Gaming.... a "white mans" medium?

[Ack]

I've heard before that the reason anime characters ended up so exaggerated from actual humanity was because artists needed a way to differentiate between characters since facial structures are quite often similar in anime. So to make up for this, artists started designing characters with different hairstyles and hair coloring, somewhat bizarre outfits, or varying and exaggerated anatomical proportions.

As for characters in games, generally East Asian and Caucasian males are the dominant characters, mainly because those happen to be the dominant races of game makers. That's not to say there aren't game designers with different ethnicities, but they're not nearly as common and haven't had the same level of influence. There have been popular games featuring African or black characters as the leads or major characters. Crackdown, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Final Fantasy XIII, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing.

Fighting game have featured characters like Balrog (M. Bison for you Japan fans...), Zack, Vanessa Lewis, TJ Combo, B. Orchid, Eddie Gordo and Jacks, while Shaquille O'Neal and Michael Jordan both had their own non-sports video games...though the quality of them has been variable. Yes, easily the largest source of African American influence has been in sports games. Names like George Foreman, Ken Griffey, Jr., Deion Sanders, and Tiger Woods have all been the leading names to major sports games found in the title as part of the purchasing hook. Rap artists have also influenced video games, with titles like Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style, Def Jam Vendetta, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, and even Kriss Kross: Make My Video. While the characters can't really be given an ethnicity, rap did help start the rhythm genre with PaRappa the Rapper. I'm not trying to say if these depictions have been positive...just saying they do exist.

For the record, players can make black characters in games like the Elder Scrolls series, Asheron's Call, EVE Online (I know, as my characters in all these happened to be black...or a lizard, in Morrowind's case), and the Saints Row series. In certain First Person Shooters like Battlefield 2, I noticed that character models seemed to randomly spawn in as different ethnicities, while I've noticed African American avatars in other FPS.

I'm not saying there's an overabundance in the gaming world, but I think there's more than people realize.

[Breetai]

...I'm no historian but I can't help but feel that Africa as a whole has been underdeveloped for practically forever, missing many of the key moments that made the Western world as advanced as it is....

Africa has had some really advanced civilizations in the past. In the past few hundred years, Africa has been "underdeveloped" mainly because European nations kept them down. Think of how the Europeans treated the Native Americans basically like garbage a lot of the time and tried to wipe out their culture and languages, basically trying to make them "white." They also did this in Africa on an even LARGER scale. They did not "miss" key moments, they were actually kept from those key moments.

[ZeroAX]

I still believe that Africa as a land is too unfriendly for civilization to prosper. All of its greatest civilizations were the ones in the Mediterranean, in other words, the northest part of the continent. Thinking that an entire continent's population can't develop civilization due to other reasons is just silly.

And yeah Breetai, it sucks to be a Native American. I always felt bad for them, specially since their religion was so beautiful and about protecting the earth (and modern people still don't understand the practical importance of that lesson). But it's not only the Europeans that treated them bad. In South America though they did destroy an entire civilization.

Oh well, at least my conscience is clear, my ancestors didn't take part in colonization nor slave trade.

[Erik_Twice]

@Ack

It's true. You can't tell characters apart if you remove the clothing. It's also bad for animation as it makes them harder to move. Since animation is so conservative it also becomes the only source of creativity way too often, leading to a loss of talented animators.

Other than that I simply must agree with everything you said. I wonder if the increased focus on cinema and marketing deals to promote games are a big part of it.

In the past few hundred years, Africa has been "underdeveloped" mainly because European nations kept them down.

This is very debatable and not as clear cut as you make it seem. Consider the British Empire, for example, Hong Kong, India and South Africa are actually more developed than their neighbours thanks to it for good or bad.

It's also very unlikely that the American civilizations, in decadence and stuck in the Antique era, would be ever able to match the post-medieval world of Europe without their interference.

By the time the Islamic Empire started to dissapear it was clear that Africa was so stuck in time that it was not going to catch up anytime soon.

The treatment of natives differed quite a bit depending of what country conquered the zone. While the English and the Portuguese considered natives as inferior the Spanish regarded them as equal humans with a soul that can be saved and banned their slavery after an intense debate.

We also need to remember that the Aztecs were not exactly nice to the people they conquered and that got the Conquistadores many allies.

@ZeroAX

You are forgetting Ethiopia (led to the Red Sea) but the point stands, a calm sea is key in developing civilizations because it allows trade and interchange of ideas. Comunication is far easier in Europe and Middle East than in Africa by far.

[dsheinem]

There have been popular games featuring African or black characters as the leads or major characters. Crackdown, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Final Fantasy XIII, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing.

Fighting game have featured characters like Balrog (M. Bison for you Japan fans...), Zack, Vanessa Lewis, TJ Combo, B. Orchid, Eddie Gordo and Jacks,

And almost every one of these characters you mentioned are one-dimensional negative stereotypes of black people. The problem of quantity of represntation isn't nearly as important as the problem of quality of representation...

Oh well, at least my conscience is clear, my ancestors didn't take part in colonization nor slave trade.

Both of these things went on during the Greek empire, if those are the ancestors you are referring to (not sure if you are Greek by blood or just live there).

[TopherMan]

^This is simple, mate. You don't want to prove your claims? Cool, I will ignore you.

Sorry, had to fix your statement. If your going to say "we will ignore you" I would like to know first who this "we" is and then proof that they will also ignore him.

But part of proving something is from personal observation. If everyone just got their info from someone else then where did it come from, someone made an observation. Nowhere is the author stating anything as fact, only what he has seen. The title itself has a question mark.

On Japanese anime characters in video games, a lot of them were changed in Western releases, their look and attitude. Do we need to show all those ugly box art. I didn't think a lot of the characters were asian at all when I was a kid, there weren't enough clues.

This quote from you needs to be taken and put on every form of currency in the world.

Move over "in god we trust"!

And god damn... i''m not trying to kiss your ass for defending me... but damn you'd make a good lawyer

[ZeroAX]

Both of these things went on during the Greek empire, if those are the ancestors you are referring to (not sure if you are Greek by blood or just live there).

I'm talking about 15th-20th century colonization and Black people slaver trade. Slavery in the ancient world usually was with war prisoners. Just as bad? Probably. But at least it wasn't enforced with racial criteria and wasn't as big as slave trade between Africa and America.

And Greek colonization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonies_in_antiquity#Greek_colonies) was more spreading than taking over territory. The world was big enough back then to fit us all. I'm not saying we wouldn't have done those same exact things (global colonization/conquering, and black slave trading) if we were in the power/economical position to do them at the time. It's just that we weren't, so I can feel good about myself about that timeplace. Now the Indians on the other hand will have plenty to complain about ( *cough* Alexander the Butcher *cough*).

And there was never a true Greek empire (even though it's playable in Age of Empires ), unless you count Alexander the Great's, which lasted... what 50 years?


EDIT

Also (to talk about games a bit) Shaaz (or however you spell his name) from FF13 is hardly an one dimentional character, and he is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from a negative stereotype (minus the afro and role of comic relief character I guess, but those are minor things imo). I don't think I've ever seen a better parent in any video game. When his son was turned into a crystal, it made me a LOT sadder than Aeris dieing ever did.

[Erik_Twice]

Sent you a PM

OK, but somehow I didn't receive it?[/quote]
Wow, it's true. I wrote it but it isn't showing as sent =/

I will send you a new PM this evening, when I have time

[Limewater]

And almost every one of these characters you mentioned are one-dimensional negative stereotypes of black people. The problem of quantity of represntation isn't nearly as important as the problem of quality of representation...

I don't know that they were necessarily negative, but one-dimensional, sure. That's not exactly unusual as far as video game characters go, though. It seems to me that most human video game characters that has any characterization at all through the mid nineties at least were exaggerated stereotypes. Mario, most fighting game characters, pretty much everyone you encounter in Dragon Warrior III (even the Japanese-- I'm sorry Jipangese in the game), everyone in StarTropics, everyone in Magic of Scheherazade, the Contra guys, everyone in Punchout!, etc.

Actually, now that I think about it, I can't really think of too many video game characters who aren't one-dimensional, outside of a few adventure games.

I'd love to see more and better black video game characters, though.

[AmishSamurai]

I know at least for a lot of Japanese games, the characters are more "generic" than "white". Kinda like appearance-wise a lot of Japanese characters in anime have a somewhat western look. Thinking of non-white characters I liked in Western games, the two that come to mind recently are Jacob from Mass Effect 2 (I heard his romance option was a bit cheesy, but I played a male Shepard and didn't have to experience that), and Faith from Mirror's Edge.