Does the black hero exist?

[shadow skill]

I think what it comes down to is fear. People do not like to leave their comfort zone the identification argument really only exists within the minds of the advertising directors and maybe the 12yr old racist halotards (Which obviously are not all the people who like Halo they just happen to be the only ones that would die over a non white hero.) it is alot like the arguments used when talking about women in games it doesn't really extend to the majority of gamers.

Just look at COD4 I still don't understand why the game is obsessed with the British and Americans when so much of the game takes place in areas you would expect to see Russian Military involved instead they basically decided to relegate Eastern Europeans to the status of "threatening other" yet again....Which is so tired by now that it just shows that they need help. I can't help but feel like how Yahtzee probably felt with MOHH Airborne.




This is all very much under the rader of course because it is not entirely possible for the people responsible for making games to just come out and say "Conform" in no uncertain terms. But just talk about something like control configurations and how almost all suck since typically the dev team does not give the user any real control over how to map things. If you bring up this sort of thing you will be told to conform even though for the vast majority of individuals the default configuration is suboptimal (This is most obvious with First person shooters.) let alone the people who happen to feel like using something other than the defaults for any reason.

For many people if they do not see a problem then that means there IS no problem, this contributes to the atmosphere we have, stuck with the same heros, the same villains etc. But this all has more to do with why we do not see the black (non white) hero rather than whether he or she exists or not.

I would like to think that at least part of the creative process should involve moving out of one's comfort zone and having the guts to try a thing or two. Carry on.

 

[JamesW]

As for the story, it's obvious no one's affected by some player-character connection issue because the playable character is of a different race. If that were the case Ratchet, Daxter, the Katamari guy, Pikachu, Bomberman, Loco Rosso and millions of other non-human characters wouldn't be likable and relatable (hell, look at Peggle! But not for too long for risk of getting a seizure.)

The thing is, there's a difference between the absence of a race, which is what you get with non-human protagonists, and the existence of a different race, which is what you get with black/asian/whatever protagonists. The former is a neutral value. The latter is a negative value, or at least is perceived to be such in the minds of TV (and thus, I suspect, gaming) execs; they theorise that when a white person turns on a TV show with a black lead they assume that the show was not made for them, but for a black audience. It's not neccessarily an inability to connect with black characters, it's a lack of drive to bother doing so.

There's anecdotal evidence in TV to suggest that this may be the case; of The Wire's four seasons so far, the one that received the highest ratings was season two, which is also the only one to have a predominantly white cast (the other three seasons are mostly set in the Baltimore projects).

Still, I would imagine that this is different in gaming, which has a generally younger audience that actually idolises black culture (or at least the gangsta rap culture that has become synonymous with "black").

By the way, there was a game that came out years ago for the PC and (I think) PS2 that had a black, female main character. She was a cop tasked with running around a sandbox city and bringing down crime. Can't remember the name of it. Chaos something? There was a burly white guy, too, but I can't remember if he was an optional second character or just a sidekick.

 

[Doglike]

Urban Chaos, Made by Muckyfoot, Published By Eidos, Darcy Stern was the Black Female Cop... Can't Remember the name of the sidekick white guy... he was playable in one level but mostly turned up to push the story forward...

I worked on it, there was a general concensus at the time that it sold poorly because the protagonist was a black character... we got a lot of coverage in the black press and it reviewed pretty well... 70% or so... At the time I figured that the race thing was bullshit but after 12 years in the industry I'm not sure. I think the fact Darcy was black turned a lot of people off but more importantly I think the fact she was black turned marketing off and they didn't push the game because they figured it was some sort of niche "black thing" product.
Tragically this is not the only time I have seen marketing turned off or at least frightened by race and attempt to dictate the genetic make-up of video game characters. A game on which friends of mine worked got to beta stage before one of the main characters who was black was de-ethnicised to broaden its appeal. tbh the character was not made caucasian he was changed to a more racially ambiguous, mixed race looking character but I still found it unsettling that marketing and seemingly the buying public at large can't get past the colour of a fictional characters skin.

I suppose it's not marketings fault really, their job is to sell to the buying public and if the buying public are a bunch of racist eejits it is still their job is to target that market and provide products that will sell best to that market

It's hardly a defense but race is a hot potato... I'm aware of games which dare not even mention racial archetypes for fear of offending or excluding people. I find it ludicrous and if I were a daily mail reader I'd say "ITS POLITICAL CORECTNESS GONE MAD!!!!" but I'm white so what do I know. I appreciate the problem. Even Theme hospital got complaints because its characters had racial variations, some basic sprite colour changes, but they omitted a particular shade and that offended someone. Under those circumstances you can see how it looks easier to make no effort and just use characters that look kinda beige... But not mentioning race at all even when it's present as a player choice seems patronising and could just as easily be read as suggesting that ones race is something to be ashamed of. Obviously I think thats stupid too but seeing as it is so easy to offend/prompt litigation these days it's no surprise that corporations shy away from anything that could be contentious

Race is something that exists and therefore is something that needs to be depicted within games if they are ever to mature. Whether a character is good or bad or a person is good or bad their race is not what defines them, their actions are what define them. Ultimately, in the world of video games a Tauran or an African American or a Stygian can each tell a compelling story and it's up to the industry to present race as a fact of life not a marketing ploy or some awkward "issue" and its up to the market to get some enlightenment and understand that.

Perhaps it's not so much a case of video games growing up but the audience too

 

[MacCarth]

Blade...the game.

 

[AnGeL.SLayer]

if its in general then what about green lantern? wasnt he black? or have i just been watching too many cartoons again?

 

[shadow skill]

One of the Green Lanterns was black, but I was talking specifically about games.

 

[Doglike]

Blade...the game.

Ha! I worked on Blade 2 too