Nothing as of yet iirc they didn't mention her race in the new novel but I thought the same.
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Black, Minority and Ethnic Leads in Videogames
- Thread starter Lego Boss
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Nothing as of yet iirc they didn't mention her race in the new novel but I thought the same.
Not in comparison to White male and female characters, though. For every non-White character we get a hundred White Dudes.
They need to give her a second chance with a sequel or reboot. Sad to see that game not click. It had potential and overall was good but not great.
Actually, it's highly relevant. If you don't see the opportunity to pull parallels between the two (look up the meaning of the word apartheid, for starters), then the concept has gone over your head.
It's capcom. It'll never happen.
Just be glad that Life is Strange seems to be a success.
Thread has like ~30 plus characters mentioned ( they are not all main ). Your post somewhat implies how lopsided representation were in the first place.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Dimitri LH
Member
Sorry....keep forgetting how they changed the focus of the group back to Lighting with the sequel and onwards.
And his steriotype wasnt so bad as say.....barret? But thats for another discusion.
Damerman
Member
This is very true. He is one of the reasons why i irrationally champion ffxiii as a good game and a good final fantasy.
User 73706
Banned
He was originally designed to be much more East Asian-looking:
However, it appears Bungie opted out of that in favor of making him a much more racially-mixed character; given Halo takes place 500 years in the future, notions of race are pretty different and most extraterrestrial colonies are incredibly "diluted," for lack of a better word. There are some characters with real, "definitive" races, such as the Chicago-native Sergeant Johnson. Even then, though, Bungie typically made it a point to establish that things have changed pretty significantly on Earth even though locations still retain their namesakes; Chicago is now the Greater Chicago Industrial Zone, which is a massive urban sprawl taking up most of the tri-state area in what were formerly Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. Said sprawl is actually a city-state with a government separate to that of the "United States," and the US, in turn, has had its remnants align with Mexico and Canada to form the United North American Republic. Backstory even suggests that another American civil conflict (Only the "political remnants" of the US joined the UNAR, while the American Civil War is referred to as "the first American Civil War" in one of the novels) split up the Union further.
I'm going off on a bit of a tangent, though; Jun's hometown is named after a present-day Russian city, and his voice actor is of South Asian Indian heritage. I think it's safe to say Jun's racial identity is probably the most ambiguous or "diluted," with regards to the modern-day social construct. Kat, by comparison, comes from the town of Monastir (Russian for "monastery," on the same planet as Jun) and has an Israeli VA.
Mobygames has a list of games with black protagonists (and a bunch of other similar lists) here:
http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/protagonist-black/offset,75/so,1d/
http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/protagonist-black/offset,75/so,1d/
Damerman
Member
How was he stereotyped? Granted they took slight african american mannerisms in some dialogues, but they were tasteful with it and it made him very endearing... Unlike final fantasy 7. I played that game recently and i was actually suprised with the shit they got away with in regards to barret.
SixMachine
Member
This may be a rather polarizing and touchy subject on gaf but I would like more ethnic characters to display their heritage. Now I'm not saying being a stereotype out of a political cartoon but someone's ethnicity is more than the surface. A lot of modern characters sometimes feel like everymen, they can be anyone, which is totally fine if you want that, but it's also alright to not be an everyman because there are many cultural differences between each person. What you learn, the traditions you practice can affect people in many ways whether they accept or reject where they came from. Basically I'm saying, there is a lot of interesting things that can be done with a character, instead of just changing their look to match an ethnicity, they can add many facets of a culture to them.
SolidSnakex
Member
That was the localization. The Japanese version of Barret apparently isn't written like that. There was a fantranslation at one point that was setting out to fix how he was handled in the translation along with Cait Sith.
smh
Asian games are usually F2P, and F2P games are obviously not sold at Gamespot and not covered much by IGN or Gamespot in general, regardless of their country of origin. But yes, they are marketed and they are present at trade shows and conferences, and they have their own news sites like 2P, MMORPG or Steparu. I see a lot more ads on German TV for Chinese and Korean F2P games than for anything by EA, Ubisoft or Activision. They also have their own dedicated trade shows and conferences like G-Star. GAF by and large knows surprisingly little about gaming outside of the AAA console realm.
And what's not to get? Angry Birds, World of Tanks, Crossy Road, Bejeweled, PvZ and so on are massive hits and don't feature human characters. Most games on mobile and a lot of PC games are either not character and narrative driven, don't take place in the real world or both.
User 73706
Banned
Any guesses? I honestly couldn't say.
Yeah, this makes sense.
Yeah I'm familiar with most of this, but I didn't know that much about Jun. You also reminded me of my sinful exclusion of Sergeant Johnson.
Johnson got some of the greatest quotes of all time.
French-Greek seems about right, or either one.
I'm pretty sure the game gives you the latitude to play him as an innocent man wrongfully accused.
SomedayTheFire
Member
No. Shepard is default white. Inquisitor too, although the American female voice actress is of filipina/Thai descent.
User 73706
Banned
NipplesAndToes23
Member
I really don't think the 80's were any better. Those examples you gave were still small and not a single one of them had black main in the lead.
What race is Jade, because I can't tell if she's supposed to be anything in particular and can I get a link for that?
What race is Jade, because I can't tell if she's supposed to be anything in particular and can I get a link for that?
I agree that I didn't think he was so bad stereotype-wise. The chocobo in his afro was was a little much but I laughed. He is easily the most relatable/likable character in that group of insane people.
Yeah, I know. Pretty sad that they have no faith in anything including freaking MegaMan.
Razzorn34
Member
So... what you're telling is... the afro wearing, jive talking, holding gun sideways using, jazz sound track having, comedy relief character isn't a sterotype?
No, he isn't as terrible as Barret. But, is there really an argument against this?
I hope we continue to see more ethnic minority characters. I have way more than enough representation within videogames. It bothers me how much asking for representation bugs people who have more than enough, as if something was being taken away from them. That Mafia 3 thread and the old GTA:SA thread that was linked depressed me so much.
But yet and still they end up looking like white males anyway. "Not human" is the new "She's actually 3,000 years old" it feels like.
But yet and still they end up looking like white males anyway. "Not human" is the new "She's actually 3,000 years old" it feels like.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
I have yet to encounter a non-white or non Japanese protagonist that has really resonated with me yet other than Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2. I only played the first episode of The Walking Dead so I didn't get enough time to really get to know him.
I really would like to see a RPG with a leading black character one of these days. It looks like I'm going to have to wait until mine's comes out.
I really would like to see a RPG with a leading black character one of these days. It looks like I'm going to have to wait until mine's comes out.
shadowstar
Member
New challenge: Name 5 hispanic protagonists who aren't gangsters, drug dealers, or luchadores.
jackissocool
Member
Delsin's one of my favorite characters recently, partially because of this. I thought it was handled really well in a couple ways. He lived with the tribe, who had a communal setup but not some archaic stereotype nonsense. They were clearly a part of the modern world, but still maintained a lot of their cultural heritage. Delsin himself wore his heritage with pride with his tattoos - a much better alternative than feathers or furs or whatever bullshit seems "Native American". He seemed like a good representation of the someone with Indian heritage in a modern world and how those two realities mash together realistically.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
He was originally designed to be much more East Asian-looking:
However, it appears Bungie opted out of that in favor of making him a much more racially-mixed character; given Halo takes place 500 years in the future, notions of race are pretty different and most extraterrestrial colonies are incredibly "diluted," for lack of a better word. There are some characters with real, "definitive" races, such as the Chicago-native Sergeant Johnson. Even then, though, Bungie typically made it a point to establish that things have changed pretty significantly on Earth even though locations still retain their namesakes; Chicago is now the Greater Chicago Industrial Zone, which is a massive urban sprawl taking up most of the tri-state area in what were formerly Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. Said sprawl is actually a city-state with a government separate to that of the "United States," and the US, in turn, has had its remnants align with Mexico and Canada to form the United North American Republic. Backstory even suggests that another American civil conflict (Only the "political remnants" of the US joined the UNAR, while the American Civil War is referred to as "the first American Civil War" in one of the novels) split up the Union further.
I'm going off on a bit of a tangent, though; Jun's hometown is named after a present-day Russian city, and his voice actor is of South Asian Indian heritage. I think it's safe to say Jun's racial identity is probably the most ambiguous or "diluted," with regards to the modern-day social construct. Kat, by comparison, comes from the town of Monastir (Russian for "monastery," on the same planet as Jun) and has an Israeli VA.
The great thing about Jun though is his hometown Tyumen, the actual Russian city it was named after makes sense, if you look at the native ethnic group. Also in Russia in general, there are a lot of mixed Asian races in the region. So the early art you had posted does match. I had originally thought he was Korean, though thats just more due to his name then had looked up information on him and found it more fascinating and glad they actually took some effort with the background that would make sense rather than just picking random location names.
Damerman
Member
All of those are slight mannerisms... And in the end non of those define who sazh really was as a character...even superficially they emphasized that he is an old man over anything else. And the sideways gun holding is disingenuous considering he has a very dance like choreography when he attacks like when he raises his keg.
T
Thanks for dismissing like every aspect of my post! I don't try to derail anything here. It's extremly important that there's a greater focus on the problems POC are facing in terms of representation in media and they're facing more discrimination/ problems than white minorities (I said that already in this thread).
However, some people in this thread stated that the term minority in this context only refers to POC. This is correct when you speak about the U.S. but my point was that Witcher e.g. is important concerning the representation of Eastern European people in Europe. Yeah, Polish people are white, doesn't mean that their life is easy in some countries in Europe and it is ignorant to dismiss this. Yeah, they might enjoy their privilege in the U.S. over POC but as I said earlier you can't just apply all the U.S. scales to Europe.
The same applies to the term racism. In Europe, especially here in Germany it differs from the way Americans use it and let me try to explain it to you before you start to make assumptions again: racism is believed to be a social construct here (the British sociologist Stuart Hall also deals with this thought. I would reccomend to read a bit about his take on race as discursive construct) and academics focused on the Nazi ideology with it's goal to establish "race theories". These race theories didn't only focus on the skin colour. E.g. Jewish people were supposed to be a own race (even though they were white) and faced extreme discrimination because of it. Because of the fact that these "imaginary races" were created it is concidered racism what was done to the jews during the 3. Reich. Many Americans would disagree on this one since jewish people are no "race" according to them. There is a lot of confusion about what to call racist and what not. Is it only racist when speaking of different skin colours? Might be, but there is no consensus in academics so sorry if it may sound provoking, but it isn't intended to be provoking.
I also didn't try to pull a "I'm Irish so don't tell me about racism!". Absolutely not. I'm part of the biggest minority here in Germany (Turkish) and we do have mixed skin colours and a part of us is even ultra white. This does mean that there is privilege for some of us but the majority still doesn't look like Europeans even with white skin. For the white part of the Turks it is certainly a bit easier as for the rest but we still look different and face real racism/ discrimination therefore. Also a decent amount of institutional racism/ discrimination and a state trying to cover up the killings of Turks by Nazis because it ignores every goddamn right-wing terror against us.
Yes, POC still have a much worse stand in the U.S. and their lives are undeniable harder than ours here but I find it kind of sad that our situations is dismissed under this "I'm Irish so don't tell me about racism!" strawman. It's not an attempt to derail the discussion into "white people struggle too!!!!111" but rather an attempt to point out that there is even more diversity that should be adressed outside of the U.S. but not with the agenda to dismiss other minorities. Black people, people from Latin America, etc. all have legitimate claims for more representation. But I do also think that we Turks have a justified claim for getting more representation too at least in Europe and I do think that this works with more inclusive debates about minorities even when a part of us is white.
Thanks for dismissing like every aspect of my post! I don't try to derail anything here. It's extremly important that there's a greater focus on the problems POC are facing in terms of representation in media and they're facing more discrimination/ problems than white minorities (I said that already in this thread).
However, some people in this thread stated that the term minority in this context only refers to POC. This is correct when you speak about the U.S. but my point was that Witcher e.g. is important concerning the representation of Eastern European people in Europe. Yeah, Polish people are white, doesn't mean that their life is easy in some countries in Europe and it is ignorant to dismiss this. Yeah, they might enjoy their privilege in the U.S. over POC but as I said earlier you can't just apply all the U.S. scales to Europe.
The same applies to the term racism. In Europe, especially here in Germany it differs from the way Americans use it and let me try to explain it to you before you start to make assumptions again: racism is believed to be a social construct here (the British sociologist Stuart Hall also deals with this thought. I would reccomend to read a bit about his take on race as discursive construct) and academics focused on the Nazi ideology with it's goal to establish "race theories". These race theories didn't only focus on the skin colour. E.g. Jewish people were supposed to be a own race (even though they were white) and faced extreme discrimination because of it. Because of the fact that these "imaginary races" were created it is concidered racism what was done to the jews during the 3. Reich. Many Americans would disagree on this one since jewish people are no "race" according to them. There is a lot of confusion about what to call racist and what not. Is it only racist when speaking of different skin colours? Might be, but there is no consensus in academics so sorry if it may sound provoking, but it isn't intended to be provoking.
I also didn't try to pull a "I'm Irish so don't tell me about racism!". Absolutely not. I'm part of the biggest minority here in Germany (Turkish) and we do have mixed skin colours and a part of us is even ultra white. This does mean that there is privilege for some of us but the majority still doesn't look like Europeans even with white skin. For the white part of the Turks it is certainly a bit easier as for the rest but we still look different and face real racism/ discrimination therefore. Also a decent amount of institutional racism/ discrimination and a state trying to cover up the killings of Turks by Nazis because it ignores every goddamn right-wing terror against us.
Yes, POC still have a much worse stand in the U.S. and their lives are undeniable harder than ours here but I find it kind of sad that our situations is dismissed under this "I'm Irish so don't tell me about racism!" strawman. It's not an attempt to derail the discussion into "white people struggle too!!!!111" but rather an attempt to point out that there is even more diversity that should be adressed outside of the U.S. but not with the agenda to dismiss other minorities. Black people, people from Latin America, etc. all have legitimate claims for more representation. But I do also think that we Turks have a justified claim for getting more representation too at least in Europe and I do think that this works with more inclusive debates about minorities even when a part of us is white.
SixMachine
Member
Garcia Hotspur, Rosa from Kizuna encounter, Carlos from RE3, Dom from Gears of War, and Sam from Metal Gear Revengeance (he is the main man of his dlc and too awesome to pass up).
Rosa is from a fighting game but she is the "Ryu" of that game and the first character slot.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Sebastian Castellanos, Carlos Oliveira, Garcia Hotspur, Dominic Santiago, Miguel Caballero Rojo, Isabela Keyes, Rico Rodriguez, Christie Monteiro, James Vega, Steve Cortez, Tyson Rios, Domingo 'Ding' Chavez, Rico Velasquez... list can go on.
Damerman
Member
This is why i was so happy to see the cuban lead in battlefield hardline.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
You know damn well Isabela, Christie, Dominic, Miguel, and Vega aren't the protagonists of their games. Carlos I only know from Resident Evil 3, but I played 3 and that was almost entirely from the perspective of Jill.
Not to be a pedant but Stuart Hall was from Jamaica and worked at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham.
It's important to me as the research l'm doing into games uses his work!
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
He's not the main character, but Mercury in Mirror's Edge had a different face and then they changed it.
It doesn't even make sense, I can't tell if the Merc model they used is supposed to be young or old.
Old:
It doesn't even make sense, I can't tell if the Merc model they used is supposed to be young or old.
Old:
In-game:
Pepe (Rage of the dragons), Tam Tam and cham cham (Samurai Showdown, they're from what is now modern day Venezuela), Sgt. Cortez and Ramona Sosa (Time Splitters 2), T. Hawk (if you want to count him, he is an apache who recides in the apache lands in the side of mexico), Angel (is part of an evil organization, but not drug related, King of Fighters), Salvador and Mordecai (from bordelands, they're from what can be described as "space mexico"), these are from the top of my head not counting the ones already mentioned.
Erm, yeah I knew that I swear lol. Just rushed a bit too much with that post because of my distress over that accusation.
TatteredHat
Member
Non-white? I'm assuming you're not looking for characters that might be white-passing, otherwise you can include a large amount of games made in Japan.
How does being a terrible person make a bad character? Some of the best characters in fiction are pieces of shit.
SomedayTheFire
Member
He's a white Russian, no?