Should Diversity be an Obligation in Game Design?

[Gladion]

I see no reason for Activision to change the CoD formula, because most people in the military on the front lines are straight white mandudes and they sell the game to straight white teenage boys.

The bold part is not just unimportant, but borderline false. I'm not up-to-date on US-military numbers, but I do know that there has always been a quite significant number of non-white men fighting on your (?) frontlines and that the number of homosexual soldiers is unknown, for unfortunately obvious reasons.
That said, the first CoD that puts me in the boots of a black female soldier on the frontline will be the first one since Modern Warfare 2 that I will actually look at. But I see your point. They're riding a great wave, and every change to that is a risk to lose that.

It really all depends on the type of story they want to tell. The Last Of Us works very well with the surrogate father-daughter relationship it explores, and it's protagonist is a straight white mandude.

I will always defend The Last of Us in that regard because I firmly believe that the game tells the story of Ellie as least as much as the one of Joel, and her character traits and actions make her actually the protagonist and him more like the antagonist.

Not trying to pick a fight with you, by the way, just saying.

@OP: I was thinking the same as you: What do you expect from the mainstream media? But honestly, I'd like it if video games were actually able to learn from the mistakes made by the film und music industries, and allowed for more diverse content on the mainstream level, too. Only gonna happen with constant nagging and voting with wallets, though.

And I don't believe the notion that the reason we need more diverse characters is because that would make gaming more inclusive. If the medium isn't inclusive enough already, then that is our fault, not the games'. Most games want to allow us to fulfill some sort of fantasy or give us the perspective of somebody we are explicitly not. So that would mean we need more diverse characters because we need more different perspectives, not because we need different faces on the perspectives we already have. If anything should be obligatory, then that's that: making sure we're not just adjusting skin colors and naughty bits, but make that adjustment sensible, too.

'Sensible' doesn't mean, though, that the game has to be all about the characters' sexual and racial identification. Telltale showed (me) that with the second season of The Walking Dead: I didn't empathize with any other character this year as much as with Clementine, despite not sharing gender, skin color or even age with her. And none of those mattered a lot.

However, I think the issue is that many people purchase games for their gameplay rather than the settings, characters or plots that the games revolve around.

I agree. But I've just also asked myself this question: if that's the case, is it even an issue any more? Or are we chasing our own tails if the number of people who care about this issue enough to vote with their wallets is so small?

 

[endtherapture]

We could just pitch different game ideas. I do kind of think you can judge a game when it doesn't take a risk or do anything new. Begin diverse or taking a rarely see perspective helps improve a game in my eyes. You know because it's something new and not often seen.

I think it depends what it does with the diversity. If there's a black warrior in medieval France, it better have something interesting to say about his presence there - such as him being a soldier of fortune or a mercenary. If it's just him being a normal knight with nothing interesting to say about his race then it sucks.

There is a little bit of value in just the visual diversity, but ya you don't want it to be just skin deep. You want to explore what it means a little.

Yeah and if they can't make it mean anything, better to not do it at all.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

We could just pitch different game ideas. I do kind of think you can judge a game when it doesn't take a risk or do anything new. Begin diverse or taking a rarely see perspective helps improve a game in my eyes. You know because it's something new and not often seen.

I think it depends what it does with the diversity. If there's a black warrior in medieval France, it better have something interesting to say about his presence there - such as him being a soldier of fortune or a mercenary. If it's just him being a normal knight with nothing interesting to say about his race then it sucks.

There is a little bit of value in just the visual diversity, but ya you don't want it to be just skin deep. You want to explore what it means a little.

Yeah and if they can't make it mean anything, better to not do it at all.

That is not what I mean. I mean ideally you want to explore every aspect of your character, but that is not a requirement to include the character. You can just drop a female knight into medieval France and not explore what that means to any degree. You don't want to lock diversity behind extra requirements because then some people will use that as an excuse to not even try.

 

[Inglorious891]

Another thing to keep in mind is how much of a minefield "diversity" is. Even if you include women and minorities, the people who demanded them in the first place invariably find something wrong with them. Don't include them, and we're back to square one.

As for why so many main character's are white guys, well, no one cares about them. A white guy is allowed to be a lecherous alcoholic (a women can't cuz teh sexist), a disturbed soldier (a woman can't, or else you're portraying women as crazy), or any number of things. A white guy who has negative traits is just a white guy with negative traits. A woman or a minority with negative traits suddenly becomes representative of ALL women or ALL minorities. What kills me is that sheer irony. The people who demand diversity are the one thing standing in it's way.

You stole the words from my mouth. Or keyboard, as it would be in this case.

And the issue wouldn't be so much of an issue if people said a poorly written female character is just a bad character and left it at that, but in most cases the critizism for that character isn't just, "she's a bad character", it's usually, "she's a bad character AND she's harmful to women in society and gaming due to portraying harmful sterotypes; also, the developers should be ashamed for writting this character". If a particular game has the possibility of facing a major backlash due to the writers not doing the best job of writing a female character or if there's a threat that a vocal group of people will make it clear that they think a certain character is poorly written, why would they even try? If the game isn't even focused on characterization but is purely gameplay (i.e. Serious Sam), then they have even fewer reasons to make their main character a woman.

It's kind of a catch-22 once you think about it: if X developer doesn't include female characters, then they get called bad people, but if they include female characters and those characters are seen as poorly written, then they get called bad people moreso than if that character was just a white dude.

If people really want well-written and diverse characters, the only way that's going to happen is if developers are allowed to do it of their own free will versus forcing it upon them.

 

[endtherapture]

We could just pitch different game ideas. I do kind of think you can judge a game when it doesn't take a risk or do anything new. Begin diverse or taking a rarely see perspective helps improve a game in my eyes. You know because it's something new and not often seen.

I think it depends what it does with the diversity. If there's a black warrior in medieval France, it better have something interesting to say about his presence there - such as him being a soldier of fortune or a mercenary. If it's just him being a normal knight with nothing interesting to say about his race then it sucks.

There is a little bit of value in just the visual diversity, but ya you don't want it to be just skin deep. You want to explore what it means a little.

Yeah and if they can't make it mean anything, better to not do it at all.

That is not what I mean. I mean ideally you want to explore every aspect of your character, but that is not a requirement to include the character. You can just drop a female knight into medieval France and not explore what that means to any degree. You don't want to lock diversity behind extra requirements because then some people will use that as an excuse to not even try.

Ni, I disagree. If you drop an atypical character into a scenario where they don't "belong" per say, I think the game should explore that and come up with a justification for it, it only serves to add to the story.

For example, in the latest Dragon Age game, you can play various different races, however they aren't just model swaps to appease the masses. If you pick an elf, you'll approach the story in a different way, with different beliefs and prejudices leveled against you than a human character. That's really important and makes the whole game so much more special.

So it shouldn't be diversity for diversity's sake, it should have diversity for a reason and with suitable explanation and storyline behind it.

 

[Azriel Nightshade]

I'm sure I have a biased to the answer because I'm black and pansexual, but yea, I sometimes think a good majority of game deves NEED someone to give them quotas and consultations with regards to the characters they build there games around.

I almost feel like certain game developers, particularly ones located in countries that participated in the atlantic slave trade, should have quotas for diverse staffing. Using comics as an example: You'd think being one of the two biggest comics publishers in the world would let them take "risks" with the people they hire, but Marvel's only has the one black person writing a comic for them (Felipe Smith's Ghost Rider) and DC has none to speak of. There needs to be a bigger commitment to pulling in more diverse talent.

Call me crazy, but I think that the more women and black, latino, asian, LGBTQ ect. people you have working on a game, especially if those people are in charge of things like writing and art direction, the more likely it is we'll get game that are about something other than straight white dudes.

Kinda makes me wish I had 100 million on hand so I could go start a games industry in like west Africa or something.

TL;DR: Most of gamings "diversity" issues will resolve themselves when the developers in important, decision making positions are diverse.

 

[mecegirl]

We could just pitch different game ideas. I do kind of think you can judge a game when it doesn't take a risk or do anything new. Begin diverse or taking a rarely see perspective helps improve a game in my eyes. You know because it's something new and not often seen.

I think it depends what it does with the diversity. If there's a black warrior in medieval France, it better have something interesting to say about his presence there - such as him being a soldier of fortune or a mercenary. If it's just him being a normal knight with nothing interesting to say about his race then it sucks.

There is a little bit of value in just the visual diversity, but ya you don't want it to be just skin deep. You want to explore what it means a little.

Yeah and if they can't make it mean anything, better to not do it at all.

I think that's an unfair bit of criteria and a huge double standard. If you wouldn't expect that of a White protagonist why of a Black one? Why does the story needs some "80/90's sitcom very special episode" ring to it for a non White protagonist to be acceptable? That is just an unnecessary limitation, especially, just to use your example, when it is an historical fact that there were Black people in medieval Europe. You do know that black peoples lives don't always revolve around their "blackness" right?

 

[endtherapture]

We could just pitch different game ideas. I do kind of think you can judge a game when it doesn't take a risk or do anything new. Begin diverse or taking a rarely see perspective helps improve a game in my eyes. You know because it's something new and not often seen.

I think it depends what it does with the diversity. If there's a black warrior in medieval France, it better have something interesting to say about his presence there - such as him being a soldier of fortune or a mercenary. If it's just him being a normal knight with nothing interesting to say about his race then it sucks.

There is a little bit of value in just the visual diversity, but ya you don't want it to be just skin deep. You want to explore what it means a little.

Yeah and if they can't make it mean anything, better to not do it at all.

I think that's an unfair bit of criteria and a huge double standard. If you wouldn't expect that of a White protagonist why of a Black one? Why does the story needs some "80/90's sitcom very special episode" ring to it for a non White protagonist to be acceptable? That is just an unnecessary limitation, especially, just to use your example, when it is an historical fact that there were Black people in medieval Europe. You do know that black peoples lives don't always revolve around their "blackness" right?

I'd appreciate it if you didn't take isolated posts of mine out of context and imply I am a racist, thanks.

 

[TallanKhan]

I think it is disappointing that there is so little diversity in gaming but quotas or the like are not the answer. Any decision to include or not include characters in a game (playable or otherwise) should always be one that is honest to the creative vision for the finished game. A character that is put in just to tick the right boxes will be boring, two-dimensional, and will feel out of place. Equally developers should be given the freedom to make games the way they want to, with the characters they want, interacting how they want.

The creative process is one which, in an ideal world, would be kept entirely free from the meddling hands of marketing departments, and out of the reach of focus testing etc. However, while it is easy to put the corporate machinery in the crosshairs and blame it for the ills of current era gaming, truth be told they are a symptom not the disease. The real problem with the industry is us. You can hardly blame companies like Activision for churning out 1001 iterations of Call of Duty, sticking to the same formula with near fanatical zeal when we keep buying them. All the time we keep purchasing, and turning the cookie-cutter output of the major studios into mountains of cash, why on earth would they give any thought to innovating or changing the winning formula?

The truth is, if we want more diversity in gaming we need to take responsibility for the output we support. Vote with your feet and your wallets.

 

[mecegirl]

We could just pitch different game ideas. I do kind of think you can judge a game when it doesn't take a risk or do anything new. Begin diverse or taking a rarely see perspective helps improve a game in my eyes. You know because it's something new and not often seen.

I think it depends what it does with the diversity. If there's a black warrior in medieval France, it better have something interesting to say about his presence there - such as him being a soldier of fortune or a mercenary. If it's just him being a normal knight with nothing interesting to say about his race then it sucks.

There is a little bit of value in just the visual diversity, but ya you don't want it to be just skin deep. You want to explore what it means a little.

Yeah and if they can't make it mean anything, better to not do it at all.

I think that's an unfair bit of criteria and a huge double standard. If you wouldn't expect that of a White protagonist why of a Black one? Why does the story needs some "80/90's sitcom very special episode" ring to it for a non White protagonist to be acceptable? That is just an unnecessary limitation, especially, just to use your example, when it is an historical fact that there were Black people in medieval Europe. You do know that black peoples lives don't always revolve around their "blackness" right?

I'd appreciate it if you didn't take isolated posts of mine out of context and imply I am a racist, thanks.

How about if I think you are a racist I will actually call you one. Lets start there. But my point still stands. Maybe the Black chracter is just a normal knight. Maybe the writer didn't want to delve so deeply into racial politics in their story, and that is a perfectly acceptable route to take.

 

[Something Amyss]

It never ceases to amaze me how often these things are phrased in the extreme.

 

[endtherapture]

We could just pitch different game ideas. I do kind of think you can judge a game when it doesn't take a risk or do anything new. Begin diverse or taking a rarely see perspective helps improve a game in my eyes. You know because it's something new and not often seen.

I think it depends what it does with the diversity. If there's a black warrior in medieval France, it better have something interesting to say about his presence there - such as him being a soldier of fortune or a mercenary. If it's just him being a normal knight with nothing interesting to say about his race then it sucks.

There is a little bit of value in just the visual diversity, but ya you don't want it to be just skin deep. You want to explore what it means a little.

Yeah and if they can't make it mean anything, better to not do it at all.

I think that's an unfair bit of criteria and a huge double standard. If you wouldn't expect that of a White protagonist why of a Black one? Why does the story needs some "80/90's sitcom very special episode" ring to it for a non White protagonist to be acceptable? That is just an unnecessary limitation, especially, just to use your example, when it is an historical fact that there were Black people in medieval Europe. You do know that black peoples lives don't always revolve around their "blackness" right?

I'd appreciate it if you didn't take isolated posts of mine out of context and imply I am a racist, thanks.

As does mine. If we're playing a game set in for example, Imperial China, and there's a random English character in the game, I would like some kind of explanation for his presence. I don't think asking for better writing being integrated into our games is "a huge double standard".

How about if I think you are a racist I will actually call you one. Lets start there. But my point still stands.

 

[veloper]

Everything is allowed in fiction. Nothing needs to be done.

There is a lot of diversity in gaming already, but it is usually found outside the triple-A market and that receives too much attention already.

Still, if the pinkos can convince the game industry, that they are both numerous and stupid enough to drop $60 at the usual triple-A mediocrity, only now with cool, independent female characters instead, then the industry leaders will start catering to them too.

Maybe some dev could test the waters with a Metroid/Samus Aran clone (based on the stuff from before Team ninja ruining it) on a medium budget. When that becomes a wild commercial success, bigger things may follow. It's that simple.

 

[Leonardo Huizar]

No.

If the game is set in a certain region or time in the world and the story might have something to do with a particular gender & nationality then maybe some difference to the character is fine.

I actually like the "not gendered/non-ethnicity" style of writing in the Fallout LastGen & Elder Scrolls games. I feel it gives the writers in those games the ability to limit but at the same time put all their energy into the rest of the world and its inhabitants.

Im curious if the same people who question the diversity of games like Elder Scrolls, Fallout LastGen, World Of Warcraft, Most WRPGs, Fighting Games, FIFA, Madden, & NBA even though those are very popular among very diverse groups.
"Nope, they dont count because against my Narrative!"

 

[mecegirl]

As does mine. If we're playing a game set in for example, Imperial China, and there's a random English character in the game, I would like some kind of explanation for his presence. I don't think asking for better writing being integrated into our games is "a huge double standard".

It's not better because it will depend on the story that the writer wants to tell. You think its better, that's about it. But if the writer wants to focus more on say a war, than racial politics, then they should focus more on the war. All writers choose to set certain priorities in the story they want to tell. Those racial politics will still be there but possibly way in the background, and the story will be written better by not having a writer force themselves to write a story that they are not interested in.

Random example. Heimdall in the Thor movies. Movies that aren't the best story wise, but I digress. What would we as an audience have gained if time was taken out of the movie to explain why movie Heimdall is Black? Based on what little plot there was for those movie's how would delving into that aspect of Heimdall's chracter make the plot go forward? They were just fine focusing on Heimdall's role as the guardian of the Rainbow bridge.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Not really, the idea that you have to have a certain amount of diversity would be just as boring as having next to no diversity for me. The only obligation I put on developers is to release a working product (mentioning no names) and to provide post release support in the form of patches for a reasonable amount of time. Everything else relating to the content of the game should be left to the discretion of the developers, they're the ones spending 3-4 years of their lives making the thing they should feel happy that the game they are making is the game they want made. If it's good game that I would enjoy playing I'll support it regardless of whether it is a shining beacon of diversity or the adventures of Captain McWhitey Brown Hair.

Of course people still have the right to enquire about your decisions if they feel that maybe you could have added a bit more diversity into your game as it probably wouldn't have had a massive impact on what you wanted to make or if they felt it might have added to the game. If you do disagree with that or feel it that adding that diversity wasn't necessary for the project then please please please have a better explanation ready than people of diverse backgrounds are harder to animate (again mentioning no names).

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

We could just pitch different game ideas. I do kind of think you can judge a game when it doesn't take a risk or do anything new. Begin diverse or taking a rarely see perspective helps improve a game in my eyes. You know because it's something new and not often seen.

I think it depends what it does with the diversity. If there's a black warrior in medieval France, it better have something interesting to say about his presence there - such as him being a soldier of fortune or a mercenary. If it's just him being a normal knight with nothing interesting to say about his race then it sucks.

There is a little bit of value in just the visual diversity, but ya you don't want it to be just skin deep. You want to explore what it means a little.

Yeah and if they can't make it mean anything, better to not do it at all.

That is not what I mean. I mean ideally you want to explore every aspect of your character, but that is not a requirement to include the character. You can just drop a female knight into medieval France and not explore what that means to any degree. You don't want to lock diversity behind extra requirements because then some people will use that as an excuse to not even try.

Ni, I disagree. If you drop an atypical character into a scenario where they don't "belong" per say, I think the game should explore that and come up with a justification for it, it only serves to add to the story.

For example, in the latest Dragon Age game, you can play various different races, however they aren't just model swaps to appease the masses. If you pick an elf, you'll approach the story in a different way, with different beliefs and prejudices leveled against you than a human character. That's really important and makes the whole game so much more special.

So it shouldn't be diversity for diversity's sake, it should have diversity for a reason and with suitable explanation and storyline behind it.

They should explore it, but you can't let that be used as a wall to keep you from deviating from the norm. It puts a burden on some kinds of characters and I don't think they need more burdens. Some times you just want to be a gay guy who fights monsters without getting too mired in to gender politics. It's about diversity in more ways then one.

 

[endtherapture]

We could just pitch different game ideas. I do kind of think you can judge a game when it doesn't take a risk or do anything new. Begin diverse or taking a rarely see perspective helps improve a game in my eyes. You know because it's something new and not often seen.

I think it depends what it does with the diversity. If there's a black warrior in medieval France, it better have something interesting to say about his presence there - such as him being a soldier of fortune or a mercenary. If it's just him being a normal knight with nothing interesting to say about his race then it sucks.

There is a little bit of value in just the visual diversity, but ya you don't want it to be just skin deep. You want to explore what it means a little.

Yeah and if they can't make it mean anything, better to not do it at all.

That is not what I mean. I mean ideally you want to explore every aspect of your character, but that is not a requirement to include the character. You can just drop a female knight into medieval France and not explore what that means to any degree. You don't want to lock diversity behind extra requirements because then some people will use that as an excuse to not even try.

Ni, I disagree. If you drop an atypical character into a scenario where they don't "belong" per say, I think the game should explore that and come up with a justification for it, it only serves to add to the story.

For example, in the latest Dragon Age game, you can play various different races, however they aren't just model swaps to appease the masses. If you pick an elf, you'll approach the story in a different way, with different beliefs and prejudices leveled against you than a human character. That's really important and makes the whole game so much more special.

So it shouldn't be diversity for diversity's sake, it should have diversity for a reason and with suitable explanation and storyline behind it.

They should explore it, but you can't let that be used as a wall to keep you from deviating from the norm. It puts a burden on some kinds of characters and I don't think they need more burdens. Some times you just want to be a gay guy who fights monsters without getting too mired in to gender politics. It's about diversity in more ways then one.

It all depends on the context. In a historical context, there would obviously be some issues involved in having a gay character. However if you want to write a game about a gay monster slayer, that's cool as long as you set up your world with there being no prejudice about homosexuality like there is in the real world.