How Gaming Is Owning the Diversity Argument

Are diverse games great? Yes, and Prey can show us why.

[SirCharles]

Prey isn't a good game because it has diversity. It's a good game because the story is entertaining and the gameplay is solid

[Injusticewarrior]

I don't know, the top 100 movies on Imdb are all there cause of thier diversity... Right?
:)

[IxWoodstockxI]

My god I hate the media. I can't wait for WWIII or the end of the world.

[The 10th Rider]

Especially after watching that Bill Nye "sex junk" video . . . If you haven't watched it, just be warned it may cause you to become suicidal.

[oof46]

That....disappointed me. It sucks when the "science" guy has no science in a skit.

[ZombieGamerMan]

fuck diversity, just make everyone into straight white men. Everyone from now on only buy games with an exclusively white cast with no women in it just to fuck with these diverse freaks and kick them out of gaming

[NecoTehSergal]

You can hear the headlines already: "GAME CAST FULL OF FUCKING WHITE MALES! LIKELY MADE BY HITLER FACISTS SEXIST PIGS!!!"

[medman]

+zombiegamerman
Those who call others "freaks" many times don't realize that they themselves are the real freaks, and get upset when reality, such as it is, impedes on their myopic view of the world, and how they believe things "should" be. You're living in a bizarro world.

The world has passed you by. Seek help.

[ZombieGamerMan]

medman No games with non whites for you!!! No color either just pure white and male and straight. F.R.E.A.K. No diversity for you.

[JayPi3]

Why does diversity make people so angry? Why can't we have good gameplay and diversity? Gameplay first of course, but can't hurt to mix it up a bit. Sometimes it seems like people here certain words and get bothered and start mocking it. and end up being more annoying than the people they're making fun of.

[Eiffel]

There's nothing wrong with diversity. It's the matter of artificially enforcing it via an agenda. If any artist so chooses by their own choice to have a character be whatever color under the rainbow then that's fine. When it's blatantly politically motivated is where it becomes often condescending pander. It should be insulting to everyone, especially those being pandered to.

[_-EDMIX-_]

". It's the matter of artificially enforcing it via an agenda"

Well yes, but that can be stated about both sides.

What you are for is what many of us are for, artist choice.

It should be up to the artist....thats it.

"any artist so chooses by their own choice to have a character be whatever color under the rainbow then that's fine. When it's blatantly politically motivated"

I agree, but you'd have to also recognize that MOST of gaming has had characters altered and changed because of exactly what you stated.

http://kotaku.com/publisher...

So consider this has been already going on. If you can believe a game is being changed based on "politically motivated" or "pander" etc, you should by default also believe it has been changed and altered against the artist wishes to fit the majority, ie classic white male.

I want, what you want.

Artist's full choice.

[Gh05t]

I'll try to explain why modern concepts of "diversity" make me upset. If I show you two pictures with three people in each. The first one has three white males, and the second has a white female, an asain female and a black male and asked which of these pictures represents diversity, I would assume you would pick the second (or if you didnt most people in today's environment would). Which I dont blame anyone for, it is how we have been trained over the last twenty years. But now let me tell you that those three white males are from Australia, Russia, and America... And the other three where all from America, lived in the same town their entire lives, and graduated from the same school. Now if you were going to try to get the most diverse conversation going which group would help you do that? Then also realize that the choice most people would make before, 100% judged people on the color of their skin or sex, and not who they are or where they came from and what really makes them diverse. Skin color and sex does make us different but that is the start and end of it, its our lives, our upbringings and our culture that matter and skin color and sex does not tell you any of that, it tells you what color or sex you are.

So to claim that too many games with white people arent diverse because they all feature white people is just wrong. They feature people, from all walks of life, in all sorts of situations.

The other problem I have is to say that I cant relate to someone of a different gender or different race is completely untrue, we have words called sympathy and empathy, these words wouldn't exist if we couldn't relate to something that we haven't exactly had happen to us equally. So when I hear someone say that they don't have any role models of their race or sex, I cringe... Why not? How is this not exactly what we have been trying to fight against. How is it that growing up I looked up to Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen, and was a huge fan of Muggsy Bogues for being short and still able to play professional basketball... I dont remember caring that they were a different race than me, I still had pictures and posters of them on my wall. They still inspired me, because they were the best or overcame obstacles and still played at a professional level.

So the question is why even bring diversity up in relationship to gaming and stories in general? What are you trying to achieve? The story is created by the story teller, and if they choose to tell a story with certain characters why is that a problem? Why if I create a story with a white person does someone like this not give it the time of day to write about the complexity of the character I created, but if a story teller puts a female Ethiopian in the game then all the sudden its worth talking about? purely based on race and gender... how does this not raise red flags about what we value in life to begin with, How do people like yourself not see that you are literally shoving progress in the wrong direction while claiming to be moving it forward.

This article claims that games "...are allowing more types of people to be included." I want to know when they were excluded? They may not have been represented all the time but that isn't exclusion. I want to know what the true "problem" with diversity people like yourself see in games. There has been no lower barrier for entry to write books and make games and make movies and distribute them worldwide and yet people are trying to say there is a problem with diversity... Stories have never been more diverse in my life and has very little to do with the color of someones skin or their sex.

[medman]

+ghost
Your analogy is pretty terrible, imo.....the fact of the matter is if those two disparate groups were walking down any street in America, or many other places around the world, the white female, asian female, and black male are going to draw far more attention, some positive and some negative, than the three white males. The three white males may be able to go most places and be virtually anonymous. Nobody would likely give them a 2nd glance, and if asked to identify them at a later time may not even remember seeing them. The physically more diverse white, asian, black group would leave a longer lasting impression for most because of the physical differences....again, some positive, some negative based on peoples predilections, but certainly more memorable for the majority of people, one way or the other.

When speaking of diversity, you cannot simply ignore the obvious....differences in physical appearance are far more obvious to recognize at a surface level, and therefore will have a greater impact. If your first impression is visual, you base your frame of reference on that, not on someone's background, where they may have grown up, what languages they speak, etc. etc., because none of that is easily ascertained without further discussion. But we make snap judgements based on appearance all the time.

[rainslacker]

@medman

I think his point was that the issue of diversity nowadays is about the most superficial of things, and asks people to look at things which are superficial to determine the quality of a story, or the worth of a character, as opposed to forcing people to look at the character as they are to understand the context of the character themselves. Kind of like what our teachers did all through grade school, working for 12 years to make us look beyond the written word to read the context behind them.

The fact that people would have a more lasting impression of the "diverse" is more an issue of stereotyping and people's expectations based on social norms. It has nothing to do with diversity itself, because it is superficial, and means people still very much look only at the surface, thus the entire concept of diversity is just a means for people to try and feel better about themselves because they can accept that those of different races are now OK to see together, or appreciate in a story. but in the end, it's just as superficial as any racism, although obviously not as vitriolic. But I'll stress again, it seems more like a way for one to feel better about oneself.

More importantly though, he makes a good point about how the inclusion of females, those of different sexual orientations, or various races, seems to get a lot of attention from the press, and those who want to perpetuate this agenda of inclusion. However, little thought is given to the quality of the character themselves. Sometimes, what is a bad character is talked up as a good character just because of their gender or other things. All context is lost, so long as that "diverse" character somehow breaks stereotypes and is a "strong" character, even if they are the most shallow of characters from a writing perspective.

This was blatently obvious in the first new Tomb Raider game. The new Lara is a shell of her former self, lacks any kind of will of her own except where forced to have it for game play/story purposes, constantly has to tell herself she can do something instead of having the confidence to do it, is mostly just doing what is expected of her, and overall, is nothing more than a child in her attitudes. But people talked her up as a strong character, because of reasons I can't understand because no one ever actually gave a reason. The original Lara, despite her endowments, was confident, strong, independent, intelligent, and had the fortitude to do what needed to be done because it's something she wanted to do, not what was expected of her. She was a much stronger character, and many ignored that due to her breast size. So, you see how the superficial gets in the way of character?

Obviously, good characters can be more than just white heterosexual males. I'd even say that outside of some instances where the story is dependent on it, the race, gender, and sexual orientation of a character are actually irrelevant to if that character is good.

When we get to a point that people understand that, and stop making a big deal about the inclusion, and people can just look at the quality of a character, then the devs can make their games without having the question of if they are trying to meet some political agenda. But in doing so, they will be forced to make better characters. As it is now, some devs can cheat and just make something diverse, while ignoring the difficult task of trying to actually make a compelling character that fits into their work.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Because feelings =)

If a developer wants to have their game with diverse main character, that is up to them.

I want to play what they intended.

[Kurdishcurse]

Because diversity shouldnt be based on what you want. Its based on what the creators want. Simple logic really... i want a male mona lisa ok...mmuhh diversity.

[GameBoyColor]

Still no cambodians so no buy from me.

[opinionated]

How the diversity movement latches onto anything successful and claims to be the cause is quite hilarious. It would be entertaining if they weren't dead serious militants about it.

[TheOttomatic91]

Hey I don't mind having female leads just make them interesting characters don't put a protagonist in a game whose main selling point is whether they have a penis or a vagina make me want to get invested in them and their role in the story.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Well I want that from all characters so.

Any game can be bad bud lol

"just make them interesting characters" is someone aiming to purposely make them bad?

[aaronaton]

EA games ''How can we make what is perceived as a 'white only war' diverse so we can potentially market a WW1 game to minorities whilst in the safe knowledge that the white majority will still buy battlefield? AAhhh put a black guy on the front cover and shoe horn a couple of Indian guys in there too.''

[VTKC]

Diversity lol politically correct morons. The recent Fantastic4 movie has diversity, look how that turned out. The recent Ghostbusters movie had gender switch. Look how that turned out. MARVEL comics changing Tony Stark or IRONMAN into some teenage black girl. THOR is a woman. Spiderman a black guy and Wolverine a girl. All this pandering to feminism and sjw have done nothing but hurt their sales. All are suckers to ideological subversion. Wake up!!

[Inzo]

I am really starting to hate the word "diversity"

[Lennoxb63]

Nothing wrong with diversity. Somethings wrong with forced diversity. Like putting certain people in or out of a certain part of history that doesn't make sense. Like the movie Gods of Egypt that had mostly white people starring in it. Just imagine if a movie was made in London in the 1700s with mostly black people. That wouldn't make sense either.

[rainslacker]

A game isn't great because it's diverse. A game can have diversity and be great though. The two are not mutually exclusive, and the premise that diversity somehow enhances the product and makes it great is a fallacy. Good devs, good writing, good story, and good character design with things that make sense to the context of the game is what makes games great. The diversity itself is just an extra which may or may not have any bearing on the greatness of a game, and if it's put in without any actual thought other than to just be diverse, then it's probably not going to be all that great.

[C-H-E-F]

Everytime I see her, I just think about the lies she told about Watch Dogs and The Division, hmph..