Too much diversity.

[Gizen]

Why exactly is diversity good or necessary? I keep seeing posts about needing more diversity in games, but I've never seen any arguments for why we need more diversity in games (I've heard opinions, but not arguments).

Is it just "common sense", like "games causes sexism"?

Why is it "bad" with a game of all black/white/yellow people? Why must all colors (not to mention genders, disabilities, and body sizes) be included? What is the benefit?

The argument is very simple. Some people like to get immersed in their games. Some people find it more enjoyable and/or easier to get immersed when they have a character that, at least on some level, resembles who they are. More diverse options amongst more games increases the odds that any one of these people will find a game that fulfills their desirs. Overall, more people will be able to find games that appeal to them.

If you want a second argument, it's because homogenization is boring. It's boring when everything and everyone looks the same. Different aesthetics can make otherwise similar games better stand apart from one another more easily.

Are those arguments not good enough for you? Are they too close to being an opinion? Well if you say that's just my 'opinion', then that itself functions as an argument for diversity, because if you dismiss the call for diversity as being just an opinion, the same label can then be flipped in reverse against the call for maintaining the status quo, and in that case, what makes your opinion any more valuable than somebody else's? Afterall, if the race/gender of any given character is as unimportant and irrelevant as proponents of the status quo often like to maintain, then why NOT change it?

The closest thing to being a valid argument against diversity is fulfilling the 'artist's vision', except artistic vision is ultimately just a facet of free expression, and free expression includes the right for people to complain about things they don't like, which includes that artist's vision. If their vision is small-minded and homogenous, featuring all white men and cliched stereotypes, sure, they're free to make that game if they want, it's their right as an artist... and it's my right as a consumer to tell them it sucks, make something better. Artistic license is not a magic shield that defends you from all criticism of your work. Besides, in this age of AAA games where publisher's demand games are changed to suit their whims and games are made by teams of hundreds instead of by individuals, it's difficult to honestly claim anyone's artistic vision would be damaged anyways, because game development already forces a constant series of artistic compromises between all the people involved.

 

[Dragonbums]

Always interesting to see how when it comes to diversity there is always the "diversity for divirsity's sake" and at the same time they are perfectly okay with white dude, with stubble basically being shoehorned into every game no matter what the circumstances are no questions.

But everyone else that has a darker skin tone than a light tan better have backstory worthy of a literature award to so much as justify their appearance for any role higher than NPC.

This is also not to mention that devs shoehorning in white dudes all the time is a matter of their own creativity and artistic freedom, but another dev doing the same but with POC and LGBTQ+ people are simply being shallow "sjw" point winning clods.

But don't worry, I'm sure in 50 years gaming will reach a point where people of my demographic and other similar ethnic and sexual groups can be dumped into games and people wouldn't bat an eye at it.

 

[Dragonbums]

In my personal experience, most of the claims for more inclusiveness I've heard are from people who are either not a minority

Because people who are a minority and complain about it are often shouted down and slammed with the "well your a minority that doesn't matter money wise so stfu and enjoy your vidya privileges" and we just decided to let the White boys club argue it out among themselves. Not to mention, I'm not exactly sure why it's a BAD thing that someone who is white,cis, and male is able to emphasize with people who are rarely represented in media (and not just videogames.) invalidates their argument.

 

[PapaGreg096]

Always interesting to see how when it comes to diversity there is always the "diversity for divirsity's sake" and at the same time they are perfectly okay with white dude, with stubble basically being shoehorned into every game no matter what the circumstances are no questions.

But everyone else that has a darker skin tone than a light tan better have backstory worthy of a literature award to so much as justify their appearance for any role higher than NPC.

This is also not to mention that devs shoehorning in white dudes all the time is a matter of their own creativity and artistic freedom, but another dev doing the same but with POC and LGBTQ+ people are simply being shallow "sjw" point winning clods.

But don't worry, I'm sure in 50 years gaming will reach a point where people of my demographic and other similar ethnic and sexual groups can be dumped into games and people wouldn't bat an eye at it.

Yeah pretty much this, I find it funny that people who says all these things think they are being better then the sjw when in reality they are being just as bad by making a big deal on POC and LGBT characters

Personally, while I do understand that some people get tired of race debates in gamming, I still find it annoying that most games that star a black protagonist has been sandbox games and black guys in fighting games tend to be big and burley.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

I'm all for hating the SJW zealots, but people seem to be becoming so paranoid about them that they'll freak out over anything slightly related to "social justice". It seems the general sentiment here is that people shouldn't care about the race of the character, but they're annoyed that the choice has apparently been taken away in order to make a political point. I ask you, why is this such a horrible thing?
Art has had political/theological/philosophical messages since the dawn of time, and games are no different. If this is all to make a political point, then I'd say it's actually well done, since it seems more like the set-up of a social experiment than the delivery of the conclusion.

You don't have to agree with the point that they are allegedly making and have every right to disagree, but people seem suspiciously quick to hush up anyone who suggests that the race/gender of characters in fiction actually does matter in some way to a large portion of the population. Accepting that other people do care about race and gender in fiction doesn't create an obligation to appease these people, but it is incredibly disingenuous to claim that these people don't exist, and rather silly to claim that they shouldn't exist.

 

[PapaGreg096]

I never understood the "can't get immersed because of MC's X": you play a vampire, riding unicorns in a fantasy land, wait, that vampire is WHITE?! IMMERSION GONE!

In the end it falls apart because it's a fucking video game with zombies and crafting, not some deep game that actually expands on it. Not to mention that a company doing a huge publicity stunt and then lamenting how they did it from the kindness of their hearts rather than boost awareness doesn't sound very truthful.

So... then you agree that we need more diversity? Because your point about "I never understood the "can't get immersed because of MC's X": you play a vampire, riding unicorns in a fantasy land, wait, that vampire is WHITE?! IMMERSION GONE!" means that having something other then a white guy as a main character is good.

Or am I missing your point?

If I understood correctly you're missing my sarcasm, the vast majority of games are fantastical in one way or another so it seems to me that if you can relate to a character despite him living jn a completely different world but consider that character not having the same sex/race what breaks your immersion (not for example, giant worms) then it's extremely silly.

Also, I'll add the classic "if you want games with an X lead (X being a minority), than play a game from a country where X is the majority", why should american/european studios not go for most of the people in their countries?

Can you show me a game where the country it originated from where black or african is the majority.

 

[Fallow]

Why exactly is diversity good or necessary? I keep seeing posts about needing more diversity in games, but I've never seen any arguments for why we need more diversity in games (I've heard opinions, but not arguments).

If you don't find personal preference a compelling reason, what kind of arguments would you?

This is a discussion about artistic preferences. Of course it's going to be based on opinion; that's what the topic is about.

Personal preference is absolutely fine. I'm pretty sure I have one of those myself somewhere. My confusion arises when I keep hearing how we "need" more diversity, which doesn't sound like personal preference ("want").

But if this is diversity drive is all about personal preference (even though it doesn't sound very 'personal' to me) then I guess I understand the motivation.

Now, we can all out ourselves in someone else's shoes, and feel empathy / motivation for someone who isn't like us, of course. But if it's every single time-- if it's never someone like me-- I hope you can recognise why this might become alienating after a while, and why I might want to read/watch/play something I can identify with more closely. People become used to it, and lose sight of when others aren't getting the experience they are.

While I can see where you are coming from here, I also think you need to put more emphasis on the diffuse (and varied) way we function. Where is the line for "someone like me" and "someone not like me"? What about my physique but wrong hair? What about exactly me except skin colour?

Identification and projection are complex and not necessarily based on physical criteria at all (I know I've identified and projected myself on nonhumans multiple times, including animals, moving furniture, french fries, and non-corporeal entities). It may even turn out that physique is not a criterion for these things[footnote]speculation only[/footnote].
Regardless of that though, it is a personal experience, and what causes projection for one individual does not necessarily cause projection for another.

 

[Aetrion]

I find this video to be extremely silly to be honest. By their logic everyone in WoW should be playing a human because that's the only thing they can associate with. In reality though that's not the case at all. People create all sorts of characters, and being allowed to pick your gender and race freely is just as much a catalyst for people to choose to have such experiences as randomizing them can be.

The mechanics of most roleplay universes dismiss skin-color or gender entirely as mechanics. The only notable game series where different races of humans are different from each other is The Elder Scrolls, and they have minimized the differences dramatically since Morrowind. (In Morrowind men also started with 10 more strength and women with 10 more agility)

What really bugs me about this though is that they are holding up Rust as a game that promotes a social agenda. What a joke. Rust is basically a cheater infested psychopath playground where people just kill each other out of boredom. It's one of the least social experiences you could have outside of hanging out with your own posse.

 

[Passive Aggression]

I'd be more inclined to agree if "Black people" in Rust weren't just literally a white guy with darker skin.

I'm sorry, but, you've got a very simple idea of race if you believe the only thing that makes me black, and you white is that our skin is a slightly different tone.

There's a whole bunch of other anatomical changes, and often lazy developers completely forget about these and tout their slightly darker skin color as being "The black option".


Now, with Rust, it's kinda dumb as there's clearly the potential for character customisation, the developers is just too lazy to do it and instead has some dumb idea to distribute slight skin color changes in an unconvincing fashion.

 

[Fallow]

The argument is very simple. Some people like to get immersed in their games. Some people find it more enjoyable and/or easier to get immersed when they have a character that, at least on some level, resembles who they are. More diverse options amongst more games increases the odds that any one of these people will find a game that fulfills their desirs. Overall, more people will be able to find games that appeal to them.

That sounds like personal preference, i.e. "I'm having difficulty with the immersion if my personal aestethics aren't included as options". Which, again, is fine. But it doesn't make games better, just like including more blue skirts doesn't make a game better.

However, the second statement "Some people like to get immersed in their games" is plain hyperbole, not to mention false, as far from everyone needs an exact replica of themselves to feel immersed in a game.

If you want a second argument, it's because homogenization is boring. It's boring when everything and everyone looks the same. Different aesthetics can make otherwise similar games better stand apart from one another more easily.

This is personal preference again. I certainly agree in wanting variety (note: this is not diversity), but a game cannot be judged by other games, that would be crazy. If Skyrim made Diablo 2 worse then reviewing games would never end.

Are those arguments not good enough for you? Are they too close to being an opinion? Well if you say that's just my 'opinion', then that itself functions as an argument for diversity, because if you dismiss the call for diversity as being just an opinion, the same label can then be flipped in reverse against the call for maintaining the status quo, and in that case, what makes your opinion any more valuable than somebody else's? Afterall, if the race/gender of any given character is as unimportant and irrelevant as proponents of the status quo often like to maintain, then why NOT change it?

I haven't said anything about "maintaining the status quo". You might be projecting something windmillish here.
If you want more diversity, knock yourself out, I won't try to stop you. Well, I would sort of request that you learn the difference between variety and diversity I guess, but that's it.

If we go back to my actual post, I was asking "why" diversity was necessary; many here have described it accurately as personal preference or desire.
Some have instead gone on with how diversity in videogames is beneficial full stop. That seems like a strange position to take since I haven't seen any studies on this topic (and hence why the post you cited included "common sense" because it's not sensible). Furthermore, if there were indeed any such studies, they would be plastered up to the rafters (assuming they came to the "right" conclusion ofcourse).
Of these two stances, I can certainly respect the first. The second is more difficult.

The closest thing to being a valid argument against diversity is fulfilling the 'artist's vision', except artistic vision is ultimately just a facet of free expression, and free expression includes the right for people to complain about things they don't like, which includes that artist's vision. If their vision is small-minded and homogenous, featuring all white men and cliched stereotypes, sure, they're free to make that game if they want, it's their right as an artist... and it's my right as a consumer to tell them it sucks, make something better. Artistic license is not a magic shield that defends you from all criticism of your work. Besides, in this age of AAA games where publisher's demand games are changed to suit their whims and games are made by teams of hundreds instead of by individuals, it's difficult to honestly claim anyone's artistic vision would be damaged anyways, because game development already forces a constant series of artistic compromises between all the people involved.

Not sure what to say about this. If you believe that diversity contradicts the artists free expression, then I can only kek. If you believe that reasoning should take the form of a circle, I am speechless.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Well, I can only speak from personal experience and wishes, of course.

Games often contain an element of self-insertion (particularly RPGs, but far from exclusively). There's often a connection between self-insertion and escapism. With that in mind, it makes sense that somebody might enjoy playing the role of a character they can identify with more closely.

This applies to numerous scenarios: playing TLoU, the player might not have personally experienced familial loss/ protective instinct towards a child, but they're strong motivators and we find them compelling when we're playing. Ditto romances, those times they're done well, including in books and films. An element of identification is often present, even if it's not a blank-slate character.

Now, we can all out ourselves in someone else's shoes, and feel empathy / motivation for someone who isn't like us, of course. But if it's every single time-- if it's never someone like me-- I hope you can recognise why this might become alienating after a while, and why I might want to read/watch/play something I can identify with more closely. People become used to it, and lose sight of when others aren't getting the experience they are.

Well, that's completely fair, thank you.

I see a lot of people wanting to promote diversity from the angle of 'you're not a minority, you don't understand', implying that I can't have empathy with someone who isn't like me (which in itself is, dare I say it, very racist), and that as a consequence more diversity is necessary to educate me, but I just don't buy that. It's awfully patronizing.

But I completely understand that if you're basically denied a place in the fiction that you want to enjoy, that can become very grating, especially if you're looking for that particular bit of personal identification.

Personally I don't get that identification from race, gender, sexual preference or whatever, but from a a character's experiences and choices, rational and moral. I have a very hard time playing a character that does not or can not make the same choices I would make, while I really enjoy playing characters that are otherwise as unlike me as possible (it is escapism after all). If anything, the cis white male character is generally very alienating to me, even if I'm one myself. So I rarely view game characters as any form of extension of myself, but more as an exploration of other people. Living their lives for a while, as it were, but according to my choices.

In my personal experience, most of the claims for more inclusiveness I've heard are from people who are either not a minority

Because people who are a minority and complain about it are often shouted down and slammed with the "well your a minority that doesn't matter money wise so stfu and enjoy your vidya privileges" and we just decided to let the White boys club argue it out among themselves. Not to mention, I'm not exactly sure why it's a BAD thing that someone who is white,cis, and male is able to emphasize with people who are rarely represented in media (and not just videogames.) invalidates their argument.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming that it's bad that these people are worried about diversity. Heavens no! I'm wondering whether or not it's representative of the actual problem. Their opinions are valid, but what is their value? Maybe for every woman who has a problem with lack of female characters, there's a hundred who just don't care. Or maybe it's the other way around. Are we talking about vocal minorities here, or does a large group of people actually feel left out by a lack of diversity? I just don't know, but I would like to know.

 

[Fallow]

Always interesting to see how when it comes to diversity there is always the "diversity for divirsity's sake" and at the same time they are perfectly okay with white dude, with stubble basically being shoehorned into every game no matter what the circumstances are no questions.

But everyone else that has a darker skin tone than a light tan better have backstory worthy of a literature award to so much as justify their appearance for any role higher than NPC.

This is also not to mention that devs shoehorning in white dudes all the time is a matter of their own creativity and artistic freedom, but another dev doing the same but with POC and LGBTQ+ people are simply being shallow "sjw" point winning clods.

But don't worry, I'm sure in 50 years gaming will reach a point where people of my demographic and other similar ethnic and sexual groups can be dumped into games and people wouldn't bat an eye at it.

They already can be!

All you need to do is find (or create) a game on Kickstarter with this aim and fund it! Tadaa!