Do You Care About Race in Games?

There were several pieces up this past weekend, and a resulting lively dialogue, about the role that race plays in videogames. Game|Life talks very cogently on the subject, which got kick-started by a post on the microscopiq site highlighting important black game characters. The article asks "Jade Is Black?", highlighting the role that racial ambiguity can have in making a player empathize with a title's protagonist. Writes Kohler: "Video games put the control of the main character into the player's hands. They ask us to become the character. It's easier for anybody to identify with Jade because Jade can stand in for anything. Ellis wants more black characters in video games, and Jade, if we go by the layout of his article, is his number-one favorite. It is quite possible that he felt a stronger connection with Jade than with other game characters who are definitely black. What does that say about the power of racial ambiguity? " So, do you care about race in videogames? If so, how so?

Comments

Of course I do!

[Lane.exe]

Different races get different stat bonuses! When I want to make a good warrior, I go with a Dwarf. When it's a mage I need, I go for some sort of Elf. Jeez, was this question really necessary? :)

Re:Of course I do!

[elrous0]

I don't recall any special science in the interbreeding on the show. But, then again, as a Star Trek fan I know very little about breeding.

-Eric

Vapid - Look it up

[Austerity Empowers]

That pretty much sums up this article. We play the character we're given. We kill the characters we're expected to kill. If it's fun, the game is "good". If it's not fun, the game is "bad".

Re:Vapid - Look it up

[RajivSLK]

Vapid - Look it up

Why would I have to look it up? Do you think you are the only one who knows what "Vapid" means? I'm willing to bet most people here don't need to look it up.

Re:Vapid - Look it up

[flyingsquid]

You know, I hate political correctness as much as anyone, but I've honestly got to wonder: am I the only person who found Starcraft to be offensively racist? The SCV pilot is the only black unit, he's the lowest on the totem pole, and he's a dumb, nose-picking, menial laborer of a negro. Short of having him pick cotton instead of mine crystals, I have a hard time imagining how Blizzard could have possibly made a game which was more backwards, stereotypical and offensive towards black people.

But what about the expansion pack? They had that black Ghost! He's no stupid menial laborer. So that's a positive portrayal of black people, right? Whatsisface, Duran... traitorous, backstabbing, double agent Duran. OK, nevermind. I'm not saying we need the Supreme Court to order a quota in video games or anything, but would it have fucking killed Blizzard to have a single, positive portrayal of a minority?

a take on second life's color

[fred fleenblat]

http://www.theregister.com/2007/01/30/lily_white_a nd_not_loving_it/

FF8 makes up for FF7

[Mprx]

I'd agree that Barret of FF7 is a poorly implemented stereotype, but FF8 has one of the best black characters in any game with Kiros. Although he's only playable in the Laguna flashback scenes, he's smart and capable, and most importantly does not "play the race card" or in any way call attention to his race. His scenes were some of the best parts of the game.

Re:FF8 makes up for FF7

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Barret is NOT stupid. Will people pleas get a clue about the Japanese culture before they start pointing the race card around? More often than not it's the translation which adds "blackness" to a character rather than the original Japanese script.

Barret acts no different than a lot of white anime characters. I've seen more money hungry brutes coloured white than I have black infact.

Take Gaido from Super robot taisen Original generation. In Japanese he speaks normally and doesn't stand out at all, yet in the Atlus translation he has a jamacian accent. Absolutely no reason for this other than Atlus decided it.

Is Gaido a black steriotype or is it just a shitty translation? Maybe if we discussed Bo Bo Bo we'd have issues, but Barret isn't one of them.

Jade is black?

[Zero_DgZ]

That's sort of a stupid question, isn't it? Of course it has to be "black." Because none of the other minorities have ever mattered since 1960, right? Let's think about this: Her name is Jade. She picks the pen name "Shauni." She has almond shaped eyes and black spiky hair. Jade is Asian, you idiots.

Re:Jade is black?

[Chris Burke]

I always thought of her as Asian, but it is ambiguous as all the characters are rendered iconically. I don't think it's intended to really be ambiguous, since some other characters have well defined races (like the Spanish computer), just more like superflous back story that is neither denied nor explicitly fleshed out. Given that her uncle is a pig and half her orphans are other animal-people, I don't think it's supposed to be important, but it probably is all designed to make the characters easier to relate to.

What is important though is that Jade is a strong female minority lead character. Even more rare she is a bad-ass, but neither a sex-bombshell nor a raging murderous psychopath like most "strong" female leads. She's compassionate, thoughtful, basically peace-loving, but also carries around a can o' whoop-ass that she will open when needed. Really, more characters like her is not a bad thing.

Anyway, there is some but not as much insight in the article as they wanted. Nevertheless I just want to talk more about Jade, one of my favority protagonists in video games this century, from one of my favorite games this century. Beyond Good and Evil was released in the same year as Wind Waker, and as much as I liked that installment BGE was a better Zelda in almost every way. The cell shading was done better (and ditched for the water, where more realistic graphics were used thank god). The dungeons were just as spralling and intricate, but also felt more like a single structure rather than a series of disconnected rooms. The mechanics from stealth to fighting to puzzle solving were more fun. The story was more interesting, as were the characters. Jade in particular was very memorable. The game was unfortunately short, but they just let it be short but satisfying instead of padding the game out with annoyance. Loved that game.

Races no, nations yes..

[kabocox]

Let's see if I can recall. Nazis and Red USSR communists are always evil. Vietam asians are generally bad. Japan WWII is bad, but afterward is good. China WWI & WWII is good and after WWII is neutral. France is never bad per se, but seeing as we were settled from England; well of course France or "the French" will always be slanted negatively. England is typically the good ole mother country except any games based from the Civil War backwards. Whenever we fight the English, we fight against evil unjust monarchs. Ever since the Desert Storm and/or Desert Shield, any nameless Middle East dictator has been a safe villian for the US or good military to invade and beat up. Now a days, its also Islam or unnamed "bad" muslims for the sake of our religious terror war. Oh, let's not forget any aliens. All aliens are always evil and must be destoried before they take over. Einstein is always the good German Allied Scientist. You can always tell who the good guys are based solely on which side Einstein is on.

Missing several black characters...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

The author is missing several key black characters I remember along the way, some from the 1980's. MIKE TYSON from Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. The black player from Smash TV. (I don't remember ever fighting over who got to play who.) MICHAEL JORDAN from Jordan vs. Bird. (Believe me, no one wasn't buying this game to play as Bird.) JAX from Mortal Kombat.

Re:This is an issue because....?

[honkycat]

I don't particularly care about it in real life (beyond a small amount at a subconscious level -- I would love to ditch this, but it's hard). However, I do find it easier to relate to a character who looks like me. That is, I'm most comfortable playing a Caucasian male character. It's easier to get into that character than others. For this reason, I think it'd be nice to be able to define your own character's qualities, but that's not always sensible in a game.

As for other characters, I find I don't really care about their races other than disliking obvious "affirmative action" approaches where the NPC cast is a rainbow of races, obviously only to be PC. I'd rather have consistency between races and storyline. That's the most important thing -- basically, race should not be a distracting feature.

Invisible Messages

[realityfighter]

For the most part, gamers think of their games as completely hermetic fantasy worlds that don't interact with reality. Of course, in hindsight we see that there are many real world influences on the content of our games - just like when we look back at the Science Fiction of the 1950s and 1960s. So for the most part, people don't see race in games because they're usually treated the same way we treat race in the real world. In 20 years, when we have different opinions and habits with regard to race, a racial message will probably be far more evident.

On the other hand, when we see a game that approaches race differently from us - for example, the Left Behind game that gives evil/"unsaved" characters Arabic names - we see a clear message. So most people here will claim that, while some games certainly have racial elements, their games don't.

Yeah! I love racein games!

[2008]

I like fightin games and shootin games and wrestlein games too!

Re:Another racially ambiguous character

[Quiet_Desperation]

Kratos' race was utterly irrelevant because he was such a nuclear badass motherfucker! ;-) When you're pulling off the heads of giant minotaurs with your bare hands, no one gives a crap about race.

I don't get the controversy either. I'm a big white guy who has been happy playing as a black guy in GTA:San Andreas, as a female fairy in Kameo, as a wolf in Okami (and the new Zelda), as a ...whatever in Ratchet & Klank, as a Dark Elf in Oblivion, and so on. Lara Croft anyone?

The whole point of videogaming for me is to escape to another reality.

Re:What does

[User 956]

What does a character from Johnny Quest have to do with gaming?

Well, if you're playing as Haji, they always stop you at the airport.

Re:Another racially ambiguous character

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Now you're just being racist! (cough hack etc. etc.)

Why is it such a big issue if a guy is black, white or green? We here so much bitching about "Black characters are so rare" but no one even comaplsin there are no olive skinned people do they? Life is not made up of 3 colours (Black, white and Asian), it is made up of billions of different varients which go from deathly pale (Slashdot readers mostly) to coal black.

So why don't we whine how some other minority is ignored instead of all this "OMG NO BLACK GUYS!!" thing?

Re:I'm definately racist

[Venerable Vegetable]

I played a racist character in Everquest for a while, which to my surprise genuinly upset people.

I played a dark elf and would not team with any of the light races, except in some cases when they clearly were evil. But even then, I would act racist to for example ogres and trolls, making clear that I despised them and considered them inferior, while in contrast being moderately respectful to other dark elves.

Almost every day someone would send me a private message complaining about my racist attitude, and many a dwarf was surprised to get a friendly reply which explained that I was roleplaying.

I thought it was rather strange that even though we were playing characters, and I am obviously not a dwarf-hating dark elf in real life, a lot of people couldn't accept racism in the game. Maybe it means that there is something good in humanity. Or maybe just something silly.

But to answer the question, do I care about race in games, I'd say: no, except when my character has stereotypical attitude or dialog. But that's not strictly related to race. I find it very hard to indentify with a character if he keeps talking in a way that I would not.

Racial Ambiguity and Sci Fi

[softwaremud]

I think that the ambiguity in "Jade" reflects a change in racial attitudes and also a change in marketing. Many companies are tapping into multiracial and biracial characters because they often appeal to a larger audience.

• From the article: http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/02/jades_black_ra c.html#more
• "Jade was black?"
• "I always thought of Jade as an arab."
• "I always thought she was supposed to be of Eurasian descent."
• "I thought Jade was asian."

Whenever somebody choses a character in a video game and plays that character, I agrue, in some level that they are identifying with that character. I mean you control that character's actions, you die when that character dies etc. so there is at least a little bit of your time and attention and perhaps even emotion invested into that character. Each of these people thought that Jade was a different race/ethnicity because in their mind, their hero character is represented by somebody they are more able to identify with "an arab", "of Eurasian descent", "black", etc. This is positive. Wouldn't you rather chose who your hero's are instead of accepting what somebody tells you who your hero is?

As a side, I think that there are more racially ambiguous and multiracial characters in sci fi and fantasy because the idea that "mixed" is the future. I think that this can be a bit of a double-edged sword. While think its good to have positive media images of mixed-race people, i think that sci fi can leverages stereotypes create characters.

Example #1:

George is stronger than normal humans, but savage and primal because he is half and half human.

This example is common, and there's not too much wrong with it. But how many people feel that there is a large leap between this first example and this next one:

Example #2:

Take something like the Jade character above. Jade does math better than the average character because she's asian and runs faster because she's black. This ties into to stereotypes. 1. Asian people do math well. 2. Black people run fast.

Hey- for the second example these are both positive stereotypes, why do I bring it up? Positive stereotypes can be just as negative stereotypes. This description degrades the character's performance to a characteristic of race. Maybe the jade character does math well because she has a PhD and runs fast because she ran track and field. This form of stereotyping for multiracial characters is often called "Hybrid Vigor" or "best of both worlds". The flip side of it is "Hybrid Degeneracy" or "worst of both worlds". In the end, video game characters, just like people, and should be judged and evaluated as individuals- not races.

Learn proper english.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's wraslin, you uncultured slob.

Blacks over represented

[king-manic]

It's a undisputed fact that Black people are over respresented in media. Black people make up 12.12% of the US populace according to the last census. They make up 20% of all media characters/talking heads in media according to some studies. This occurs because Asians of all sorts are under represented (1% of charcters 5% of the pop). Hispanics as well but not as severely. I do imagine that the quality of this over representation is poor.

Re:Blacks over represented

[king-manic]

source PDF
Source HTML

-excerpt from link:
"Primary Recurring Characters: White (80%), African
American (15%), Latino/Hispanic (2.0%), Asian/Pacific
Islander (0.8%), Multiracial (0.6%), Native American (0.3%),
Indian/Pakistani (0.3%), Apparent Minority (0.3%),
Arab/Middle Eastern (0.1%)"

It's the first reference I found. It's an ip address because it's a google digest of a pdf. I had different numbers from another study. but the general gist is right. The actual proportions of race in the us are:

White 74.67%
African American 12.12%
Asian and Pacific Islander 4.46%
Other 5.99%

source

Biology vs Etymology

[arete]

Biologically, speciation is a tough subject that's more convoluted than that. For instance, sometimes they can interbreed, but won't. Sometimes the SAME species won't interbreed - and sometimes they won't interbreed with individuals born too far away from them, but without any kind of clear boundary, just a spectrum where eventually they are "too" different - even though they're the same species. In plenty of examples, what's a species is contested. Considering the breeding issues and lack of popular hybrids, your traditional fantasy "races" are probably not the same species.

But that is SO not the point. The question is why do we call them races. Which I'd say we do in new games because we did in older games, because D&D did, because Science Fiction writers did, because Tolkien did - because stories have for time immemorial, before genetics existed. Personally, I believe the reason for that is that as far back as we have histories, travelers found different people, and they were all humans or at LEAST very close to it. (I'll add that in for arguments about co-existing Neanderthals and hobbits.) And that's where the definition of race comes from - another people with another society, but recognizeable as people.

And while fantasys certainly contain exaggerations... if I stood next to Andre the Giant (when he was alive) he'd certainly seem like a giant, as would basically any football player. A race of people with an average height that was less than a foot taller or shorter than my personal height would certainly make a difference - this joke has been played in every American-visits-Japan story I've heard. Something as simple as a helmet with a bull's horns could account for a minotaur in low light. etc. Except the ears, Elves are just intelligent, agile, long lived people. The vast majority of fantasy and science fiction races don't push the limits of what an intelligent nonhuman species might be - they are all people with certain things exaggerated and certain things suppressed - exaggerated in the way everything else is in fantasy.

I can't believe I'm posting in this thread.

Re:Play the Race Card

[ScentCone]

Hating someone because they look/act/think different then your is pure ignorance. Any culture that promotes this behavior is crippling humanity.

While, as platitudes go, that's not as bad as most... you can't really assume that all actions are equal? Personally, I feel very righteous in thinking less of someone of their thinking and acting includes a demonstrated willingness to kill me because I don't worship their god(s). Should I really feel completely neutral towards (or ever embrace) a culture that thinks my wife shouldn't be allowed to drive a car or be out in public without me escorting her? Should I consider as equal (or, equally worthy) a culture that would consider it appropriate for me to kill her if someone raped her? These things are not tied to race. But when you get enough people who hang out together and handle things like that the same way, you've got an identifiable culture.

And to suggest that if I dislike such a culture that it's me crippling humanity (because I'm not treating everyone equally)... well, that's just moral relativism, pure and simple. I hope you can see the irony in proclaiming that a person's behavior (say, in their dislike for a certain culture's ways) is something you can't stand. Because in making that proclomation, you are doing exactly the same thing.

Re:This is an issue because....?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Really, any game based on an event with a preset construct of races involved. WW2 games like you said are a good example.
Even some of the new instances in WoW make it so Night Elves turn into Humans to fit the storyline of going back in time to save thrall in a part of the game that Elves didn't exist in.
What about a basketball game where you can make Kobe Bryant a 5" skinny white guy? Just doesn't fit.

Likewise, how realistic would a game based on a tv show or movie be if you could customize a predefined character? (Nevermind the fact that these games tend to suck anyways)

Re:I'm definately racist

[Glonoinha]

That was you? Damn - I still feel unloved because of how you treated me at first.
Here I was a regular white guy (human) trying to hang with the bad guys and you darkies were all 'you can't camp orcs with us because you aren't evil enough' - I thought to myself, shit, I dig up dead bodies and prop them up around the campfire so I don't have to eat dinner alone and I'm not evil enough to hang with you because my skin is white? How much more evil could you possibly be?

Lucky for me I was a LOT more evil than that - made me an honorary citizen of the Nek city and everything.
After that it wasn't so much a matter of skin color as it was 'come on necro, share the camp - we don't care if you can solo the whole camp or not.'

(I didn't get my taste of REAL racism until I went to the dwarf island. Those motherfuckers HATED me - I wasn't afraid of any of the monsters, but the dwarf milk-vendor-lady would put a beat-down on my necro ass that would have made a DRAGON proud.)

Re:This is an issue because....?

[TubeSteak]

It's easier to imagine myself as a Japanese guy if I'm playing as a samurai than it would be for me to imagine that somehow my honky ass is accepted by the townsfolk without question in feudal Japan.

You must not have seen that movie.
It had Tom Cruise in it
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325710/