My two cents.
The character is designed to fit into the role that goes with the game world. This will usually be the stereotype of who would fit that role. Any deviation from the expected will require some clever explanation on the part of the designer. The greater the delta from normal, the more need for explanation. But this can be a big strength to make a character interesting. So, onto my second point.
I also think there is an odd sense of modern culture that creeps into this situation. If I am asked to role play a dragon, I am free to indulge my own conceptions of what that should be since any opinion on this is equally valid. If I am asked to role play (I am a white male) something culturally sensitive like a modern black man, then my sensitivity radar goes off and I am greatly constrained because I don't want to inadvertently insult my avatar by doing something HE wouldn't do or be considered to be exploiting that character. It's not very rational, but in thinking this topic thru I find this thought coming up a lot. I would feel like I want to role play, but would be afraid that I would get it wrong, which would distress me internally. Only if the character was in a non-cultural role such as a doctor, would I feel free to role play him. I would play as a doctor, not as a black, white or zebra striped person. In sum, I think it is the real world baggage we bring with us that keeps us from seeing more black main characters. Good think more games are allowing us to create our own characters!

Quote:Original post by Iftah
2) the classic RPG take to back to midevil Europe (Knights, dragons, mages, princess, etc...) and Tolkin stuff (elves, orcs, dwarves...) so blame Europe and Tolkin for the white heores
Iftah.

Tolkin books have black people. They are mentioned in LOTR and Silmarilion. But on the other hand, they are mentioned as evil. [sad]

Truthfully there is no "excuse" as to why blacks haven't been very prominently featured in video games or at least non more valid than layzness, habit, and lack of imagination (all of which are great traits for game creators).

Its just a matter of the fact that the world is how it is, and by-and-large thats how it stays. As an example have you noticed how langauge works, words have connotations based on their historical and original usage, because the world of today is a day-upon-day creation built upon the world of yesterday ... withmost days being nothing more than a simply repeat of a simple pattern just as most other days. This is both the reason why the world in mass doesn't change much and paradoxically the reason why single individuals are so damn influencial. The original creators or 1970s pen-and-paper RPGs happened to choose european fantasy themes, so such is the bulk of the work today. Just as people like Judas Priest set the style of Heavy Metal, actors like John Wayne built upon and reinforced the sterotypes for western and war heros, and shows like Survivor and The Real World built the framework into which reality TV is judged.

There are black heros in all genres of creation, and white, asian, female, handicaped, etc. But the majority of most creation will be fasioned largely after whatever the original genre definers have set to be the "norm". And I would wager that the "norm" has almost nothing to do with the purchasing society as a causal reason (because most new invented genres are counter-culture by their nature - created by youths and young adults to fill the gaps left by their older selves). For instance the "punk" musical movement was not created to market music to a large body of punks that had been abandoned. The musical movement created the society, it tapped into a feeling that was present in a significant group and personafied it in a new and ressonant fasion. MMO games we're not invented to cash in on the massive pay-per-month crowd just waiting for a chance to spend money regularly to socialize online and complete quest after quest. They we're created step-by-step organically out of previous "nerdy" RPGs and the rise of multiplayer, and one-day they crossed a line where they finally had both the appeal and marketing to expand their market (everquest). And then another day a hardcore gamer group with a strong art sense somehow took them to the next level in mass appeal (WoW) - creating a world lush enough and fantastic enough that even adults could understand the idea (if not the desire to play all the time).

Back to my statement about the originality being key ... right now (and for the past 10-15 years or so) there has been a very very popular market in Germany (and other European nations) for the creation of new and fun board games. Both family oriented and stratigic hardcore gamer oriented. These games flourish on the simple combination of solid game mechanics and an interesting theme, not on their possession of anything German relevant. I would in fact consider Germany one of the most racist cultures of the 20th century (rising again these past 3 years), and yet still they have created many wonderfull South American and African themed games.

It is simply up to designers and writers to invoke their imagination and creativity in these matters and dig a little deeper than shallow mass-market sales talk (oh oh, we need a big-black thug, a big-titied red-head and a crew-cut white hero) ... don't get me wrong, I love the big-titied red-head but I'm sure some people out there want a large-breasted asian and two well-endowed black women to save. More to the point, I think people would pay good cash for good writing if it just wasn't so damn hard to do (what percentage of blockbuster movies aren't just rehashes of tried-and-true formula).

This is not a game phenomenom, its a cheap-buck, no-thought, mass market phenomenom

Just to clarify on a sub point someone brought up on page 1 and 2, since even some of the smarter people that cared to post obviously neglected to take art history in college.

The large eyed animation style that the japanese use today is actualy based on older AMERICAN influinces brought in from the WWII era. During this time we began introducing them to the idea of motion picture cartoons (think of what examples they had to go by... micky mouse... bambi i believe, etc). Of course they evolved that into what we have now. The japanese did not use big eyes to represent any particular culture, it was just their basis.

The japanese culture borrows heavily from the advances of other cultures, this has alot to do with the post WWII culture shock, as well as the forced technological advanced and such this ushered in. I dont intend this as a racest remark or anything, but most of their culture and advances post WWII was indeed copied from the west.

The main character in the game Shadowman was both awesome and black. Anyway, I can honestly say I have never really cared about the race or gender of the main protagonist in *any* game that I have played. They just have to be cool.

Also, major game companies are notorious for not taking risks. That is why we see the same forumlaic games with the same dull themes coming out over and over again. This is particularly evident in RPGs IMO. I think as independant developers we should be pushing on these boundries instead of, say, creating another space sim (why are there so many of those!?).

Why focus on race period? It isn't a matter of race. Its a matter of the person. Asking why main characters are usually not black is like asking why main characters usually have shoe sizes smaller than 12. People should get over whose what race. We're all people, and thats what matters. People play games to get into the shoes of somebody else, race being a minimal factor.

Its also a matter of what fits the story too. Game developers aren't likely to put random black, indian, and hispanic people in a game about ancient rome in order to be 'politically correct'. But on the other hand, if its an RPG based on a story with roots in africa, then im sure there would be tons of black people.

Another factor might be the developers and story writers themselves. I know from my experience that when I write stories I tend to associate myself with my characters. I also don't really care what 'race' the person is, so I tend to go by my personal default, which is my race (in my case it's white). Basically I suppose it might boil down to personal association with the characters. And thus, since a majority of game developers and story writers are probably white (or japanese in the case of japan), they will subliminally (or intentionally) make their characters their own race.

Just my thoughts.

Cheers!

-Dyamios

Quote:Original post by Dyamios

Another factor might be the developers and story writers themselves. I know from my experience that when I write stories I tend to associate myself with my characters. I also don't really care what 'race' the person is, so I tend to go by my personal default, which is my race (in my case it's white). Basically I suppose it might boil down to personal association with the characters. And thus, since a majority of game developers and story writers are probably white (or japanese in the case of japan), they will subliminally (or intentionally) make their characters their own race.

yup, I think that too.
Also it's likely to be because of the general target of costumers (in the case of comercial games), and also it has a lot to do with the game ambientation.

Also, a brief comment:
Lately I've been seeing a lot of racist stuff around (I don't mean in this forum), I mean, even when we think that racism (as any other type of discrimination or violence) it's stupid, there's a lot of people that still believe that "what's different it's bad, therefore we shall destruy it", and I just can get it..

anyway, I was going to add something more, but the TV is on and my brain has just melted..

anbsdasbdbsdabsbdbasbdbasbdbbsbsbsbsdbadsb... (<-- melted brain)

so i've been reading this post from the sidelines and was just curious if anyone ever thought to maybe email a company directly and get their 2 cents. or start up this topic again on a developer website that maybe it might catch and mod on one of those sites and get a lil behind the scenes info. granted you might think that no response will come but ya never know what might come of a good strong internet forum topic and whose attention you'll grab.

Now as a black person myself i can completely understand why people would be interested in seeing a black protagonist. Being of some intelligence and common sense i can also see why there arent, not to say one way is right or wrong. It would be interesting though to get something different in the mix, instead of some of the same old cookie cutter stuff that you normally get fed. it's probably why people play games with freedom in character creation and freedom in an environment have taken off as of late. It lets you make things up as you go,not having to feel like ur being herded down a path toward victory or doom. I mean dont get me wrong, im in line to play final fantasy 12 as soon as any other console rpg fan, but if they could change things up once in awhile and make it just that lil bit different it could open a pandora's box of possibilities.

Now dealing with the critisism will always be tough, but then again when you're the first to do anything thats considered "controversial" you'll always get flak from one end or the other. but when done right you truly get something different that anyone can appreciate.