Why No Black People in Video Games??
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- čas přidán 19. 05. 2024
- I've been playing games my whole life, and today I'd like to talk about how there aren't a lot of Black video game characters. A lot of what I say also applies to other minorities too, not just Black People.
Please try to keep it Civil in the comments but not Civil like the Civil War please no not like that
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Music Used:
Secret of the Forest - Chrono Trigger OST
Here Come the Titans - Attack on Titan OST
Smash Bros Brawl Main Theme
Super Smash Bros Ultimate Main Theme
Smash Bros Brawl Main Theme Remix
Star-Shattering God 2.0 by jusprox - • Star Shattering God 2....
Godhood // Xenoblade Trap Remix by Jusprox - • [Slowed + Unswung] God...
Undyne Fight Theme - Undertale OST
Pursuit: Cornered - Phoenix Wright OST
Star Spangled Banner - United States OST
Miles Morales Underground Combat Theme
Wii Sports Theme
Wii Sports Theme (Trap Remix) by OSRSBeats - • Wii Sports Theme (Trap...
Super Mario 3D World Final Boss (Trap Remix) by GoldlightXHiphop - • Super Mario 3D World F...
Kingdom of Predators - Hunter X Hunter OST
Desire 2 // Fire Emblem Fates Hip Hop Remix by Jusprox - • Desire 2 // Fire Emble...
Thang Jingle - Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion OST
Spider-Man 3 Black Suit Theme
The Great Cross-Examination ~ Moderato - The Great Ace Attorney OST
Joint Reasoning The Great Deduction (Type A) - The Great Ace Attorney OST
Pursuit ~ Last Promotion Version - Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies OST
Super Mario 3D Land - Snow Mountain Remix (Trap Remix) by Chappy - • Super Mario 3D Land - ...
Humble by Kendrick Lamar Instrumental but I'm doubling the beat on bass
Chapters
0:00 Introduction & Disclaimers
0:25 Smash Bros Disappointment
1:28 More Disclaimers & Excuses lmao
2:23 Nintendo Games & Diversity
4:09 Great Black Characters
5:03 Black Characters in Games
6:35 Character Creators
8:26 Japanese & Western Games
9:32 Don't tweet this
9:52 Honestly I just kind of ramble here
11:11 Representation Matters & “Forced Diversity”
12:34 Reddit Moment & Who Really Plays Video Games
14:39 Black History Fact of the Day
14:49 Black People in Fantasy Outrage
15:08 Logic & Reasoning Spectacular
16:45 There can just BE Black People
18:04 Final Thoughts
21:14 Closing
#WhereDaBrothas - Hry
PEOPLE, I BEG OF YOU!
PLEASE ACTUALLY WATCH THE VIDEO BEFORE EMBARRASSING YOURSELF IN THE COMMENTS SECTION!!
My goal for the rest of the year is going to be to get better at Green Screening lol
Anyways, if you enjoyed the video, don't forget to SUBSCRIBE!!
One thing this video didn't have time to talk about is that representation is more than just skin deep.
It would be marvelous to see more uniquely Black Stories told in big budget video games, however I'm not sure that, at time of writing, the current game industry is necessarily best equipped to handle that weight. Hopefully someday though.
Also a lot of what I say in video is applicable to the representation (or lack thereof) of other minorities too, not just Black People.
Good video👍, I'm sorry for you having had bad neighbors in the past, they sound like A S S
Well what about tf2s demoman?
I liked the video and made me realize we do need more diversity but not forced in cuz that’s what corporate wants.
We need to find that balance of “why are there so many straight white guys?” And “why is there 1 not straight white guy that was forced in here cuz of corporate.”
Honestly, just have an AI that randomly generates the models and characters. Same build and body (aside from gender) but just randomly made characters and same animations that were already included.
So you admit you don't play any fighting games? There are plenty of black characters in fighting games. Sports games too for that matter. Otherwise this just sounds like more Nintendo bashing; it's not Nintendo's job to mandate diversity ahead of creativity in their games.
If you're so passionate about more black characters in those style of games, learn how to build your own games or form a team with other people so you can make your own. Stop being dependent on other people for your desired representation, and represent yourself. Otherwise you're never going to get what you actually want; this should be common sense.
@@samalton5837 I literally talk about sports games at 4:45 and fighting games at 5:07.
Please watch the entire video BEFORE commenting in the future.
I love this video. Personally, lack of hair options bother me the most. Not having black characters is one thing but giving me a character creator and not allowing me to be black is wild
Duuuude ifkr it's always bothered me too, just lemme be myself in a character creator y'know what I mean 😔
As a person who plays NBA 2k this has never been a problem but for every other game yeah 😭
I think what's bothersome about that over just not having black characters is the promise of "make your own character. You can be yourself!" and literally not being able to create yourself is just the biggest fuck you to the player.
The game essentially says "oh not even as a custom character do we think you're worth being allowed in this game." It's ridiculous.
Tru like how you make a bunch of models for hair n shit but can’t add a feature to change the skin color
Cough…Elden Ring…..Cough
My problem goes like: imagine being part of a cultural minority and whenever your culture appears in any media it's nearly always played as a joke or a gag character lol
The pain
Exactly. Asians get it the worst.
And when you dare to have your own character in a white persons show, suddenly you’re the bad guy….
The Star Wars fans proved this again….
@Seggs Master Oh great, more racist bullshit….
What minority group are you from?
As an indian guy that is almost never represented in any media as anything other than a guy wearing a turban or doing yoga and breathing fire or something, I relate to this video
I’m an autistic guy (white in the US if that gives any context) and one of my best childhood friends was also autistic and she was half Indian and half British and we easily bonded over our special interest in Pokémon and often joked about there being no Indian characters. Then sword and shield came around, based on a place with a pretty substantial Indian population (Great Britain) and we got multiple that are probably meant to be Indian. (It’s technically unclear cause it’s Pokémon but still) not just that, but your main rival and his brother who is the champion/strongest trainer of the region, and other characters. She really enjoyed getting to see her fairly unknown culture (at least where we live) get shown off so openly in the largest franchise in the world.
Honestly yeah. And as an Indian woman.. I thought I’d probably see my own death before I’d see a protagonist who’s a woman with skin color darker than beige. Then came Raji. The game itself was okay but I enjoyed the heck out of it because I am badly starved for some representation.
There's over a billion people in India.
Game engines and tools are free and more powerful than ever, and you can learn enough just with free youtube tutorials and there's thousands of super cheap learning courses online.
Out of those over a billion people, where are the indian game devs?
An interesting thing in anime is that dark skinned characters in Japanese settings usually are tanned Japanese people, Okinawa people, Indians and other South East Asian people because those are the more common dark skinned people in Japan. In Shokugeki no Souma we have two dark skinned characters among the important characters, one is a tanned Japanese girl and the other in an Indian boy.
^
What the hell is that guy talking about? 💀
Made me realise a lot of things I’ve never considered. Especially the hairstyle thing I was like “oh fuck he’s right”
I don’t think i want goomba hair cut
@@Meatslap yeah, we need better hair than gumbas
Does the hairstyle part matter realy i undestand the rest but i don't think hairstyles are a big deal or a deal at all .
yeah a lot of things, even if it pertains to the group we are in are kinda missed because we are conditioned to think a certain way. I always try to go out of these ways of thinking, but yeah sometimes it's like.... my brain cannot handle this. My life is already full of bs and now I'm learning there is MORE injustice in my life? IDK we the people are just... tired. But compared to other things in this world that REALLY need to be fixed... this one is a quick fix... just imo.
yes it does matter 💀@@Adam-wg2rf
"As a life long black person." Omg dude that had me rolling.
if he believes strong enough, everything is possible!
dont give up, remember mj !
😐
"Do you remember how they whitewashed Daisy?"
No, my neurons were firing too rapidly.
I was like, "Damn, I DIDN'T remember that until you brought it up!" Then I realized how fucked up that was.
@@nathanrailsback9667 and she’s from a desert kingdom so it would make more sense for her to be dark skinned
@@t.funkthecoolmunk5472 Granted her original render during the N64 games was just too similar to Peach at the time, but I liked that in the latest Mario Golf game, they gave her a slightly darker skin tone, I was hoping that would stick, but unfortunately Nintendo can't decide what the hell to do with Daisy to the point of taking away her personality.
Daisy was very pale in mario land her first appearance
@@beanieboi7743 Lmaoooooooo
😐
OH MAH LORD OKAY SO Heroes of the Storm's character roster is made up of all the Blizzard games (originally Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo, Overwatch added later), and I remember when they added their first Black female character in 2019. She had to be INVENTED SPECIFICALLY for the game. They did not have a Black female character to add from any of their existing franchises - not the demon war one, not the space war one, not the magic war one - so they had to invent one. What an incredible moment to summarize the history of game development.
I got hacked on twitter for putting a black character in an art piece. Getting called "racist, woke and the reason why black people in media is horrible now adays" I am a black person.
Like info doxxed?
@@pixelander It was like taking over my twitter account by somehow getting hold of my passwords mean they must likely found my personal info
Welp, this is the society we live in when Blk ppl doesn't like to work together and beat on other Black people in the black community. I think the Spanish community and some other ethnic ppl also work together but i mean, i heard my dad saying it so like..yeah that's just the reality sadly.
@@CircleGaming2763 you werent doxxed, you were hacked... This is why its important to have ways to protect yourself (and your privacy) both in the physical world and in the virtual one, I am sorry this has happened to you.
How were you hacked? Did you click any suspicious links?
"There are Japanese Black people!"
Thank you for acknowledging my family's existence.🇯🇵
Technically half-breeds. Like me, western European on my father's side and southern African on mother's. Too black to be white, too white to be black.
Oh my goodness,the amount of times PEOPLE get flustered and their panties in a bunch over me having dark-skinned characters from Asia,specifically Japan,(in a story of mine,one of the main protagonists is literally black and grew up in Japan all his life) is insane. and it’s always frustrating,because I know dang well if he were white,nothing would be said. Absolutely nothing.
People think of asians all light skins complexion, but there are a lot of brown complexion folks out there too. Curls and all
Ah yes. There was a video of a guy with a japanese mother and an african american father. So yeah there is in fact Japanese Black People.
wowee
Customization is always a struggle.
I always go “o wow I can finally make a character that looks like me”
*looks at hair options
“Um ok I guess I’ll be a black guy with a perm”
Hahahaha fr
Lol or just be bald. That’s every male black character I’ve made in a FromSoftware game
Why would you want a character that looks like you anyway? Go for fantasy, not realism.
I just go for the bald look everytime I stumble across that situation.
@@mjt1517 it's still fantasy. Lots of ppl like to see themselves in different settings. It doesn't take anything away from the game
spitting facts, and your humour is on point, really nice video. it's great to have perspectives on this topic from black gamers, really appreciate the effort you've put into this!
I answered this question years ago when Game Informer did a whole article on it. The answer is that there just aren't very many black game devs. In my opinion it isn't an intentional exclusion, just that most artists tend to create based on their own experiences. That's why when you do see black characters they're typically just a stereotype. Like the character Tyler from Indigo Prophecy, or Fahrenheit, depending on what part of the world you're from. What we need is not only black game developers, but black game studios if we want to see that kind of change. I would rather push for more of our community to go into game development and creation rather than push people who understand nothing of our cultures to try and shoehorn in their version of a black character.
I propose an extra clause for the black-del test. So hear me out:
The black characters shouldn't immediately die
Fair
And shouldn't be stereotypes
nor kill
Nah, if I was developing a game, I would want to have the option at least to have any character be killed early, no matter what the skin color. Having black characters specifically excluded from that feels unnecessarily restrictive.
oH mY gOd HoW dArE yOu BrInG uP sOmEtHiNg sO UNREALISTIC????!!! (sarcastic)
"HOW DARE THEY BRING POLITICS INTO MY GAME ABOUT
war."
Well to be honest we want to have fun playing war shooter games not bring real life into it and make it all depressing
@@lordbeerus5990 i get your point but war is literally politics
@@chao3948 yeah technically your right especially if its historically accurate or has a historical backing to it but most war games tends to focus more on the events that take place in the game. Not to mention theres also fictional war/shooter games like killzone, gears of war, lost planet, (maybe metal gear solid) etc
It's competitive fighting not war
@@user-qg4ho3wx8s its high skill trolling
I'm still wondering where all the short men are in media, comic books and video games.
Play deep rock galactic, that’s where all the short men are.
link and wario are right there
You make a lot of great points. I never thought about not having anything really resembling your hair texture in a game, that's kinda messed up.
It's hilarious when they complain someone is Black in a universe with purple, green, red, etc aliens. Like they'll accept an alien with purple skin and 30 arms over a regular Black dude. Shit crazy.
Retarded gamers when they see a minority, a different sexual orientation, women and etc: Omg politics in my vidya game
Lol
Yeah, like "I can't immerse myself" says the white neckbeard whilst playing a purple female elf.
@@cve486 haha
Aliens don’t bellyache about everything.
The hairstyle thing hit the closest to home for me. I'm only half black, and I'm lighter skinned, so the curly hair is kind of my only indicator. I don't always try to make myself in games, but when I do its irritating
same brother, but im full black, my mom straight up ran out of ink and all i got is my black curly hair 😂
@@RESURGAM. same
it's impossible for me to make a mii
yeah im white but the traditionally black styles usually looks so damn good when done right too.
such a damn shame how few there are
me too
but I am black tho
you 're really funny and you made a good point, subbed
I'm immediately subscribing. AMAZING vid man
It’s a stretch but the homie Ganon counts in my heart as a brotha
And the way he's always a villain is lowkey messed up.
(They even try and give him a sympathetic portrayal in Wind Waker, but Link doesn't really do anything new with that info).
Well in ocarina of time he is just a male gerudo turned evil so, yeah he black
Arguably the most popular Ganon (from OoT etc) is Gerudo Ganondorf, and Captain Astronaut as do many others also consider the Gerudo from BoTW black. So you can justify Ganondorf being black if you think the Gerudo are black, right?
@@pablitotorres8254 I think the demise curse helps explain things to a degree, but like in Windwaker he mentions that his region was barren and in need of resources. I also think Hyrule's royal family at the time wasn't really willing to help in that regard (not unlike our own geopolitics and race).
I'm just hoping that curse gets yeeted in botw2 and homie ganon gets a fair chance at being his own person.
Lol he's not black. He's comes off as middle eastern.
“I’m a black, Scottish, cyclops. They got more feckin’ sea monsters in Loch Ness than they do the likes of me”
-Tavish Degroot, sometime in the 60’s
**Scottish Music Starts Playing**
Most game companies: nooo that would be racist
Valve: Imagine caring
Got to love the demoman
wooooooo a character that represents TWO minorities, is it even allowed ?
@@devforfun5618 Yes, finally some cyclops representation! Go poseidon!
I've been doing my own world building for a TTRPG and the best thing I found for world building diversity is Map making. The name of a place and it's geography matters and I often have to make sure that I keep the regions and trade routes between them in mind. All that to say I 100% agree with your point about diversity in Fantasy. There really is no excuse not to include it.
I'm currently studying game dev at college (about to go to uni for it, yay!), just thought it may be a small comfort to know that diversity is a theme in the course, they even have charts now to make sure the game hits all the boxes (though its a problem in its own way that we need one...), ill try to keep the advice about realistic representation in mind going into the future, thanks for the amazing vid!
Explains why your games are shit then if it needs a checkbox. Imagine caring more about that than the story. No wonder ya’ll bomb. Good riddance.
@@DarkEclipse23 may want to check if the person has made a game before you hate on them for it lol (ive not)
"I am a straight white dude and I'm dissatisfied because this game only has one straight white dude and he's locked behind progression/paywalls!"
Damn, he was so close to getting why people make a fuss over diversity, wasn't he.
Could you just enlighten us then? I can't seem to decipher what you're trying to say.
@@jb34ch1 That redditor was upset because the game was "too diverse" and he was unable to pick a character of his race, and when he finally got ONE option to do so, it turned out the character was lacking in key ways (he didn't like the character's personality or skill set). This took away from his enjoyment of the game enough to complain online about it.
Almost like what people of colour have been upset by for years now. I'm white, and even I see the irony.
@@jb34ch1 They're saying people of colour have this exact experience with most games where it's just one black character locked behind progression/paywalls, or they aren't even playable.
Lmao exactly
I mean having the only character you can relate to locked is pretty bad.
Oh I just realized what you were talking about.
I've noticed character creator hair options aren't great from a gender-perspective, either. With Japanese games in particular, making a male character gives you about 1/3rd the options of female characters, just in general, and there's always a few that just look silly and unappealing. And most games gender-lock the hairstyles, so it's even more limiting.
Same with typically afro-centric hair. Very few games will allow you to have course hair, an afro, or anything afro-centric. So you got dark skinned characters with straight hair, which i feel like doesn't feel like black representation.
At last, the japanese games have better options, than the western.
I hate most hair stils in the western games, because, they didnt even come near to my wish for hair. And that is simply, straight, flatt hair, without any extra and a pony.
How are the hairs of most western games?
Nearly all of them has free foreheads. Or are to short. Dont have simply semi long hairs. Or, have some extra or fancy things in the hairs.
ya but like, a man with some haircut thats meant to go on a girl is throw up worthy
cough cough* man bun
That's one of the reason Miis are/were so cool, you had no limitations based on genders.
@@aliceslab I don't know, some guys make the most incredibly femme styles work, though not everyone has the same tastes. Vomit-inducing is kind of a worrying reaction though. You might want to stop and examine why a dude with his hair in a bun bothers you to the point of illness. Sounds like a symptom of possible fear of people who defy gender norms or your expectations. Lots of people take the sight of people subverting gender expectations as a direct assault on their personal masculinity/femininity, which is unfortunate.
You make so many great points. It's just the colour of someones skin. Why are they treated so differently
Great video, I like that you don't say it's all just because of racism. If more creators voiced their opinion like you did in this video, i think people would be a lot more receptive to the idea.
I want to see dark skinned characters who are: animal lovers, book nerds, awkward, techy, snobby, haughty, humble, quirky, shy, religious, or snarky or any other traits that you see used constantly by lighter skinned characters. Representation of skin colors falls short when you cycle through the same 3 tropes.
This!
My personality has never been on a video game black woman 😭
@@XmrcaptainbobXCool, I can’t wait to play it with my friend Kanye West!
Virgin "normal fictional game characters":
Read useless books, aka nerds who get bullied and always think about how world revolves around them, have really high levels of narcissism.
Don't know how to fight, learn it only midway or at the end of the story.
Most of the shy and quirky types soon become cannon fodders or go into irrelevancy.
Sometimes, they are so over the top of their tropes, you begin to question authenticity of them existing in real life, for if they did, they would be socially ostracized.
CHAD BLACK PEOPLE VIDEO GAME CHARACTERS:
Only 3 trope behaviors, all delivered excellently.
Since birth knows how to put up aa good fight, his homies are always by his side.
Always set in DA HOOD, where everyone lifts, no bullshit hobbies.
Most keep it real, some snitch out and become bad, but overall, they are all believable and likeable.
And overall, they all are just trying to live a life normally, but circumstances force them otherwise, still humble about themselves.
actually i could do with less religious black people. that's actually a very common trope--even barret talks like an incensed pastor. and i'd be warry of a lot of these otherwise. representation falls short when you cycle through the same 3 tropes, sure, but one of those tropes for black people is negative personalities. i'd much rather take boring black characters then to deal with the catch 22 of "we exist, but we either die immediately or have a bad attitude". representation also falls short when your representation is primarily negative; i want black characters treated like the main characters, fuck being a side character with a shitty personality.
@@malum9478 I prefer my Negroes magical, personally.
Honestly, out of all the mainstream games, I can really appreciate Pokémon for going the extra mile.
Agree but just want to point out that the sword and shield "black charcters" are actually "brown"(british-indian or Indian immigrants)
Edit:- yea I meant to write to be of the respected country's pkmn works counterpart
They go the extra mile of adding things no one cares about but won't go the extra mile in making a better game. Arceus doesn't even have followers.
Agreed.
@@Valstrax420 Yeah their work and creativity is becoming half assed lol. Plus they are completely running out of ideas for Pokémon too lol. Literally repeating the designs of previous Pokémons once again now. Plus their main series games have become completely repetitive and it's almost becoming 30 years of doing it. But oh well... everyone buys it either way because it's Pokémon. So they have nothing to lose and the undefeated have nothing to learn either.
TFW the extra mile has been in play since the beginning of the franchise but was regulated to maybe only two named characters.
A good watch that my wife and I enjoyed immensely!
As far as recent POC that we've enjoyed, Claude from FE3H comes to mind, Maru from Stardew Valley, and Urbosa+Riju from BoTW.
The editing style, the humour, the pacing and the music everything in this video just kept me so entertained that I'm impressed. Please make more content like this!
“Remember how they whitewashed Daisy?”
*remember how they left her out of Mario strikers: Battle League*
Yet another example of white genocide smh
She’s home… and Shy Guy, I guess. Man that game was more barebones than launch SFV
@@kinoleogeo7998 yeah gladly
I like your pfp
Daisy was as white as mario was in her very first game appearance...
It would be refreshing to see more dark skinned characters and WITHOUT some sort of stereotypes. Your skin colour doesn't dictate a particular personality after all; people are diverse.
They should maybe combat it instead of perpetuating them. Then they get into a rage when called out on it.
But, but, muh black experience/struggle!
@@dansmith1661 The ones perpetuating the stereotypes are different than the ones who aren't perpetuating stereotypes.
exactly!!!exactly!!like Leroy Smith in telling is basically a black iPhone man which is awesome and not stereotypical and if u have a problem with diversity than play sports ages and fighting games they are one if the best games in terms of good diverse representation
ppl rly forgetting steve is black
13:50 had me in stitches 😂 GREAT job with this video! Showing to my Digital Media students on Monday
New to the channel loved it! / subbed and liked! Great topic and pleasantly suprrised that there is more of a discussion going on than just trolls looking for their daily fix of miniscule rays "of sun shine" in the comments 👌🏾 great work!
I was always one of those guys who said "Oh, I don't really mind if I never see/play a character that looks like me, as long as the story is good". And then the Shang Chi movie came out, and while it wasn't the "Black Panther for Asian people" that the world expected it to be, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel pretty happy about seeing someone who looked like me on the screen paired with cultural stuff that hit pretty close to home. That being said, I also liked the "stereotypical" stuff, so take this with a grain of salt.
Today I learned that JSGWAM is Asian.
Neat!
I think I'm the same way. I'm happy if I see it but I don't mind if I don't.
Damn, didn't think you was Asian, but cool I guess.
Good to know
Literally half or more of the gaming industry is Asian so.....
Jet Set Radio was Japanese and came out in 1999, and it featured not one, not two, but THREE wholearse playable black characters, one of whom was female. Jet Set Radio Future came out three years later and featured the same cast but with another playable black female character. And guess what? The world didn't fucking implode. JSR and JSRF are, like, the only games by a triple A publisher (Sega) to feature black female playable characters that I can think of.
(okay until apex was brought up)
Sega does what Nintendon't
Wow, so either you're too young, or haven't gamed for that long. Virtua Fighter has Vanessa, DOA has an Afro-Mexican girl, Tekken has Raven Master, and there's more from other games in addition to that especially when also adding male characters to it.
This is the dangerous rhetoric that happens when people don't know history, including their own. You should probably play I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream as that also has an African-American woman in it who is playable.
@@samalton5837 I mean I am sixteen so that would explain it
(Although I will say, I'm not sure how asking for more diversity in games is "dangerous rhetoric", and he did actually mention fighting games in the video)
There’s Age of Calamity (Urbosa) and Arms (Twintelle) as of now so that’s at least an improvement.
I've never played Jet Set Radio, but isn't inspired by American youth culture? Hmm.
I am an african 2D animator. When developing my story i only realised i designed white characters when it came to exploring themes of slavery, colonisation n religion. Honestly, i think white writers don't have any bias when writing these stories. People will always base their stories out of what they know. In trying to fabricate they might offend the minority even more because what they will create is not a true reflection of these people. I believe the best way to solve this problem is for black creatives to write and create their own characters and stories. I am not american so i don't know how much this means to you. But as an African who has never lived in a white community i can only learn more from watching videos like this. Moreso, Black Panther is a good movie with bad African representation
Dear Lord, I almost fainted at "Goomba"
It has been so hard to create myself in games every time I get to a character creation screen I end up praying “Please have dreadlocks PLEASE HAVE DREADLOCKS!”
that's why i personally just don't and i create anything that isn't human if it allows me to. literally in most character creations i would just make a white character lmfaoo
It crazy cause dreads are the coolest hairstyle imo. Why not have it as an option? Don't people get tired of making and having the same usual rehashed protag?
I would cut them, anyone that has even remotely crossed paths with you would thank you.
@@deepblue8143 Are you...anti-dreadlock? 💀
@@themightybristolbomb yes just like everybody else. It's not so much that as just anti filth. Of course you can't smell it because you are used to it but have some consideration for others around you.
I don’t understand how people can get upset about their being “too many” black people in games while also saying “if they’re well-written characters their race shouldn’t matter”. It’s not propaganda if it’s just reflecting reality.
If a game is pushed as being historically accurate and it's set in or based off an area that almost exclusively has one race at the time people will be upset if said race isn't represented accurately.
@@giovanni6643 agreed. If the game is set in 1400s Scotland, I don't expect to see any black people. However, if a game is set in modern day New York, I expect some diversity.
The answer is simple, their problem is that they're racist. The whole "If they're well written" statement is just a cover
In that case wouldn't the argument be something like "The racial depictions of characters aren't historically accurate" rather than "there's too many black people"
The way someone responds to something is very telling.
"Reflecting reality" is always the go-to excuse, even when reality was nowhere like what's supposedly being reflected.
Extremely supportive comment: Loved ur vid, great watch, learned something new today.
splatoon is a total exception to this, youve got great customization and 2 very important black idols :D
in matches you see people of all skin colors and its great
My issue isn't representation, it's the fact that when a black person is shown in a non-historical piece, it's considered "forced diversity"
Like the story can have well written characters that just exsist without refering to their race, or just be a good game, but people write it off anyways.
Not always, look at Game of Thrones.
"forced diversity"
Not true, It's only really forced diversity when you have tokenism. When you have proper adaptations or the creation of original characters of other ethnicities that were written to be on the story from the very beginning, you'll rarely see anyone complain. The problem arises when Hollywood will ignore all original ethnical characters in favor of tokenizing other characters
Weren't most cases of forced diversity not well-written in the first place?
@Smash 123 I mean they are literally forced, there is a law hat make it an obligation to include a black character in a movie, that's why we have so much tokenism in Hollywood. Of course the law does make sense as Hollywood used to be devoid of any black representation whatsoever. But now that law is causing many problems. Still producers and directors are partly to blame anyway fr being scummy and not adapting characters to represent these ethnicity, many of which already exist in books and comics.
@@bloody4558 no there's f*cking not? Don't spread BS
"I have no problem with women and blacks in video games.... but"
'But' is such a powerful word
I have no problems with the actual age of consent, but…
I am dead, BUT...
I want video games to be well made and fun ... but
im not a furry.........but
But.
I’m so far behind on this, but damn if my students didn’t make the exact same observations about Smash in our after school gaming club. Great video.
God this makes me so scared for the youth seeing insane comments like this
Really enjoyed the video, you made a lot of good points. Great job.
Something people have to realize is that you can criticize media you love. Just because I love a game doesn’t mean I think it’s perfect! There’s always room for improvement. This mindset can be applied to imperfect game design so why can’t it be applied to their representation too?
Critiquing a medium of art, whether it be a film, a photograph, or a video games, is a sign you care about that medium and therefore want the best from it.
@@florpleborp2275 It should be, but many people do not understand this. To them "I like something" = "It's perfect"
@@bloody4558 Id like to add that you can like trash things the thing is to not act like just because you like it it's automatically ggod
@Russian Waifu What is "Forced Diversity" to you?
@Russian Waifu okay "Russian waifu"
"He even made the first game to have a Pause Button in game!"
Okay, hold up, Gerald "Jerry" Lawson ought to be one of the most revered and respected video game pioneers of all time. Not even kidding. The interchangeable cartridges thing is obviously important, but the *pause* button? Beyond essential. That is one hell of a legacy.
I was aware of the cartridges, but didn’t know about the pause button.
Pause
Kidding. RIP to the God. Yet ANOTHER reason why Elden Ring is racist. There is no pause. Fuck that game.
Pause.
@@thorocomments817 there actually is a pause button, hidden behind some menus, there's two ways, the one I remember is by pressing the map button twice and selecting the second option, the other way is through the start menu, don't remember the exact way, but it opens the same options as the map one.
@@gustavonomegrande seems like a lot of hoops, lol. Thanks for this, though!
@@gustavonomegrande same with Nioh. Had to menu, the press start.
Lawson: I think we should incorporate a button to pause a game at anytime.
Elden Ring / Souls Fans: What's a pause button?..
this video has opened my eyes thank you for making this! your advice "your character doesnt have to capture the black experience, they just have to *be black*" is extremely helpful.
now im reconsidering *why* some of my characters are white- is it actually important for that character specifically, or am i just afraid of misrepresenting blackness?
To be honest type casting black characters is super cringe. When I see it in games or movies it’s kinda annoying. In the black experience as much as the world is diverse so are black people, we all don’t listen to rap and hang out in the hood etc etc all the stereo types that misrepresent us. You have black people who enjoy death metal, and are alternative etc etc. just like some white people like gangster movies or like rap and hang in the hood and is the unusual white person there shouldn’t be a type cast as humans we all live different lives and disagree with one another, the type casting of characters just need to die and it would be better for the future stories. Just my 2cents as being “black” and growing up seeing the same as you less diversity even though we live in a diverse world lol so silly when you really think about it…
@@nashambenyisrael7689 I feel like every time a black person says black people are diverse and have all sorts of interests and personalities, white people think, "yeah, but those guys are the exception and only make up a small percentage of black people."
I think white people think this way because I'M white and **I** used to think like that no matter times I heard (on the internet) that black people are diverse. Unfortunately, it's really hard to get over stereotypes until you personally interact with people and see for yourself that, yeah, people are just people.
@@abstract5249 I mean, stereotypes exist for a reason. People biases and perceptions of other national background unlike their own stem from a basic understanding that is apparent to those individuals?
FOR THE ALGORITHM! This deserves to be seen!
The animal crossing story about your mom broke my heart. Holy crap, that's heartbreaking.
Ikr I literally felt quite sad after hearing that :/
Right? That's so depressing
It was sweet and kinda sad
You should probably go to the hospital
very heartbreaking :(
It drives me bonkers that people get so hostile to others who only want to see more of themselves in media they want.
My entire life I was expected to relate and consume media that was spearheaded by white male leads. And I did! Dare I say I loved some of that media. But theres such a wonderful personal connection when you see someone like you in something you watch/read/play that's difficult to articulate. Its what I felt when i watched El Tigre, or the Book of Life, Coco....
Of course, my experience as a Mexican is very different from a black person, but I can heavily empathize with the angle of media and cultural connections.
BS
I related to a lot of characters that are like me and they don't even have the same race as me. Spiderman, Batman, and some of my non black friends irl.
I personally stopped seeing race
Genuinely, I don't care about the race and gender of a character as long as it's the relatability that allows me to connect to them
For instance, I don't dislike a female lead because they're female, but perhaps because their writing is terrible, or they're nothing more than a political push
(Btw, there are many beautiful female leads in games and movies, Ellen Ripley is one of the best female protagonists of all time, I can and will debate you on that)
But for me. It depends on writing, relatability, and enjoyment.
I don't have to be a 16 year old Japanese boy to like or relate to tanjiro from demon slayer, but I can like and relate to him through his writing and struggles.
As for representation, I don't really care
Hell, in games, I typically just play as a female character, because I like women
I don't look for a Hispanic person to play, but if there a Hispanic tomboy in the game, then more power to it
I'm just the type who won't care if there isn't
Eh as a mexican Me vale mama
@@DerekDerekDerekDerekDerekDerek wth is wrong with u
Idris Elba as Solomon Reid in Cyberpunk’s new expansion is shaping up to be such an exciting and interesting central character to the DLC, though I think they do a pretty good job of inclusivity as the city the game takes place is a “melting pot” to begin with, it’s nice to see more people of colour playing central roles in the storytelling of bigger games like Cyberpunk 2077
Love this video, thank you
As an African I've grown apprehensive over these kinds of videos because the end result is usually a demand of bad faith representation where they insist on changing established characters and labelling every non-black character as problematic and then telling me that I have to be outraged at it because I'm black. Which is why I am So SO glad that this video wasn't one of those, there was genuinely not a single thing I disagreed with in this video and you even called to attention some things that never even occurred to me, so thank you for this Astronaut, this will be my go to video to link if I ever enter a discussion about this topic
Yeah same here, except I'm a black American. A lot of the time these sorts of videos essentially make the "race swapping is good because white people already have enough representation" argument, but this one neatly avoided making that argument and spoke against it. I personally don't care about representation in videogames because in games where I can create my character I always design them according to the game's worldbuilding. I never thought of custom characters as an extension of myself or having to be relatable, to me that's a bit weird and larpy (but I get why others like it even though I disagree).
@@AudaciousBourgeois I completely agree with you there friend, like idk why so many people don't realise that you don't fix discrimination with more discrimination, that's how we stay divided. And yeah I'm in the same exact boat as you on character customization, I never spend more than like 5 minutes on that, I just make them dark skinned if I can and call it a day, otherwise I just pick the default option since 90% of the time they're going to be wearing a helmet anyways lol. But I do put in a lot more effort in life simulator games like Animal Crossing or Sims where the entire point is for the character to be a direct extension of you.
Yep African not equal black and vice versa
Same here, I'm aware of the current climate of anti whiteness and thought it was going to be another sjw video, but he's just asking for reasonable representation.
If you wanna lose an argument, then sure, go ahead. Dude says he doesn't want established characters to be race swapped but a minute earlier contradicts himself by praising representation in Witcher Netflix show where established white characters from books are played by black actors.
You know something I find interesting. How different cultures see cultural representation in games. I'm mexican and every time I see a stereotypical mexican with a sombrero and heavy accent in a game, I find it funny and I commend it. We enjoy representation even if it's stereotypical. Every mexican and their mother loved seeing mario with a poncho and Sombrero.
And yet people worried about representation ironically tried to cancel Speedy Gonzales and the Mexican community rose up and smacked their hand and was basically like "stop that stupid shit". lol.
Its like when someone says 'we need more strong black voices on this" and then Candace Owens talks and they're like "but not you". Actual representation would be "good, now we need more voices from other perspectives too."
But IMO most of the time the idea of representation is co-opted for people's personal gain...often by people who have nothing to do with that group.
@@Ralathar44 Usually the people crying over it are American born Hispanics who don't even speak Spanish, real Mexicans don't give a shit.
I remember when they removed Mario with a sombrero from the cover of Odyssey, people actually got upset because it was nice having him there.
@@BaltaBueno I grew up in South Texas in HEAVILY Hispanic communities. The only part of your comment that is correct is that there is a deep division between American Hispanics and Mexicans. Ironically Mexicans have this sort of harry potter "mudblood" mentality about American Hispanics insomuchas the less "culturally pure" you are the less of a person you are. The lighter your skin is the worse of a person you are. The more "white" you act the worse of a person you are.
It's basically just racism against subsets of their own race and it gets very very ugly. Right on down to gang violence.
I've seen the same in black communities but not to the same crazy degree that Hispanics do it. I'll never understand why people are such assholes to each other for no good reason. But it has nothing to do with actual race and everything to do with people wanting to feel superior to each other based on a buncha stupid bullshit.
Growing up on that fundamentally how I view racism. Because even if we were the same race we obviously just find new shit to discriminate against each other with.
@@Ralathar44 Just to give you a heads up my friend, what you described with "The lighter your skin is the worse of a person you are" is called "colorism" and it's also a massive problem in the black community.
ETA: It also goes the other way where darker = worse
@@Words-of-encouragement.-. It's got touches in the asian community too. Each group even has its own terms like coconut, oreo, banana, meaning brown/black/yellow on the outside and white on the inside.
It's disturbing and seeing it happen first hand and so prevalent in any majorly racial area basically removed any idea that we were ever going to "fix" racism. Best we'll ever do is change how it presents. Because it was never actually about race in the first place. People will just replace race with something else and enact all the exact same behaviors.
The difficulty settings for the new south park game its hilarious, you change the color of your avatar and white is easy and black is hard.
9:00 it's so true and everybody is tired of it XD They're all basically the SAME DUDE. Also I appreciate how balanced and holistic the reasoning was. Frankly I think the arguments made here are beyond criticism, and they're a lot kinder and more understanding than they could be. I'm gonna be sharing this!
i've watched this video like 4 times and as somebody with cornrows the cornrows joke gets me everytime
I WANT NAMES
names
who did this to you cousin
They got my boy shroom 😭
The comments be killing me
If you think black people lack options, imagine being Native American lol
But ya on a serious note as an ethno-historian this is mostly well constructed for a non-academic essay.
You also did a good job picking up on the coded racism included with some of the criticism of inclusion in media.
can confirm as a native american
Oh man how about the lack of Eskimos in video games? We can keep going on and on and on...
Trails of cold Steel got a Native American kinda character
@@sace3 isn't that because most full-blooded Native Americans no longer exist due to the fact of the white man murdering them?
Assassin's Creed 3. Character is half Native American. Although I hated the game play compared to Assassin's Creed black flag lol.
You're right, its a shame the way games do that. Now that you've brought it up, yeah its kinda weird, although in the upcoming years I'm sure that'll change.
I'm pretty white, but here's how I write races in fantasy for anyone who cares to dismantle it:
Step 1: I write the dynamics of a character personality.
Step 2: I write their backstory based on birthplace/cultural influences.
Step 3: I establish their skin tone.
Step 4: I never let Step 3 become more important than 1 or 2.
So far, this seems functional. Personally, I am bored of slavery being used as an easy backdrop for civil unrest in fantasy settings so I try to avoid skin tone being a contributing factor in anything regarding a character aside from their physical appearance and physiology.
I would say you're spot on. Fantasy stories don't have to inject our real life issues into them. So literally skin tone can just be skin tone. I applaud you for your considerations of others.
I wish most people thought like this😔
This is how I always have said it should be done.
I never saw the problem with characters not looking like me. I'm white skinned (mix race tho) but I dont need white characters just to feel included.
For example, I still loved watching Everybody Hates Chris despite nearly the entire cast being black people. I never thought anything of it, I just thought of them as relatable characters that happened to live in a predominantly black populated city.
Keep doing things the right way: character substance first, skin tone after. Just like anybody with the right mindset should be seeing people.
See this guy already has a problem with that because he thinks that if u do 1 and 2 then ur being racist lol this video is too vague because on purpose
This can get you in trouble with SJWs though. I have heard that white people should "stay in their lane" when writing fantasy as they could never "comprehend the struggles of black people" - from a white liberal professor. I think that might be one of the many problems contributing to lack of black diversity in media. Racists on the right and the left play a role.
"What are you talking about? There are Japanese black people". Absolutely, sir. Absolutely. Happy Father's Day to all the Dads (and Moms who perform that role too)
Not disagreeing with the point of the vid here but there are very few black people in Japan comparatively. If you go to a train station you might see 1 or 2 others and that’s really about it, very different demographics.
By definition no. Lol.
That is something very common in the internet and dialogue in general. People use generalizations all the time, simply because saying "all x is y" is shorter than "most x are y". Normal people know that there is black people in japan, it is just that they are lazy to say it in dialoge.
@@hollowman9410 they're not Japanese. They're black Africans. They will never be Japanese.
Blacks cannot be Japanese
Thank you for actually doing research.
I love this video bro ✌️tekken & soulcalibur is 2 video game series that brought in some of the coolest black characters like Raven,Bruce Irvin and Zasalamel
Soo, I gotta admit, as a person with the complexion of a mozzarella my first thought was as well "but there black characters in video games" and went through a list in my head... and then it clicked when you said, mostly never more than one, and nearly no main chars.
Well, you're right and it's really fucked up that I haven't really realized it before, since not being represented (for my ethnicity) was never an issue and so I didn't develop the point of view for that.
The game industry (and movie industry, while we're at it) really needs to do better.
What a lovely comment about your perspective. :'') Thank you for realizing these things, thank you for the support
@@unripetheberrby6283 Normally my response would be "you're welcome" to any thanks in my direction, but it feels weird to say that in this context. ^^
I hope I'll learn more to be a better ally and thank _you_ for your kind comment :)
@@Magrat_Knoblauch Most based comment I've seen all week. Also, don't be too hard on yourself, it's common for us in the "default human" category to simply not see the privilege we have with representation. Not because we're stupid or secretly racist, but because we haven't seen the shoe on the other foot. That bias is a universal human trait, by the way. And, the point is of course not to make people feel guilty. What we *can* do is realise what's going on and advocate for things to improve, just like you did :)
@@Magrat_Knoblauch Hah Thank you for the thanks! 😂 Please also try not to let the considerations weigh you down much in the future; I pray people can be a good team on these kind of situations and continue being truly helpful and, empathetic with each other whenever it's possible, or reasonable. Since we're all basically the same thing with a lot of emotions and thoughts of our own. If we ever cross roads somehow again, I hope I'd be a open-minded person and listener of you too
ed: Plus I hope you have a good day/night or week or whatever you'll have!🙏😌 lol
Well, it depends on the type of game, I had a couple of games in my days as a 16 bits Sega kid with black characters : Adam in streets of rage 1, Sammy in its sequel, the black guy from forgotten world, Jax from mortal combat, balrog from Street fighter II and given I had at most 10 games in my collection, the rest was either mascotts (sonic and such), sports and racing games or ninjas (shinobi what a great game)
few characters come to mind because few characters manage to capture the zeitgeist : FF7 managed to capture the people's imagination and what a shock everybody remember the characters and it might be the only black guy people could site on PSOne with Tekken characters that also manage to arrive at the right time.
If you think about it almost every game non story driven have a black version of the default protagonist : Jet set Radio, bust a Groove, Crazy Taxi, Any figthing game.
The problem is limited to story driven games where japanese people make the most memorable characters (and in japan they have 1% of foreigners including whites).
Western studio just don't make interesting characters in my mind : white military-like short hair dudes, but whatever the skin they always go with characters that are bland and somewhat of jackasses rebel attitude exuding from their skin,
aside from lara croft, (and even she is kinda bland if you don't count her sex appeal) what European / American compelling character comes to mind (not including comic books characters?), personnaly I have a harder time finding a character I'd like to cosplay as, choosing a character from westerns games.
My point in one sentence : impacting the collective mind is nearly impossible and I think western studio are really bad at it, unless they have billions of budget and make GTA or overwatch
14:48 I was drinking water...and nearly lost a laptop today 💀
I'd love to see a part 2 of this featuring the other topics worthy of discussion! Starting with the politics in the mirror
Oh hey, nice seeing you here :)
@@dariusjohnson3318 once again I spy a Nero with my little eye 😂
how is that even funny?
You killed me with the Goomba joke. But you made a valid point I never knew talking about video games would be this interesting. Im a black programmer and we need to get more blacks and diversity in the companies creating these games then it will trickle down to the products.
You can tell by some of the comments many that many people never bothered watching the entire video and feel that their worldview is the only acceptable one.
I think what makes people dislike "forced representation" is that its implemented in a really shameless and stereotypical way, like, if you look at how some writers represent other races, genders or sexualities they usually end up making characters that are just walking stereotypes, like black characters have to be loud or a comic relief, or gay characters have to be overly feminine or masculine and every action they make has to announce that they are gay ect.
This makes people dislike this characters because they are just badly written, they dont feel like real people and thats because real people have their own unique identity regardless of their gender, race or sexuality.
At the end of the day representing others shouldn't go beyond a well written character who is also black or asian or whatever really, with that just being a characteristic and not their entire personality, otherwise it feels "forced" and just annoying to the people you're trying to represent really.
TLDR: Don't make "black characters", make characters who are black.
then the people who are being represented would be the ones voicing their opinions on the alleged annoyance, but that's rarely the case, is it? it's always people NOT from that group. usually white, usually straight, usually male, etc. the fact of the matter is that the characters could be written like gold and the complaints would remain. the reason people dislike "forced representation" is no other reason than bigotry. full stop. the same groups don't give a shit about characters being boring or badly written nearly as much if they're a white boy.
and actually we do still need "black characters". see, this is the issue, and why actually talking to a black person for once in your life is important--on both a personal and professional level: when the black experience is ignored entirely, it's how you get weird shit like keanu reeves coaching a little league team of black kids going to a catholic school in the 90's, like that's a real thing. for those unaware: black folks in the US are predominantly protestant for a variety of reasons. black catholics are more likely in latin america, the islands, and europe (black italians). while you can do this in a way that's clever(paramount+'s EVIL is a really good example as a major factor of david's character and struggle is that he's one of a handful of black catholic priests in the WORLD, hk rec) it's an example of something not making sense for a black character and clearly being an example of white writers and directors not understanding black people.
the "colorblind" approach is almost as flawed as the nothing approach; you need both types. you need characters who's experience isn't defined by their "black experience" but also characters who are unabashedly very black with a very black experience. and in both cases, if you ain't sure: we are LITERALLY. ALL OVER THE PLANET. and even if you don't live next to one of us: THE INTERNET. IT EXISTS. compensate us for our time and give credit if you're getting consulting for a professional endeavor. it's that simple. i refuse to believe this is a thing people really have trouble understanding.
@@malum9478What Im referring to in my comment is stereotypical behaviour, not the "experience" you are talking about.
I understand your point and you are partly right; of course there are differences in how someone lives their life based on their race, gender and/or sexuality, (those are parts of someone's personality and body afterall) but what Im referring to is stereotypical, untrue and often exaggerated characteristics that can end up being harmful by reaffirming the stereotypes they are based on.
For example:
Im not quite sure what you are referring to as "the black experience" in your comment but, lets say a writer wants to represent that experience with a character and the writer ends up writing a walking stereotype that completely misses the point of that "experience"; that could end up being harmful to the image of the "black experience" that the people who see this character have and that is the type of scenario is what Im talking about.
This is also completely ignoring the fact that we are all human and none of this shit should really matter tbh.
But the fact that more and more writers in modern media are following this trend in which a character has no personality beyond their race, gender and/or sexual orientation makes it clear that they dont really care about making good characters or a good story ,they only care about making more money by tricking people into relating to some charicature of themselves.
So yeah the problem that I have with "forced representation" is that its lazy, greedy, pointless, possibly harmful and honestly just really annoying.
Also don't assume my race, sexuality and gender based solely on my opinion pls and don't forget that discrimination is something every single person in this planet suffers reagrdless of how/who they are thx.
This is precisely why I dislike the idea of representation. Dont put a character in to "represent" shit. Characters need to exist because they are people involved in the story. This is the entire basis of why people scream WOKE at much of modern entertainment. Halo, Cowboy Beebop, Star Wars, The Witcher, Resident Evil, Saints Row, G4...The list continues to grow.
Modern writers are guilty of precisely what you describe here. Their entire perspective is based upon one thing and one thing only, which is gender, race or sexual orientation. When those aspects take on more precedence than development of a competent plot, it's a surefire sign of woke pandering. How do you determine whether or not those aspects will take precedence over the plot before the show/game/movie is released? Pay attention to the first things the creators are excited to tell you about.
They should never under any circumstance tell you anything related to gender, gender roles, race, or sexual orientation. If they're trying to sell you a product or earn a subscription by peddling that, you know it's agenda based and you can safely and smoothly avoid wasting your time and attention on that drivel.
Yess thank you
@@dueydeebs5848 Halo, Disney Star Wars, and Cowboy Beebop were not "woke". They were poorly written, which is why they failed.
It never really bothered me growing up that the characters I would play as usually didn’t look exactly like me, and I didn’t need them to. I do think it’s great that things are gradually becoming more inclusive in many aspects of the gaming industry. As long as the characters aren’t tokenized, and are allowed to have arcs outside of their race or something. Good video!
This was all pure facts, subbed.
I adore Sonia from TotK and just came from your video on that and yeah you're right. It's sad how so many of us white people will deny ourselves the joy of the darker skinned characters because we can't get over our bias
From a young age I always wondered why so many of my games never contained people that looked like my friends. I hope things continue to get better and better and we’ll get more black leading games/characters!
Out of curiosity have you ever figured out why that is the case? why we don't have that many diverse characters in western media?
@@missingdiamond6676 I’d say it’s a lack of understanding, lack of care, and it wouldn’t shock me if racism was involved. But I really don’t know, there’s a lot of factors. I’m sure there’s a lot of people that know better than I do.
I think while some of it is a bit of racism, a lot of big international games come from Japan, which is very homogenous. Korea is another good example of a homogenous country. As a result, they hardly have anyone who’s POC. A lot of it stems from simply never considering it because their diversity is wildly different from say the USA’s diversity. It is becoming more and more common for POC characters and customizations to be included as time goes on, and hopefully will be standard soon.
As for games made in the west, I don’t play very many of them that haven’t included those options. I don’t opt for them because they don’t look like me, but it seems to be more common over here. Granted, I wouldn’t consider one black character in a cast of two dozen white ones to be adequate.
@@spongii7937 Or maybe the fact that the majority of the west is made up of white people.
I don't care if I don't look asain enough to play Asain Games with asain characters. I PLAY THEM TO HAVE FUN. And if the only purpose you're looking for characters with the same skin tone as you and your friends but not the character themselves. Then what's the point?
The Mean Girls clip 😂❤ I love you for that
Good video. Personally I love Dedue from Fire Emblem. He's just a really good character and I love how they tie his background to his story.
Honestly, despite being filled with jokes, this is one of the most mature discussions I've seen on race in games, most of the time it's just people seeing racism that isn't there for woke points on twitter, or them just plainly being racist themselves, my hat is off to you Funny Astronaut Man.
Um, as a black person I've seen these same arguments being made for years and people trashing them as "toxic woke culture". This is not a new topic, it's maybe we are often more willing to listen, pay attention and empathise when it's someone we "know" explaining it. It's been some years that I've learned to truly listen to whoever is trying to make an important point and then rebuttal, if necessary.
Yes, and you sullied this conversation with your bullshit….
It's always one 🤣
....or most of the time people like you whitesplaining racism that IS there to cry & whine about "woke points". you snowflakes are just as bad. =)
The only reason I can see why they wouldnt, is that then they would be pressured into customizing characters for every race, which would then either lead to less immersion, or getting blamed for prioritizing one race over another.
Man, I can't wait to get into storytelling. There's a market for the type of stories I want to write. Great video!
Facts and same!
In Xenoblade 2 there is also some of the blades who I think fit, but they're also more minor than characters like Dromarch who serve no purpose so.... Justice for Vandham, I love that dude so much.
As a white male gamer, I confirm that this video has extremely valid points I have been seeing across games for years.
“As a white male gamer”
How many labels do you want? Yes
One individual doesn’t represent a whole demographic 😑
well no duh. just saying he talks about guys like me and I agree with the points he makes. and while I obviously don't represent the whole demographic, you have to use broad strokes when talking about broad topics.
@@somerandomyoutuber3509 The topic of race and inclusion has done nothing but destroying merit and artistic values only for the sake of fulfilling a quota. It should have been left decades ago... Centuries if you throw Marxist theory in the mix.
That’s why we just make our own stuff. We can be able to make our own narrative, and get ride of the negative stereotypes in video games ab us.
One thing that has bothered me for a while is that a lot of games that I have played with a character creator don't allow you to be a ginger, as in real life red head. It is either too brown or too red. I know it isn't as big of a deal compared to what others have to deal with but the fact I can't have my hair color without having a rgb slider is really annoying.
In other words I understand why you and other people are upset and you guys have my full support.
Goes from a red ale/chestnut brown, to orange, neon, cotton candy clown hair real quick.
NO SUCH THING AS A GINGER, JUST A WHITEY WITH RED HAIR.
This drives me nuts! I usually end up downloading custom content for more hair options or else design a character that looks completely different from me.
Haha
He's a ginger
L IMAGINE BEING A GINGER
Well Cole Train from gears 1 is still the best character and the perfect mood-balancer to that dark, but ultimately very satisfying "chunk the enemy" type game. He really mirrors the player's enthrallment at using these violent tools for personal enjoyment. The other characters take their own life too serious but it's still a videogame.
In the mii maker (switch) I was trying to recreate a black character I really liked that had 4c hair, and when I tell you it gave me nothing to work with I mean it.
I figure I mention this here since I have no where else to talk about this (and I refuse to be this open about myself on twitter)
That one part about how representation matters really struck me because when I began drawing as a kid I would only draw white or light skinned/coded characters simply because there werent any main or important black characters at the time when I was growing up. It got to the point where even if I drew myself, I'd have all my features down EXCEPT my hair, making it either a spikey mess like Naruto or just making it straight. Growing up around primarily white folk also didnt help at all as I was constantly reminded about how different I was. I believe it was when my brother and I were watching Soul Eater and this one character appeared named Killik. I was already a huge fan of the Boondocks, but this was different since Soul Eater came from an entirely different country. On top of that, he was just so cool and he sort of looked like me! (at the time) It deffinitely changed how I viewed my media forever and inspired me to draw more accurately. The people that say representation doesnt matter never needed it in the first place.
Also, if any artist say that "learning" to draw black people is "too hard" are hacks and arent good artists to begin with
@@Wishtelle I'm glad you could relate and I'm happier that we evolved ourself from such weird times 🙏
Same it's pretty embarrassing 😄
I personally find it hard to draw black characters, but I also don't draw them a lot. I'm willing to learn, and watching this video gave me some inspiration to draw more black characters. I agree though, it's easy to say people don't need more representation when you've always had it
@@shondon-.-4363 Yeah, my little comment at the end was very harsh and I apologize if it stung you or anyone personally. But you trying to draw black characters instead of not and staying stagnant is way better than the "artists" out there that dont even try and I feel like thats definitely worth something in the end
Wtf… is this a copypasta? i’ve litterally seen this comment almost word from word on other places.
I once heard a good piece of advice on writing characters that diverge from your own physical traits, cultural background, or even political preferences. It was to simply keep those elements undecided for as long as possible while writing out the story and building the characters for your story. I think it was from a Masterclass, where the author said that he only decided on the gender of the protagonist (of an eventually best-selling book series) very late on. That way you write from a relatable human perspective first without adding cliches or tropes.
EDIT:
I recently saw a video of one of my favourite actors, Denzel Washington, where he said something about how a black director was going to do a better job than a non-black director, because the movie's (Fences) theme was very much so rooted in the history as experienced by Afro-Americans, where the difference lies in not just reading some black individuals comb their hair with a hot comb, but also knowing what that smells like in order to understand those moments fully.
The reason I'm adding this to this comment is because I'm aware that it isn't always possible to represent individuals part of certain groups you are not part of unless you do very extensive research into the small things that make up their experiences. Which, I think, makes the difference between a work being considered "cultural appropriation" and "cultural appreciation".
This would be the kind of research you do after a first a first draft, however, after you've decided based on all the important beats of the story that the character would ideally be of a particular group and/or background. Again, it's not how you start writing, it's how you flesh out the character once you got to know who they are and how they can be relatable to as many people as possible before narrowing them and their experiences down.
I mean then again many of these games technically lack European characters tbh
In fact *there are prob more Asians than any other race in gaming*
@@thefatbob3710 to be fair Asian is a pretty big category
@@Brodobo East asian I mean
@@thefatbob3710 ohh yeah I can see that
Yo, that’s really interesting. If you don’t mind, I would love the name to the MasterClass!
never read comments is what i tell myself after reading all the bs on here daaaamn so bad makes me not want to play video games at all this is crazy.... the most eye opening part was reading all the sad comments yall need to go outside fr
**RESISTING THE URGE TO SAY DONKEY KONG AND WINSTON**
It's simple: if we (black people) want more representation in video games, then we have to make some and play the games these characters are in. Would it be nice for European and asian developers to add more black people to their games? Sure. But I don't think it's wise to rely on this form of "welfare of representation", banking on the solidarity from other races to "give" us a seat at the table. If we go that route, we won't gain any respect because "they" won't see us as peers, and all of the power is in their hands, allowing them to dictate what form that representation takes.
The irony about all the talks concerning representation is that it would also apply to Asians and whites. if there's something about humans that just NEEDS to represent themselves racially in everything in order to identify with it or whathave you, then clearly that would impact white people and Asian people, which would cause these creators to prefer their own race when they create these works of fiction, ergo its foolish to expect them to rise above their own human qualities and NOT do that, for the sake of satisfying that same biological itch in another ethnicity.
THANK YOU! George RR Martin put it best. when asked why most of his characters are white, he simply replied that it's because he's white. he wasn't being racist, but he admitted his works are obviously gonna focus on European oriented fantasy. he said as people get older and more POC make their own works, you'll see a lot more representation. personally I think Africa is too underlooked in civilizations and Afrocentrists try to only use Egypt and call it all black rather than acknowledging the great diversity within Egypt. I'd love to see a fantasy world similar to the Kush, Mali, Axum, etc.
I kinda agree with most of this, except you can have more creators of more diverse groups *and* also demand it from other creators, let's say European or Japanese. Of course it's not a must for them and not every game is meant to be super internal but a clear example would be a character creator that lets you pick tons but it doesn't cover everything. That's a great opportunity to tell the developers to care just a bit more.
yea i can agree w/ what you're saying. but also, it's just not a very hard thing to do either. Pokemon has been doing if effortlessly across all their forms of media for a while now. And to play devils advocate a bit, japanese media seems very open to representing europe, white ppl, and medieval settings in their fantasy. So I don't buy that they are simply creating characters w/ only ppl who look like them.
I like that I watch this video and of course the first thing I see from someone, who I assume is black, goes “If we want to see change, we should make the change and expect no one else to do it for us.” Clearly, the lessons learned from Malcom and Garvey’s movements have not be learned. It is not as simple as “more black businesses = better black representation”, as systematically these things won’t have an impact. To do anything, you need to learn it. The tools to learn it may not be accessible to you. And if they are, the means to distribute may be inaccessible. The situation is so much more nuance than “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” We are a social people. It make sense we tried to connect to each other and want to se ourselves in each other and work.
Tl;dr There are potentially thousands of black works from black authors about black fantasies and there’s reasons why they go overlooked.
@@ManiacMayhem7256 Egypt may have been diverse but the natives and rulers were still black
In college I studied game art and I was trying to make a 3D model of my best friend at the time who’s black and the sheer lack of resources about how to properly model black people hair was absolutely absurd.
Because, you have to admit it, it's a mess.
@@Adrian-pp6qy wtf is wrong with you, black hair can be in a variety of styles. so white hair can’t be messy?
@@chrisstewart6681 Yeah, natural straight hair just follows the shape of the head, curvy hair goes everywhere, hard to depict. wtf is wrong with me? Well, I'm not virtue signalling, like you. Natural black hair is a mess, hard to modell, this is one reason not to use it, 2nd reason, esthetics. You're welcome.
@@Adrian-pp6qy that’s why often times you can use actual references and techniques, most artists will often times keep finding a way to do it. Just.. idk think ? Not trying isn’t going to get you anywhere, especially since as an artist you must really push your self to the limits. You can also use reference of people with 4c hair
@@Adrian-pp6qy plus in the end it’ll feel great and actually builds you as an artist as to what you can do, pretty much opening you up to a wider range of ability
Yeees, representation is important. It makes everything way more interesting in terms of story and charakterdesign. Videogames could pull so many cool Ideas from authentic represented other cultures and learn about them and experience them to a degree. The only context in which it doesn't make sense to care about representation is in historical media. (I'm looking at you netflix Cleopatra "documentary") and even if you for example make a game set in historical medeval europe. You still can put in poc, that make sense in the historical context, like as merchants, politicians, war prisoners, spys or circus performers for example.
I am an aspiring writer, and I like creating fashionable characters; and being born white, and living in an area with mostly white people, I have trouble when designing black characters. I write fantasy stuff, and I've always wanted to create good black characters but I simply just cannot get satisfied with it's style, color scheme, or whatever, 90% of the time I try and create one. I think it might have something to do with the fact that I personally never had too much contact with black people directly, I don't know how to represent them in a satisfying way. Wish I knew more about the black culture and fashion.
It's good you have an open mind about these things!
Research helps a lot with this stuff. I'm an artist and I researched hair tutorials on CZcams, specifically for black and hispanic women. Then I would just draw what I thought looked the coolest.
It's been a while, so hopefully you've done some research too! Oh and I'd recommend listening to a variety of different voices for the ppl you wanna write about, cuz everyone has a different POV y'know?
I'm so mad, I wrote out so many paragraphs about my opinions on race in gaming, general media, shitty talking points from capital G Gamers, etc and I looked at the emojis I could use and then CZcams just deleted my entire comment draft. But anyway, this was a very informative and entertaining video (as I've come to expect as a long-time(ish) viewer) and I hope that this comment contributes somewhat to keeping the comments section the opposite of a klan meeting.
The next time you want to make a *long* comment, first write it down on a notepad or microsoft word like program to avoid these disgraces, then copy and paste it on youtube.
Yeah, can't trust CZcams connection. Copy it somewhere else before posting.
@@aIkaIi Sam? Is that you?
@@andymcclurg9916 gonna get whooped during lunch tomorrow?
Also, remember to reload the page 1 minute in to make sure your comment was actually posted, the youtube censor bot works in strange ways
Twintelle and Cyril are some of my favorite characters.
As a black guy, I've noticed how much white preference ripples through the anime/gaming world. It's fine if a white person looks nothing like a character aside from being white. People just accept her for the attempt. If a black guy cosplays a white character, it's the "ghetto version" and black people tend to get made fun of for the attempt.
Asia is racist to just about anyone who isn't in their country. So yeah.
You say that, but a white person is absolutely guaranteed to be ridiculed and/or threatened for daring to cosplay a character who isn’t as pale as them.
@@breakfastsquad9871 I haven't seen it. Though if it's possible, it probably exists. My point still stands.
I swear
@@kinkykink5235 if you haven’t seen it ,why even question something you know nothing about?
can we have part two where you discuss the topics (20:51) you didn't go into in this one, please?? would love to hear more from you on this because this one was so well done
Looking good in the logic and reasoning segment
The lack of hair styles in games has bothered me for over 20 years. Like seriously, it bothers me as much as the lack of skin options.
I've also been told all my life that my skin is too light for me to be considered black for most of my life.
Doubt it, bro.
@@Aden_III That sort of attitude he's describing can be seen on twitter dude, I don't think it's that dubious.
@@xXJLNINJAXx You said Twitter? I take back my doubt, Twitter is garbage
it's a game bro, not everything has to match you specifically or should match you specifically. I myself couldn't care less about my specific hairstyle not being in a game or my exact skin shade not being in a game or even my own ethnic people in a game. Because it's a game, stop worrying and have fun.
@@xXJLNINJAXx Yeah, probably a blue checkmark BLM ANTIFA SJW woke feminist soy boy cuck just annoyed about the lack of hairstyles. Probably tweets all day about how white people are the devil and there are too many hairstyles for them in video games and took gender studies in collage.
Twitter people are all like this, and anyone that suggests something that all gamers should also want is like that to.
Come on man seriously. Why wouldn't and shouldn't people want more hairstyle options? That's just more characterization opportunities that people are mad about because they're so terminally online that they see everything as a political battle field. So something that would be an objectively good thing like more hairstyles, is now a political issue that needs to be pushed back on by all the contrarians who would also benefit.