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Games Fail To Portray Gender and Ethnic Diversity

Posted by Soulskill on from the overrepresented-demon-alien-demographic dept.

eldavojohn writes "A new study has found that game characters tend not to reflect cultural diversity. According to the paper from researchers across four universities (PDF): 'A large-scale content analysis of characters in video games was employed to answer questions about their representations of gender, race and age in comparison to the US population. The sample included 150 games from a year across nine platforms, with the results weighted according to game sales. ... The results show a systematic over-representation of males, white and adults and a systematic under-representation of females, Hispanics, Native Americans, children and the elderly.' The researchers also note that games 'function as crucial gatekeepers for interest in science, technology, engineering and math,' and that without these groups represented properly, 'it may place underrepresented groups behind the curve.'"

83 of 590 comments (clear)

  1. Pyro is a female! by Shikaku · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mmmrhmhmhmrhrmhmrmhm!

    1. Re:Pyro is a female! by Larryish · · Score: 4, Funny

      So that means we should develop a game where Cherokee kids shoot old Chinese women?

    2. Re:Pyro is a female! by BakaHoushi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I mostly have to agree with the parent. I've noticed when I play the Sims, I tend to make pale white characters. And yes, I'm whiter than sour cream. This does not mean I hold anything against any other races (though that statement sure sounds like the beginning of such an admission). It just means I make characters that visibly, I find more attractive/I can relate to more.

      How many Japanese games feature a purely American setting? (I can think of a few, like Dead Rising, but it's in the minority) Most Japanese developers feature their games in a clearly Japanese setting. Similarly, American developers rarely feature games outside an American (or at least Westernized) setting. It's not racism, it's merely a case of "write what you know."

      That being said, with games often offering a great deal of customization these days, is it really an issue at all?

    3. Re:Pyro is a female! by lemmywrap · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Except that the typical american settings is not all-white....and the research was not about japanese games vs american and global ethnic diversity. (we'd need a lot more Indians in games then, i see no mention of that)

      The results show a systematic over-representation of males, white and adults and a systematic under-representation of females, Hispanics, Native Americans, children and the elderly.'

      This suggests to me that they did specifically compare games with a US setting to the actual ethnic distribution in the US, and found that some ethnic groups where underrepresented. If it truely is a case of "write what you know" then the developers/designers should get out more often. Honestly though, i think ignorance does play a part, but that it's probably also marketing related. If say 50% of your target audience is a white male, and the remaining 50% is everything else, then it's no surprice that 90% of games focus on that 50% of the target audience, it's the easiest, largest group to target.

    4. Re:Pyro is a female! by AftanGustur · · Score: 2, Informative
      Although your comment has been moderated "funny" it has probably been so because people find the idea rediculous.

      And it is.

      Someone with more time on his hands than me will maybe dig up the study but I remember seeing a study of what kids are willing to play as a character in a game.

      It turns out that both boys and girls will play a boy/male hero in a game, but if the choise is only a female/girl character then the girls continue playing but the boys loose interest.

      So the answer to why game characters don't represent the same proportions of ethnics groups and sexes as the population's, may be purely for the purpose of getting people to play the games.

      --
      echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
    5. Re:Pyro is a female! by sortius_nod · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As a male I tend to play female characters. I figure if I'm going to be looking at my character during play time I'm going to want something attractive to me.

      Maybe I'm just odd like that, but big burly guys really don't do it for me.

    6. Re:Pyro is a female! by Ihmhi · · Score: 4, Funny

      Most Japanese developers feature their games in a clearly Japanese setting.

      For those who don't know much about Japan: Mushroom Kingdom, Dinosaur Land, Hyrule, and Zebes are all provinces in Japan.

      --
      Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
  2. Ahh the social sciences. by gandhi_2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The only "science" that starts with the answer and works backwards from there.

    --
    THL phish sticks
    1. Re:Ahh the social sciences. by jcr · · Score: 4, Funny

      That would be precisely why it's so popular as a basis for public policy.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    2. Re:Ahh the social sciences. by Nightspirit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You are correct, all the research that comes out of neuro and social psychology is completely worthless as it isn't real science, despite the fact that it actually has everything you mentioned. But don't let facts stop your baseless accusations.

    3. Re:Ahh the social sciences. by fightinfilipino · · Score: 3, Interesting
      wrong.

      just like any "hard" science, social sciences also start with hypotheses based on observations. then, those hypotheses are tested in the field, using rigorous methods developed in the social sciences. while these methods might not be as "exact" as self-labeled hard scientists might be comfortable with, they are no less valid than the procedures carried out by a grunt in a lab.

      frankly, hard scientists (computer scientists in particular) are too uncomfortable with science that does not follow rigid binary results. if anything, that just shows a dogmatic, unimaginative approach to science which too many scientists sadly follow.

      as for this study, they're right. outside of the fantasy/sci-fi realms, think about what protagonists are out there in mainstream video games today, at least those sold in Western markets. the GTA series is a good example: except for one game in the series (where the black protagonist was a thug gangsta of all things, the rest of the main protagonists were white.

      expand that to the larger games market. while there are stand-out exceptions (Mirror's Edge, Beyond Good and Evil, and a slew of Japan-origin games), the majority feature a white, male lead character. it's kind of obvious when you think about it.

      and you also have the chicken and the egg problem. some might argue that "diverse" games haven't been made because there's no market for them. but how can there even be a market if gamers of all colors see only 1) games with white male leads and/or; 2) games that reinforce bad stereotypes.

      we're talking about the same industry that pulled the "acts of lust" shenanigans at Comic-Con, fer chrissakes.

    4. Re:Ahh the social sciences. by QuoteMstr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Will you guys just stop it already?

      Face it: your side lost. Anthropogenic global warming is established fact. Do you also subscribe to Lamarkism, phrenoloy, abiogenic petroleum, and the luminous aether?

      It's easy to poke a few isolated holes in any theory. You've made real progress when you're able to posit a theory that better explains the facts. Until then, you AGW deniers are behaving just like the other children in the room, the "intelligent design" advocates.

      Put up or shut up.

    5. Re:Ahh the social sciences. by Fex303 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Alright, I'll bite.

      Yeah... "studies" such as this are why Psychology is NOT a science

      The four authors of this study are assistant or associate professors from the schools of communication or departments of media of their various institutions. They are not psychologists. This makes your little outburst particularly pointless and makes you looks like someone who started with a rant and worked back from there.

      Psychology isn't a science, it isn't debatable. It doesn't meet the formal definition of a science on several grounds, falsifiability, honoring of the null hypothesis, and lack of rigor in experiments all being among them.

      Bullshit. Each of those points is incorrect. You've clearly got an axe to grind, but I have no idea what you're talking about with regard to falsifiability - psychology has had thousands of theories tested, some of which have been vindicated, some have been dismissed, and some are still being debated. This isn't a bad thing.

      The null hypothesis is the absolute baseline in psychological research. It's built into the way that statistics are used in psych - looking for a statistical difference at a p

      As for lack of rigor - I'm sure this is case in some studies, as it is in all branches of science. But there's been plenty of extremely solid research done in psychology over the years, and it has led to a much better understanding of how our brains work and how we work in society.

    6. Re:Ahh the social sciences. by QuoteMstr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The low-level, theory-side parts of psychology as are scientifically rigorous as it gets. (Ever hear of B.F. Skinner?) Psychologists working in these areas run experiments, compute correlations, and test hypothesis like anyone else.

      On the other hand, the application side (i.e., therapy) is still chock full of "qualitative" research, unsupported speculation, and subjective interpretation. Psychological theory informs clinical work quite a bit, but there's inevitably a fudge factor involves when taking generalized results and apply them to individuals.

      Still, patients (err, clients, or whatever the word is this week) ask for help, so psychologists are forced to fill in the blanks left by our rather incomplete theories using non-scientific methods. That's the core of OP view that psychology isn't a "real science". In reality, it is: it's just that therapy (by necessity) uses non-scientific ideas in addition to the results of psychology-the-science.

    7. Re:Ahh the social sciences. by eltaco · · Score: 2, Insightful

      there's a grave difference between psychology and sociology. For this post, I'm going to assume you meant what you typed and know the difference between the two, although the alternative is more likely.

      you are absolutely correct that psychology cannot ever offer corporeal results ("the capture of the invisible", Moravia 1983). Psychology can easily offer empirical evidence though. (certain) methods of testing give statistical probabilities and reinforce or deny a theory. I don't use the term "theory" lightly here - psychological research, when done properly, is as stringent as physics or maths. In fact, maybe even moreso, as we do not deal with corporeal results and thus (dis)proving something on a chalk board is very hard for us (I might be punching over my weight here, I have little knowledge of applied physics, plus I'm thinking more of mechanical physics than quantum physics..). furthermore, of course psychologists understand and use the null hypothesis. disregarding or using a null hypothesis as grounds for research is the dumbest idea I've ever heard! we use the same formal defintion of theory as the physicists and chemists, just fyi.

      the formal definitions of psychology are:
      - applied science
      - theoretical / formal science
      - and has roots in the humanities.
      (I apologise for the language barrier - it might not be technically accurate for the english language)

      blabbering that psychology isn't debatable and lacks rigor in experimentation is laughable, at best. we get papers over papers of psychologists citicizing each other over the smallest mistakes, loopholes and possible inconsistencies. if you'd like to see a shit storm a psychologist (well, behaviorist) started (nowadays, more or less the status quo [makes /. arguments look bland tbh], although less public) check out W. James ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James ) or Darwins later years (yeap, many of his works fall into the category of psychology. He did a lot for evolutionary psychology.).

      disclosure: I study cognitive science (to put it bluntly, a mix of CS and PS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science) of which one main field of application is R&D (yeah, the skynet guys :-\ ).

      p.s. tbh, whoever modded you up most likely got triggered by your yellow press style. just to formalise my point; you are incredibly wrong. see above why.
      I'll answer any questions.

      --
      It's not about fate, it's about character.
      there be no shelter here, the frontline is everywhere!
    8. Re:Ahh the social sciences. by jipn4 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Psychology isn't a science, it isn't debatable. It doesn't meet the formal definition of a science on several grounds,
      falsifiability, honoring of the null hypothesis, and lack of rigor in experiments all being among them.

      Most modern experimental psychology papers do exactly that.

      There is a science that often doesn't worry about falsifiability, honoring the null hypothesis, rigor in experiments, and repeatability. It is... computer science.

    9. Re:Ahh the social sciences. by Repossessed · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Depends on the branch of psychology. Psychoanalysis still gets taken seriously despite numerous unfalsifiable claims (and many others that have been completely falsified).

      I don't understand the why either. Yes Freud's contributions are important, but we gutted his theories of everything useful and moved on. You don't see physicists clinging to newton's alchemy work, why do Psychologists do this (not just freud either really, there are fringe elements clinging to all the major contributors).

      --
      Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
    10. Re:Ahh the social sciences. by QuoteMstr · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Thoroughly debunked. You've proposed your theory, and it's a poor fit for the evidence. Too bad, because solar-cycle-driven climate change is a neat, tidy explanation that doesn't require us to do anything drastic, like raise somebody's taxes. Now we're left with conventional climate models to explain the evidence: care to try again?

    11. Re:Ahh the social sciences. by tgv · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, after working in psycholinguistics for 20 years (of which the last 4 in "cognitive neuropsychology"), I have come to the conclusion that not even all data can be trusted, let alone the conclusions. There are many cases of experimenters running dozens of experiments with slightly different conditions before hitting on one that gives them the desired p 0.05. In fMRI experiments, researchers often take more than a year to analyze the results over and over again, changing between different methods of analysis (ROI, threshold, smearing, boxing, statistic, etc.) and then publish the one they (or their supervisor) like best. Or making SPSS return all cross-correlations on questionnaires with over 200 questions and then drawing conclusions from the set of the most significant ones.

      So yes, quite a lot of research from "neuro and social psychology" is worthless. I'd say about 90% of it. The problem is just finding out which 10% is valid. And don't start me on replication. Open any journal on experimental psychology and show me articles that replicate a previous experiment *exactly*.

  3. Why does this matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Honestly, I'm tired of this bullshit. Someone needs to tell the PC brigade to go fuck themselves. Game developers aren't obliged to fill quotas; all they have to do is make good games. Does anyone really care about what video game characters look like? These folks need to examine their priorities.

    1. Re:Why does this matter? by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Funny

      I do think it would be hilarious to have a 90 year old woman as the main character in GTA though.

    2. Re:Why does this matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Does anyone really care about what video game characters look like? These folks need to examine their priorities.

      Apparently some people do. And yes they do.

      Because: "There aren't enough people of color in videogames."

      Then: "You can't make a game set in Africa where you kill black zombies. That's racist!"

      and: "You can't make a game set in New Orleans where some of the zombies are black. That's racist!"

    3. Re:Why does this matter? by Itninja · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In many ways I agree. But the bulk of opinions expressed here are by people who only have know oppression as a literary motive or cinematographic plot device. I doubt many of us have been denied access to a restaurant because of we 'looked disruptive', been pulled over because we 'looked suspicious', patted down at the airport as a 'random search', or asked for our papers because we 'looked like illegals'. but that aside, I think diversity in games will happen in time. Just like black representation in movies slowly evolved from laughably stereotypical to whatever less than that is called.

      --
      I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
    4. Re:Why does this matter? by JesseL · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Discuss racial representation in games all you like. Nobody is stopping you.

      Just don't assume that people need to come to the conclusion you might like, or any conclusion at all. Don't even think about trying to use legal force to get game developers to change based on your discussion.

      --
      "Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
    5. Re:Why does this matter? by JordanL · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I am about as white as you can get. I get 'random searched' every single time I fly because I fly standby, which autoflags you.

      Discrimination is not a bad thing. It's the practice of using a data set to increase the statistical relevance of your sample. It's using unrelated information to discriminate that's a bad thing. For example, during the crusades it would not at all have been bad to be suspicious, cautious and downright hostile towards white people in the Near East if you were Muslim or Jewish. You would be discriminating based on entirely relevant information.

      The article says that it was weighted by sales, which means this study was self-selecting. Who buys most games? White males. What is the predominant findings? Characters are white males. All this shows is that people who buy games are similar psychologically to all other people in seeking out representations closest to themselves.

      --
      FanFictionRecs.net
    6. Re:Why does this matter? by Planesdragon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just don't assume that people need to come to the conclusion you might like, or any conclusion at all. Don't even think about trying to use legal force to get game developers to change based on your discussion.

      When the hell was legal force used on movies or television?

      ECONOMIC force, sure. But I didn't ever hear of a law or court order requiring diversity in privately funded media. (Publicly funded media, or "media broadcast over public airwaves", is economic pressure.)

    7. Re:Why does this matter? by Comatose51 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "Does anyone really care about what video game characters look like? "

      Yes. Anyone here remember the firestorm that ignited when EverQuest made the Erudites black? The smartest race in the game was black. A lot of gamers groaned and complained about that. Or how about gaming companies that provide free games but charge you for unique looks on your game charater? Remember how valuable the black dyes were in UO? People care. It's just that a large segment of the gamers population is white and male. Make a game where the heroes are black or some other minority and see how well that will do. Seriously, I'm not assuming anything. I want to see what happens. Or sell editions of the same game with different skin colors for the character. Charge less for the non-white, non-male version and see which version ends up being more popular. I'm really curious to see what happens.

      --
      EvilCON - Made Famous by /.
    8. Re:Why does this matter? by Darkness404 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There are a few things for one, guess who buys the most video games? White (or Asian for Asian games) males. Unsurprisingly, most video games feature them. I'm a lot more likely to pick up a game featuring someone like me. I honestly have no desire to play a random fantasy game as a black person, I'd rather play it as a white person because I'm white. Then there is the fact that you simply can't show minorities being killed. For some reason a game that depicts white people being beheaded is ok, while the same game with the person being beheaded as black would be deemed "racist". For some strange reason if black people are depicted as "bad" that becomes "stereotypical".

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    9. Re:Why does this matter? by Darkness404 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I really don't see it being useful in film and television either. Guess what? Stereotypes are influenced by the -real world- that is, for every ethnic stereotype out there there have been multiple people to create it and many other people to keep it alive. In most games, the setting is mostly homogeneous, that is it takes place in one main setting that has a distinctive race. However, the people who want to see diversity in games end up failing because they don't want to see any of their race die. So you set a game in Africa with zombies, no problem right? Oh wait, you can't portray black people as zombies that you can kill without being "racist". And guess what? In most countries in Africa people are generally -gasp- African. So that means you can't set the game in Africa without being "racist". The same game wouldn't have been considered "racist" if you were shooting up a European village with all white people.

      It is pointless to find "racism" in games, film, television, radio, or any other media. Stereotypes exist because of how people generally act, it is a generalization. Most of the time, they end up being pretty right.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    10. Re:Why does this matter? by JordanL · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Discrimination is not a bad thing" ... OK. I take it you have not been at the business end of discrimination and you have no idea what you are talking about.

      The point went right over your head.

      Discrimination is not a bad thing, discrimination based on irrelevant information is a bad thing. Racial discrimination is by definition almost always irrelevant, but discrimination is simply the process of increasing the statistical relevance of your sample. There is nothing inherently wrong with discrimination, there's just something inherently wrong with people in general.

      --
      FanFictionRecs.net
    11. Re:Why does this matter? by TheLink · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > Discrimination is not a bad thing.

      Yep. If I see a tiger on the street, I'll discriminate against it based on the track record of tigers in general. Too bad it was born a tiger and can't do anything about that.

      I'd treat it differently if we meet in a different scenario and find it's not like other tigers.

      It doesn't help the blacks that so many black kids want to be "gangstas" when they grow up, and if black kids do well in school they get accused by their peers of not being black enough.

      Anecdotally I know of at least one African black in the USA who was told by his parents to not to be like the American blacks (especially the "gangsta culture").

      The gangsta culture is a disease that's infecting and weakening the blacks.

      --
    12. Re:Why does this matter? by JordanL · · Score: 3, Informative

      The point was that in that case, the invading armies were white, thus ethnicity was a very important and relevant set of information with which to increase the statistical relevance of your results (i.e. your ability to determine your own safety).

      Anytime the data set used to discriminate is relevent to the desired statistical set, discrimination is a productive thing, no matter how offputting that might be to your own world view. The correct response to that is to improve the world so that the data set is irrelevant, not put your fingers in your ears and pretend that discrimination is an issue.

      Discrimination is a method of sorting data. Nothing more. Scientists use discrimination in the scientific process to eliminate non-reproduceable effects. This has the desired effect on the statistical relevance of their results. Discrimination as a method of sorting data doesn't suddenly become bad because we apply it to people, it's just an uncomfortable truth that people aren't as altruistic and helpful as would be implied by a "discrimination free" world.

      Minorities use discrimination to determine that "white people can't understand" their plight. It's the same exact method of sorting data, just on a different set of data.

      And the harsh reality is that you can call it whatever you want, or demonize it how you see fit... but all that does is waste energy running in a circle instead of fixing the issues that plague the "white society" and the "non-white society".

      --
      FanFictionRecs.net
    13. Re:Why does this matter? by JordanL · · Score: 2, Informative

      A bunch of feudal kings and their pope decide to slaughter people to claim their territory, and you would think it prudent to kill any European ... discrimination is a stupid policy.

      Whoa there, discrimination, as I've now told you many, many times, is a method of sorting data, not a conclusion. Who said anything about killing people?

      I made the point that as a Jew or Muslim, seeing a white person during the crusades, and assuming they were dangerous, was not just discrimination, but smart discrimination. I made no claims in anything I've said in this entire thread about actions one should take. Discrimination is a process of coming to a conclusion.

      A police officer deciding that a driver is unsafe because of ethnicity is discrimination. Pulling them over or arresting them is not discrimination, it is choice. It is an action. Discrimination has nothing to do with what choices you make, it merely has to do with the conclusions you reach.

      Certainly as a Jew or Muslim during the crusades you could decide to kill all white Europeans. But that is not a logical and required extension of the conclusion that "a white person is probably dangerous to me". There are in fact several ways to act on that conclusion, and you may even not act on that conclusion.

      But don't mind me. Apparently I'm racist and lots of other horrible things.

      --
      FanFictionRecs.net
    14. Re:Why does this matter? by foqn1bo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Has it occurred to anyone that this paper isn't the "PC Brigades"? I'd be willing to be most of you haven't even bothered to read it.

      Nobody is asking anyone to fill a quota. Minorities and women are underrepresented in games for the same reason that they were underrepresented in film and television for so long (and still are in many ways)...because they are socially marginalized. It's more a reflection of the state of our culture than anything else. You're probably not old enough to remember it, but if you look back just 30-40 years, it's hard to even find movies that are shown from a woman's point of view -- one of the biggest critiques of film by early feminists was the way in which female characters were often passive objects, plot devices or romantic interests of the male leads at best. Social researchers are interested in the way our culture reflects the biases we have.

      You probably don't care, and that's fine. Nobody in the game industry is going to read this study any more than the slashcrowd, and if they did it's not going to cause them to rethink their plans. They make the games that sell, just like the moviemakers of yesteryear made the hero worshiping, male-centric films that audiences loved. Games, film and other cultural artefacts will continue to mirror the social gestalt, social change will be gradual, and most people won't notice. Social theorists and scientists (you can put scare quotes around it if you like) will continue to pay attention to these things, because they think, quite rightly, that having a pulse on our culture is a good thing.

    15. Re:Why does this matter? by palegray.net · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Loaded question: what's stopping minority groups from making games that have a different diversity level? Please don't hand me any lines about the accessibility of technology; I grew up dirt poor and did most of my learning at the public library.

      --
      512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    16. Re:Why does this matter? by palegray.net · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Oh, I know about oppression. I'm a 28 year old white male who grew up in Georgia (the US version). I got the crud kicked out of me as a child for befriending a kid who happened to part of one of the first black families to move into my neighborhood. If anything, it made me think long and hard about what race meant in my segment of American culture, with the result being I decided that if getting beaten for my friendships was the asking price, I'd gladly keep on paying it. I paid for it until I left to go live with my father a few years later (as soon as the law allowed me the right to choose where I lived, 14 years of age in GA).

      Frankly, this whole story is ridiculous. If people want to take issue with minority representation in video games, fine. They can go create their own games. This is 2009, and there are virtually no barriers to doing so should anyone be interested. Let's stop inventing problems for the sake of headlines.

      --
      512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    17. Re:Why does this matter? by CronoCloud · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think the person you responded to was annoyed that you automatically assumed that anyone posting on slashdot is a "dude" We all know the stereotypes of slashdotters: living in their parents basement, surviving on a diet of cheetos and jolt, not being good at social interaction, running Linux, and of course, being male.

      In fact I've seen people who say that they're female in comments be accused of not being so (mostly jokingly) or being assumed to be transgendered.

      I've even been guilty of that myself, I'm no saint, but the thing is, we shouldn't do that. We shouldn't start a reply with "Dude", unless we're pretty darn sure that the person we're responding to is/or identifies as male.

  4. I have my doubts. by FlyingSquidStudios · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm guessing this is based on locality. From my admittedly limited experience, there are a lot of Japanese games which feature people who are pretty clearly Asian. Many of them don't even get exported out of Japan.

    --
    http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
    1. Re:I have my doubts. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Sorry, but... where have all the fat people gone, in american games ?

    2. Re:I have my doubts. by Larryish · · Score: 4, Funny

      Uh... they are busy PLAYING the games?

  5. Well yeah by davidwr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Normal humans without special powers and skills are so underrepresented in those games. As a normal human whose only special power is the random temporary ability to cast ./ mod spells, I feel left out.

    When the mages and sorcerers get into MIT and I don't, I guess I can blame the games.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Well yeah by mathfeel · · Score: 3, Funny

      Someone should also publish a paper about the underrepresentation of female characters endowed with regular-sized boobs in video games.

      ...oops...PC police come knocking...

      --
      The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
  6. Look at the bulk of game designers/programmers... by Mitchell314 · · Score: 3, Funny

    A bunch of white dorky male geeks with no lives.

    I being one of them.

    --
    I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
  7. I have two words for you: by grayshirtninja · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sergeant Johnson.

  8. Color me unsurprised... by kevinatilusa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given a choice between creating an representative cross-section of America and an representative cross-section of their customer base, game makers are likely going to go with the people who are paying them money.

  9. Someone please think of the boobies by PhantomHarlock · · Score: 5, Funny

    Good thing they did not try to compare breast size and hip to waist ratios as compared to real world...

    1. Re:Someone please think of the boobies by Shikaku · · Score: 2, Funny

      The one that's now curved in my pants.

    2. Re:Someone please think of the boobies by Virak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm always annoyed when people bitch about the unrealistic portrayal of the female body in video games or fiction in general. It's not like women are unique in this regard, most of the men have bodies that are like finely-chiseled statues that few men in real life are going to match up to (and certainly not ones who play games lots). Do you hear them complaining about that? Of course not. That sort of person doesn't give a fuck about equality, they're just in it for their own benefit and putting up a front of egalitarianism to make them look like less of selfish bastards.

      Not that I'm saying that people in fiction should have realistic levels of attractiveness. It's been like that forever for good reason; most people would much rather prefer attractive people over unattractive people. The only ones calling for 'realism' just can't accept the fact that they, like most people, are average, and cannot match up to people on the higher end of the bell curve. The solution is not to try to prevent any portrayal of anyone superior to them in any aspect, but to stop being so goddamn insecure about themselves.

  10. So.. by cK-Gunslinger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    .. if someone develops a FPS where you shoot Hispanic 8-year-old females everyone will be happy? I kinda doubt it..

    1. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well... I would.

    2. Re:So.. by iamangry · · Score: 3, Funny

      Three words.... Daycare: Total War.

  11. Elderly Representation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Somehow I don't think that the average person wants a game where they play a senior.

    No one wants to bend down to get the Amulet of Yendor and not be able to stand up again.

    1. Re:Elderly Representation by Thiez · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is especially true when you are being chased by an incubus.

    2. Re:Elderly Representation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I disagree. Metal Gear Solid IV anyone?

  12. Not diverse? by pluther · · Score: 4, Funny

    The game I'm currently playing has four main characters. A Half-orc, a Tiefling, a Yuan-Ti, and a Dwarf. How much more diverse do you want?

    --
    If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
  13. It's true!! by anotheregomaniac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They also over represent people with big muscles, excellent combat skills and multiple lives. What tripe will be next?

  14. Console rpgs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Lack of representation of children? 12 year olds save the world all the time.

  15. That'll Be an Interesting Chart by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 5, Funny

    I bet it shows an unusually high percentage of Dark Elves and Orcs, as well as Caucasians. What should we be inferring from that?

    1. Re:That'll Be an Interesting Chart by ShakaUVM · · Score: 3, Informative

      From TFA: "The study only included visible characters that were clearly human."

      Clearly a methodological error if they throw out dark skinned or native American humanoids like drow and orcs simply because they're not "clearly human". Tauren should also count as native American, though they're less traditionally humanoid.

      Just a quick survey of my current games I have played this year:
      Total War: Empire. I played as French, so I guess I'm a white male. But you can play as an Indian as well, though no Asians or sub-saharan Africans are playable. Native Americans are in the game, but not a playable country (though you can recruit them).
      Mass Effect. Pick your own race and gender.
      Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires. Pick your own race and gender, though most are going to look like they're Chinese drawn by a Japanese artist.
      Halo 3: Who knows what Master Chief is?
      Oblivion: Pick your own race and gender.
      Fallout 3: Pick your own race (and gender too, I think).
      Left4Dead: One white chick, one black guy, two white guys. L4D2 will feature undead black people as the primary enemies (progress?)
      TF2: Predominantly white, though there's a black Scottsman and who knows what Pyro is?
      HL2: White guy and African-American chick.
      CoD4 - Modern Warfare: 5 white guys + one arab guy are the playable characters (IIRC)
      WoW: Pick your own gender. As aforementioned, the horde has 2 native American-esque, one white/asian, one afro-Caribbean, and one white-ish race.
      Gears of War 2: Main characters are white and Hispanic men. There's also a pacific islander, a white guy, a black guy, a Korean guy, and some other people of indeterminate race. Like in Halo and other games, their dispatcher is a female.

      So, all in all, there's a predominant trend towards male characters in action games, but there's quite a bit of flexibility these days in picking race and gender, and there's a fairly widespread mix of ethnicities in games these days.

  16. Gahh... by ceeam · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They should make Duke Nukem (in DNF) a black, homosexual, vegetarian, female eskimo, right?

    I sure wish that people writing these papers would pay from their pockets - in form of investments - for such the games.

    1. Re:Gahh... by genner · · Score: 2, Informative

      They should make Duke Nukem (in DNF) a black, homosexual, vegetarian, female eskimo, right?

      They tried....which is why the project was shut down.

  17. Mature Titles? by Reilaos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One reason I believe that children are underrepresented is, at least, partly the nature of mature games. Depiction of violence to children is frowned upon if not flat-out illegal in most countries. For the sake of consistency (why can't I rip off the child's head? It should be easier than the adults!), they're just excluded, I.E. Prototype.

  18. Diversity? And Slashdot cares why? by Itninja · · Score: 2, Informative

    News for NERDS remember? Just do a Google image search on 'nerd' and you will see how diverse the /. demographic is. I count (on the first page of 21 results) only two females and the only non-anglos I see are are three duplicate images presenting them as thugs.

    --
    I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
  19. Random question by michaelhood · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've always wondered this but never had the opportunity to post it remotely on-topic.

    Can someone explain to a non-anime person (myself) why all the characters in Japanese cartoons appear caucasian?

  20. Re:Who's the target audience? by michaelhood · · Score: 4, Funny

    Are you seriously suggesting that if more video games were produced in which the protagonist was (f.e.) black, that more black people would purchase the game?

    I don't remember starting up GTA: SA for the first time and being like, "oh man, I'm black - this feels totally unrealistic!"

    That's preposterous.

  21. Oblig. Chasing Amy by mfnickster · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hooper: "Always some white boy gotta invoke the holy trilogy. Bust this: Those movies are about how the white man keeps the brother man down, even in a galaxy far, far away. Check this shit: You got cracker farm boy Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy, blond hair, blue eyes. And then you got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy, Nubian god!"

    Banky: "What's a Nubian?"

    Hooper: "Shut the fuck up! Now... Vader, he's a spiritual brother, y'know, down with the force and all that good shit. Then this cracker, Skywalker, gets his hands on a light saber and the boy decides he's gonna run the fuckin' universe - gets a whole klan of whites together. And they go and bust up Vader's hood, the Death Star. Now what the fuck do you call that?"

    Banky: "Intergalactic civil war?"

    Hooper: "Gentrification! They gonna drive out the black element to make the galaxy quote-unquote, 'safe' for white folks. And Jedi's the most insulting installment! Because Vader's beautiful black visage is sullied when he pulls off his mask to reveal a feeble, crusty, old white man! They tryin' to tell us that deep inside, we all wants to be white!"

    Banky: "...but isn't that true??"

    --
    "Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
    1. Re:Oblig. Chasing Amy by cptnapalm · · Score: 2, Funny

      Black Rage! Black Rage!

  22. Re:Who's the target audience? by X0563511 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No, but I'm quite used to that not being true.

    When I fired up ARMA2 for the first time, I was like "wait, is something wrong with my gamma?" - but nope, you are a not a Standard-Issue-Caucasian.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  23. Next up... by dbet · · Score: 2, Funny

    The demons in Doom don't represent the full list of demons in the various religions in the world.

  24. Working to Correct This by cowboy76Spain · · Score: 4, Insightful
    In order to correct this clearly unfair distribution, I'll keep posing as a female 18 years old cheerleader in games, chats and everywhere.

    I only hope my efforts will be recognized by future generations...

    --
    Why can't /. have a rich-text editor? Editing your own HTML is so XXth century.
  25. BFD by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Big fuckin' deal. Who writes games? Mostly adult white males. Does anyone suppose that an adult white male is going to sit and ponder how a juvenile latin female might thing and act in some given situation? Nope. He don't GIVE A SHIT. Now, if that juvenile latin female wants to go into the game writer's world, and contribute something, then he'll give a shit. If she understands the game engine, and how the graphics work, if she can actually contribute to the (mostly mindless) plot of the story, then he WILL give a shit.

    You want this adult white female to attempt to create a juvenile latin female character? Great - he's feeling both magnanimous and sensitive, he's going to sit right down and create this character, and give her a leading part in the story. The character is going to be one of two things (maybe both at the same time, even). An over endowed little slut who wants nothing more than to bang the hero, OR an over endowed AND over muscled bull dyke who is as mindless and shallow as any female character has ever been.

    Which is the better choice? The bit of fluff, or the hunk of meat?

    Give everyone a break. If you want your group represented in games, or stories, or movies, or whatever the fuck, GET OFF YOUR DEAD ASS AND REPRESENT!!! Stop sniveling, stop whining. (Lest anyone think that I'm picking on the young Sotomayors of the world, no, this goes for blacks, male and female, Asians, Arabs, and even fucking ESKIMOS! Oh, cool, a great game idea, "Mighty Quinn wreaks havoc in New York!"

    While we wait for everyone to go do something useful, I'm intriqued by the idea of an adult male who appears to be white writing a novel from the perspective of a young Mexican girl. I just KNOW that everyone on slashdot will want to read it when I'm finished!! Quick, how do you say "pretty ponies" en Espanol?

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  26. villains by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A big part of the problem is, obviously, because game manufacturers are reluctant to use a female or minority character as a villain. "It's discrimination!" the protesters cry! (Yes, I'm serious, look what happened when a Tom Clancy game set in El Paso had Hispanic villains.) That right there cuts minority representation in half, or worse.

  27. Who cares? by Hurricane78 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Except for pseudo-political-correct pathetic people who can't look beyond it.

    If I make a game in some post-apocalyptic Texas-like desert, of course you will see massively more Rob Zombies than Mahatma Gandhis. And actually intelligent people know that this has nothing to to with genders or ethnics.

    When I hire the best 20 people I can get for the job, I do not care if all 20 of them are white conservative males in their mid-50s, or half-Bantu half-grizzly half-swine-flu-victim-zombie girlie midgets in pink snake skin dresses. That's what it being irrelevant means. :)

    Race or gender quotas are really disguised racism. It's just the "other extreme" of the full circle. ;) (Yeah, that really describes it very well.)

    But one way to make you and even the hypocrites happy, is to use only two kinds of persons in your games: 100% average gray mixes of neutrality, and total freaking extremes. What are they going to say? That group chainsaw-vomiting pinky-toe made from knitted sea grass belts was not ethnically diverse enough when they fought that horde of grayish indistinct blobs of dust?

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    1. Re:Who cares? by akintayo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If no one cares, why not place less white people in video games. If no one cares, why not make the primary character in video games Black, Latino or Indian. After all it doesn't matter, right ? With the exception of historical games, does ethnicity matter ? Would Fable be worse if the main character was non-White? Was Duke Nukem better because the main character was white? What about Crysis?

      I don't understand how you can say that having every character in every game be white is not weird. Even in your example, Texas is almost 40% Latino and more than 50% female ... yet a bunch of white male characters seem normal to you. I really don't get you, to me it seems adding more people and their stories would improve video games ... unless you need yet another game based on Europe in the middle ages.

      --
      Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
  28. Re:They forgot single by Larryish · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ah, so then Duke Nuke'em should have been a black, homosexual, vegetarian, married female eskimo.

    I concur. Make it so, Number One.

  29. By the same author by Animats · · Score: 2, Informative

    The lead author is on the faculty at USC. By the same author:

    There's much more like this. The papers are competent but mediocre.

  30. Development costs are an issue by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 4, Informative

    Being able to somewhat believably portray an average white guy is hard enough. Add in females, skin tones, age, and weight, and your cost of development will go up if you try to make them look and act correct.

    Don't want to spend the extra time and money to get it right? Fine -- then you'll get short haired, masculine women, overly shiny or plastic looking skin tones, and overweight people who walk like they're only supporting half their weight. And this is usually what happens in most games that try

    So most games choose to put more time into perfecting gameplay than providing diversity of characters, and try to hide the flaws by using minorities less often.

  31. Re:You misphrased it. by ShakaUVM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, the social "sciences" love to pretend they're scientific, but they really aren't. I think Feynman put it best when he talked about them:
    "Because of the success of science, there's a kind of pseudoscience - social science. They don't do scientific research, they don't find any laws, they haven't found anythinig yet. They give you experts that sound sort of scientific, they sit at a typewriter and type something like organic fertilizer is better for you - maybe it's true, maybe it's not true. They haven't proved it... I've realized how hard it is to actually find out something. I know what it means to know something. So when I see how they get their information and see that they haven't done the work necessary..."

    Awesome rant, and still true today.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EZcpTTjjXY

  32. Thanks for proofing you are wrong by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You say the token black guy was a gangster. HELLO? The entire series is about criminals with absolutely no social value whatsoever. They kill left and right for no other reason then that they are in a hurry. None of the leads are heroes, but this is only bad if he is black right?

    The black guy is no worse then any of the "white" guys. Who by the way happen to be hispanic or slavic as well as western europe white. Or do ethnic groups only count based on the amount of pigment?

    You then mention japanese games as an example... where of course the lead is japanese... but that is all right because a japanese person making a game with a japanese lead is totally different from a white person making a game with a white lead.

    You also happily ignore the countless western games where UNLIKE the japanese games, you can choose your own race. MMO's like WoW and Lotro. The sims. Dues EX. Fallout, all of them. Far cry 2(probably the widest assortment of backgrounds).

    You are indeed a closet racist. Everything whites do is wrong and everything someone else does is alright. Japanese games as an example of racial diversity. I want some of what you are smoking.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:Thanks for proofing you are wrong by init100 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      CJ's stuck in a stereotype.

      As with everything else in GTA.

    2. Re:Thanks for proofing you are wrong by Dr.+Impossible · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Gosh, a thug gangster in a video game series where you always play as a criminal. This is an outrage!

  33. Half Life indeed by Haeleth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Two episodes now have revolved around a mixed-race female with realistic body proportions and sensible clothes, while the plot has been driven entirely by elderly people, one of whom is both black and disabled.

    They've been critically acclaimed and sold gazillions of copies.

  34. Re:You misphrased it. by Rambling+Paladin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Did "awesome" suddenly become synonymous with "fundamentally wrong in every possible way"? Since Mr. Feynman isn't here to answer and you seem to agree so strongly with him, I'll simply address this to you instead of him. Full disclosure: I am a social scientist, which is why I'm so curious.

    Do you honestly think that social scientists just sit at a typewriter (computer nowadays) and make shit up? That there's no theorizing, no testing, no data? And then nobody else ever cross-checks this, never tries to replicate results? Have you ever sat down and read a social science publication? Any journals? Any books published for the academic market?

    I ask these questions because otherwise I cannot even fathom how you can draw these conclusions. I don't assume you have any advanced studies in sociology or the like, so why do you assume that you know what they're doing and that they're making things up?

    Let's try the example given in that rant: that organic food is better for you than non-organic food. A basic problem with his argument: who's researching that? Which social science deals with questions of nutrition? I don't mean the social effects of organic farming, I mean who is going to see if organic food is more nutritious than the alternative? I don't think any of them do, at all. Economists might ask about the economic effects of organic farming, or political scientists about the political effects of malnutrition, but neither of them are going to look at whether it's better for people in a biological way. They'll go across campus and ask somebody in the food science department, because those are the people who actually would research this sort of thing. (Or the nutrition department, or the health department, or whatever physical science actually looks at issues of organic nutrition.) Social scientists might use these findings in a study to look at the social effects of organic farming, but that's a different question entirely.

    Some people on /. seem to have a desire to pit the physical sciences and social sciences against each other, but I say that's silly. They look at different phenomena, but each contributes valuable knowledge to the world. Not like those jerks in the fine arts departments. (I'm kidding, please put those instruments down!)