Why do they need to be inclusive? Do samurai games need to include red-haired Celts and curly-haired Bantus, you know, for diversity?
What's the point of this? Lying about history to make some people feel better?
What's the point of this? Lying about history to make some people feel better?
If your samurai game includes werewolves and machine guns you don't get to turn around say you didn't add something because it wouldn't be historically accurate. You have to use a better excuse, like you felt it would be dumb or that you didn't feel like it.
See, that makes some sense if you're doing high fantasy and shit that's set in a wholly fictional world.
But just because some parts of a game are not realistic does not mean you should just forget about even trying. It makes no sense.
> If your samurai game includes werewolves and machine guns you don't get to turn around say you didn't add something because it wouldn't be historically accurate
You're treating this as if it was an excuse for some sin. If I want to make a werewolf story in Belle Époque Paris, there could be some historically accurate black African representation, but if the setting is the middle Ages it would be just stupid and lazy -- UNLESS there is some effort to bring some lore into it.
And that's the main problem I have here. Suspension of disbelief and all that. Just adding $tokenblack012 and $eastasian499 to a setting where they don't implicitly belong is just lazy pandering.
Obviously, ideally people would not identify with a game character (and with other humans) based on color/sex/gender but on a moral/ideological level. But apparently we're not there yet.
And here is the crux of our disagreement. I see it simply as an aesthetic choice. An art director got bored and thought adding some different looking knights might be fun.
Personally I'm far more 'offended' by overly unrealistic weapons and combat in my 'historical' games than I am by an unrealistic number of women soldiers.
The AC series really never asks you to take it very seriously. To the extent that actual history is present, it's almost like fan service.
Compare that to time travel in dystopian future in the last bioshock where you have some known elements but you also project fire from your hands to fight a mecha-lincoln. That establishes a parallel universe where anything goes and it doesn't matter what you borrow into the story.
if this were true, it would certainly nullify most of the critiques from TFA. the meticulous attention to detail in creating historically accurate (or at least plausible) set pieces works against this argument.
The article we're commenting on does make the point that people of African / Asian descent being present in middle-ages Europe isn't unreasonable:
"I will say that, as travelers and traders, it is not crazy that people with these backgrounds might be in England, even in the ninth century. The decision to include so many characters from Asia and so few from Africa is a bit more frustrating; I’d expect to see a lot more North Africans in 9th century England than either Middle Eastern or East/Central Asian characters (because it is closer, as a matter of trade-routes)."
The article's quibble is mostly with it concentrating them into your settlement, rather than around pre-existing trade hubs.
It's still a stretch to have a randomly diverse community... but the "historically accurate black African representation" is probably enough that you don't have to work at explaining a minority of diverse characters.
Majority Arab with a healthy mix of black people seems reasonable, though.
So a werewolf invasion of the Tokugawa shogunate would need to include Latinx genderfuild bipocs or be racist?
I guess I'm racist then.
Puts on Nazi hat and reads historically accurate accounts of Stalingrad
Literally no one is saying that.
I guess I'm racist then.
If that makes you happy.
You literally were: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
I can't help but think there's a field of woke eugenics that uses terms like this completely unironically.
If I were nonwhite I think I’d want to be included in some games, yes.
Okay, and how big the videogame representation aspect of this problem is? Yep, good question, but even if it's small, it doesn't invalidate it.
In the 90's there was a short-lived company called Motown Software (who's parent company was Motown Records), created to make video games for African-American players. They released two video games: Bebe's Kids and Rap Jam: Volume One.
First, you're assuming "minorities" (and just that word is a problem, as it's utterly US-centric) are insecure and hypersensitive, which is quite patronizing.
Second, this is the line of thinking that has led privileged American influencers to accuse slavic developers of neo-colonialism when they just wanted to represent their own otherwise underrepresented culture. See the reactions to CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 3 or Warhorse Studio's Kingdom Come: Deliverance. This is particularly infuriating when considering how Poland or Czechia have been victims of imperialism themselves, and quite recently to boot.
I said include in “some games”. There can be games that justify being all white, sure.
The rest can have nonwhite characters without ruining any white person’s day.
Furthermore, this is not the main problem with AC and I now regret taking up this bait.
The game is either a willing or unwilling nazi racial theory apology. Let’s focus on the implications of that please.
(Though naturally there will be some people who will feel that's just not enough. But that doesn't mean that these voices are right. Creators/publishers/developers have the right to make whatever game they feel like, with as much "accuracy" as they want.)
That said, I really enjoy Lucio from Overwatch in every way I can think of.
It was something that he was a 'human', since Pac-man, Q*bert, Donkey Kong, and Frogger weren't.
Just having a cursory look over my collection on steam:
* Streets of Rage had black, white, asian, men and women.
* Street Fighter had every nationality on earth represented.
* Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Almost all the characters were black.
* Grand Theft Auto V - One of the main playable characters is Black (there are 3)
* Sleeping Dogs which is set in Hong Kong so they are Chinese.
* Yakuza Series - Japanese.
* Prey (the first one) you play a Native American.
* Prey (the new one) you appear to be of Asian decent (probably chinese if I were to guess as the surname is Chu).
* Assassins Creed - Altair is a Arab.
* Assassins Creed 3 - Ratonhnhaké - Mixed Native American and White.
* Kratos - Greek
* King Pin - Black
* Aladdin - Arab
* Loads of Micheal Jackson games (Black)
The Grand Theft Auto series on its own has sold million and millions of copies.
I am still not including all the games where you can literally design your character to be anything you want. Or all the strategy games where you can choose your historical factions such as Age of Empires.
> If I were nonwhite I think I’d want to be included in some games, yes.
Have you ever thought that other people don't judge or identify characters in their entertainment on what race they are? I couldn't give a monkeys the race of a game protagonist. It literally doesn't enter into my mind. Why are you soo pre-occupied with it is the real question?
It only seems to be rich white people in the US (nobody cares about this shit in Europe btw because our identities are based on our nationality) seem to care about it.
I do think there is a kernel of truth to what you're saying, but I don't think it's right to dismiss entirely the fact that representation IS important.
Historically, "rich white people" have been in control of the media, so it's great to see this group becoming more self aware. Sure, from time to time there is some overcorrection, but eventually things will settle down and the world will be better for it. We should let people with compelling stories tell their stories! Now that streaming is the norm, there's room for everyone, now that we're not limited to only the stories which are marketable for primetime.
Speaking from my own experience, I have been so so happy to see so much positive representation of LGBTQ characters in mainstream television / movies lately. As a kid, I had no positive examples of LGBTQ adults in my life, so I had no choice but to struggle by myself. Whether we like it or not, many children learn about the world through television.
It would be difficult to express in words how deeply moved I was to learn that Disney Channel aired a children's show ("Andi Mack", [1]) with a gay main character, whose relationship with another male character was a major plotline. Shows like this give LGBTQ kids characters they can relate to, and gives non-LGBTQ kids a positive story about someone who is different from them. That children today might not need to deal with the same pain and isolation that I felt as a kid makes me so incredibly happy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andi_Mack#:~:text=Andi%20Mack%....
This idea is insidious.
Firstly people have to remember fiction is fiction. The reason why the first few seasons of Game of Thrones was compelling was because the world they lived in didn't have any modern sensibilities in it. The more they threw in modern sensibilities the worse the show got (thought the action scenes for the most part got better).
There was some show recently where Black slaves in the USA had taken power over the whites and a white KKK member from another dimension somehow got transported there. Some decried the show and wanted it banned. I thought it sounded excellent, because it was soooo divorced from reality. Same with the "Man from the High Castle". The setting in which the enemy won WWII was compelling.
Secondly just randomly pushing people into roles for the sake of representation ends up cheapening any genuine effort. The Wire was brilliant because the huge number of black people being in the show made sense. At the time I didn't actually notice that most of the cast was black.
You know what the end result is. It made me notice skin colour when I didn't used to and made me start to resent any effort (no matter how genuine) because I know there is probably some quota involved somewhere to pander to a demographic.
> Historically, "rich white people" have been in control of the media, so it's great to see this group becoming more self aware.
It isn't self awareness though. They are projecting their prejudices onto the rest of us. This includes places where it just isn't relevant and makes almost no sense.
How dare they project their prejudices onto me in an effort to absolve themselves of guilt, then have the gall to tell me that I am the one with the problem when I object to it. Fuck them!
I clearly remember when I decided I wouldn't watch anymore broadcast television (this was about 8 years ago now).
There was a show hosted by Scottish Comedian Frankie Boyle that was infamous for his offensive comedy. On that show there was a rich Canadian woman on the TV telling people in the audience that all men had done through the centuries was raping and beating women.
Then there was a black musician called "Akala" telling me the British Empire institutions were guilty of perpetuating racism. He seemed to be obilvious to the fact that he was on a British Institution being broadcasted to every home in the country.
Other the gross oversimplification of history. I had nothing to do with it (nor did my family as they were all very poor). It would be like blaming today's Germans for what Hitler did. It is absolutely disgusting.
You know what the end result of this is? It made me hugely suspicious of any claim of sexual misconduct or racism. It is the classic story of the boy that cried wolf.
> We should let people with compelling stories tell their stories! Now that streaming is the norm, there's room for everyone, now that we're not limited to only the stories which are marketable for primetime.
Maybe I am getting old but I remember a lot of this already happening. I am not saying it was perfect and I don't disagree with it in principle.
Recently "Black Panther" was released. "The first black super hero" they said. People seemed to forget Wesley Snipes played Blade for 3 movies (starting in 1997) and they were the first Marvel Movies and made the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe viable as it showed that a comic book property could be successful.
Before that we had the "There are no female action heroes" they said. Forgetting all thrillers in the past with heroines, a whole movie franchise called Aliens, Cherry 2000, Nikita, Tank Girl, Buffy and a bunch of other movies I have probably forgotten about where the woman had taken charge of the situation and won the day.
People increasingly think that the world before they were born didn't exist.
My idea of representation is: Let people with interesting stories tell their stories. Modern audiences don't really care if the protagonist looks like them, so let's push for interesting stories rather than a specific character archetype. Invite writers of all backgrounds to the table, and allow their experiences to shape the story.
This seems to be changing : in France young Muslims are now placing Sharia above the secular law :
https://www.marianne.net/societe/laicite-et-religions/des-fr...
Note that the USA (and European Union, and of course the Muslim countries) are blamed for the dissemination of this dominant communitarian model.
I'm gonna have to disagree with you here and reiterate a point from a "Co-optional Podcast" episode from years ago:
Games don't _have to be_ "FUN", they have to be "compelling" / "engaging". The thought that games can only be fun is a relic from video games's infancy stage much the same as once upon a time when films/movies were new and there were only short slapstick flicks. The medium film matured to where a film can be about utterly horrible things/ideas but it's still seen as a good piece of media because it was "engaging" on some level.
"Buy our new awkward conversation asset flip; it's NOT FUN!!"
Yes, playing CKIII I feel the need to be included when I setup an African cannibal tribe that invades Europe and commits genocide.
Gamers in particular are notorious for "cancelling" (ie, refusing to buy / play a game) due to one or two small issues. For example, see loot boxes in recent games.[1] How much these small vocal groups impact sales is still up for debate, but gaming publishers would probably try to avoid bad press if they can help it.
So, rather than spending months of time and resources trying to explain to 12 year olds' parents why there's slaves in a game, it's easier to simply omit that part of history, or rewrite it to be modern-day-friendly. It's a "work of fiction" after all.
[1]: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-02-21-call-of-duty-b...
Yup. The point is that almost no one cares about history, so even a few people whining about "inclusion" is enough make a nonsense historical game.
Forget about ancient norse and greeks, they can't even make a halfway accurate WW1 game.
In any case, game developers are trying to break the cycle where games primary cater to one demographic, where all inaccuracies put in are so that one demographic feels better about themselves. And then lesser engagement of demographic that is not catered to (instead the games sometimes insert inaccuracies that makes them feel even worst) is then chalked on "they naturally cant be interested, lets cater to other demographic even more".
I think playing the historical accuracy card here is pointless as games (and popculture in general) always sacrifice accurracy to increase fun - no point in getting upset over this one specific thing.