Diversity in video games and whatnot

[RangerBoo]

I might have an answer to this. About a week ago me and my brothers boyfriend were driving to the store and while talking he told me the biggest shock to him when was the large amount of white people living in my town. Now he grew up and lived in LA and its was then that I came to a realization. Hollywood and many of these game devs, who are from the California metropolitan areas, believe that the world is California. The fact that there are places in the US and the West in general where there is hardly any people of color is unheard of and abhorrent to them.
Remember the bitch fit they threw with The Witcher 3 because almost all the characters are white even though the game was made in Poland where there is very little people of color living there? Its because they have never been to places outside of California or its metropolitan areas. Its quite short sighted if you think about it.

 

[Dr Fallout]

I tell you what these Nazis who reopened some 470 churches and were hailed as crusaders to save them from Godless Communism look pretty evil.

^ look at these fucking rape apes.

I'm sure the Soviet Union who wanted to keep a tight grip on it's newly gained territory after WWII (including half of Germany) is being totally truthful with their official account of what happened while their people were being freed from them.

Wow, a couple photos of the early war when the Nazis were welcomed disproves everything I see. How can Dr Fallout ever recover from this epic blow? I mean, these out of context photos just destroy anything I can put forward. Seriously, do better then photos that could have been staged.

I'm of the belief the Nazis were horrific monsters and the Soviet campaign against them, while understandable given the atrocities committed, was still horrifying.

And there's no need to lionize either set of actions.

Or say it could have been worse.

Especially given Eastern Germany ended up under brutal Soviet occupation.

Strangely enough, East Germany was actually quite insistent on being considered an independent nation and fought hard for the US to recognize them as a nation. Also, I find it hard to believe that being a puppet nation is worse then genocide, forced starvation, mass murder, rape and other war crimes.

 

[Vergil]

Wow, a couple photos of the early war when the Nazis were welcomed disproves everything I see. How can Dr Fallout ever recover from this epic blow? I mean, these out of context photos just destroy anything I can put forward. Seriously, do better then photos that could have been staged.

Right, I'm sure your wikipedia article is a much better source.

Strangely enough, East Germany was actually quite insistent on being considered an independent nation and fought hard for the US to recognize them as a nation. Also, I find it hard to believe that being a puppet nation is worse then genocide, forced starvation, mass murder, rape and other war crimes.

I mean yea once the Soviet Union stopped the genocide, forced starvation, mass murder, rape and other war crimes I'm sure the brutal impoverish puppet state was seen as better than what they had.

Also how did we get from talking about diversity in video games to the Soviet Rapist Internet Defense Force?

 

[CT Phipps]

I liked your post a lot better before the edit.

Yeah, that was before the posts of Nazis being nice. :p

lol then why is there a constant call for less White protagonists?

It's a call for more Black, Hispanic, and Asian protagonists. I'm sorry you feel for every dollar they get, a White guy gets less.

That's an example of forcing diversity into an already existing franchise. Why did the MAFIA franchise need to randomly totally shift setting and themes to be about racism against blacks? I've already been over this multiple times, Mafia isn't a series for crying about "muh wacism", create your own franchise for that, don't leech off of and ruin others to spread your agenda. I wanted a good conclusion to Vito's story not have him become a side character in some random shmuck's story so I can be lectured about my evil ancestors some more.

Have you played the game? LOL, no need to answer, I know you haven't. The game isn't about racism against blacks. It's a revenge story about Lincoln Clay fighting the Italian Mafia and establishing his own criminal syndicate. The racism issue was actually dissapointing and I intend to do an essay on it as it's nothing more than set dressing for the fact it's a very Saints Row-esque, "Kill these people and take over their business." The only difference between Tommy Vercetti and Lincoln Clay is the color of their skin.

I think they could have gone much farther, personally. As for why it's Mafia III, the developers said they wanted to do something new because they felt they'd done everything they could with the Italian mafia--fair enough.

The fighting in the Middle East wasn't the focus of the war at all. Yes there were some colonial fighters in Europe's COLONIES but they were in mainland Europe doing a huge chunk of the fighting like Battlefield 1 portrays. Making a WW1 game with a focus on fighting in the Middle East and an over abundance of black fighters in Europe is like making a WWII game about fighting Romanian Nationalists as Algerian colonial soldiers. It's borderline disrespectful to the source material.

That's assuming the point of the games is to be REPRESENTATIVE of the entire experience, which is something you've stated you're not interested in. Representation shouldn't be the point of video games, that's something we agree on. It should be about making the best video game possible.

Which I think could definitely do with more than just, "Here's a white dude shooting things."

Be more creative.

Another point for the Legion I guess

The male prostitute in Freeside says Caesar punishes homosexuals with death.

Strangely enough, East Germany was actually quite insistent on being considered an independent nation and fought hard for the US to recognize them as a nation. Also, I find it hard to believe that being a puppet nation is worse then genocide, forced starvation, mass murder, rape and other war crimes.

I'm with Finland in saying both are shit.

 

[CerberusGate]

On the thread topic, diversity is alright to me. I don't mind diversity if done right (i.e New Vegas as many have pointed out) but when diversity is done to appease rather than being done to keep the world consistent, that form of diversity should be scoffed at since all they are doing is attempt to be politically correct when it is not necessary. Lore and setting consistency and integrity should be prioritized while diversity should be implemented properly rather than the token effort most games do these days with (i.e including token side characters so that they can claim that they have 'diverzity' and the like).

It's why I rolled my eyes at Polygon's claims that the Witcher 3 was racist for not having enough people of other ethnics in the game despite the established fact that the land is in the colder Northern Regions and is based on Medieval Europe and it's why I rolled my eyes at Siege of Dragonspear's transexual character (not for the character, mind you, since the character was a minor insignificant character at best but because the hack of a writer (who may not even be in the minority she claims to be championing IIRC) who wrote said character in actually admitted to creating, implementing and highlighting her for the sake of representing and highlighting the 'transsexuals' regardless of established lore consistency since gender changing in the game could be done via curses and spells rather than the 'heartwrenching' backstory that was claimed).

Remember the bitch fit they threw with The Witcher 3 because almost all the characters are white even though the game was made in Poland where there is very little people of color living there?

I remember that like it was yesterday due to how eye-rolling that article on it was. That was a retarded moment from Polygon if I ever saw one. It's even more reason to disregard Polygon's articles on anything gaming-related.

 

[Dr Fallout]

Right, I'm sure your wikipedia article is a much better source.

Hah, how predictable. It is actually because it offers a large amount of citations and books, something your images don't.

I mean yea once the Soviet Union stopped the genocide, forced starvation, mass murder, rape and other war crimes I'm sure the brutal impoverish puppet state was seen as better than what they had.

That blame lies to the Germans. The Russians invaded Germany because of something called WAR and both sides damaged the area to the point where it would take decades to fully recover. If the Germans weren't so commie hating that they invaded, then East Germany wouldn't have been under Soviet control. Then again... knowing Stalin he might have invaded anyway.

Soviet Rapist Internet Defense Force

Yes, just yes.

 

[CT Phipps]

It's why I rolled my eyes at Polygon's claims that the Witcher 3 was racist for not having enough people of other ethnics in the game despite the established fact that the land is in the colder Northern Regions and is based on Medieval Europe and it's why I rolled my eyes at Siege of Dragonspear's transexual character (not for the character, mind you, since the character was a minor insignificant character at best but because the hack of a writer who wrote said character in actually admitted to creating, implementing and highlighting her for the sake of representing the 'transsexuals' regardless of established lore consistency since gender changing in the game could be done via curses and spells rather than the 'heartwrenching' backstory that was claimed).

The issue is actually a bit more complicated than that because neither Polygon or its critics seemed to have actually read the Sapkowski novels like I have (and a bunch of the CD_Projekt Red forum people did).

The world of the Witcher was populated by humans who were taken from all across the Earth via the Conjunction of the Spheres and then dumped into a new world. Sapkowski himself has said that the lands of the North are racially diverse and just have a culture based on Polish mythology rather than actually ARE Poles. He's also stated there's Chinese and Arabic descended people freely mixing about which included a group of them in the dragonslaying short story. None of which is reflected in the video games save one Arabic-themed villain.

As for transexuals, there's the character of Ned in Assassins Creed: Syndicate who is a transexual character who basically serves as your fence. The character's sexual identity never comes up once and it felt an....odd...choice not to address that given the Victorian Era wasn't exactly friendly to transexuals.

 

[Vergil]

Yeah, that was before the posts of Nazis being nice. :p

Hitler did nothing wrong.

It's a call for more Black, Hispanic, and Asian protagonists. I'm sorry you feel for every dollar they get, a White guy gets less.

It's a call for more of those minorities to replace the already existing White characters and franchises. World War I was predominantly White "black washed" to have a bunch of blacks in it. Mafia was a series about classic Italian gangsters made to be a game about 60s racism. It's calling for more minorities to randomly be shoved in currently existing franchises just for the sake of their agenda. Stop fucking with currently existing shit and history, make your own.

Have you played the game? LOL, no need to answer, I know you haven't. The game isn't about racism against blacks. It's a revenge story about Lincoln Clay fighting the Italian Mafia and establishing his own criminal syndicate. The racism issue was actually dissapointing and I intend to do an essay on it as it's nothing more than set dressing for the fact it's a very Saints Row-esque, "Kill these people and take over their business." The only difference between Tommy Vercetti and Lincoln Clay is the color of their skin.

You literally just said the game couldn't work without the black protagonist because of the heavy race subplot earlier "Ditto you can't do Mafia III in the Sixties as a White character. It's an important plot point you're a racial minority in a time which shits on them." . Now you're just backpedaling.

I think they could have gone much farther, personally. As for why it's Mafia III, the developers said they wanted to do something new because they felt they'd done everything they could with the Italian mafia--fair enough.

I don't think it should have been there at all. Also that "justification" is such bullshit. "uh yea we did everything we could with gangsters, that's why the second game ended on a cliffhanger and the next game has the Mafia as a prominent enemy dealing with the decline of the mafia as a whole". Like I mentioned in another thread, it should have been you playing a Mafioso(Vito) and experiencing the decline of the mob first hand instead of trouncing around as some random nobody because "WE NEED MORE MINORITIES!".

That's assuming the point of the games is to be REPRESENTATIVE of the entire experience, which is something you've stated you're not interested in. Representation shouldn't be the point of video games, that's something we agree on. It should be about making the best video game possible.

If representation should be the point of video games why do you care about the so called "lack of diversity"? Is it a problem or not? Because if you claim to agree that representation isn't important diversity shouldn't be either. Unless you mean representation as in representing the historical setting accurately than yes I think that's important because it's believable and builds a realistic story instead of "lol I'm just gonna stick some random shit wherever I want because lol muh agenda". Like I said a game that was the reverse with a bunch of those damn crackers taking up all the historically black roles came out people'd have a shit fit. As far as gameplay goes the games a shitty generic dime a dozen military shooter but that's besides the point.

Which I think could definitely do with more than just, "Here's a white dude shooting things."

Be more creative.

WHY DOES IT MATTER THAT IT'S A WHITE GUY?!?!?
Why does him being a Caucasian male factor into things being bad to you? You literally just sound like a cuck who hates his own race with this shit. How about instead of supplementing good gameplay and writing with "hey, hey see it's a black tri-sexual one legged transgender with a lisp, we're fucking progressive" you make a good game and not care that it's a White guy? Why are White men so fucking horrible protagonists to you?
How about instead of copy pasting a bunch of random black dudes into early 1900s Europe you be creative and make a good game that accurate portrays Europe at the time and if you want a bunch of blacks in a war game you pick a setting that actually makes sense for that instead of rewriting and trampling on European history!

I'm with Finland in saying both are shit.

Fins are mongols.

The male prostitute in Freeside says Caesar punishes homosexuals with death.

I trust an NCR officer (also Cass and Veronica have similar comments) more than a whore in Freeside. Especially when he was a slave and was being treated with probably quite frowned upon kindness by his lover who was a Centurion, I'm sure theres a bit more to it than that.

 

[CT Phipps]

Eh, Mafia III is a disappointing game as it certainly has the ballpark of a game which deals with racism and has some great moments like lynching the head of the Dixie Mob and dealing with the Klan but I think they didn't go nearly far enough.

It is, essentially, like playing a Black Punisher more than playing a man dealing with racism.

 

[Dr Fallout]

but I think they didn't go nearly far enough.

GENOCIDE AGAINST THE WHITE HORDES!!!
PURGE EM ALL!

 

[Mr muggyman 3000]

The whole controversy with witcher 3 is so dam stupid. It's a game made by POLISH(a predominantly white country) developers, based on a book about POLISH mythology/folklore, written by a POLISH man. Did sjws really think that the game would be filled with pansexual transgender black people?

 

[CT Phipps]

The whole controversy with witcher 3 is so dam stupid. It's a game made by POLISH(a predominantly white country) developers, based on a book about POLISH mythology/folklore, written by a POLISH man. Did sjws really think that the game would be filled with pansexual transgender black people?

Said Polish man also filled the books with bisexuals, gays, Arabs, and Chinese. It's weird people automatically assume Sapkowski made his world lily white hetero fantasy. It's also some of the bleakest, nastiest, meanest fiction you're ever going to read. It outdoes the games in terms of brutality and cynicism by miles.

Except for the short stories which are mostly parodies of folktales.

 

[Vergil]

Said Polish man also filled the books with bisexuals, gays, Arabs, and Chinese. It's weird people automatically assume Sapkowski made his world lily white hetero fantasy.

Clearly it needs be a brown town SJW wet dream instead.
God I fucking hate White people.
Straights too, need to just end those blights on society.

 

[Mr muggyman 3000]

Said Polish man also filled the books with bisexuals, gays, Arabs, and Chinese.

I know that. I'm just saying that people shouldn't expect to see a black person/minority popping up at every corner. Also the sexuality of the characters wasn't the focus of the story the characters themselves are the focus of the story as it should be . All sjws care about is "diversity", and "proper representation", they have no regard to the actual plot, themes,or the characters themselves, all they see is the color of their skin(which ironically is in itself racist)

 

[Garbagecrone]

WHY DOES IT MATTER THAT IT'S A WHITE GUY?!?!?
Why does him being a Caucasian male factor into things being bad to you? You literally just sound like a cuck who hates his own race with this shit. How about instead of supplementing good gameplay and writing with "hey, hey see it's a black tri-sexual one legged transgender with a lisp, we're fucking progressive" you make a good game and not care that it's a White guy? Why are White men so fucking horrible protagonists to you?
How about instead of copy pasting a bunch of random black dudes into early 1900s Europe you be creative and make a good game that accurate portrays Europe at the time and if you want a bunch of blacks in a war game you pick a setting that actually makes sense for that instead of rewriting and trampling on European history!

OT, I just think, honestly, that writers need to learn that characters in games are three-dimensional in general because honestly there aren't a whole lot of good video game stories. I think the reason that people want to see more characters that aren't white men in games is that people like to play as themselves and people like them, it helps them relate. I think we're robbing ourselves of good stories by only seldom varying these elements in characters, though, because while people aren't defined by any one part of themselves, they are defined a little bit by every part of themselves, and it could add some interesting elements and flavors to characters that would have been poorer otherwise. I don't think that Arcade Gannon would have worked as well if he wasn't gay and of Jewish descent. I think Veronica and Christine's shared backstory would have rung just a bit less true with me if they weren't lesbians. It's little things. That being said, I think that what a lot of AAA studios think people want and what people actually want are different things. Video games as an art form are very much in infancy, and I feel like a lot of game developers don't know how to write into a character the mark that each aspect of their varied experiences would leave on them, instead opting to just have the trans man shout jokes about breast binding so to speak. It's less an issue of forced diversity (because let's face it, when you're writing something you have to *make* everything specifically what it is to begin with) and more of a lack of nuance in games writing as a field.

That being said, I'm also bored of every video game coming out being about some shitty white dad.

 

[CT Phipps]

I know that. I'm just saying that people shouldn't expect to see a black person/minority popping up at every corner. Also the sexuality of the characters wasn't the focus of the story the characters themselves are the focus of the story as it should be . All sjws care about is "diversity", and "proper representation", they have no regard to the actual plot, themes,or the characters themselves, all they see is the color of their skin(which ironically is in itself racist)

So, you can't wait a diverse cast while also wanting good story?

 

[Vergil]

>Arcade
>of Jewish descent
Is this some kind of abstract meme?

 

[Garbagecrone]

Arcade Israel Gannon is a Jewish name man.

EDIT: Did you also not pick up on Judah Kreger or?

 

[Vergil]

Arcade Israel Gannon is a Jewish name man.

... I had no idea his middle name was Israel... this is.... disstressing

So, you can't wait a diverse cast while also wanting good story?

Not when you make diversity your main focus over everythin else like believabilty and writing so you can jump on your political soapbox and fuel your agenda.

 

[Mr muggyman 3000]

So, you can't wait a diverse cast while also wanting good story?

why not just focus on a good story? Why does race have to factor in to it?. If i tell a gut wrenching story about a father going through the loss of his child, should it matter if he's white?. No it shouldn't the only thing that should matter is the character, and seeing how he grows and develops. Shoving in diversity just for the sake of diversity isn't clever,or creative it's just simply lazy.