The Dord of Darien

Musings from the Mayor of the Internet

Didn't I take a class about this in college?

Raven Software has a dude who calls himself Manveer Heir — and I hesitate to make fun of his grade-A comedy name too much, since the dude seems to get really touchy about really weird imagined insults — who seems to think that there are so few black or hispanic video game designers because there aren’t very many black or hispanic video game characters. It seems to me that that’s probably not the case; isn’t the stereotypical "nerd" either white or asian (a demographic Heir leaves out of his blanket white/black/hispanic world view)? Could it be that the average modern American black or hispanic is just not as interested in fundamentally nerdy things — like, say, video games — as is the white or asian? Is it the case that there are fewer white rappers because so many rap videos have black people in them? Not confident that it is.

Never mind that. I’d like to make fun of him for saying this:

Lack of diversity, specifically race but also gender and sexuality, is across the board with in-game characters. How often do we play as the white space marine? Over and over again. And by doing that we are just telling the same story over and over again. But if we want to start telling new stories we need to start having a diversification of characters that includes their ethnicity, to create more compelling, deeper characters instead of this everyman archetype.

Hey Manveer, there are games other than Doom and Quake and Halo. I’d estimate — conservatively — that I’ve played nine shitloads of games that do not contain a white male space marine. Granted, I’ve also played the shit out of Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II, which contains tons of white male space marines. Does that cancel them out? How does this crazy theory work?

Also: no, it is not necessary to change your white male space marine into a black female space marine lesbian in order to "tell a new story." More useful on that front would be maybe making a game — for once! — that’s not about fighting orcs or spiders. And no, Bioware, just renaming the orcs "darkspawn" doesn’t count. Neither does putting the spiders in space.

Heir argues that we’ve reached the point where it’s in the game industry’s vital interests to address this situation, not for reasons of social ‘fairness’ but for reasons of economic survival. "It’s not about being fair. It’s about bringing something new to the art," he says.

Raven Software, of course, has a long history of bringing something new to the art of video games. You may remember them as the company whose breakthrough title — Heretic — brought something new to Doom: namely, it added orcs and made it boring. Their followup game, Hexen, was chiefly notable for being a boring version of Quake with orcs in it. But their real masterpiece, Hexen II, was a triumph of originality: Quake II, but with orcs, and also spiders. Oh, and it was boring.

There is a perceived notion that there might be a negative economic impact. There’s an idea that – to take a character almost at random – if Nathan Drake were black or Asian the game would not have sold as well because he is no longer the ‘everyman’. But I think we have to push that and try new things.

No, if Nathan Drake were black or asian the game would have made no goddamn sense. Uncharted was a game about the lineage of a famous British pirate — I don’t think those were available in black or asian versions. The problem wouldn’t be that he’s no longer everyman, it would be that he’s no longer anyman.

Let’s take some more characters at random. Remember Daikatana? The lead character was called Hiro Miyamoto. He wasn’t exactly a white guy, if that didn’t get the point across. He had a sidekick called Superfly Johnson, and I won’t give you even one guess as to whether or not he was white. Final Fantasy 13 contains a magically delicious black guy with a chocobo living in his afro. Here’s a picture of some asshole dressed up as him. As for your idea that developers are afraid to use non-white male characters because it will hurt sales, well… didn’t those Tomb Raider games sell one or two copies?

As artists, we talk abut race all the time. We address the issue through narratives in which aliens or ghouls or other outsiders are portrayed with sympathy. But whenever we want to deal with it as people, we always deal with it in abstract, fantasy worlds.

Well, I mean, you certainly appear to talk about race all the time. I’m not sure "we" do any such thing. I can’t say I worry too much about that fact that, say, Captain Anderson is a black man.

One of my favorite games is Gears of War. Cole Train is a great character. I take no issue with the fact that he is a stereotype and he is over the top. I take issue with the fact that every time I play a game, the black guy is an athlete meat-head, and never gets to wear a tie.

You mean except for Captain Anderson, right? Who, granted, doesn’t wear a tie — since it’s the future and apparently nobody wears ties anymore — but sure is an important political-slash-diplomatic figure. Also what about Eli Vance? He’s like the lead scientist for the entire damn resistance. And his daughter is some crazy black-asian mulatto blend, and she’s just the main damn love interest for the whole series. Also I thought Mayor Mike Haggar was black, but apparently I hallucinated that. So never mind that part. He’s kind of muscley anyhow.

I’m sure many people in the game industry are starting work on new IP. If we can ask people to think about it, then they are more apt to say ‘hey let’s try this’. You just need one game to succeed. The first developer or publisher to do this will enjoy a lot of success. There is a risk, but this isn’t an innovation of game mechanic, it’s not about a new genre, it’s about creating more well-formed characters.

No, dude, it’s about creating different well-formed characters. Ones that appeal more to your own aesthetic sense. Is Commander Shepard not a good character because he’s white, in space, and kind of marine-y? What about GLaDOS? She’s sort of a woman, but mostly she’s a big fucking computer. Does she not count?

Seriously for a minute here. What the fuck are you talking about? The first developer to use a non-white-male character in a lead role will enjoy a lot of success? Dude. That happened a long, long time ago. Goddamn Metroid had a female protagonist. Metroid! From 1986! Not all games are Duke Nukem, and, actually, as of a few months ago, no games are, so you really need to relax the angst a bit. Maybe play a few games. These characters you want? They’re out there. But where they’re not is: in Halo. So branch out a bit, take a breath, and relax.


March 16th, 2010 Posted by | Games | no comments

Saw this on Steam

Major League Baseball® 2010 brings baseball’s most exciting match-up to life: Pitchers vs. Hitters.

I guess I agree. That’s pretty much the most exciting match-up in baseball. I wonder if they make a football game that brings football’s most exciting matchup — offense vs. defense — to life, too.


March 16th, 2010 Posted by | Baseball, Games | no comments