than thinking about South Asian, Central Asian, etc as well? Because I think its fair to say there's a noticeable difference between native peoples from say, Beijing, as opposed to Chennai, but both technically fall under the geographical (and commonly, racial) umbrella of Asian.

To use your own example, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of 'African' features in character builders, where they're available at least, are largely based off (conceptions of) the primarily Western African diaspora found in a lot of western european and/or anglosphere nations (again, still being pretty broad here). But as you say, Africa is ridiculously diverse, even just south of the Sahara with, IIRC, more than two thousand differing and recognised ethnic groups.

So there's a massive scale of difference of what people, and particularly developers, might think is satisfactory in terms of representing that range, vs the actual reality of it, I think.

Edit: Edited above for clarity

 

[Lime]

I was watching the Best Friends' NBA 2K16 video the other day and they pointed out that the character creator in that game is probably one of the only ones where the default character is black. And more than half the presets were black. I think it's pretty clear that these companies definitely pander to what they think their demographic is.

Is your argument that it's mostly just Black people playing NBA 2k16 and therefore the default character is Black?

I would say that your example is pretty clear of how White Supremacy seeps into video game production: White male characters can be anything, Black male characters are relegated to sports games.

 

[TalonJH]

For me, the problem is usually with facial hair. I can deal with head hair as long as the skin tone is there. I tend to create female characters to try to get around it.

Spoiler

Unless it's a Bioware game.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

WRT the discussion proper, I kinda wonder what effect it has on the development of character builders, even when the devs might remember to aim for ethnicities outside of European and/or just straight up ambiguous. Ie, when they imagine 'Asian', do they largely think of more 'East Asian' (I realise, itself still pretty broad) features and archetypes, rather than thinking about South Asian, Central Asian, etc as well? Because I think its fair to say there's a noticeable difference between native peoples from say, Beijing, as opposed to Chennai, but both technically fall under the geographical (and commonly, racial) umbrella of Asian.

I would have to think that all of it is pretty poorly done. I doubt devs really capture the diversity of complexions across South, Central and Eastern Asia or Africa. Of course, that's part of the problem with just using such poor and open-ended terminology like "Asian," which is just awful.

Hell, they often do a pretty poor job capturing any diversity across "European" or "white" ethnic backgrounds.

I think what people said about hair in general being hard to render is an interesting point. I don't know what the solution to that is. It's nice to have options where we all feel included, but it would be nice if the options didn't look all so shite.

For me, the problem is usually with facial hair. I can deal with head hair as long as the skin tone is there. I tend to create female characters to try to get around it.

Haha. I can't think of the last time a game had a proper way to render my particular beard in a way I was satisfied with

 

[LionPride]

I was watching the Best Friends' NBA 2K16 video the other day and they pointed out that the character creator in that game is probably one of the only ones where the default character is black. And more than half the presets were black. I think it's pretty clear that these companies definitely pander to what they think their demographic is.

2K is one of few games where I can make a person that has my hair. Now that may be because I have the generic young black male nappy ass fade but that's neither here nor there. 2K it's possible to make almost any race/ethnicity

 

[RedSwirl]

Just so you know, not every black man's hair is like that. For example my hair is more of say someone from like India and I'm from Haiti. I know a lot of black men in London with the type of hair I have.

if I cut my hair, it might look like what it does in the picture you posted but if I let it grow out, it looks nothing like that. So i don't think it's the "gold standard" as you put it.

But it still sucks that you can't find that kind of hair in most character creators outside hilarious afros and cornrows. There was a whole Kotaku article about how games don't let you pick "the natural."

I think somebody needs to come up with some new, more malleable hair system instead of coming up with more presets. Maybe something that let's you set degrees of straightness or curliness until you get all the way to kinky hair. Black Desert starts to do this but with still pretty limited options.

 

[SliceSabre]

Trying to make an authentic looking black person is my greatest struggle when dealing with character creators. I feel the great blessing when they have the 'fade' hairstyle available.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

But it still sucks that you can't find that kind of hair in most character creators outside hilarious afros and cornrows. There was a whole Kotaku article about how games don't let you pick "the natural."

I think somebody needs to come up with some new, more malleable hair system instead of coming up with more presets. Maybe something that let's you set degrees of straightness or curliness until you get all the way to kinky hair. Black Desert starts to do this but with still pretty limited options.

You know, as the technology improves, this increasingly makes sense as an answer to be honest. Like, as with all character creators you could still have presets to try and satisfy what people are basically after, but I can't imagine it being too difficult to create a tool that basically lets you click and shape the hair strands, at least on PC.

He says, before realising the potential collision physics involved in such a thing.

Still, some custom modification of the hair itself feels like a reasonable next step in things. Feels a bit more substantive that being able to edit the ridge of my character's eyebrows.

 

[Mr. Smiley]

You know, as the technology improves, this increasingly makes sense as an answer to be honest. Like, as with all character creators you could still have presets to try and satisfy what people are basically after, but I can't imagine it being too difficult to create a tool that basically lets you click and shape the hair strands, at least on PC.

It's funny because Black Desert has exactly that and was almost there. Pick a preset that mostly consist of long, straight hair and play with strand length and placement, even a wave modifier. However, the presets (and the modifier) themselves are so limited in choice that no matter how much I played with the hair, I couldn't even get a short pixie cut. Let alone some curls to look like natural black hair.

It's almost ideal in what it aims to accomplish though. Just needs more.

Edit: Ah, I see the poster you responded to already mentioned Black Desert. Sorry to be redundant.

 

[kamineko]

Great links; thanks for posting them TC