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Ethnicity / Gender / Etc. In Games
I don''t want this to become inflammatory, but I have a reasonable question:
If you look back at the history of character presentation in games, you may notice a general lack of variety in terms of ethnicity, nationality, gender, etc. It''s only been of late that that''s changed somewhat, as games like Unreal or Diablo show.
Do you think character choice is due to developers and their vision of their game world, or to the target audience and their tastes?
I think Lara Croft shows us that it''s due to the developers. The argument that the target audience would not want to play a woman character doesn''t seem to hold if you look at their sales. Is it different because it''s a gender issue, or does this apply to nationality / ethnicity / etc?
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Just waiting for the mothership...
We've replaced ethnicity and nationalities with races. In MOST games, there is no nationality, humans act as one. They have others to contend with such as elves, dwarves, etc etc.
And those games that show different nationalities, they don't actually give away that that person is that certain nationality. Example, in FF8, they don't say that Rinoa is Asian. They don't need to. Giving away the ethnic info on her would probably have no effect unto the game itself. (Well, at least to me she looks Asian with those chinky looking eyes of hers)
USUALLY, about the only games that have a variety of ethnic groups are the games based on realistic life-sims or shooters such as Syphon Filter, Metal Slug, Metal Gear etc etc...
Gender? Hmmm, no comments...
To answer your question, both issues have an effect. It's both the developer and the target audience. The developers can be whatever race as long as they don't offend the audience to a degree.
Edited by - Nomadic Soul on October 18, 2000 8:38:08 PM
And those games that show different nationalities, they don't actually give away that that person is that certain nationality. Example, in FF8, they don't say that Rinoa is Asian. They don't need to. Giving away the ethnic info on her would probably have no effect unto the game itself. (Well, at least to me she looks Asian with those chinky looking eyes of hers)
USUALLY, about the only games that have a variety of ethnic groups are the games based on realistic life-sims or shooters such as Syphon Filter, Metal Slug, Metal Gear etc etc...
Gender? Hmmm, no comments...
To answer your question, both issues have an effect. It's both the developer and the target audience. The developers can be whatever race as long as they don't offend the audience to a degree.
Edited by - Nomadic Soul on October 18, 2000 8:38:08 PM
quote: Original post by Nomadic Soul
(Well, at least to me she looks Asian with those looking eyes of hers)
C''mon, no slurs please. I want to have a serious, mature discussion, not get this thread closed. Thx!
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Just waiting for the mothership...
My guess is that it is mainly due to the developers, of course the target audience is very important. >>THis is slightly off-topic, but related. In Japan, I have read that they prefer their characters to have a orange/yellow tinge rather than the pink tinge that we give our characters. There are companies that try to help with localisation as well.
Also in Japan they tend to go for COOPERATION games rather than western Solitary hero games. The exception being the BIOHAZARD series (Resident Evil), which uses the ENGLISH speech and Japanese subtitles to give it a Cool factor amongst the Japanese. In Japan they also take aversion to iconic characters dying.. so when Lara dies in the Japanese version, she is surrounded by a blue-forcefield and warped back to the start.
I would HIGHLY welcome more ethnical diversity and female / male characters in games. I liked Barrett (a black character) in Final Fantasy 7, and although I felt that he seemed to have been *stereotyped* as angry and slightly less articulate than the other characters.. "D..damn" I felt that he grew on you throughout the game, as his affection for his family were shown to you.
Also in Japan they tend to go for COOPERATION games rather than western Solitary hero games. The exception being the BIOHAZARD series (Resident Evil), which uses the ENGLISH speech and Japanese subtitles to give it a Cool factor amongst the Japanese. In Japan they also take aversion to iconic characters dying.. so when Lara dies in the Japanese version, she is surrounded by a blue-forcefield and warped back to the start.
I would HIGHLY welcome more ethnical diversity and female / male characters in games. I liked Barrett (a black character) in Final Fantasy 7, and although I felt that he seemed to have been *stereotyped* as angry and slightly less articulate than the other characters.. "D..damn" I felt that he grew on you throughout the game, as his affection for his family were shown to you.
This topic is closed to new replies.
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