Giant Bomb Presents: The State of Diversity in Games

Is my point really not clear?

There is no context that makes that post any less terrible. It absolutely is ignorant.

Remember Me was a bad game in an awesome setting.

And for the record Nilin was a bad character in a mediocre story.

OK, a user basically stated that non-whites and women don't exist in enough movies, and that I should look around at the movies around me (of which there is a shelf to my direct left). I looked at the movies around me, and said how there were non-whites and women in them. I also stated that gays are <2% of the general population, an extreme minority and as such, in the "equality mindset" (whatever that means), they should be represented by that amount. From what I've seen, this is about right. Blacks are about 13%-15% in the US, that seems about right when it comes to movie actors. With this in mind, what's there to complain about? If I'm some neanderthal with no basis in reality, explain how I am wrong instead of just trying to publicly shame me like Patrick. Give me arguments instead of just knee-jerk emotional reactions mang.

Edit: All that I have seen previously are pure ad-hominid attacks and zero arguments.

Apparently they are, look at all the sitcoms that use them now: Modern Family, The New Normal, Glee, etc. Flamboyant was probably the wrong word, but obviously gay characters would work.

The thing is, this isn't a debate. There is no other side to this.

Your position is that there isn't a lack of diversity in games, and if there is then it's justified. The conversation isn't a question of whether or not we should have more diversity in games, it's a question of why we don't and what we can do to correct it.

Your point isn't a part of this conversation, plain and simple.

Sitcoms, i'm not quite sure you should use them for true basis of reality.

@shaanyboi: I understand all those points, that's the entire thing Patrick is talking about. What I'm saying is that too much back lash can backfire in the case where companies are too worried about excluding anyone that we miss out on rich individual experiences (be it male, female, LGBT, cultural, etc). I'm as tired of the male dominated perspective as anyone else. I'm certainly not arguing for the status quo.

@subyman: That's never been a problem though. Companies very rarely think about diverse minorities, that's why there is the backlash. Also the argument is getting close to the very tired "they shouldn't force diversity!" as if the current state of things isn't being forced already and a non -white non-male audience is outside of the norm

And to the people who are saying that Patrick posting that idiotic post from this thread is a form of bullying-- PLEASE. The name of the poster was not included, no calls to action were included, and the source of the post was not included. The only people who know where it came from are right here.

The context of the comment is easy to interpret and regardless even with the context proves the point of this talk and the conversation at large, which I imagine is the reason for tweeting that hilarious post.

He didn't say anything, he just reposted the comment verbatim. It's Sarah Palin '08 all over again.

Yeah! It's the poor, privileged, ignorant bullies who are the real victims!

@davec524:

I think @krabboss laid it out pretty clearly for you.

Wo, wo, wo. Isn't debatable? Whether "diversity" should even be embraced is an ethical position, and ethics are ALWAYS debatable. You are proposing moral judgement statements and claiming them to somehow be self-evident and non-debatable. Yes, you are right, my point is ultimately that I flat out don't care if minority groups SHOULD be in games. This isn't to say I don't want them there, but I ultimately want better games, and if you can write a gay character that fits into the story well, and adds to the story, fine. But don't pull a Bioware and just shoehorn crap characters into stories just because they're gay.

Apparently, my not keeping count of the number of minorities in gaming is wrong.

So, in Mass Effect, what box does, say, Tali check off on the diversity checklist?

Love the use of the bully meme.

I find it incredibly rich that the gameplay designer at bioware is complaining about AAA games being the same.

How dare people Patrick make them seem like ignorant assholes by repeating exactly what they said to other people!

@subyman: uh, no, they aren't. just because something is in a sitcom doesn't mean it's politically correct.

Yes. Correct. Your point is unclear.

I have to admit I didn't even listen to this. The chance I don't know what I'm talking about is pretty high. But I just don't care that much anymore about this subject. I fully agree with what Ken Levigne once said in an interview, I believe on Giantbomb even. He said he was asked all the time to create a positive gay character or a positive black female character and so forth. To which he said, he just isn't interested in already having specific bounds and creating a character around it. He wants to create interesting characters that can shape a story. He never envisioned Elizabeth to be female, but once he started giving that character meaning within he world he realized she must be.

If a game gives me a good character, I'm good with it. No matter the gender, sexual orientation or color of their skin. I don't get the scream that people SHOULD create more of the less representive ones in gaming right now. What does it matter? It's not like if you gender, sexual orientation or whatever is less represented in games it somehow makes you less valuable. I honestly sometimes don't get the discussion of this stuff.

Ok, the point was that he would go and see that the majority of movies and video games are shall we say not very diverse thereby proving or at the very least heavily implying that perhaps there is an unfair biased in many of the Entertainment Industries shall we say "art" pieces I actually wasn't trying to make an attack on the person(they did that well themselves)it was just to give visual evidence that perhaps as we all know the world is a very unfair(unequal) place and that in fact he sees this more than he realizes.

Right, it is about ethics and your position is unethical. And regardless, your point is irrelevant to this conversation.

The question of "how is gender, sexuality and race represented in games, and how can we do better?" assumes you already care about representation or are at least aware of it.

You don't care if minority groups should be in games-- meaning you don't care about representation-- meaning you aren't part of the conversation.

FASCISTS.

Where is your argument going? Picking out one word from a long discussion to argue about isn't very productive.

No one said you should.

@subyman: it already went there. you don't know what political correctness is, so you should stop whining about it ruining media.

Is this the same group of site-visitors who panicked at the mention of playtesting in one of these interviews, believing that it somehow hampered the auteur's vision?

Unethical? Well, that's like, your opinion, man. My point is that the whole question of "how is gender, sexuality and race represented in games, and how can we do better?" isn't an issue and shouldn't even be taken seriously. I propose that how race/sex/gender is represented in games is irrelevant, that people should be striving to make better games, and that race/sex/gender-baiting, or creating some sort of political and social crusade is irrelevant to making a good character with solid writing. Hell, I would even propose that most game buyers really couldn't give a damn about what BioWare thinks in regards to these faux issues, and that this does nothing more than push away potential game buyers. In America, right now, most people really don't want to play as gay characters in their games, and no matter how much people try to shame them, call them "bigots", "homophobes", or "enemies of equality", this won't change anything. The views of a few in San Francisco mean nothing to Jimmy in Oklahoma, or Rusty in Missouri (who both have money and are consumers of games). This whole "movement" is nothing more than a national political battle that somehow seeped into video games.

He said it here. Sure, probably not the best thing to say ( sorry dude). But is this how you guys want to go about this?

This just doesn't feel like the right thing to do. Being ignorant ( if one is) about something is meant to be met with information. With dialog, not shaming...

Nobody wants to be an asshole , no one is born knowing everything there is to know and nothing is gained by exposing them to the world so they can be laugh at. Other than generating conflict and defining sides.

Then you wonder how is it that this type of discussion is always met with people being on the defensive.

Yo dudes dialogue doesn't do shit when people don't actually want to listen.

@gokumane: that is an insightful and well-informed comment.

@customotto: I already addressed that way up the thread when I said flamboyant was the wrong word. Having a heavily diverse cast is the main point.

@rockyraccoon37: Maybe you should study ethics. He doesn't really make an unethical statement. An unethical statement would be that minorities CANNOT be represented in any type of medium. Thats unethical.

Ya know what else is unethical? Saying that minorities HAVE to be represented in any type of medium.

Both are unethical propositions, because it takes away agency from the creator.

In fact, his entire post has nothing to do with ethics; whether you agree with it or not. Its merely unsubstantiated observations.

Yes, yes, you're the victim.

But the key point from this is:

"My point is that the whole question of "how is gender, sexuality and race represented in games, and how can we do better?" isn't an issue and shouldn't even be taken seriously. I propose that how race/sex/gender is represented in games is irrelevant"

WHO CARES? Why is your opinion relevant then?

@subyman: I'm talking about the word stereotype, which is still what you're talking about when you say you mean "obviously gay characters." Stereotypes are not politically correct. You should also stop acting like having a diverse cast of characters is somehow harmful because... it's not realistic? or something? Because you don't have an asian friend and a black friend, neither should Random White Sitcom Lead?

Yeah that's if you believe that an individual has a greater claim to agency over a group of people who voice their discontent. One sounds like it romanticizes "the artist" and is fairly oppressive and individualist, and the other sounds far more democratic.

And the idea that people voicing their dissenting opinions somehow quells the agency of the creator is laughable.

LOL. What country do you live in? In the United States thats exactly what we believe in. Its called individual liberty. Specifically, the idea of freedom of expression. It doesn't matter one iota about people's discontent to a person's expression.

@tdot: It could easily turn into a problem. If the twitter machine ramps up every time there are games without certain people included, what do we expect large companies to do? I bet what they won't do is try to hire people with a diverse perspective. They will follow the path of least resistance by adding in a few reskins of the main character so the game looks diverse. The last thing I want to play is a game with minorities written by the same people that put together Spartan-Conquest-Of-Duty. The only way to move forward is to encourage a more diverse gaming development community, which is already happening in the indie scene. I may not be getting my point across well, but hopefully that helps.

Take away: we can't expect the current roster of largely white-male developers to write/develop quality minority experiences. Push too hard and companies will respond quickly with those games. Instead we need a more diverse development community, which is already happening but it takes time.

But why you so mad though :3? It's relevant enough for me to argue against this topic being brought up; it's otherwise not a serious issue. No, I really don't care about how many minority or government defined victim groups are in media. By your logic, Metacritic should have a second rating right next to metascore that tells you how many minorities per hour are in the game (I'll call it MPH), and have another rating for how many cisgendered, privileged, straight white males are in the game, with a big frowny face next to it, because apparently they're the spawn of Satan or something.

@customotto: Not quite what I meant. I do mean approaching a certain show/game with the expectation that they should represent all groups. I believe applying that expectation to every experience is harmful, especially when the game or show would be better if more narrowly focused. Take Gone Home for example. It focused on a female perspective view and it was fantastic. If the developers approached the design of the game worrying that other groups may be excluded so they tried to add something more for them in there it would have diluted the original vision.

Yes, I am well aware of America's propensity towards the idea individual liberty-- but it doesn't automatically assume that it is ethical because many people believe it to be, or because you happen to live there. Capitalism is the economic system we all live under, but that doesn't mean I think it's ethical.

@rockyraccoon37: Ok, so you're saying individual liberty is not necessarily ethical? So we should mandate what people should think? We should monitor what they say?

Who gets to decide this? You? Me?

Seems like a tricky proposition you got going there.

Again, just so we don't derail. The poster didn't say anything unethical. Maybe you don't agree with it. But it had nothing to do with ethics.

I responded to his claim of it being a question of ethics but, you're right, it's not exactly about ethics.

I don't think games are any more or less misogynistic, racist, or homophobic than any other forms of media. Look at movies. The vast majority of big budget movies are headlined by straight, white dudes.

The issue as I see it is that many games boil down to some kind of power fantasy. Whether you are Commander Shepherd, Batman, Ezio Auditore, or a faceless soldier in a Call of Duty game, a lot of the best selling games are about exerting your power over others in some way. Shepherd fights the evil alien hordes. Batman beats up the villains. Ezio assassinates half the important people in Italy on his quest for revenge. CoD guy shoots people in the head.

And when we think of power it is only natural to think of men. It is the same reason why Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and the like dominated all of the classic action movies. I don't think that is particularly wrong or sexist. It's just how the human brain is wired.

I would love to see more diversity in games. However, I do think it is something that needs to come about naturally and not just be done for the hell of it because someone feels a game doesn't have a certain quota of each demographic. I think we are moving towards that. Someone brought up Nilan in Remember Me a few posts ago. She is strong female character that is not hyper sexualized. It's a pity the game itself was so forgettable.

It seems like a common misconception by those who are satisfied with the status quo about the stance of those who are not is that those who are not satisfied with the status quo want every game to have something for everyone. That is incorrect. Games like BroForce should still exist, for example, as should games like BulletStorm. Those who are dissatisfied with the status quo would simply like to see more of everything.

Having said that, I am one who is dissatisfied with the status quo. I would like to see more of everything. Additionally - and this isn't an uncommonly-shared interest by those like me - I would also like to see less subjugation and misogyny explored when it is doesn't amount to anything valuable. For instance, the horror movie trope of "woman gets raped, seeks revenge" is one that I have tired of. Granted, sexual violence is a very valid motivation for revenge, and one that everyone responds to viscerally, but the trope itself is just that - a trope. It is tired, and is not clever. The same can be said for rescuing women in video games, for example. Video games as vehicles for gameplay have become metaphorical supercars, and they can now be decked out with interesting stories to complete the package. Just as silent movies began with incredibly simple stories, the method evolved to a point where it could begin to weave much more nuanced yarns. We, as consumers, have every right to expect video game developers to step up and do the same at this stage in the industry.

Lastly, objectification of minorities (this can be applied globally, or as granularly as minorities within the gaming sphere) still exists to a surprisingly gross degree in mainstream gaming.

For example, transgendered NPCs in GTAV. While other groups are lampooned for character flaws, transgenders are lampooned for simply being transgendered: they verbally lament not being accepted as women (the final goal of the transgender transition process), for not looking 'enough' like a woman yet ("You need to keep taking your hormones!" "Sir, ma'am, whatever" "Almost fooled me, bro-she"), and as something that, just in principle, is funny ("Watch dancing trannies").

If the game targeted little people in the same way ("You need to wear bigger risers, homie" "Hello, Oompa-Loompa" "Oh shit, I thought you were a child, freakin' me out over here"), and had lots of character-specific dialogue and jabs at them elsewhere ("Watch dancing midgets"), it would still be upsetting. What would be an acceptable way to lampoon transsexuals in Los Angeles? Perhaps for being catty, or superficial - like Brandy Alexander from Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters, for example. You know, the same sorts of things that all the ostensibly 'normal' people in GTA are lampooned for.

To compound the issue, transgendered people are generally in a very delicate mental state. They have a very high suicide rate. They are often deeply depressed about their transition, or desire to transition. The same, of course, can be said for homosexual people. The link between the two? They are made to feel that they are unwanted, and that they are freaks. GTA perpetuates this notion in every moment that it handles the subject of transgendered people.

Is GTA expected to be socially conscious, and is it a pillar of morality and niceness? Of course not. But the writers took the easy way out and, rather than thinking of transgendered people as characters, who have jobs and lives removed from their physical appearance, transgendered people in GTA are entirely and completely defined by the fact that they are transgendered. Their jobs are being transgendered, they are addressed as transgendered, and all they talk about is being transgendered. That is the problem. The man in this interview is arguing that this is also still a problem with black people in video games, or women - they are often not thought of as fully-dimensional people in the same way as other characters in the same story.

MY problem with this is that it isn't interesting. "Oh look, a black dealer. My interest is positively piqued." The other entertainment industries set a precedent that video games must now follow: developers need to simply try harder now that they've raised the bar so high. Video games can now be all things, so they should stop being so much of one thing.

meh

How did I know another Patrick article would cause a shit storm of angry comment battles? Huh, that never happens these days.

In my opinion, it seems that we as a society are on the other side of the mountain in terms of equality and representation for women, gays, minorities, etc. I think that they have won their battle, so to speak, or are well on their way to winning it, in terms of a piece of the landscape in "popular culture", if that is really what all this indignant outrage is all about. It just seems to me that continuing to white knight and grandstand on these types of issues allows for a sense of righteousness and moral superiority. And maybe an attempt to mask the fact that they feel a little ashamed of their position of "white privilege"?