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[Paertan]

Well I made my Nord in Oblivion a bit too blue first time and remade him but other than that nope

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Nope. I play as a different race and/or gender whenever given the choice.

 

[Loudninja]

I am black and I never felt this way with any characters I played.

 

[Rembrandt]

Yes, only in GTA San Andreas. Was not because the main char was black, but most because most missions was tug street gang oriented and i felt it was not my place. And i ended up not enjoying the game that much. As a comparisson i never felt unconfortable playing as a Italian mafia gang or Japanese Yakuza clan. Its more a racial culture thing then the color of the skin of my character.

And as proof that is not the colour of the skin. I really enjoyed playing as Franklin in Gta5. And if was not for the amazing Trevor character, Franklin would be my most used character.

your attempt to justify it doesn't work so well since you become removed from the hood like less than 10 franklin missions in and rarely interact with the hood besides lamar and that mission involving stretch. feeling comfortable with literally every other terrible gang besides black because you don't feel comfortable with their life is racist to me.

edit: I think i just noticed this may be satire.


also what's really irritating is playing a game that allows you to create a black character, but the black hairstyles (braids, afro, dreads) look terrible and the rest are white hairstyles and variations of them. at least put work into the black characters besides the skin color. my sunset overdrive character sounds ridiculous, too.

 

[Newtype-001]

Cant ever recall so no.

 

[TheFatMan]

Hell no.

I think one of the greatest things about video games (and books and movies), is that they let us feel what it's like to be different people. I feel bad for people who only want to experience things from there own point of view.

 

[Qassim]

I'm mixed race (white european & south asian) so the whole idea of identifying with a particular race is a little difficult for me anyway, there aren't really many video characters that fit a similar category as me even if I generalise it a bit a more, so finding one to 'represent' me is damn near impossible, even if I did care for that.

I doubt that factors into it too much, but either way, I don't feel uncomfortable playing as a character that doesn't represent me: racially, nationality, culturally, sexually or gender wise, in fact I've never really thought about it.

 

[RM8]

No, the idea is beyond ridiculous to me. The game that really got me into gaming was Street Fighter 2, and I loved playing as the entire cast.

 

[commanderpepper]

No, I have never felt uncomfortable with that.

 

[sueil]

I'll play any game with any character. I'm not surprised at all though about Rust players freaking out. There is a lot of ignorant people out there. This applies to all aspects of life and not just gaming.

 

[Greddleok]

Of course not.

There's so much discussion in this thread. Might as well make one asking if people like cookies.

 

[Vylash]

nope, though I'd love for games to have better representation of different races

 

[commedieu]

Yes, only in GTA San Andreas. Was not because the main char was black, but most because most missions was tug street gang oriented and i felt it was not my place. And i ended up not enjoying the game that much. As a comparisson i never felt unconfortable playing as a Italian mafia gang or Japanese Yakuza clan. Its more a racial culture thing then the color of the skin of my character.

And as proof that is not the colour of the skin. I really enjoyed playing as Franklin in Gta5. And if was not for the amazing Trevor character, Franklin would be my most used character.

Joke. Oh..

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Can't say that I have.

 

[DoubleTake]

Im black and very much looking forward to Horizon.

 

[SixMachine]

As long as the character I'm playing is aesthetically pleasing I don't care what skin color my character is, I've played as a bunch of different characters over my years of gaming. Though I could see people being outraged about Rust, it seems to have something like a character creator or at least multiple models to play as but the player can't use it or choose what they want to look like. In a game like Skyrim or Oblivion, if I had to play as a randomly generated character, I would hate it too because from experience, that generate random face button usually is a stuff of nightmares. I don't own Rust so I wouldn't know how it generates the characters though.

 

[verbatimo]

Nope

 

[Sai-kun]

No because I'm not weird as hell lmao

 

[Tcab96]

Black guy here. Nope, don't feel uncomfortable. I also always self-insert. Helps with my immersion and I feel I enjoy the game more.

Even when creating characters I sometimes create females, sometimes I create white guys, sometimes I create black guys. It's just whatever I'm feeling for that play through, really.

 

[BeatnikGunsoo]

If I had this made up problem I wouldn't be able to play 99.9% of games dood

 

[quesalupa]

I hate playing as those filthy Lombaxes.

Spoiler

No.

 

[Solid Samus]

I'm not uncomfortable playing characters of a different race, but I do hate that in games with customizable characters, my black guy either rocks an afro, dreads, or a white person's hairdo.

 

[GamerJM]

No. I'm white so it doesn't happen very often anyways, so when it does it's a breath of fresh air.

 

[cutmeamango]

Even games that force me into "characterization" with moral/path choices and its (lack of) consequences aren't never enough for me to "reject the body".
Storytelling is very rarely first person in its treatment of role playing. It's you playing as someone, not yourself. And when it is, it usually is open enough that people choose to play "as someone" (that may resemble you, or be your "avatar"), because you play yourself everyday, and I play with myself everyday.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

I have no choice most time why would I care much?

 

[HamsterPackage]

Never. I'm as white as it gets ( Irish) in Canada. And my call of duty modern warfare guy is black. I don't even know how it happened to be honest, unless that's the default for the class? Either way he looks like a badass.

 

[Tinfoilhatsron]

Asian here.
No, not at all. As long as they are well written it doesn't bother me. Why should it?

Edit: For character customization I either make them look top hat british james bond villian OR listening to emo music goth angst teen. I just can't help myself, it's just too fun.

 

[Slackbladder]

No. And it doesn't bother me if the main character in a film or book is black or female or whatever. I never inject myself into a game, even a character created RPG like Skyrim or Dragon Age. Last thing I want in a game is a shitty version of me fucking things up. I'd rather experiance other perspectives, other worlds. I mean why be you when you can be somebody else?

 

[Icyflamez96]

i feel uncomfortable when i cant play as a black character with reasonable black person hair in a game with character creation

 

[Rafterman]

Race or sex doesn't bother me. The only characters that disturb me are those Japanese games that take little kids and sexualize them.

 

[jimmyd]

Sometimes I make a character to look like myself (as unflattering as possible), other times I get bored of that and mix it up - black, asian, female, dude with blue skin and afro. All the same to me.

 

[Marmaladefire]

I mean I only ever get to play white people. Lemme know when you find a Japanese/Mexican video game character that I can play so I can see if playing as someone the same "color" as me feels any different...

I mean, I know people never think about it for some reason, but characters in Japanese games are suppose to be Japanese a lot of the time..Blue hair and all

If a game is good, I'm gonna play it. Solid Snake or Crash Bandicoot.

However, as a mixed all over the place lady of color who can trace her family back to a least 4 countries,I like character creators because characters that look like me are rare in games.I make characters that look like me, with cool alterations that appeal to me. My skin color with purple eyes, white hair, cool battle scar, whatever. The trade off is a lack of personality. When they exist in more pre-scripedt narrative games, characters that look like me tend to be gross stereotypes.

I played way more of Remember Me than I probably would have if there wasn't the novelty of playing as someone who looked like me. Beyond Good and Evil was the first time I got to play a character that looked like me, let alone in a tasteful way, though people are still arguing about Jade's race I guess.I think she's a mixed up black/other girl, but I acknowledge that it could be projecting. Just let me have it you know??
Alyx Vance is also particularly memorable for me.

 

[Laughing Banana]

In games where create a character is possible, I never create my characters as black.

However it's also the fact that GTA San Andreas was one of my most played PS2 games ever.

 

[Golgo 13]

Not at all. Playing a female character (I'm male) used to, to an extent -- but not anymore, at all.

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

I mean I play as a white guy in nearly every game and I've never felt weird

.

 

[Fjordson]

Not at all. I never get into a game character that much. Like I don't consider the character as me, even if they're the same race as me. I just enjoy the character as its own entity, so race and gender doesn't really matter.

Worth noting that that doesn't mean I don't agree with people who say we need more variety in video game protagonists.

 

[jacob armitage]

Not once, in fact I tend to randomize my characters gender and race everytime I create a character just to make it a bit more diverse.

 

[Cpt.Underpants]

No, never

 

[raphier]

No, but only if I'm playing elves. I can't stand elves. Didn't finish dragon age because of it.

 

[red731]

No.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Nope.

 

[baterism]

No. I don't even give a drat if the character is from different species.

 

[Bjoern the Smexy]

I can totally dig characters of any skin color, race, origin or gender.
It's mostly about what kind of attitude they show.
I can only accept so much 'tude.

 

[Kenai]

Only when the avatar is supposed to be based on you/your decisions/your choices. Then it's kind of annoying if I have no choice in how I look despite said character literally being "me" (unless there's a specific reason that is story related). But as a minority brown-skinned guy I am pretty used to it so meh.

 

[MaverickHunterX]

Skin color and sex doesn't matter to me. The developer making me care about said character does!

 

[Wiktor]

No. And it doesn't bother me if the main character in a film or book is black or female or whatever.

Personally I prefer male leads in movies, comics and books. I still read/watch a lot of stuff with female protags, but having such lead generally makes me less interested in that particular work.
What I find it strange is that this doesn't carry over to games. I wonder if it's the interactivity factor, since it makes whatever the character does partially my own actions, as opossed to passively witnessing it.

 

[Chariot]

Not really. If I get the choice of character creation my characters are usually white women with either blonde or red and green eyes (which is kind of a racist preference, I guess), but I have no problem with disliking a given character because of his skin color or gender. On the other hand I can't remember playing as black character in recent times. Not a lot of games with people of colour as default when I think about it.

Actually, technically I play characters with a different skincolor all of the time, since my parents are asian, but I really feel more white than I feel asian (born in Germany, raised by germans, german friends, german education and german beer), so I am a bit conflicted how to think about that.

edit: seriously, I just skim through my gamelist on Steam and struggle with finding games with black player characters that are not made by a character creator or strategy games.
edit: Aha! Valiant Hearts! That's one! One of fivehundred...!

 

[KojiKnight]

Skin color and sex doesn't matter to me. The developer making me care about said character does!

this. As a gamer I've played just about every race/species/etc in existence.. Why would playing as a black or Asian or anything else be any different?

 

[Tygamr]

Nope. I actually wish there was a little more variety in games. Something I'd love to see is more mixed people in games in addition to more representation of non-white people. I'm slightly mixed though, so my perception of race is a little different I guess.

 

[xKilltheMx]

I'm black, I kinda would have to be used to playing other skin colors by now, if I wanted to keep playing games. No, it's never bothered me, nor has it affected my level of immersion in games. I can play any character as long as they're compelling.

All the POC answers right here. You really have to be okay with it if you are.
Oh and I usually play as female if given a choice, don't know why. Just do.