Does the black hero exist?

[Nidenel]

Jade from Beyond good and evil is black ?! Look at a screen shot... I am sorry but I am not going to agree with that. The fact that you see that she is black is interesting. That is great for marketing because every one will think she is their own race. As bad as that sounds it is true, and people in marketing look for that cross market appeal.

Reddas in FF xii was sort of blackish. I say that because some times it is hard to tell between tan, and "of African decent". When you have a Japanese developer that decides to have an anime art style, to me it is very difficult what people are trying to represent. With an anime style the major features of a black man seem to be in contrast to the anime ideal.

Alex from Hl2 while she is technically half black, i do not think for the sake of the argument you can include her. She does not look black (at least to me) and if I did not know her father, I would have never guessed it.


Now the real question is if we should include sports games in this conversation.

 

[Nidenel]

@ GrowlersAtSea yes the Hispanic population maybe greater than that of the African American population, but they for the most part are considered white (by themselves) Look closely and you should see White and then White Hispanic origin. The truth is that their is a big group of Hispanic people who consider themselves white.

Disclaimer: I am not saying "consider themselves" as to say, "but we know they are not". But rather a person who considers themselves part of a group can relate to another person ,or character in a video game, of the same group.

Side note: considering yourself white is not mutually exclusive to being Hispanic. So by as saying you are white, you are not throwing away your heritage, as some may be inclined to believe.

 

[Num43]

This is probably why they dont make a Jesus related game they wouldnt know what color to make him.

 

[p1ne]

The closest thing UT2004 had to a main character - Malcom - is black. In general the UT series has a good mix of racial characteristics, although the main character in UT3 is white and it's not like there's much room for character development anyways. Anyways I'm a hardcore UT player so I thought I should mention it.

 

[KnightShift]

Spawn. He was Black before he became crispy...

http://www.amazon.com/Spawn/dp/B00004XONQ

 

[Ex Omni]

That is great for marketing because every one will think she is their own race. As bad as that sounds it is true.

No. It's not true. I'm white and I saw her as black until someone pointed out that she was markedly racially-neutral.

She also happens to be one of my favorite characters in any videogame.

 

[The Irrelevant Gamer]

I'm pretty sure Alex from HL2 is of mixed racial heritage. In the picture Eli has of his family in his lab at Black Mesa East Alex's mother looks Asian. It would explain her light skin, and eyes. Yes, I've played Half Life 2 a lot.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Alyx isn't really a hero though, the hero really does need to be the main protagonist of the story.

It seems to me that there really aren't any predefined black heroes. There are black anti-heroes, several of whom have been mentioned, and black characters in non-story driven games, and in supporting roles like Alyx.

There's Michael in Eternal Darkness, but he's not "the hero", just one of them, and the main protagonist is Alex Roivas.

 

[Don Alejandro]

This is probably why they dont make a Jesus related game they wouldnt know what color to make him.

Just like all the Christian movies made in the States around the 70's and 80's right?

Someone's already said this before, probably, but anyway: I think the main problems here are mainly made by business demographics and whoever it is that reads them. People sitting in glum rooms deciding, "Well, I sure do know that those black chaps would never pick up anything without guns, the inner city, and drug violence. Or without Halo." This decided by a faceless exec, probably from EA to round out the stereotypes, they decide that the most affluent group and the richest group that buys games most often is white.

More than anything, that's how the choice is digested. Not made, digested. A white character is seen by the industry and general Western society to be the most likely blank slate without associated stereotypes. They can be rich, poor, middle class, criminals, heroes, politicians (The difference between the last and 3rd to last being anyone's guess). Blacks already have a pre-established prejudice set against them that few companies are really wanting to challenge. If anything, it gives them a perfect niche character. A look at blaxploitation movies gives credence to this, parody titles like Undercover Brother and Boss ****** help establish this as a market trend that had existed before and games in general today establish it as a market trend continuing today. Why, look at Fiddy Cent's game. If that's not some new age of Blaxploitation I don't know what.

 

[Do4600]

I had forgotten about shadowman, Indigo Prophecy does not really count because Tyler is not the protagonist. GTA San Andreas falls under the extreme stereotype caveat.

Well, if we're not counting extreme stereotypes, then hardly ANY heroes exist in gaming, whether black, white, brown, or green.

Took the words outta my mouth.

 

[Do4600]

The Paladin & Sorceress in Diablo 2 were black. If they weren't then they were extremely tan but I've not seen it said anywhere they were not black.

I think the Paladin is black and the Sorceress is Indian. For real Indian, not "cowboys and".

 

[jadedcritic]

Reasonable question - have to think about it for a bit. Can think of bit appearances and supporting roles; celebrity tie ins. Things like Evander in Fight-Night. But a -story-driven-black-hero. I don't think I've seen that. It's not especially safe ground.

When they're trying to sell half a million of any one given property they're trying to offend as few people as possible. Case and point, that resident evil 5 junk I was hearing lately. It's the same kind of principle that keeps standard villain types in games. The safe villain types are nazis, demons, undead, terrorists and aliens. Can kill any combination of the above without somebody getting offended. That's why there used to be so many WWII games, but people got bored of that. Think you'll see an influx of anti-terrorist games for a while.

Carlos Mencia has talked about this kind of thing. (in his own way). The vast majority of black people probably wouldn't mind being in more games; but all it takes is one person at a civil advocacy group to cause bad press for a game. There was the RE5 stuff, the Sony v Manchester Cathedral stuff...etc...etc...

Oh hey, what about Dom? (Gears of War) I suppose he's really more hispanic...COLE

Augustus Cole! Gears of War! Hah. I knew I could think of one.

 

[SirCannonFodder]

The main character (as well as the vast majority of other characters) in The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_Adventures:_Redguard] is black.

 

[InsanityManifest]

Okay, time to put in my two cents.

It's not that there AREN'T black characters in video games, it's that there are very few main characters.

The lead.

The hero.

The fixer.

The King, if I may borrow Evil Dead a moment.

There is rarely a strong black character who is leading the charge in video games.

Maybe it's a matter of role-models. A video-game character isn't going to get caught with a suitcase full of coke in his trunk, or be on a videotape peeing on some poor girl (WHY RK?!?!). It's a chance to have a pure role-model that will never become a douche.

Take for instance The Operative from Serenity (If any of you have seen that movie). Wouldn't it be cool to have a game centering on a man with remarkable skill, who has essentially had a crisis of faith and purpose? Where does he fit in the grand scheme of things? For a person who has had everything and lost it all in the blink of an eye...Willingly.

That would be an interesting character to have in a video game. But it gets shot down because the character is black and "won't sell" or in the worst case scenario they change him to a white man and give him a black friend to make up for it. I'm getting sick and tired of seeing a black character in a game and I immediately know "He's someone's friend!"

I think black people can have more value other than being the "white man's backup."

Sure, race doesn't matter on the surface, but to young black people like myself it means a lot. I wouldn't want every vg hero to be black, but I'd sure like at least one decent one...That wasn't a gangbanging hypocrite!><

Maybe I'm just jaded about the whole issue, but I can't help how I feel about it.

 

[The Irrelevant Gamer]

I think it might be a problem of perspective. Maybe game developers don't know how to create a black character without resorting to stereotypes. I know (in the United States at least) a lot of people associate being black with being urban, and thanks to pop culture almost nothing is more riddled with stereotypes. So when developers create a black character at all they go looking for something besides skin color to identify them as black, and resort to stereotypes.

There might also be a timidity about how a game with a non-stereotypical black hero will sell. I can just imagine the marketing people being upset that the character is black, but doesn't have anything about him to appeal to the urban culture, and without these supposedly identifying characteristics why make him black, and risk alienating all of the subconsciously racist white kids who don't want to play a black hero?

It's sad, but I think those two things are why there are so few black characters, and almost no black heroes in video games.

 

[Sylocat]

Is Shadow the Hedgehog supposed to be black?

 

[hooliganyouth]

Does the race of a PC really matter that much? Most PCs are faceless gun wagons/sword slingers/some knock off Japanese character design in the first place.

As a gamer do you feel more likely to pick up a game because the PC is black or hispanic or latin or chinese or canadian than if the PC is some white guy?

Would a storyline be any different if the PC is black?

What type of role do people want to see non-white characters in? Are there games not being made because a white or non-determined race character wouldn't fill the role?


By the by - "The Warriors" had a multi-ethnic cast. "Just Cause" had an Antonio Banderas knock off in it.

 

[werepossum]

I had a Viet Nam shooter where the protagonist was black, but I don't remember the name. It's not a very good game, although I don't remember any outrageous racial stereotyping. And there's another, better shooter (Nam? Viet Nam?) with a sequal and an expansion where at least one squad member is black, but I don't think your character is black. Although I suppose he could be, I don't remember.

Actually, as discussed above, in shooters you only see your character's hands and weapon, so who really notices or considers race? Even the enemy (again as discussed above) doesn't really register as a race - they just aren't that real. Although the early parts of Blackhawk Down I did find disturbing for racial reasons - the combination of really inept AI and all black enemies actually made me uncomfortable, which is stupid since (A) it's historically accurate and (B) it's a game.

I agree wholeheartedly about keeping native languages, by the way. No reason Korean soldiers (or Nazis, or Mexican mercenaries) should speak to each other in English. (At least not without pressing "1".)

 

[Sylocat]

A thought occurs. Maybe the main character of Resident Evil 5 should have been black, what with the setting and all. Screw the old characters of the series, we need some innovation up in here!

I personally think that RE4 and 5 should have just changed a couple character names and ditched the Resident Evil title altogether, but that's a whole nother rant.

 

[soladrin]

hey i just realized something... the 10 million stereotype black people in movies that get pumped into the cinema's every year make up for it...