There was also a point in gaming where the vast majority of gaming protagonists and supporting cast were male.
Thanks to the efforts of people like Anita Sarkisian, game developers and designers were made aware of how women were being portrayed in gaming, and many of them have begun to think very seriously about those things when including women in their games. Many developers weren't looking to malign women intentionally, but they're just as much a product of their cultural surroundings as anyone else, and many of them just never considered that they were doing something out of the ordinary, and alienating a large group of women gamers and industry workers.
Now look at the gaming landscape. I was surprised, in a good way, when I was walking along the show floor at E3 last year, and saw how many games not only had female leads, but had female supporting casts that weren't just there to be masturbatory aids for teenage boys. It was refreshing.
I don't see why minority representation should be looked at any different. Whether black or Latino, or Asian, or any other ethnicity that lacks representation. Creators from all over the world have created fiction that features all manor of diversity, so I don't buy into the argument that you have to be that race in order to create fiction about that race.
I'm a black guy. I'm also an artist and a writer. My current comic book on comixology and kindle features a cast of both males and females, black, white, Asian, Mexican, etc. it all started by sitting back and thinking: does this character need to be male? Does this character need to be white? It's basically a call to introspection on your part. Here in America, the default is almost always white male.
If I say, "lawyer," "doctor," "police officer," "Mayor," "politician," "astronaut," "writer," "programmer," "farmer," the first thing that pops into many American's minds is a white male. When I was a young artist, and I'd be creating characters for my comics, they were almost exclusively white males and sexy females. You'd think that as a black guy, I'd be creating black characters out my ass, but I wasn't, and that's because of what I mentioned before; as a culture, Americans have been conditioned to see that default white male as the lead in every narrative. I just never thought about it. What I saw on TV and in my comic books and cartoons were almost always badass white guys saving the day and being heroic, so when I'd sit down and create my superhero or what have you, they'd automatically be a white male.
It wasn't until I got much, much older, and started having conversations with my wife and other people, of all ethnicities, that I began to approach the creation of my characters with a broader brush, and I think it makes my work better. Not to mention that being able to draw different ethnicities, heights, weights, body types, and facial features has been great for my growth as an artist.
The OP isn't condemning the creator of the game, he's just calling to attention a potential oversight on the developer's part. Something that he/she may not have been aware of when designing his cast of characters. It's good to bring these things to the forefront of conversations. Talking about gender and racial issues always seem to put people on the defensive, which is really sad. The OP isn't crying racism, or calling for a boycott of the game. They're just sharing with us something that jumped out at them regarding the game. NeoGAF has a large population of people from all over the world, many of them developers and industry types. Maybe he thought bringing this up in a GAF thread would jumpstart conversation in the industry. There are worse forums you could start a thread like this on, where it wouldn't potentially pass under the nose of actual industry professionals.
Thanks for sharing this, OP, and hopefully you also tweeted or emailed the developer as well.
