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Why are there no MAIN Al Sharpton characters

George Foreman boxing games for various consoles.

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James Buster Douglas Knockout Boxing for Mega Drive/Genesis and Sega Master System (possibly other systems too).

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Jolee Bindo was cool.

winter said:
I'm pretty sure the Halo novels describe him as being fairly celtic looking with red hair and ruddy skin.
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Not a ginger. ANYTHING but a ginger lead!

Jenga said:
because there's no black people in japan?
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sp0rsk said:
Cause there aren't many black people creating games?
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I think these 2 have something to them. A lot of art and concepts are based around your surroundings and your own life/family. If there's not a lot of black guys on development teams, I don't expect them to really be incorporated. Or if they are, I fear they'll be stereotyped or "safely" bland.
 
I think a lot of it comes down to there not being many black people making video games thats it. Because look at Theseis their main characters are automatically Greek. I think a lot of developers stick to what the know to avoid the issue of racism just incase a character comes off looking ''Stereotypical''.
 
Nolan. said:
I think a lot of it comes down to there not being many black people making video games thats it. Because look at Theseis their main characters are automatically Greek. I think a lot of developers stick to what the know to avoid the issue of racism just incase a character comes off looking ''Stereotypical''.
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That's no excuse, Rockstar hired many people to use as creative directors or consultants when making San Andreas. GTA4 features a main character of Croatian descent or whatever. How many croatians do you think Rockstar has on payroll as developers?

Its a matter of being bold enough to do something different, and following through with the proper research and preparation. While having a predominantly black payroll produce a game with a black perspective might seem proper, its definitely not a requirement, as proved by Rockstar alone.
 
To reply (rather late I know) to the OP.

Because the games industry in general lacks diversity. I assume we've got to this conclusion already.
 
ryan13ts said:
I don't think that would be weird at all. In fact, I'd actually welcome a change like that, as long as the story revovled to where it made sense for a Londoner to be in a GTA game as a protagonist.
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You see that's where it all stems, if you're writing out the story for a RPG you create characters that fits into the world and you don't think about if they're white Cocasion, Black or whatever, and how many RPG's have you played, Final Fantasy VII for example was lauded for what it is, because you go into depth of each character's past not just Cloud.

My point isn't just about "Throwing a black guy" into an RPG just for that sake alone, it's more about creating more diverse characters as leads for those sort of games as apposed to what we almost always expect from a lead characters in an RPG. I'd like to see more characters of color and other walks of life (any to be exact) given as much depth and development as they would a white protagonist.
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How many RPG's have you played?

Dark Chronicle has lots of white people, but the main character does not look your "typical" Japanese Pretty boy. Disgaea, is similar and it deals with Angels and Demons no "typical" JRPG pretty boy in sight infact that's Anime based, there's also Xenosaga, Dragon Quest, Shadow Hearts. Hell the shit got kicked out of Raiden from MGS who was your "typical" JRPG character.

Final Fantasy XII does have a kinda pretty boy that you pigeon hole JRPG's into yet it's got characters like Fran where her character development is as developed as the White protagonist.

You'll need to be more clear on the definition of WHITE, because even then it's under that umbrella diversified with Italian, British, American, Spanish, Greek, Asian or are they all the same. -_-
 
It's different between western and japanese/asian character design.

In the western games, you can see a very clear picture of the character's race stereotype. I mean, you can see the different between white, asian or black character. But in the japanese/asian games, though the character has the face and body of asian people but it feature some of the caucasian such as blue eye or sometime blond hair (And many of you confuse and think the character is white which is not quite correct, just thinking of the character like Rikku from FF10 or Cloud from FF7). It happens to almost of japanese game character design.
 
The reason why there are very few black roles in video games is simple:

-Japanese have a negative stereotype against black people. You will never see a black guy in some final fantasy game with a bonner sword. Instead you will see pussified boy/girl white hybrids.
-The only true black guys in street fighter were Barlog and Dee Jay, after that you have elena who doesnt look anything black, its like she has white features but coated with black paint. Dudely is a british black guy who likes drinking tea and wears nice clothes, i guess thats a departure from the black stereotype, but in 3rd strike i noticed in the character select screen they gave him blue eyes ..i mean i can understand dark brown or light brown, but come on.

I havent played the latest guilty gear, but there are no black guys in that.

Tekken has a blade lookin character, and some jamaican guy, so i guess thats valid.

You know game developers can create some really creative, wild colorful characters. Can range from a dude with a wolfs head to some wierd lookin bug creatures with big black eyes and green face and what nots., but yet every developer is such a pussy to give a decent looking black guy a lead role in video games. I really do think that we have some sort of negative view on black guys in a subconcious manner and not even aware of it. Sure they may say "oh we got nothing against black people and blah blah blah" but if they dont why be such pussies?

The only decent role of lead black guy i can think of is the pitch black game from vin diesel. Vin diesel himself is half black and a mix of other races, so its a start. I guess the only way we gonna move our way to pure blackness, is if we start with brown people first and then slowly work our way up to black people.

Man i hate people.
 
MeowMeow said:
Japanese have a negative stereotype against black people. You will never see a black guy in some final fantasy game with a bonner sword. Instead you will see pussified boy/girl white hybrids.
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Where's that bitchslapthroughcomputer gif when you need it THIS much.
 
Fio Maravilha said:
The Political correctness patrol.
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No. This thread is full of weird, obscure characters that people had to fish for. There's an unusual amount of minority characters in videogames, of any sort. And it's sad, especially for minority kids that play videogames.
 
I think most game developers are ethnocentric racists. The whole develop what they know argument is bullshit. They only know white people and stereotypes of other ethnicities? That's pretty sad. Then the whole PC arguement is lame too. If they weren't racist then they would feature a diversity of characters in a game without thinking, but game after game comes out and it's same generic white character. Hey guys stop being complacent. No wonder the gaming industry is so stagnant right now. Lastly stop listing secondary characters. It's not funny anymore.
 
MeowMeow said:
The reason why there are very few black roles in video games is simple:

-Japanese have a negative stereotype against black people. You will never see a black guy in some final fantasy game with a bonner sword. Instead you will see pussified boy/girl white hybrids.
-The only true black guys in street fighter were Barlog and Dee Jay, after that you have elena who doesnt look anything black, its like she has white features but coated with black paint. Dudely is a british black guy who likes drinking tea and wears nice clothes, i guess thats a departure from the black stereotype, but in 3rd strike i noticed in the character select screen they gave him blue eyes ..i mean i can understand dark brown or light brown, but come on.

I havent played the latest guilty gear, but there are no black guys in that.

Tekken has a blade lookin character, and some jamaican guy, so i guess thats valid.

You know game developers can create some really creative, wild colorful characters. Can range from a dude with a wolfs head to some wierd lookin bug creatures with big black eyes and green face and what nots., but yet every developer is such a pussy to give a decent looking black guy a lead role in video games. I really do think that we have some sort of negative view on black guys in a subconcious manner and not even aware of it. Sure they may say "oh we got nothing against black people and blah blah blah" but if they dont why be such pussies?

The only decent role of lead black guy i can think of is the pitch black game from vin diesel. Vin diesel himself is half black and a mix of other races, so its a start. I guess the only way we gonna move our way to pure blackness, is if we start with brown people first and then slowly work our way up to black people.

Man i hate people.
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It's amazing you go through tekken andforget to mention
RAVEN.
Plus your post sounds too angry man.
 
aztrex said:
That's no excuse, Rockstar hired many people to use as creative directors or consultants when making San Andreas. GTA4 features a main character of Croatian descent or whatever. How many croatians do you think Rockstar has on payroll as developers?

Its a matter of being bold enough to do something different, and following through with the proper research and preparation. While having a predominantly black payroll produce a game with a black perspective might seem proper, its definitely not a requirement, as proved by Rockstar alone.
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And I'm sure it cost Rockstar a lot of money to get all these consultants.

Should some developer making Rygar or Rayman or some adventure game have to do that to avoid being looked down upon? People are going to make games in keeping with their personal visions. Not everyone's personal vision includes an urban environment or people with ethnicity. And "ethnicity" includes white people. Most games don't refer to a character's race/ethnicity/background at all, the important part is what the player is doing at that time.

It's not like every game with a white person in it features characters waving English and Italian flags. They're devoid of any cultural distinction 99% of the time.

ivysaur12 said:
No. This thread is full of weird, obscure characters that people had to fish for. There's an unusual amount of minority characters in videogames, of any sort. And it's sad, especially for minority kids that play videogames.
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There's nothing sad about this.

The player is your avatar, not YOU.

I didn't shed a tear playing as CJ, or having Barret on my team all the time, or playing as some walking tiger or some shit.
 
I love the fact that people don't understand the words "main character"
 
I think once more minorities of all backgrounds start getting into the gaming industry we will then start to see a more diverse selection; as far as main characters go. As for now though its slim pickings.
 
sp0rsk said:
Cause there aren't many black people creating games?
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It is a white male dominated industry, and I think it's safe to assume the same for gamers in general, more white males than anyone else.
 
Matt_C said:
Well, the Israelites were from Africa (technically from Eden, according to the Hebrew texts), migrated to Egypt for slavery purposes, settled in Palestine/Israel, rarely breed with the locals, and from this conclusion I vaguely understand that Jesus might be black (as in African decent).

Getting Up has a black lead and I hope I can try out that game at a good price.
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Thanks for the breakdown, but that was a joke.

African =! Black. I'm sure all the Egyptians out there would back me up on this. And I'm not sure about this, but isn't Iraq where Eden was said to be. Iraq isn't Africa. Jesus probably looked like any other Israelite, which is to say, not white.
 
beelzebozo said:
also, was torque from the suffering black? or did they purposefully make him not of any particular race?
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They said on the "making of" video that they made his ethnicity indistinct, IIRC.

DeaconKnowledge said:
Second, the answer to this thread is Shadow Man. The original Shadow Man was one of the greater games I played in the N64/Dreamcast Generation and it featured a black character that wasn't a typical stereotype. Garcian from Killer 7 is a close second.
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**** yes. Two of my favorite game characters of all time.

starchild excalibur said:
Actually I'll add Vic Vance to this thread:

4xzaz29.jpg
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And he was the most complete and human of all the GTA main characters so far
(until the shitty ending, at least)
.

AdmiralViscen said:
And I'm sure it cost Rockstar a lot of money to get all these consultants.

Should some developer making Rygar or Rayman or some adventure game have to do that to avoid being looked down upon? People are going to make games in keeping with their personal visions. Not everyone's personal vision includes an urban environment or people with ethnicity. And "ethnicity" includes white people. Most games don't refer to a character's race/ethnicity/background at all, the important part is what the player is doing at that time.

It's not like every game with a white person in it features characters waving English and Italian flags. They're devoid of any cultural distinction 99% of the time.



There's nothing sad about this.

The player is your avatar, not YOU.

I didn't shed a tear playing as CJ, or having Barret on my team all the time, or playing as some walking tiger or some shit.
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Best post in the thread.

Not to mention developers want to sell as many copies as possible, and the majority of game players in America are white since the majority of people in America are white. You most easily identify with what you know (if that wasn't true, nobody would be angry about the lack of black characters in games), and so the developers make the main character an ethnicity that the majority of their audience will most easily identify with, which translates into more sales.

It's that simple. There need be no "racist" motive behind it.
 
Night_Trekker said:
Not to mention developers want to sell as many copies as possible, and the majority of game players in America are white since the majority of people in America are white. You most easily identify with what you know (if that wasn't true, nobody would be angry about the lack of black characters in games), and so the developers make the main character an ethnicity that the majority of their audience will most easily identify with, which translates into more sales.
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What about rap music? Or more specifically, gangsta rap music? That stuff was pretty damn popular even for white kids.
 
Couldn't find a good pic of the SNES boxart, but Bebe's Kids for SNES had 2 black characters in the lead. It's one of the worst games ever made tho!

Bebe%27s_kids.jpg
 
There really should be more, especially when there's so many African-American gamers (heck, Sega nearly won in the 16-bit era in the US and Sony won just by marketing to that group and since that stuff seemed "cool" to white kids they hopped on board too).
 
thefro said:
There really should be more, especially when there's so many African-American gamers (heck, Sega nearly won in the 16-bit era in the US and Sony won just by marketing to that group and since that stuff seemed "cool" to white kids they hopped on board too).
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wait, what, huh?
 
thefro said:
There really should be more, especially when there's so many African-American gamers (heck, Sega nearly won in the 16-bit era in the US and Sony won just by marketing to that group and since that stuff seemed "cool" to white kids they hopped on board too).
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Don't say African-American. Say black.
 
thefro said:
There really should be more, especially when there's so many African-American gamers (heck, Sega nearly won in the 16-bit era in the US and Sony won just by marketing to that group and since that stuff seemed "cool" to white kids they hopped on board too).
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What?
 
Blackace said:
wait.. all of these commericals were geared to white people.. :lol
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The commercials feature scary black men telling skinny, geeky white kids what to do and the white kid, in abject shivering sweating fear, meekly complying. So yeah, I'm not sure the ads are really marketed to black people.
 
ethelred said:
The commercials feature scary black men telling skinny, geeky white kids what to do and the white kid, in abject shivering sweating fear, meekly complying. So yeah, I'm not sure the ads are really marketed to black people.
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well Sega marketing for years included sweating shivering.. but just adding yelling TV Al Sharpton guy doesn't geared towards Al Sharptons
 
Blackace said:
I love the fact that people don't understand the words "main character"
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It really is amazing. I mean...truly.

Night_Trekker said:
Not to mention developers want to sell as many copies as possible, and the majority of game players in America are white since the majority of people in America are white. You most easily identify with what you know (if that wasn't true, nobody would be angry about the lack of black characters in games), and so the developers make the main character an ethnicity that the majority of their audience will most easily identify with, which translates into more sales.

It's that simple. There need be no "racist" motive behind it.
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That would be true to an extent, if this....

Propagandhim said:
What about rap music? Or more specifically, gangsta rap music? That stuff was pretty damn popular even for white kids.
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...wasn't true. The identify argument is bs. Plenty of movies starring black leads bring in a truckloads of money. Same thing with music. Just because Al Sharpton people are in a minority, doesn't mean that the majority of their audience would have a hard time identifying with Al Sharpton characters. The music industry is a huge counter-argument to that statement. If it wasn't for the majority of this country, the "dance music" that goes for Hip Hop, wouldn't nearly be as popular as it is now. People buy what they like, and what they think, and or will enjoy.
 
The image of Santa Claus has been crafted for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, but we're supposed to be in a different day. Give the world a black Santa Claus. Let the people have an African-American come down the chimney bearing joy and good will.
 
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