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[Victor Omega]

I could go on an entire rant of all the pandering, tokenism, force inclusion in videos games today.

But can there be pure, organic, natural diversity in gaming that highlights representation, wether that be race, gender or culture, without pointing those out unless the story or theme demand, it?


Are there characters and games that have / has done that?


Ill go as far and give a game like Forsaken an early benefits of the doubt and defend its tone it attempt. Hopefully game play is good.

 

[Ghost of Caelid]

Most games with diversity and inclusion aren't woke...the people who criticize them as just aren't connected to reality and hate seeing anything different than the norm.

 

[jason10mm]

Sure, when it is organic to the world. Take Aliens:Fireteam Elite. It has a diverse ethnic cast and it fits. But there is no sexuality because that makes no sense in a military sci-fi shooter. It isn't woke.

But some fantasy game about a tiny remote village isolated for hundreds of years but has a full panalopy of ethnicities and everyone's sexuality is on display despite it being heavily based on European medieval history? Woke.

 

[MrFunSocks]

Sure, when it is organic to the world. Take Aliens:Fireteam Elite. It has a diverse ethnic cast and it fits. But there is no sexuality because that makes no sense in a military sci-fi shooter. It isn't woke.

But some fantasy game about a tiny remote village isolated for hundreds of years but has a full panalopy of ethnicities and everyone's sexuality is on display despite it being heavily based on European medieval history? Woke.

This is pretty much my opinion of it too.

Forcing gender and racial stuff into the game just so you can have it in there is "woke" and unnecessary.

 

[elliot5]

There is literally nothing woke about the Forspoken trailer. Nothing. The dialogue/humor is a little cringy as it's targeting a younger audience, but that's all.

 

[purvispisgah]

Most games with diversity and inclusion aren't woke...the people who criticize them as just aren't connected to reality and hate seeing anything different than the norm.

Do you believe that the people criticizing 'wokeness' ever have a case, or is it entirely fabricated?

 

[Ghost of Caelid]

Do you believe that the people criticizing 'wokeness' ever have a case, or is it entirely fabricated?

Finding the good critiques through the muddle of red pill garbage is sometimes hard, but they do exist. Like I think to TLOUII critiques most of it was terrible but a few videos, while I disagree did make good points...they were just the minority.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Sure, when it is organic to the world. Take Aliens:Fireteam Elite. It has a diverse ethnic cast and it fits. But there is no sexuality because that makes no sense in a military sci-fi shooter. It isn't woke.

But some fantasy game about a tiny remote village isolated for hundreds of years but has a full panalopy of ethnicities and everyone's sexuality is on display despite it being heavily based on European medieval history? Woke.

To be fair, if that same fantasy game has fire-breathing massive dragons and Nephilim-tier orcs, and it's there being characters with some varying skin tones that's considered the unrealistic part, the person making that call might to sit down and rethink a few things xD.

But I do see where you're getting at with your larger point tho. As to the OP, yes video games can be diverse without being woke. Fighting games do it all the time, especially Capcom, SNK and Namco ones (Street Fighter V, KOF, Tekken 5 DR, Tekken 7 etc.). Plenty of games past and present manage to do it as well.

Unfortunately I think there's at least some slice of the reactionary types who have become so jaded by forced identity politics in media that now when they see a minority, LGBT or woman in a game they automatically go to thinking it's going to be "woke". And I blame some of the popular reactionary content creators for fostering that. Most of them don't even buy into the drivel they shove out but it's a profitable market so with dubious ethical values, they sell out and rile those types up for all they can milk out of them.

 

[Larxia]

It can, if it's done well in an honest, natural way, if it wasn't just put there to fill a checklist.

However, the problem I think is that we've had so much SJW stuff thrown in our faces for a while now, that we might now think twice about it when we see it, while we wouldn't have in the past.

For example, I started watching Fear the Walking Dead years ago, but I stopped for various reason a long time ago, and I started again recently, by watching everything from the beginning again. One of the characters is black and gay, and I completely forgot about the fact that he was gay, because I just don't care, it's not a negative or a positive for me, he's just gay, and he happens to be black, fine, I didn't think about it back then. But now, when I rewatched it in today's climate, I did, unwillingly, had a thought about it like "uh", wondering if it was put there just to respect some ratio. It doesn't change the fact that he's my favorite character, but it created this small thought.

I think that SJWs are pushing some agendas so much, that it's actually doing the opposite, they are creating whatever "phobics" because they've been annoying people so much with that, while people were just fine / didn't care about it before.

I know that it's also not the right logical reasoning to have, I'm aware of it, but it's hard to help it when people constantly tell you "black black gay gay trans trans" all day, it's making all of it seem less natural. I think SJWs are actually doing the exact opposite of what they are trying to do, they are pushing people away from the things they want people to "accept".
People now, myself included, might feel like something risks being woke when it's not, just because it has the stuff we're used to see in woke medias.

Because of all of this, I think the reasoning and logic behind saying if something is woke or not is completely biased, and it's sometimes hard to tell.

My final thoughts though, yes you can have "representation" (although I hate that word because it just seems purely marketing), in medias, it just needs to be there naturally, not feeling forced. I just think that it should not be there to be a REPRESENTATION, it should be there because... that just exists and the author wanted to have this in their creation. The problem is when people think that everything NEED to have representation.

I think SJWs just ruined natural "representation" of things.

 

[Fugitive Sex]

As long as they aren't influenced by America, yes.

 

[levyjl1988]

This game looks appealing.
The main character is attractive, not ugly, not old, if she is in a lesbian relationship it's okay as long she is also attractive, BUT if she is in a relationship with a fat ugly bitch with dyed hair then you know it is woke as fuck.

 

[CamHostage]

Oh, most definitely...

 

[mortal]

Do you know what I hate the most about the last 6+ years? How it's turned so many people on either side of this into reactionaries.
Straight white male protagonist? Ah too it's problematic, patriarchy, etc. Non-white protagonist? Must be woke, pandering, etc.
It's like a gatekeeping contest, but both sides are losing and making everyone else miserable.

People have become so fucking cynical and tribal about every petty thing regarding the portrayal of race and gender in media. It's exhausting.

 

[Dr Bass]

It's all about the haircuts.

Normal haircut?

Not woke.

Head shaved on the sides, with it long on top, dyed blue, and combed over to the sides?

Woke.

 

[Griffon]

Authoritarian SJWs ruined everything.

Before, if a character was made in some way, we just assumed it was born of the natural creative process of the author.
But now, we always assume checklists of token inclusions. Because we've seen that thrown in our faces at every turn.

When you coerce a culture into a forced-in mold, it becomes a stigma. And sure enough, it's a stigma now.

 

[iamvin22]

Sure, but it's pretty obvious that these companies are jumping on the woke wagon in entertainment

 

[Woopah]

This game looks appealing.
The main character is attractive, not ugly, not old, if she is in a lesbian relationship it's okay as long she is also attractive, BUT if she is in a relationship with a fat ugly bitch with dyed hair then you know it is woke as fuck.

Is it bad that I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not?

 

[jason10mm]

To be fair, if that same fantasy game has fire-breathing massive dragons and Nephilim-tier orcs, and it's there being characters with some varying skin tones that's considered the unrealistic part, the person making that call might to sit down and rethink a few things xD..

See, you, or at least script writers that think like you, ARE the problem. In order for a fantasy world to feel grounded and 'real' you have to adhere to actual real life as much as possible. So if you have dragons and elves then you have to double down on grounding everything else lest the world feel off and no one will give a shit.

So if you have a remote isolated village yet somehow the black baker kept his line pure for 5 generations, as did the Asian Smith, the Maori farmer, the pygmi cobbler, the inuit hatter, the Egyptian guardsman, etc and they all have multiracial spouses 'cause woke.... well, it just breaks the suspension of disbelief doesn't it? The SETTING doesn't match the characters. Better to move the story to a large trading city that can accommodate those racial characteristics, and dragons as well, than try to tell a "farm person from a small remote village..." type story. Grok my point?

 

[Hugare]

... What is woke about Forspoken?

Female lead? Female side characters?

You lost me there

My favorite examples of natural representation in videogames is Bill in TLOU.

Took me a while to understand "oh, he is gay". 'cause it was done in such a natural way.

A recent one was Psychonauts 2

Dont want to spoiler it, but it was done very well

 

[Gonpachiro Kamaboko]

So, as a double minority (Hispanic and LGBTQIA+) I feel like I can sense when I’m being pandered to, ya know? And of course that’s silly but representation done well just shines a light on the art, like Creed feels more natural to me then that show with the ladies with the gems in their heads or whatever.

 

[Aenima]

If a game is fun, its fun, who the fuck cares how the main character looks or dresses?

Only thing off about Forspoken is the bad writting/ dialogs. Still need to see more.

 

[dotnotbot]

Mass Effect Trilogy

 

[bender]

Is it bad that I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not?

Considering this board tends to be the equal and opposite reaction of the other place, you aren't alone.

 

[BaneIsPain]

Original saints row is not woke

 

[01011001]

Authoritarian SJWs ruined everything.

Before, if a character was made in some way, we just assumed it was born of the natural creative process of the author.
But now, we always assume checklists of token inclusions. Because we've seen that thrown in our faces at every turn.

When you coerce a culture into a forced-in mold, it becomes a stigma. And sure enough, it's a stigma now.

this

 

[StylishMGTOW]

I don't care, those games aren't made for me so I'm not buying it.

Speak with your wallets.

 

[junguler]

the intent is everything, there is a big difference with people who want to live and let live than people who want to tell you they are better than you and your way of life is wrong.

 

[VAVA Mk2]

 

[Larxia]

Authoritarian SJWs ruined everything.

Before, if a character was made in some way, we just assumed it was born of the natural creative process of the author.
But now, we always assume checklists of token inclusions. Because we've seen that thrown in our faces at every turn.

When you coerce a culture into a forced-in mold, it becomes a stigma. And sure enough, it's a stigma now.

Exactly my thoughts. I think the world needs a reboot or we need to go back in time for things to feel natural again.

 

[Woggleman]

Do you know what I hate the most about the last 6+ years? How it's turned so many people on either side of this into reactionaries.
Straight white male protagonist? Ah too it's problematic, patriarchy, etc. Non-white protagonist? Must be woke, pandering, etc.
It's like a gatekeeping contest, but both sides are losing and making everyone else miserable.

People have become so fucking cynical and tribal about every petty thing regarding the portrayal of race and gender in media. It's exhausting.

Exactly this. I wish everybody collectively removed the stick from their ass. Why did people become like this anyway? It seemed like one minute things were progressing in a good way and the future looked good and then the next minute we devolved into some tribalistic nightmare.

 

[Woopah]

For a long time the industry was largely stuck with thinking video game protagonists had to be a certain race/gender. We're moving past now which is good.

The best thing to do is to get to a place where creators feel able to have whatever characters they want and I feel we're pretty close to that.

What we don't need is corporations jumping on the diversity bandwagon as a way to make money, while also not being inclusive in the way they treat their employees.

 

[GermanZepp]

In this political climate? No. Those days are long gone. There are some games that deal with it better than others though. EDIT: you folks made some good points. Maybe not all games with diverse cast are woke.

 

[Faithless83]

Black girl as one of the last giants on a Nordic setting, was weird to say the least.
But hey, looks like we have quotas to meet now.

 

[Larxia]

Why did people become like this anyway? It seemed like one minute things were progressing in a good way and the future looked good and then the next minute we devolved into some tribalistic nightmare.

I think my post above and the one from Griffon actually try to explain this.

 

[breakfuss]

Do you know what I hate the most about the last 6+ years? How it's turned so many people on either side of this into reactionaries.
Straight white male protagonist? Ah too it's problematic, patriarchy, etc. Non-white protagonist? Must be woke, pandering, etc.
It's like a gatekeeping contest, but both sides are losing and making everyone else miserable.

People have become so fucking cynical and tribal about every petty thing regarding the portrayal of race and gender in media. It's exhausting.

It’s a course-correcting reaction to years of homogenous representation. One that I don’t necessarily take issue with but as you mention has become exhausting. Whenever I read, “oH GOSh, not another cis white dude” I kind of recoil because it’s entirely missing the point. Of course I’d love to see more characters that look like me but that isn’t to the exclusion of ones that don’t. It’s actually kind of insulting. We need more diverse people in the development workforce - a tall (and complicated) order, for sure, but that’s where I’d love to see change happen. Kudos to the devs sincerely making an effort to be more inclusive though, and not simply checking off boxes.

 

[Allnamestakenlol]

It can, if it's done well in an honest, natural way, if it wasn't just put there to fill a checklist.

However, the problem I think is that we've had so much SJW stuff thrown in our faces for a while now, that we might now think twice about it when we see it, while we wouldn't have in the past.

For example, I started watching Fear the Walking Dead years ago, but I stopped for various reason a long time ago, and I started again recently, by watching everything from the beginning again. One of the characters is black and gay, and I completely forgot about the fact that he was gay, because I just don't care, it's not a negative or a positive for me, he's just gay, and he happens to be black, fine, I didn't think about it back then. But now, when I rewatched it in today's climate, I did, unwillingly, had a thought about it like "uh", wondering if it was put there just to respect some ratio. It doesn't change the fact that he's my favorite character, but it created this small thought.

I think that SJWs are pushing some agendas so much, that it's actually doing the opposite, they are creating whatever "phobics" because they've been annoying people so much with that, while people were just fine / didn't care about it before.

I know that it's also not the right logical reasoning to have, I'm aware of it, but it's hard to help it when people constantly tell you "black black gay gay trans trans" all day, it's making all of it seem less natural. I think SJWs are actually doing the exact opposite of what they are trying to do, they are pushing people away from the things they want people to "accept".
People now, myself included, might feel like something risks being woke when it's not, just because it has the stuff we're used to see in woke medias.

Because of all of this, I think the reasoning and logic behind saying if something is woke or not is completely biased, and it's sometimes hard to tell.

My final thoughts though, yes you can have "representation" (although I hate that word because it just seems purely marketing), in medias, it just needs to be there naturally, not feeling forced. I just think that it should not be there to be a REPRESENTATION, it should be there because... that just exists and the author wanted to have this in their creation. The problem is when people think that everything NEED to have representation.

I think SJWs just ruined natural "representation" of things.

A hundred times this. A decade ago I never gave a thought to a person's skin color or gender in a game. Now? I can't go a day without hearing people ranting and raving about the topic (both sides of it) in the news, on message boards, social media, etc. It's made me so hyper sensitive that it creeps its way into my thoughts for every movie or tv show I watch, game I play, or book I read. And it fucking sucks.

 

[Aion002]

SNK is the answer... Since the beginning they are making games with a diversified cast of characters that represents various body shapes, nationalities and gender.

From Fatal Fury to today.

If SNK could do it in the 90s, everybody can today.

 

[nush]

 

[Larxia]

It's made me so hyper sensitive that it creeps its way into my thoughts for every movie or tv show I watch, game I play, or book I read. And it fucking sucks.

It's really awful, even while being aware of it, it still affects us because we just don't know what to trust or not anymore. I hate that it's altering our reasoning because of stupid reasons.
It should have never become like this, and now both sides are "losing".

 

[Woggleman]

No matter what intentions they might have had all these identity based movements are making things worse and I am of the belief that if something isn't working you scrap it and try something better. It is radicalizing many people on all sides.

 

[StateofMajora]

Yeah. When it’s a new series with a lead character of color or female it’s fine. Maybe, unless it appears like the good guys are all non white/straight and there’s an evil white man villain or something stupid like that. Like new saints.

Btw how tf is a white Woman lead a minority in the first damn place? Not that all this shit isn’t stupid anyway. Nevertheless, I see something like returnal and I don’t give it a second thought. New IP, that’s how you do it. Couldn’t care less it’s a woman.

Miles morales for example is woke af because it takes an established character and shits on it whilst changing the race/sex. The BLM stuff, the oh now we have a Spider-Man for our neighborhood bs npc lines etc.

If it was a new superhero series with new black character it wouldn’t be an issue. Unless they go on to preach how oppressed they are lol. It would be obvious if it’s woke or not.

So much of the PlayStation event was so woke, and no it’s not because there’s poc in it, don’t be stupid people. The people who are getting these dev jobs come from this toxic culture, so of course all this shit is going to infect games.

 

[Hosam6xavi]

If diversity mean only black or LGBT ? Yep it's woke

Why not Asian - Latinos - arabs or hispanic ? See it will not support their agenda

And god of war put black girl in norse mythology

 

[Hestar69]

Yes

 

[eyesabitdull]

Wtf?

Games have had diverse casts many times YEARS AGO.

The only difference is that game developers weren't using it as a bargaining chip or leverage for sales, or worse, merely virtue signaling to win PR points.\

Why?

Because no one stopped to think about race and color then because we weren't worried about being racists. FF been putting giant man cats and oversized puppets in gaming since the 90's, we didn't have articles talking about "muh diversity" then now, did we? Or heck, how the biggest game in the PS2 era is literally fronted by a cast of African Americans (GTA SA) and NOT ONE SINGLE FUCK was given, nor did we needed to overly exaggerate the celebration of it's existence.

It is completely entirely possible.

It's just that we're stuck playing "look at me, i'm not racist" card instead of, ya know, just loving thy neighbor regardless of race or color without the need of getting a pat in the back and a nice wank for not looking at a person like me and wanting to lynch me.

It's an obsession in the industry to be woke and diverse, and therein lies the problem - not the lack of diversity in gaming which has existed and continued to exist - in one form or another - since the introduction Ms. Pac Man.

Spoiler

 

[Fbh]

I think something can be pandering without necessarily being woke.

Like Forspoken so far doesn't seem particularly woke to me. But it's a game made mostly made by Japanese dudes, and written by 2 white guys and 2 white women. I simply don't buy that the black female lead and almost entirely female cast (so far) came to them completely organically and didn't take into account the current political climate, market research and the demands of vocal groups on social media.

But just because the cast is intentionally diverse I don't think it makes it woke. To me it becomes woke if it has actual woke themes (for example "white people/men are evil!!"), if it has a preachy tone, if it has diverse characters that feel like they were forced into the story and don't logically fit in, or when characters are defined by their race or sexual orientation.

So far I'm giving Forspoken the benefit of the doubt.

PS:
Slightly related but I still think one of the best non woke diverse casts in media was from a kids cartoon from 2005

 

[breakfuss]

If diversity mean only black or LGBT ? Yep it's woke

Why not Asian - Latinos - arabs or hispanic ? See it will not support there agenda

And god of war put black girl in norse mythology

Well Kratos is fucking gray? and voiced by a black dude so I don’t see the issue here.

 

[JerryinSoCal]

Yeah. When it’s a new series with a lead character of color or female it’s fine. Maybe, unless it appears like the good guys are all non white/straight and there’s an evil white man villain or something stupid like that. Like new saints.

Btw how tf is a white Woman lead a minority in the first damn place? Not that all this shit isn’t stupid anyway. Nevertheless, I see something like returnal and I don’t give it a second thought. New IP, that’s how you do it. Couldn’t care less it’s a woman.

Miles morales for example is woke af because it takes an established character and shits on it whilst changing the race/sex. The BLM stuff, the oh now we have a Spider-Man for our neighborhood bs npc lines etc.

If it was a new superhero series with new black character it wouldn’t be an issue. Unless they go on to preach how oppressed they are lol. It would be obvious if it’s woke or not.

So much of the PlayStation event was so woke, and no it’s not because there’s poc in it, don’t be stupid people. The people who are getting these dev jobs come from this toxic culture, so of course all this shit is going to infect games.

The only bad thing about Miles Morales to me was the podcast/social media girl he followed and it had nothing to do with her being female it was her seeming like people in real life that I find very annoying lol, the 20 year old know it all types who talk down to everyone else from their cloud. Miles himself was great, very likeable and not a character designed to replace Peter Parker as Spider-Man just a new character with his own story who ended up getting a lot of the same powers that Peter has as well as some of his own.

 

[JerryinSoCal]

If diversity mean only black or LGBT ? Yep it's woke

Why not Asian - Latinos - arabs or hispanic ? See it will not support their agenda

And god of war put black girl in norse mythology

She's the last of the giants so maybe she's got some wiggle room.

 

[TGO]

My only problem with Forspoken is the characters voice doesn't fit the character

 

[purvispisgah]

Black girl as one of the last giants on a Nordic setting, was weird to say the least.
But hey, looks like we have quotas to meet now.

And if a God of War was made with a a group of African gods, and any of them were shown as white, people would lose their minds. I think this hypocrisy, more than anything, is the reason for some much of the reactionary sentiment that is now brewing.

Game created by Eastern Europeans and based on their mythology - people complain about the lack of characters with darker skin.

Movie casts almost exclusively people of African descent - gets praised for 'diversity' of all things.

The hypocrisy is obvious, and people are going to notice.