Should Diversity be an Obligation in Game Design?

[Silvanus]

I think people very rarely actually advocate obligating developers to include something. I've never seen it advocated here, or in gaming articles, or in games themselves. People talk about encouraging it, or criticising the lack of it, and then others misrepresent that as wanting to obligate or force developers into something.

It should be encouraged, but this was always an issue of trends, not individual examples.

 

[Zhukov]

"Obliged" is kind of a big word.

Developers and publishers are not obliged to do anything of the sort. They are free to make the straightest, whitest, dudest games they can. And they do. Frequently.

Thing is, the audience, or a portion of the audience, isn't obliged to stop making criticisms, complaints or requests to the contrary. Even demands, although I personally think that's a bit rude.

(For the record, I also think the AC:U playable female thing was a bit silly and certainly misdirected.)

Perhaps this is just wishful thinking and biased observation on my part, but it feels like the message is getting through, however slowly.

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.

Tell me, where was the outrage when Naughty Dog made a gay guy who was also a foul tempered, socially maladjusted hick who constantly mumbled to himself? Where was the outrage when they made a black, female antagonist who was willing to sacrifice the child of her best friend? Or the ruthless female villain from Uncharted 3?

Where was the outrage when Bioware made a female nigh-psychotic criminal?

Where was the outrage when The Wolf Among Us featured a murderous madwoman as a secondary villain?

Where was the outrage when The Walking Dead included a woman who snaps in the face of adversity and commits murder?

Where was the outrage when Bioshock Infinite included a black female revolutionary who goes too far and decides to kill the children of her enemies?

Where oh where was all the outrage? All that terrible outrage standing in the way of inclusivity? Because I don't remember seeing it.

Maybe, just maybe, those dastardly games got away with their horrendous crimes against the image of non-white, non-male, non-straight people because their developers took the time to make rounded characters with coherent motivations and a mixture of good and bad traits? Maybe because they managed to included multiple non-white, non-male, non-straight characters within the same game so that the negative traits of one were 'balanced out' by the positive traits of another?

Maybe?

Just... just answer me this. Do you really think the predominance of straight white males in this industry is because developers are terrified of what some angry fifteen year old might say on Tumblr? Really?

If so I won't try to convince you otherwise, but I would like to know if I read you correctly.

 

[CaitSeith]

Eh, in restraint. It makes me think "should using more spices be an obligation of cooking?" Sometimes more spices compliment eachother & bring out new flavors, but sometimes they work against eachother, & give you heartburn on top of it.

dude minorites aren't "spices" to the "default" foods

white guys are not the default of humanity

[quote/]If you appeal to every whim of minorities, they'll expect more & more in the future, they'll each want those parts to expand & be focused upon more heavily, taking away time & resources from core gameplay & story, until the game loses it's identity.

there is so much wrong with this I don;t think I have the energy...

OT: you might as well ask should all games have italian plumbers in them? because its about as useful as a question

games are not unlike other mediums before, criticism from a cultural perspective has been going on for eons and like it or not games are and SHOULD be subject to the same criticisms and analysis[/quote]
The topic isn't about criticisms and analysis. We are talking about obligation. They have two different kinds of consequences, and the later limits any medium.

 

[sniddy_v1legacy]

Name me one game where anyones complained you can't play as a male character if the lead is female - or a white guy if the man isn't (ok the 2nd one may have come there are some die hard racists)

Now ask me the original question again

I am so sick of this...cancer...at the heart of gaming

NO ONE IS WINNING

It's making both sides look bad - and TBH anytime the topic comes up I just want to slap it down

...I don't know why I bother TBH

It's been discussed there are no winners

Should game makers consider it, yeh, why not if - if it's easy and quick and or/done right - say Mass effect

But some games, it'd change....too much, just thinking of the last single player game I played - sleeping dogs. That was an experience, trying to shoehorn lots of 'diversty' and PC into would ruin it...I could make arguments some of the female 'partners' were really badly done.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

snip, because I hate quote pyramids.

First off, this is the Escapist, not Tumblr. Gifs have no place here.

Second of all, Bioshock infinite's furor was rather small, but it was there.

Third, you just listed a group of character's who were well written and, notice how none of those character's were protagonists. If the character's a well written one, I hope that the perpetually offended either ignore them or get shouted down by normal people. But if the character isn't well written, then they assume it's from hatred rather than not having the budget or time to hire a writer. I was referring to protagonist's and I'm kicking myself for not including that in my original post.

Does that answer you're question?

 

[sageoftruth]

I'm with everyone else in saying it should not be an obligation. On the other hand, I am a bit bothered when I hear about devs being told they HAVE to make their characters a certain gender and race (essentially white male) for the sake of sales.

Anything that meddles in a developer's creative vision is an issue for me.

 

[McMarbles]

I'm with everyone else in saying it should not be an obligation. On the other hand, I am a bit bothered when I hear about devs being told they HAVE to make their characters a certain gender and race (essentially white male) for the sake of sales.

Anything that meddles in a developer's creative vision is an issue for me.

This is exactly why I get annoyed when "But it will interfere in the creator's sacrosanct vision!" used as an excuse whenever someone suggests, maybe, possibly, gaming protagonists should have some diversity wider than "Grizzled burly white man with stubble and crew cut" vs. "Grizzled burly white man with stubble and slightly longer hair".

We can't compromise the creator's vision? The creator's vision has already been compromised. We have an abundance of GBWM's not because of some bold vision on the part of creators, but because marketing execs have concluded that's what sells to the target audience of late teen/twentysomething white males.

 

[Dizchu]

Now I see that pretty much everyone here thinks diversity should not be an obligation (as I do).
Some have even hinted that maybe it was a loaded question, of course forcing diversity is a bad thing, who'd think otherwise?

But let me play around with this a bit.

You could say that there is some sort of responsibility on behalf of content creators to represent people in a fair way. ESPECIALLY in games with large casts of characters or with customisable characters. In the latter case, I think diversity is an obligation. If you played a modern RPG and couldn't create a non-white/non-male character, that'd be kinda shitty. We've also experienced the Tomadachi Life controversy, and I actually think that Nintendo should have allowed gay couples.

However, for narrative-driven games focussed on specific protagonists that the developers have written... its their artistic vision. Straight, white male characters shouldn't get the reaction of "oh boy, not again". Rather, it should be "let's see if there's anything to this character's... well, character". If they're written as just another dime-a-dozen mandude/blokefella then that indicates poor writing rather than a saturation of characters of a certain demographic.

I'm loving some of the discussion that's going on, though.

 

[Kathinka]

Ehhh. Not sure. In some games it doesn't fit (female soldiers in most shooters? Kinda out of place. In most historic settings downright implausible), and if a very character-centered game has a very fleshed out main character with rich back story, it can be sort of tough to write two versions, a male and a female. Imagine the nameless from Planescape:Torment as a girl. Yeah, no. You wouldn't expect book authors or movie makers to produce two versions of their product (or several more even) with varying characters. Sure, it's nice if a game has it, but there's much, MUCH more important problems with modern games that we should deal with first.

 

[Pete Oddly]

However, for narrative-driven games focussed on specific protagonists that the developers have written... its their artistic vision. Straight, white male characters shouldn't get the reaction of "oh boy, not again". Rather, it should be "let's see if there's anything to this character's... well, character". If they're written as just another dime-a-dozen mandude/blokefella then that indicates poor writing rather than a saturation of characters of a certain demographic.

I'm loving some of the discussion that's going on, though.

I find the problem here is one of translation between the gamers themselves and the guys at the top of the industry signing everybody's cheques. I think most of us can agree that the whining, flailing antics of prejudiced douchebags can be attributed mostly to young, immature boys (and some girls, I guess, but mostly boys) who are full of teenaged angst and trolljuice, and that they are simply a very vitriolic and vocal minority in the gaming community as a whole. I will not diminish the damage they cause to the community on the ground floor, but they really don't do much to affect what games get made in the AAA market (aside from buying them, obviously).

Most of us would play a game no matter what character was in the lead, as long as it's good. Hell, I personally prefer when I'm playing as a character who in no way represents me, because it allows me to experience things through the lens of someone else's perspective. That is, of course, if the characters are written well. However; the suits have this view of the AAA industry where it's hard for them to see what is really wanted in games or what works. They look at charts and think, oh this did well, so let's make more of this, making developers fight tooth and nail if they want to create anything different.

It also doesn't help that, at least in the western market, a good number of these suits are straight white men, and while they may not be prejudiced (or they may, who knows?), they have been living in a business world other old white money helped create, and so imagining a games industry that doesn't solely make bucks off the backs of straight white male protagonists is hard for them.

That last bit is mostly speculation, though, as I don't know any of these guys personally, nor have I looked into them to any degree. Maybe they're bigots, maybe they're just playing the age-old game of follow the money, or maybe they have been conditioned by their environment to simply subconsciously dismiss the idea of diversity in games.

Luckily, in the end, this is a diminishing trend. Hell, one of the most popular games of this year was The Walking Dead and in that you play as an 11-year-old girl who is half black and half Asian. Eventually we'll see a game market with a vast variety of flavours of protagonists to choose from, and we'll see games which deal almost exclusively with the social issues faced by certain people, and we'll still have the Mighty Whitey Killfest games we've come to associate with the AAA industry.

This is, of course, barring some shitstorm surpassing that of GG levels which rocks the boat too far in one direction or another, causing the whole damn thing to flip over and sink, heh.

 

[Pete Oddly]

Ehhh. Not sure. In some games it doesn't fit (female soldiers in most shooters? Kinda out of place. In most historic settings downright implausible), and if a very character-centered game has a very fleshed out main character with rich back story, it can be sort of tough to write two versions, a male and a female. Imagine the nameless from Planescape:Torment as a girl. Yeah, no. You wouldn't expect book authors or movie makers to produce two versions of their product (or several more even) with varying characters. Sure, it's nice if a game has it, but there's much, MUCH more important problems with modern games that we should deal with first.

Considering this climate of overpriced DLC, pre-order frenzies, microtransactions and release-bugfest-patch-repeat cycles, I'm inclined to agree with you on that last bit.

 

[NeutralStasis]

I know I am late to the party, but I believe that video games are a type of art. I also am under the impression that courts in the US also determined that video games are a type of art and are therefore protected in some ways due to the classification. That being said, I feel that game developers should be free to create whatever content they wish. I also feel that people should feel free to buy whatever content they wish. I know the vote with your wallet thing is kind of overdone, but there are and will be more developers that is going to target non-white, straight, male gamers. This change of paradigm will take time, but will happen. And that is a good thing too. I look forward to seeing these games come out and plan on enjoying playing them. I like the idea of stepping outside of my comfort zone and this will be a new way to do so.

I also think that the demands being placed on developers by those that would call them racist or misogynistic is a little over the top as well. There is a difference in saying that there is a market for games that are more inclusive to their audience then saying your are a racist/misogynistic fool for making that game that does not fit my world view. I have seen some of both, the the latter seem to talk louder and louder as time goes on. In the past few years, people have built their careers on the latter, and while I am confident that some of what they say is needed, they are indeed getting paid to do this now. Money changes things...and typically not for the better.

 

[Wonder Warrior]

Personally I believe that one reason we should encourage and promote diversity is because their is so much diversity in real life. If the media were accurate with it's depiction of the world then the population would be 85% white male. So perhaps if games were accurately skewed towards one group it would be South and East Asian women who make up the worlds largest recorded human demographic besides children. Although if we wanted to get into specifics then game makers would make all their characters as digestible as possible. Maybe we need to stop mass producing games and start making games based on creative ideas and characters with personalities we may not like.

 

[Xan Krieger]

No, developers can if they want to but you can't just place these kind of obligations on art. There'll be different games for different people, it's all up to the developers.

 

[omega 616]

No 'cos then you end up with token characters, "well, we need a black guy, a girl, an ethic and a trans... just make the most generic ones and give them 3 seconds of cinematic time and bobs your uncle".

The industry just needs a bigger emphases on it. We don't need every game to have a diverse character.... just 90% less brown haired ?traight guys with stubble and witty one liners.

It's like all game devs got together and decided on one protagonist just to cut back on the work load. From lone survivor to mgs to uncharted to gears of war ... Jesus, make a blonde stubbly white guy with witty one liners! Change something.

(I know games do this ... devil may cry for example, but seriously tomb raider etc are ok but they are in the minority)

 

[Zhukov]

Second of all, Bioshock infinite's furor was rather small, but it was there.

If it was there, I didn't see it. I certainly don't remember it detracting from the respectable sales and plentiful critical praise being heaped upon that game. I think we can safely say they got away with it.

Third, you just listed a group of character's who were well written and notice how none of those character's were protagonists.

Actually, I just listed the first non-white, non-straght, non-male characters with obvious negative traits that I could think of. I can't help having excellent taste.

None of them are protagonists because video game protagonists with negative traits are few and far between. Add the qualifier of being non-male etc etc and I can't think of a single one.

If the character's a well written one, I hope that the perpetually offended either ignore them or get shouted down by normal people. But if the character isn't well written, then they assume it's from hatred rather than not having the budget or time to hire a writer. I was referring to protagonist's and I'm kicking myself for not including that in my original post.

So... poorly written characters receive criticism, some of it inevitably dumb criticism, while well written ones don't?

Isn't that how it should work?

Does that answer you're question?

No.

You specifically did not answer my question.

 

[Silence]

Fuck no. Developers should make what they wanr.

But I won't buy or play a game (most of the time, if it has no redeeming factors, like a really good story) if you only can play as a bland brown-haired male. Not even on sale. Like most "AAA"-Games.

There are so many, really diverse, options in videogaming. I don't even need to play as male 90% of the time in the games I play.

 

[Vault101]

The topic isn't about criticisms and analysis. We are talking about obligation. They have two different kinds of consequences, and the later limits any medium.

which is a complete and utter fiction trotted out by reactionary's

 

[blackrave]

No. No obligations.
On the other hand ignoring anything that is not like yourself is ridiculous.

I personally use dice to determine things about character that aren't absolutely relevant to story.
When introducing new character I throw dice several times to determine the look (gender, skin, hair, eyes, etc.)
Later- things like religion, political leanings, intolerances, etc.
Of course not all at once, but whenever it is needed to be revealed.
But if I can't write some character I may change certain aspects into something I can write better

Spoiler: Sometimes it leads to funny thing

Like crew of spaceship "BackBreaker"
Crew is black- mostly africans, with few african descendants in between
Captain?
Whitest despot you've ever seen.

I wonder if "It happened randomly", could be used to deflect racism accusations or not?

I'm thinking about making program that randomly applies values to certain things though...