I don't think this is the best example to show off the phenomenon the author is trying to point out. I think he's right that the phenomenon exists but I think choosing this particular example may...
I don't think this is the best example to show off the phenomenon the author is trying to point out. I think he's right that the phenomenon exists but I think choosing this particular example may be more counterintuitive than it seems and would be better served by pointing to other franchises which have had more significant opportunities to pivot to their POC characters, like Gears of War or Call of Duty.
These Sony projects aren't mere expansion side content, these are full on AA releases made by AAA studios and given AAA attention. AAA video games have become extremely expensive to make and invest in, especially sequels where on top of the expectation of a new story, there's expectations of new technology, major upgrades, and entirely new features and assets. It's not as simple to make a video game sequel as it is to make a film, book, or even musical sequel. Sony has been investing in a new format of blockbuster game where instead of developing a full on sequel that can also mean entirely new technology and assets, they can fund more games in a series that just had a release so they can make equivalent games with a significantly smaller budget. It's been working really well.
Infamous: Last Light and Uncharted: Lost Legacy aren't considered mere side stories so much as they are considered some of the best entries in their respective franchises. Last Light has strong arguments from the fanbase for being the best of the entire franchise. And they're both full-length games. They may not be sprawling 60 hours loaded with all kinds of side activities that can feel like a chore, but they're often better for it and deliver tight, focused games that have a greater balance between narrative and gameplay that are 20 to 30 hours long. That these games are side-stories is a matter of practicality more than their format.
Specifically in terms of this particular Spiderman franchise, the argument goes a bit off the rails when it turns from "Why won't they give Miles a full game?" to "Why isn't Miles the star of the franchise?" since Peter Parker is still the de facto iconic Spiderman and the first game contains Miles' entire origin story. You play as Peter Parker in that one, mid-Spiderman career so he is already matured into being a superhero, as he has to fight off against a bunch of villains. The game's packed a bit densely with villains and storylines but the game goes out of its way to highlight Miles' story and origin as Spiderman. Peter has entire missions dedicated to helping a young teenage Miles get over the death of his father, find purpose in life, and then come to terms with his power. This game came out in the same year as Enter the Spiderverse too, Sony seems like they're making concentrated efforts to elevate Miles Morales' star on their side of Spiderman media while Disney slowly claims more and more of Peter Parker in the public consciousness that is the MCU. Miles may not be the main star of this particular Spiderman video game but he's being set up to be a main star in the future, perhaps alongside Peter in a full Spiderman sequel. For now, though, he's going to be a star in his own big-budget spin-off.
The first game is clearly setting Miles up to be a major part of this franchise. Sure, he gets a side-story now but it's a big-budget side story that will be treated like an AAA title, and it was given a prime AAA feature slot and promotion during Sony's event. Insomniac have even confirmed that there will be some extensive engine upgrades for this particular game, as they're feeling their way onto the PS5 and its capabilities, so this will also be the first of Sony's spin-offs to feature one of the main elements on a full-on sequel and a higher budget than usual. At this point, the only thing missing from it being considered a full sequel is a "2" between "Spiderman" and "Miles Morales" and the promise of hours worth of inconsequential chore-like fetch quests.
Also, as a last note, when the author said that there isn't a mainline Assassin's Creed game with a black protagonist: wasn't Bayek black Egyptian? He's of a much darker complexion than a lot of the other Egyptian characters in the game.
Thank you for posting; feel the same. The point the author is making may be valid but this particular case feels like a stretch when you read what they're actually doing with the game and consider...
Thank you for posting; feel the same. The point the author is making may be valid but this particular case feels like a stretch when you read what they're actually doing with the game and consider that they're using this as a PS5 launch promotional title.
I don't think that's a very charitable read of the author's point. In games like the ones you bring up the protagonist is, by their very nature, a player-insert. The author focuses instead on...
in some games like fallout, GTA, sims, far cry, etc, and many others, you can play as any race you want while being the main character. author conveniently forgot that.
I don't think that's a very charitable read of the author's point. In games like the ones you bring up the protagonist is, by their very nature, a player-insert. The author focuses instead on Miles Morales and similar characters who are treated in their games as defined individuals with defined identities and specific narratives based around that.
Is this actually true though? Do you have stats to back it up? Miles Morales is one of the most popular comic book character to come out of the early 2000s. Clearly plenty of people were able to...
yeah well this happens when the majority of people buying video games are white
Is this actually true though? Do you have stats to back it up?
i'd imagine its easier to design a game around a character that is easy to identify with.
Miles Morales is one of the most popular comic book character to come out of the early 2000s. Clearly plenty of people were able to identify with him. And it’s not like women and nonwhite men haven’t been able to identify with White protagonists all this time.
This is an interesting subject, and I couldn't really find any hard statistics, so I'm just gonna wing it by speaking rationally and anecdotally. Overall, I strongly suspect OP is wrong though....
This is an interesting subject, and I couldn't really find any hard statistics, so I'm just gonna wing it by speaking rationally and anecdotally. Overall, I strongly suspect OP is wrong though.
While it was probably true that most gamers were white in 90's and before, it's not likely true anymore. Plenty of POC grew up playing a diverse variety of games, and I know that from my own friends and peers. The author also seems to go into detail on that and basically confirms my thoughts as far as that goes. I don't know any gen z gamers so I can't speak personally about them, but honestly I'd surprised if the trend reversed. There was a big push not too long ago to make 'gamer' and 'nerd' culture cool, and as far as I know that hasn't really changed, so if anything I'd guess the trend has accelerated. Computers and consoles are also incredibly cheap now days (comparatively speaking) so there should be more POC in the gaming crowd than ever before.
Certainly white people represent a large portion of the market, but I'm very skeptical of the idea that it's such an overwhelmingly large portion that developers can just choose to ignore every other minority in today's day and age. Who knows, maybe these companies have data on market demographics that would prove me wrong, it's certainly a possibility. But I really expect this is more to do with questionable managerial decisions, similar to what the author suggests by saying these companies are playing it safe.
This could just be the circles I’m in, but I feel like most of the comics and video game people I follow these days are either Black or East Asian. I think Day9 and Felicia Day might be the only...
This could just be the circles I’m in, but I feel like most of the comics and video game people I follow these days are either Black or East Asian. I think Day9 and Felicia Day might be the only White ones I follow closely. Maybe Patton Oswald? But he’s more of a stand up comedy guy than a geek culture guy.
Aside from myself, the only friend I know who reads comics is Black, so I don't think it's just you. There's definitely some kind of correlation there.
Aside from myself, the only friend I know who reads comics is Black, so I don't think it's just you. There's definitely some kind of correlation there.
Wasn't the gameplay of the recent Spider-Man game good enough for people to buy it? By expecting a full-length game about Miles Morales with similar gameplay, I think it was a given that the...
it seems like the author just wants a game to be designed around a black character. as long as the gameplay is good people will buy it.
Wasn't the gameplay of the recent Spider-Man game good enough for people to buy it? By expecting a full-length game about Miles Morales with similar gameplay, I think it was a given that the author of the article wanted a game with good gameplay.
Luckily our conversations about what's right or wrong aren't bound to market logic. Isn't the fact that the market encourages this state of affairs the problem?
Luckily our conversations about what's right or wrong aren't bound to market logic.
Isn't the fact that the market encourages this state of affairs the problem?
I'm wondering how they measure video game character ethnicity. Take for example the typically Japanese RPG. The vast majority of JRPG characters are either "white" or some sort of made up...
I'm wondering how they measure video game character ethnicity. Take for example the typically Japanese RPG. The vast majority of JRPG characters are either "white" or some sort of made up ethnicity. Anime enthusiasts sometimes argue that these characters' features are actually Asian even though their hair color is not black. In Japanese anime, characters specifically described as Japanese are frequently depicted with non-black hair colors. So are these characters white or Asian?
Sometimes characters have blue hair, pink hair. What race are these people?
Anyways your linked paper doesn't seem to discuss their methodology, and I guess they presume protagonist classification is trivial.
Anyhoo, let's say all these characters from Japanese games are white. What does that mean for Japan? Does that mean that there's some sort of racial bias of Japanese games against Japanese people?
The last two single player games I played were Zelda and Hollow Knight. Zelda has a white protagonist I suppose. Hollow Knight's protagonist is a... bug? In the paper, human characters made up 4966 characters of a total of 8572 characters. I guess they also neglect to count how many nonhuman protagonists there are. Perhaps the biggest discriminated people are humans in general compared to fantasy nonhumans?
Yes, they want a good game made around a black character. Can you explain what your issue is with that exactly?
My issue with it is that I don't see explicitly requiring more black protagonists as much of a priority. Why aren't Japanese people demanding more Japanese characters in their games? Do they need a Japanese version of Mario and Zelda? I suppose most Japanese don't care because they don't feel disempowered by this factoid, even when the protagonist is not Japanese.
I'm pretty skeptical of all of this. Despite the lack of Asian representation in American media, Asian Americans tend to enjoy high socio-economic status. This is because of the fundamentals - investment in higher education and large pools of economic and social capital, and an immigration policy that favors high status people. The root of the problem then isn't representation in media. The root of the problem is power in general. When you have de-facto power, why would you care about video game characterization?
Different cultures code different physical markers as being germane in deciding what race or ethnicity they are. It's pretty clear Japanese don't put much import on hair color, so you shouldn't...
Sometimes characters have blue hair, pink hair. What race are these people?
Different cultures code different physical markers as being germane in deciding what race or ethnicity they are. It's pretty clear Japanese don't put much import on hair color, so you shouldn't either.
The Japanese characters aren't White. They speak Japanese and they participate in Japanese national or cultural practices where relevant. Even when it's not, nothing about their animation or look codes as "not Japanese" to Japanese viewers.
Hollow Knight's protagonist is a... bug?
This is veering very close to "I don't see race," which is a problematic tack to take for a variety of reasons that have been explained at length elsewhere.
When you have de-facto power, why would you care about video game characterization?
Representation points to power not actually being equal. If it was you could have expected more equal outcomes. It's a pretty clear leading indicator that things aren't all right behind the scenes.
Which to me then, video game representation is irrelevant. What matters is fixing the fundamental power structure, rather than demanding more black people in video games and movies. Making the...
Representation points to power not actually being equal. If it was you could have expected more equal outcomes. It's a pretty clear leading indicator that things aren't all right behind the scenes.
Which to me then, video game representation is irrelevant. What matters is fixing the fundamental power structure, rather than demanding more black people in video games and movies. Making the indicator "politically correct" does nothing to solve the fundamental problems.
And there's two components to modern power. Political power and economic power. Black people can be empowered economically by giving them entitlements to capital and production and education. Black people can be empowered politically by removing the anti-democratic components of our government and promoting ideal democratic components such as proportional representation, citizens assemblies, etc.
To me all this politically correct stuff is noise. Why should we care? They're indicators, not root causes. Then let's go after the root of the rot.
I'm not sure how willfully ignoring the metrics that tell you the power structure is broken helps in that regard. How do you propose to go after the "root" if you're going to insist on being blind...
Which to me then, video game representation is irrelevant. What matters is fixing the fundamental power structure,
I'm not sure how willfully ignoring the metrics that tell you the power structure is broken helps in that regard. How do you propose to go after the "root" if you're going to insist on being blind to any attempt at pointing it out?
Political power and economic power.
This is simplistic and highly reductive. You should read up on intersectionality and how it works.
To me all this politically correct stuff is noise.
As noisy as it might be, the endless ad nauseum complaining about it manages to be even less edifying when it's not being actively harmful and dismissive.
Your concern is misguided. Maybe you can argue that capitalism is the root of racial injustice, but capitalists (in the abstract) aren't impeding social justice -- conservatives are. I wouldn't...
What matters is fixing the fundamental power structure
Your concern is misguided. Maybe you can argue that capitalism is the root of racial injustice, but capitalists (in the abstract) aren't impeding social justice -- conservatives are. I wouldn't even say conservatives are particularly concerned with capitalism; for them, capitalism is just a means to an end. At its root, conservatism is about maintaining current power structures, and for Americans, that means a heteronormative, Protestant, white power structure.
Insisting on "political correctness" is absolutely an attack on modern conservatism, which is the de facto antagonist to social progress.
This is an irrelevant statistic from the point of view of the size of the market. America was 73% white as of 2017 and 13% black. wikipedia. Not really interested in the wider argument but that...
69% of hispanic teens play video games
71% of white teens play video games
83% of black teens play video games.
This is an irrelevant statistic from the point of view of the size of the market. America was 73% white as of 2017 and 13% black. wikipedia.
Not really interested in the wider argument but that use of statistics is misleading.
I don't think this is the best example to show off the phenomenon the author is trying to point out. I think he's right that the phenomenon exists but I think choosing this particular example may be more counterintuitive than it seems and would be better served by pointing to other franchises which have had more significant opportunities to pivot to their POC characters, like Gears of War or Call of Duty.
These Sony projects aren't mere expansion side content, these are full on AA releases made by AAA studios and given AAA attention. AAA video games have become extremely expensive to make and invest in, especially sequels where on top of the expectation of a new story, there's expectations of new technology, major upgrades, and entirely new features and assets. It's not as simple to make a video game sequel as it is to make a film, book, or even musical sequel. Sony has been investing in a new format of blockbuster game where instead of developing a full on sequel that can also mean entirely new technology and assets, they can fund more games in a series that just had a release so they can make equivalent games with a significantly smaller budget. It's been working really well.
Infamous: Last Light and Uncharted: Lost Legacy aren't considered mere side stories so much as they are considered some of the best entries in their respective franchises. Last Light has strong arguments from the fanbase for being the best of the entire franchise. And they're both full-length games. They may not be sprawling 60 hours loaded with all kinds of side activities that can feel like a chore, but they're often better for it and deliver tight, focused games that have a greater balance between narrative and gameplay that are 20 to 30 hours long. That these games are side-stories is a matter of practicality more than their format.
Specifically in terms of this particular Spiderman franchise, the argument goes a bit off the rails when it turns from "Why won't they give Miles a full game?" to "Why isn't Miles the star of the franchise?" since Peter Parker is still the de facto iconic Spiderman and the first game contains Miles' entire origin story. You play as Peter Parker in that one, mid-Spiderman career so he is already matured into being a superhero, as he has to fight off against a bunch of villains. The game's packed a bit densely with villains and storylines but the game goes out of its way to highlight Miles' story and origin as Spiderman. Peter has entire missions dedicated to helping a young teenage Miles get over the death of his father, find purpose in life, and then come to terms with his power. This game came out in the same year as Enter the Spiderverse too, Sony seems like they're making concentrated efforts to elevate Miles Morales' star on their side of Spiderman media while Disney slowly claims more and more of Peter Parker in the public consciousness that is the MCU. Miles may not be the main star of this particular Spiderman video game but he's being set up to be a main star in the future, perhaps alongside Peter in a full Spiderman sequel. For now, though, he's going to be a star in his own big-budget spin-off.
The first game is clearly setting Miles up to be a major part of this franchise. Sure, he gets a side-story now but it's a big-budget side story that will be treated like an AAA title, and it was given a prime AAA feature slot and promotion during Sony's event. Insomniac have even confirmed that there will be some extensive engine upgrades for this particular game, as they're feeling their way onto the PS5 and its capabilities, so this will also be the first of Sony's spin-offs to feature one of the main elements on a full-on sequel and a higher budget than usual. At this point, the only thing missing from it being considered a full sequel is a "2" between "Spiderman" and "Miles Morales" and the promise of hours worth of inconsequential chore-like fetch quests.
Also, as a last note, when the author said that there isn't a mainline Assassin's Creed game with a black protagonist: wasn't Bayek black Egyptian? He's of a much darker complexion than a lot of the other Egyptian characters in the game.
Thank you for posting; feel the same. The point the author is making may be valid but this particular case feels like a stretch when you read what they're actually doing with the game and consider that they're using this as a PS5 launch promotional title.
It's a big deal, it's not some side piece.
I don't think that's a very charitable read of the author's point. In games like the ones you bring up the protagonist is, by their very nature, a player-insert. The author focuses instead on Miles Morales and similar characters who are treated in their games as defined individuals with defined identities and specific narratives based around that.
Is this actually true though? Do you have stats to back it up?
Miles Morales is one of the most popular comic book character to come out of the early 2000s. Clearly plenty of people were able to identify with him. And it’s not like women and nonwhite men haven’t been able to identify with White protagonists all this time.
This is an interesting subject, and I couldn't really find any hard statistics, so I'm just gonna wing it by speaking rationally and anecdotally. Overall, I strongly suspect OP is wrong though.
While it was probably true that most gamers were white in 90's and before, it's not likely true anymore. Plenty of POC grew up playing a diverse variety of games, and I know that from my own friends and peers. The author also seems to go into detail on that and basically confirms my thoughts as far as that goes. I don't know any gen z gamers so I can't speak personally about them, but honestly I'd surprised if the trend reversed. There was a big push not too long ago to make 'gamer' and 'nerd' culture cool, and as far as I know that hasn't really changed, so if anything I'd guess the trend has accelerated. Computers and consoles are also incredibly cheap now days (comparatively speaking) so there should be more POC in the gaming crowd than ever before.
Certainly white people represent a large portion of the market, but I'm very skeptical of the idea that it's such an overwhelmingly large portion that developers can just choose to ignore every other minority in today's day and age. Who knows, maybe these companies have data on market demographics that would prove me wrong, it's certainly a possibility. But I really expect this is more to do with questionable managerial decisions, similar to what the author suggests by saying these companies are playing it safe.
This could just be the circles I’m in, but I feel like most of the comics and video game people I follow these days are either Black or East Asian. I think Day9 and Felicia Day might be the only White ones I follow closely. Maybe Patton Oswald? But he’s more of a stand up comedy guy than a geek culture guy.
Aside from myself, the only friend I know who reads comics is Black, so I don't think it's just you. There's definitely some kind of correlation there.
Wasn't the gameplay of the recent Spider-Man game good enough for people to buy it? By expecting a full-length game about Miles Morales with similar gameplay, I think it was a given that the author of the article wanted a game with good gameplay.
Luckily our conversations about what's right or wrong aren't bound to market logic.
Isn't the fact that the market encourages this state of affairs the problem?
I'm wondering how they measure video game character ethnicity. Take for example the typically Japanese RPG. The vast majority of JRPG characters are either "white" or some sort of made up ethnicity. Anime enthusiasts sometimes argue that these characters' features are actually Asian even though their hair color is not black. In Japanese anime, characters specifically described as Japanese are frequently depicted with non-black hair colors. So are these characters white or Asian?
Sometimes characters have blue hair, pink hair. What race are these people?
Anyways your linked paper doesn't seem to discuss their methodology, and I guess they presume protagonist classification is trivial.
Anyhoo, let's say all these characters from Japanese games are white. What does that mean for Japan? Does that mean that there's some sort of racial bias of Japanese games against Japanese people?
The last two single player games I played were Zelda and Hollow Knight. Zelda has a white protagonist I suppose. Hollow Knight's protagonist is a... bug? In the paper, human characters made up 4966 characters of a total of 8572 characters. I guess they also neglect to count how many nonhuman protagonists there are. Perhaps the biggest discriminated people are humans in general compared to fantasy nonhumans?
My issue with it is that I don't see explicitly requiring more black protagonists as much of a priority. Why aren't Japanese people demanding more Japanese characters in their games? Do they need a Japanese version of Mario and Zelda? I suppose most Japanese don't care because they don't feel disempowered by this factoid, even when the protagonist is not Japanese.
I'm pretty skeptical of all of this. Despite the lack of Asian representation in American media, Asian Americans tend to enjoy high socio-economic status. This is because of the fundamentals - investment in higher education and large pools of economic and social capital, and an immigration policy that favors high status people. The root of the problem then isn't representation in media. The root of the problem is power in general. When you have de-facto power, why would you care about video game characterization?
Different cultures code different physical markers as being germane in deciding what race or ethnicity they are. It's pretty clear Japanese don't put much import on hair color, so you shouldn't either.
The Japanese characters aren't White. They speak Japanese and they participate in Japanese national or cultural practices where relevant. Even when it's not, nothing about their animation or look codes as "not Japanese" to Japanese viewers.
This is veering very close to "I don't see race," which is a problematic tack to take for a variety of reasons that have been explained at length elsewhere.
Representation points to power not actually being equal. If it was you could have expected more equal outcomes. It's a pretty clear leading indicator that things aren't all right behind the scenes.
Which to me then, video game representation is irrelevant. What matters is fixing the fundamental power structure, rather than demanding more black people in video games and movies. Making the indicator "politically correct" does nothing to solve the fundamental problems.
And there's two components to modern power. Political power and economic power. Black people can be empowered economically by giving them entitlements to capital and production and education. Black people can be empowered politically by removing the anti-democratic components of our government and promoting ideal democratic components such as proportional representation, citizens assemblies, etc.
To me all this politically correct stuff is noise. Why should we care? They're indicators, not root causes. Then let's go after the root of the rot.
I'm not sure how willfully ignoring the metrics that tell you the power structure is broken helps in that regard. How do you propose to go after the "root" if you're going to insist on being blind to any attempt at pointing it out?
This is simplistic and highly reductive. You should read up on intersectionality and how it works.
As noisy as it might be, the endless ad nauseum complaining about it manages to be even less edifying when it's not being actively harmful and dismissive.
Your concern is misguided. Maybe you can argue that capitalism is the root of racial injustice, but capitalists (in the abstract) aren't impeding social justice -- conservatives are. I wouldn't even say conservatives are particularly concerned with capitalism; for them, capitalism is just a means to an end. At its root, conservatism is about maintaining current power structures, and for Americans, that means a heteronormative, Protestant, white power structure.
Insisting on "political correctness" is absolutely an attack on modern conservatism, which is the de facto antagonist to social progress.
This is an irrelevant statistic from the point of view of the size of the market. America was 73% white as of 2017 and 13% black. wikipedia.
Not really interested in the wider argument but that use of statistics is misleading.
Just wanted to briefly mention here that America isn't the only place that buys games
I'm aware, dubteedub's statistic of teen game playing was also only for America.