Poll: Would you play a game with racist/sexist overtones if it was fun?

[InsanityManifest]

A simple question, since it seems to have become an issue with games as of late i.e. RE5's controversy.

As for my opinion, it's not that Chris is killing black zombies. To me, a zombie is a zombie and needs a bullet in the brain pan.

BUT, I had issue with the game showing uninfected africans with yellow eyes that glowed in the damn dark. If anything, black people tend to have a brown to dark eye color. Now I could be wrong. Maybe the people in the village were all in some stages of infection and this argument is a moot point. I'm perfectly willing to hear other opinions about racist/sexist overtones in games.

 

[magicmonkeybars]

yeah why not ?
it's just a video game, if you didn't play it how would you know how bad it was ?
besides it's not like there are also white zombies who you don't/can't shoot.

people need to focus more on real life racism and sexism rather then the fictional kind.
a racist game might help some people understand the world better and show them that regardless of the colour all zombies should be killed.

 

[eggdog14]

The Police station in GTA has 2 weapons, a bar of soap and a giant purple dildo.

You have sex with hookers and run over them to get your money back.

White cops are inherently abusive.

its ludicrously popular.

huh.

 

[jadedcritic]

Depends how blatantly so it was, and if they were a means to an end, or if they were just flat tacky. A good example is I just sent Manhunt2 back to the rental service because it was obvious they were just trying to be blatantly offensive.

Fact is, when a game takes that kind of tone - it's just not allot of fun. Plus the market's glutted right now, even if I wanted to take time to play stuff like that I can't justify it when there are fun/clean games on the shelf.

 

[The Irrelevant Gamer]

Depends on how it is handled in the game. Doing it just to be edgy is stupid, an insult to my intelligence, and a waste of my time. If the game actually has something important to say about these issues that would be incredibly surprising, and worth a play.

GTA: San Andreas was fun, but the stereotypes just got to be too much after a while. I don't count San Andreas as parody, or satire either since it was neither clever, or funny. I didn't finish the game.

So fun alone will not get me to play a game whose tone I find offensive.

 

[kieranlol]

I would

I think people take games too seriously, i doubt programmers intentionally design games to reflect their personal sexist/racist views. If you accept that then the only reason a game will be racist/sexist is from coincidence, or because someone looked at it from that point of view.

Take RE5 for example. I don't think the team that created RE5 envisioned a protagonist killing off black zombies as much as they just saw a protagonist killing zombies. Correct me if i'm wrong the but the average zombie in the Resident Evil series has been white, and no one was labelling that fact as a racist remark on white people.

All in all i think everything is going too politally correct. I can't stand "correction" from a politcal stand point at all anymore, it's starting to effect everything. I even heard a rumour that they don't teach about the holocaust in England anymore because it offended the muslims. Apparently the death of 5 million jews is a myth, we just lost them or something. Even if that isn't true, the fact that i'm willing to accept that it could be is a poor reflection on where society is going. Anyway i'm going off on a tangent :S

Maybe it's just the setting they wanted in RE5? I'm sure where they're setting the game is inhabited predominantly by people of Dark skin, so I would think removing that fact and filling it with white people would be more racist

 

[Sylocat]

RE4 was pretty racist towards Spaniards as well, when you think about it.

But anyway, I see no problem with offensive material. It's a flipping VIDEO GAME. People take games too seriously. If it's fun, it's fun, if I want moral messages I'll watch Pokémon, thank you very much.

 

[Arbre]

I don't know.
I play games about Romans, who did pretty nasty things to many people in the past, but it occured eons ago, so nobody gives a fuck.

I think I'll pass.

 

[madmurch]

There is a difference between using foreigners as easy-to-kill enemies and genuine racism. Resi 4 has Spanish peasants so that the English-speaking world feels fine for killing them; Halo and Gears of War basically use aliens for the same reason.

If a game was actually racist (as in trying to portray an entire culture as worthless vermin that deserve to be wiped out) I certainly would not play it -but in my limited knowledge of videogaming, I can't really think of any games that are genuinely racist. Many use dumb, mindless stereotypes, but that just means they were made by dumb, mindless people - not fascists. If you want a truly interesting take on inter-racial relations, by a good book or watch a good film/documentary: videogames are allowed to be shallow.

 

[Axulciex]

Yes, even if it wasn't fun.

I'm not overly racist or sexist; I would just be intrigued to play any game causing controversy or pushing the boundaries of censorship.

 

[raankh]

I'd say most games have sexist overtones. More than a few have racist overtones, in later years in particular against Arabs.

Sure I play them, but I honestly get pretty annoyed by a lot of games for said reasons. A few to the point where I stopped playing despite liking the game; the Dead Or Alive franchise and Persian Gulf Inferno (the intro has the silhouette of a 'terrorist' screaming something very close to "Free Alger" in Arabic; which in its context is down-right tasteless) being two examples.

EDIT: Looked up what the "Iraqi" terrorist screams; it's "Tahja Djazair"; "Vive l'Algerie". That was the freedom cry during the Algerian uprising against the French. Go figure.

 

[Dae Han]

BUT, I had issue with the game showing uninfected africans with yellow eyes that glowed in the damn dark.

So you assumed that because they have dark skin they are automatically African? My, what a racist generalisation! Seriously though, I assumed from the trailers that it was either going to be set in an African country or Haiti. It would then make sense that the vast amount of population would indeed have dark skin. So is the problem more in not who is being shot, but who is shooting them? If Chris was a little less whiter than snow in complexion would it be such an 'issue'?

Again with Fable it didn't seem out of place to me that all but two characters were white as the whole land was given an old English village feel to it. If this is something for people to see as wrong then shouldn't we all be complaining that there aren't enough white people in Shenmue?

 

[jezcentral]

I'm not sure. I was looking forward to GTA4, but saw the trailer that made the central character appear to admit he was a people-trafficker. For some reason that really put me off the game.

That probably means I'm getting to be too much of an old fart. (And I didn't even think of Harvesting a Little Sister).

I'm off to polish my halo....

 

[Chilango2]

It really depends. Various GTA games (I've played all the modern 3D ones somewhat extensively..) played alot with racist stereotypes and had heavy racial undertones and overtones and supertones and whatnot. It can work when the hero, or the world he is in, has the anti-hero feel, which more or less captures the usual gist of GTA morality (you are a bad guy, killing worse guys). I haven't played any of the RE games, but I saw the infamous preview that caused the hullaballo, and it *did* bug me, to be honest. I wasn't going to play the game anyway, but if I was, it might have stopped me, its hard to say. The devil is in the details, in this sort of thing.

 

[soladrin]

i would, it might actually atract me to them (im not racist or anything) because it dares to do so, it would actually be could something original in the game world since no dares do it A racist main character hasnt really been done now has it? yes, the media would rape your eyes out, but i think it would be cool anyway. I mean, your shooting white guys all the time anyway? white isnt a race anymore i guess

 

[InsanityManifest]

Okay, getting some good feedback here. Definitely cool.

Now as for your comments...

BUT, I had issue with the game showing uninfected africans with yellow eyes that glowed in the damn dark.

So you assumed that because they have dark skin they are automatically African? My, what a racist generalisation! Seriously though, I assumed from the trailers that it was either going to be set in an African country or Haiti. It would then make sense that the vast amount of population would indeed have dark skin. So is the problem more in not who is being shot, but who is shooting them? If Chris was a little less whiter than snow in complexion would it be such an 'issue'?

Again with Fable it didn't seem out of place to me that all but two characters were white as the whole land was given an old English village feel to it. If this is something for people to see as wrong then shouldn't we all be complaining that there aren't enough white people in Shenmue?

To answer your questions, it wouldn't matter if the lead in RE5 was black or not. It would definitely put a different twist on the game but I would still be concerned about the way the Africans are depicted. Why do I say African? Because the feel of it is definitely African (music, scenery, etc.). I might be wrong, but either way, it's still a dark skinned ethnic group and as a black man it does unsettle me in a sense.

And I do not feel that everyone should be politcally correct, even with gaming. It is fantasy but it should have some sense of realism in order to truly immerse us into the story. I do however believe in balance. Take Lord of the Rings, although it's not a video game.

There is a race of people called the Haradrim, who are pretty much a african/arab ethnic minority from the Southern lands of Middle Earth(although they toned it WAY down in the films, probably because they didn't want to create controversy...One of the elephant riders was actually white, while most were pacific islanders).

While they were enemies of the main heroes, I believe Faramir commented on how he wondered who he was, and if he was really evil at heart, or only forced to join, or was he lied to etc. It humanized the Harradrim to an extent, to see someone who was killing them, sympathize for them.

I don't believe in political correctness but I do believe in showing the humanity of people...Even a zombie. I feel that if Chris shows that he realizes the people he's killing were human, but no longer in control of themselves, then it's fine. Maybe that's something...I dunno.

 

[beoweasel]

I don't believe in political correctness but I do believe in showing the humanity of people...Even a zombie. I feel that if Chris shows that he realizes the people he's killing were human, but no longer in control of themselves, then it's fine. Maybe that's something...I dunno.

But thats the thing about Zombies, thats their gimmick. The thing about the undead is that they were once human, but all sense of humanity has been tore away, leaving a souless creature that feeds on the living. All semblance of compassion is now gone, they're simply things that hunger for flesh, thats what makes the monstrous. You can't reason with them, you can't make deals with them, they may look human, but they're not anymore.

Can we pity them for what has happened to them? Yes, in a sense, zombies are creatures that invoke not only horror, but tragedy, as normal decent people are reduce to shambling grotesque beings.

I dunno, I kinda like the new setting. The previous RE games all took place in dreary, dank places, even the village in RE5 was poorly lit. Here, its the opposite, EVERYTHING is bathed in hot sunlight, and you quickly realize that just because everything is opened space and bright, doesn't mean you're okay, and soon you realize that the setting works against as you're easy target with no place to hide.

 

[RPJesus]

It really depends. Obviously if the game was just a mario world clone that paused after every level to flash racist prpaganda at you, I imagine I'd pass. However, if it actually used racism/sexism as a storytelling device and did so in a tasteful and compelling manner, then yes, I'd prolly take a look. Come to think of it, isn't there a bit of racism in FFX? Granted, it's racism against a fictional race, and its not out in much force, but they at least touch on the issue.

 

[dnv2]

I would

I think people take games too seriously, i doubt programmers intentionally design games to reflect their personal sexist/racist views. If you accept that then the only reason a game will be racist/sexist is from coincidence, or because someone looked at it from that point of view.

Take RE5 for example. I don't think the team that created RE5 envisioned a protagonist killing off black zombies as much as they just saw a protagonist killing zombies. Correct me if i'm wrong the but the average zombie in the Resident Evil series has been white, and no one was labelling that fact as a racist remark on white people.

All in all i think everything is going too politally correct. I can't stand "correction" from a politcal stand point at all anymore, it's starting to effect everything. I even heard a rumour that they don't teach about the holocaust in England anymore because it offended the muslims.

I was going to say the same thing about the white zombies, but until this thread started I never really thought about the colour of the zombie I was killing. I probably didn't even notice until this.

Oh and yes, I've heard the same rumour too and I live here in England, there is also a rumour going around that we might be changing 'Christmas Day' to something else because the muslims don't celebrate it.

Is it just me or does there seem to be a few of these human rights sort of threads going around the forum at the minute?