Gears criticised for stereotyping

[crumas2]

Non Sequor said:

crumas2 said:

johntonsoup said:

Words Of Wisdom said:
I'm totally with him!

How dare those awful game developers make fictional games that don't represent the real world.

His point is that game developers put a lot of time and thought into creating their fictional worlds but rarely think to feature a black protagonist. I think that's true.

This is all so hilarious. The developer decides to cast the hero as hispanic, and people are complaining that the main character isn't black. Sheesh. If he was black, then there would be people complaining that he wasn't female, etc., etc.

Is it really the developer's job to make sure everyone has a warm and fuzzy regarding how they perceive their own place in life? I thought it was to make kick butt games with engaging characters. Why doesn't someone with an African American heritage start a dev house and make games with black protagonists? That's what I would do if I was really bothered about that sort of thing. Then again, if the games didn't sell well there would be a lot of complaining about racist consumers.

 

His point was that if they can depict a hispanic main character in a sensible manner, then why did they make the black supporting character a retread of an obsolete stereotype? He also points out that this stereotype doesn't even make sense within the setting that the writers established and that cringe-inducing black characters have become depressingly common in video games.

I think the fundamental problem is that game writers tend to blindly create characters out of scraps of pop culture and characters from other games. The result is that every black character falls into one of the following four categories: "cool" tough guy who uses bizarre slang, thug who also uses bizarre slang, amalgamation of Samuel L. Jackson characters, and amalgamation of Morgan Freeman characters.

I really don't understand this.  Were they supposed to make Cole a dandy?  I thought most of the characters represented hardboiled men who survived largely due to the tough environments they had existed in for years.  Marcus Fenix runs around making nothing but short tough-guy statements that make Arnold S's characters seem enlightened, but that's okay. 

Most of the people buying these games (males between 18-25 years old) want to role play as one of the roughest of the rough, able to take on anything, possibly as a result of living mundane, unexciting lives.  This is the market.  The last time a publisher tried to focus on "leveling" the games available (I believe it was Purple Moon) by creating games targeting just girls, they failed miserably.  Why?  They exist in a market, not a sociology class.

In an "idea" world, everyone gets along, there is no racism or bigotry toward those who are different: black white, short, tall, athletic, studious, quiet, boisterous.  And it would be nice if we could move closer to that ideal.  However, it can become a nightmare when society decides to force the issue and ends up creating deeper rifts than they fill.

So... let's solve this in an American way.  I challenge anybody who feels this inequity is a terrible blight on society to go out and start a games company or become a part of an existing games company and make sure games are made that "do it right".  And I don't want to hear any excuses about how that's too hard or only "rich" people or "lucky" people can start companies or make a difference in the company they work for.  Bullcrap!  Instead of whining about it, do something about it instead of complaining that no one else is fixing the problem.

*getting off my soapbox before it collapses*