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Colin Moriarty is leaving Kinda Funny Games.
- Thread starter BY2K
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Grim attempt at explaining this. Are all these white dudes included because they're interesting or because devs are disproportionately white dudes making game for, in their minds, white dudes? What does it mean to shoehorn in minorities? Are all non-straight, white, male characters shoehorned in unless their identity is integral to the story? Should everyone be a straight, white character unless a narrative explanation is given?
Also, diversity has never been a bullet point on a game box. If I'm wrong, please share with the class.
So developers have to justify having minorities in the lead, how many times do you think white male leads are picked for interesting narrative reasons?
Is Nathan Drake white man for an interesting narrative reason?
Don't put this requirement on minorities if you aren't willing to apply it to white male characters. If a character should be a minority when it serves a narrative decision then characters can't be white unless the game itself and its story has a narrative around them being a white male.
I think he meant more along the lines of something like FFXV. Tabata expressed how he wanted the narrative to be about Bros on a road trip. So there were no female party members. And it's OK to make games like that.
If Tabata at any point said "shit guys we don't got any women or black party members like we did in FFXIII. Quickly, someone design a woman and a black guy!" then you're getting into diversity for diversity sake"
That's how I interpret that sentence anyways.
Edit: Basically don't design characters in games with the intention of checking off a demographic checklist.
This is what they actually believe.
Over the past few months though you could tell he wasn't interested. He'd barely contribute to gamescast topics because he refused to play games for more than an hour. That's fine and all but when you're expected to talk about new releases and people rely on your opinion it's not a good look.
They shouldn't be all white males unless there is a good reason for it. Putting the expectation on a minority character needing it or its shoehorned in should have the same standard for white characters.
White is not the default, treating it as such is harmful and wrong.
If you are a development studio and most of your games star white males unless you have strong narrative reason why in each game you are doing something wrong as a developer. Making characters black, brown, etc for no reason is not shoehorned diversity. It is just as shoehorned to make all the characters white with no narrative requirement to do so.
That is why Colin's argument was wrong. It pushed forward the ignorant belief that white male is default in vidoe games and if you have minority leadsyou need to have a reason to make them minority.
theangrypirate
Member
FTFY
Exactly. Saying you need a narrative reason to make them not all white straight bros is just nonsensical, because there is no equal expectation to explain why they are white straight males narratively.
You can't put this expectation on that of making characters minorities when you don't place the same expectation on white male leads.
If you make all the characters white that is just as much shoehorning in white characters as if you decided to make one black.
That is why not being for "diversity for the sake of diversity" is such a harmful view, because you do not place the same stance on being against when a character is a white straight male without a logical/narrative decision to back it up.
GeordieMark
Member
I think part of it is the fear of misrepresenting these groups because the people designing the characters are statistically likely to be young white guys. Rather than risk offence, they choose to avoid the subject entirely. I'm sure there are plenty of studios that could pull it off just fine, but there's bound to be some who fuck it up and pay the price. There is an aversion to risk in the industry in general and my observation is that this is a potential minefield many devs and pubs aren't confident negotiating.
People saying there should be a narrative reason to include minorities are talking rubbish though. It's a flimsy excuse given the narrative of many games is paper thin anyway.
Inferno313
Banned
That's not really what that poster wrote at all, this is an incredibly generous reading of that post.
The problem hasn't really ever been the fact that some games are primarily about straight, white, men. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. The problem is that straight white male leads make up an obscenely inordinate share of the landscape of gaming characters.
Fear of "diversity for diversity's sake" is a poor argument. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a developer's story meeting going: "I think this cast could use some more diversity. What if we made this particular character a minority woman, instead of white male?"
Now sure, that kind of thinking COULD potentially lead to tokenism, if the developers go about it in a lazy way, which we all want to avoid. However, IF that were to happen then that's a specific point of criticism regarding how the character was written, NOT a problem with the fact that they chose to include a minority lead.
We have to justify our existence. Shit, you get posts when people complain about a lack of diversity in The Witcher saying, well it's based off of XYZ. Fool that's a fictional world. You ain't gotta explain the existence of Griffins and shit, but gotta explain my existence?
Glass Shark
Banned
i think the "diversity for the sake of diversity" argument also belittles developer's intentions with their games. especially when it seems like fear of a strawman argument rather than an actual occurrence. take, say, overwatch. jeff kaplan spoke on this subject at dice. he said that their goal wasn't diversity. their goal was inclusivity and open mindedness and diversity was the result.
H.Cornerstone
Member
Yeah.. the "I am all for diversity in games, as long as their is narrative reasons why just don't shoehorn gays/blacks/arabics/etc for no reason!" is so frustrating. It's a video game. You don't have to have a narrative reason for a black trans woman to be the lead. Just make it a black trans woman! That's it!
How many times do we place the expectation on a developer to explain them making a character a straight white male? Never. But if you are anything but that, you better justify your existence or it is just unnecessary diversity.
This is why Colin's stances on diversity in games is so troubling, honestly far more so than his misguided anti-womens rights tweet.
Weird, it's almost as if a culture and industry full of people throwing out shitty, warmed-over sexism, like Colin, tend to foster an industry that underrepresents women. It's almost as if all of these things are part of a larger conversation about opportunity and equity. Nah, Colin is a victim of the outrage engine and diversity for diversity's sake is the real issue.
Lifejumper
Member
Tbh, it has. There are plenty of bad arguments floating around in, say, the girl Link threads that have just that bent.
But yes, I think it is a classic case of being really poked by the bad arguments and thinking that all the good arguments are the bad arguments and responding with a bad argument.
Edit: Moreover, I think it is telling that when Colin comes to GAF he pretty much acts like everything here is just the shittier posts and goes off half-cocked and overgeneralizes.
He argues that people shouldn't make characters black or white or Asian or male or female or whatever as if there is some necessary quota to fill, but that creators should create the content they want to make. The problem is that almost nobody is arguing what he is against. People want creators to want to make more diverse content. Creating token roles doesn't fix anything. People want more creators to want to be more inclusive.
Inferno313
Banned
I dunno fam. It's wrong. I'm just trying to define what he meant by that statement.
As for me, I'm all for purposefully adding in characters of different demographics for the sake of representation. It's a great way to get inspire younger kids and/or offers different perspectives.
Like an example that makes me smile is Kumail Nanjiani getting emotional that Rogue One had a character if his demographic represented in such an iconic franchise for the first time.
https://www.google.ca/amp/boingboing.net/2016/12/21/kumail-nanjiani-tweets-about-r.html/amp
DeviantBoi
Member
Greg coping by taking off his shirt and drinking beers on the roof right now to cope:
Is that a deleted scene from The Room?
damn.
Shadowhelper
Banned
Yeah, he is very wrong on that point.
He comes across as intelligent and progressive otherwise, so it's kinda surprising. But perhaps, people give him too much credit. It's not the first time he has expressed loopy ideas.
I did find him the best part of KF, but he just still seems like an interesting or fun guy you knew from college, who shared similar pop culture obsessions. Never found him to really be a top notch brilliant commentator of pop culture or politics. But I can definitely see why people estimate him above what I estimate him.
GwyndolinCinder
Member
Quality content.
Audioboxer
Member
It most definitely isn't organic, it's Colin fast tracking it. The guys probably knew some writing was on the wall, but it's still been a quick turnaround.
I still don't know about bad blood, probably just disappointment all round. Like, if Colin had kept his ego in check and didn't decide to go to the Moon just because he tasted politics on Rubin, he could have departed a few weeks later, planned, and with more of a "celebration" of leaving. Rather than the KF crew needing to go through drama, and then, bam, Colins out.
Well the problem isn't with you.
It's with Colin's (and sadly many others) very unfair stance that if a character minority in a game it should have narrative reasoning's, as he is against diversity for diversity's sake.
Even if it is not his intention this pushes the "white straight male" as the default, the standard. Which is very harmful of a view in a industry that has had a lot of problems with diversity, both in the development world and on screen.
Yup. You're right. My theory is since the majority of developers are white males, or white, and art is a reflection of oneself and their environment, they tend to write stories and characters relating more closely to them (white co-workers, white friends, lack of female friends or minorities in their lives, etc)
It's a real shame. And there's been some scummy focus testing and higher ups at publishers who wanted to make the lead white and/or male due to wanting to sell to the most people because they think any other type of protagonist won't sell.
Bunch of old white men stuck in their ways imo.
This industry needs some fresh young blood.
Triggerhappytel
Member
GeordieMark
Member
It's a chicken/egg situation though in my opinion. If you've got an industry that is overwhelmingly white and male, that's who games will cater for in the most part, and that is the group that will dominate the narrative around games. More needs to be done to promote applicants from diverse backgrounds, but there also needs to be a far greater effort to promote games as a career for minorities in schools and colleges. We need to diversify the talent pool which will in turn diversify the industry as a whole, including the output.
The whole thing does smack of him forcing an exit consciously or unconsciously, when he could have just backed out without, say, inciting fan wars in the fanbase with that whole joke and apology episode.
Honestly, I never really liked Colin even when I used to listen to Beyond. He was just really arrogant and condescending along with calling himself a "libertarian" which honestly just sounds like a republican without having to call yourself a republican when he would describe his political beliefs. Might actually check out kinda funny now.
Holy shit, amazing.
lulz 10/10
Thing is even if you cant change the fact the overwhelming majority of developers are white males that doesn't mean they cant have diverse leads.
Look at The Force Awakens. White male writer & and director. Leads were a black male and white female. And they got a lot of shit from the alt-right online for it for being social justice warriors.
If they can do it in one of the biggest movies all time, white male developers can do it in video games.
Look at The Force Awakens. White male writer & and director. Leads were a black male and white female. And they got a lot of shit from the alt-right online for it for being social justice warriors.
If they can do it in one of the biggest movies all time, white male developers can do it in video games.
Adam_Vania
Banned
i don't buy the "you shouldn't do X just for a bullet points".
graphics can be bullet points
fps can be bullet points
multiplayer can be bullet points
story can be bullet points
gameplay can be bullet points
physics can be bullet points
ai can be bullet points
seems weird to single out one aspect and say, "Everything else is fine, but this one thing, you can't use it to promote a game."
graphics can be bullet points
fps can be bullet points
multiplayer can be bullet points
story can be bullet points
gameplay can be bullet points
physics can be bullet points
ai can be bullet points
seems weird to single out one aspect and say, "Everything else is fine, but this one thing, you can't use it to promote a game."
Agreed. That's a big part of my issue with Colin's schtick. Yeah, he's just a dumb clown, but his garbage contributes to a huge issue in the industry, and society overall. It's fine if you hold conservative beliefs. It's not fine if you espouse regressive discourse as a public face of a company in an industry that birthed Gamergate. You gotta fucking go, if that's your game. There's ton of money to be made for even the least competent person if he just wants to rail against PC culture and shit. We don't need that here.
lol good stuff
Ninja Scooter
Member
They aren't against it, they are just tired of hearing about it, because, you know, it'll just fix itself somehow.
Tom Nook Sawyer
Member
Colin posted this to Facebook about an hour ago
Inferno313
Banned
"My best friends, Ramon and Mike, NOT GREG"
I have no idea if he ever considered Greg a best friend, I'm just reading into things for funsies.
Still holding out hope that if they keep PSILY alive he can be around as a permanent or frequent 3rd chair. Once he gets settled with whatever next step he is taking. He'd probably have more fun if he was only committed to KF a couple hours a week instead of multiple podcasts, Colin Was Right, and other things.
butman
Member
Hahahaha GOLD!
I'm a white male and I can't relate to orcs and dragons roaming around the fucking countryside and shit, but there's no lack of games in the Fantasy / RPG genres. If developers just wrote what they could relate to every game would be a programming simulator. IMO the closer truth is what other people are saying: straight white men are considered "default" and any variation on that requires some huge deliberate explanation in their minds, lest it be "shoehorning" or "tokenism."
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