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Do you percieve Minecraft Steve as being whitewashed in certain promotional material and merchandise

  • Yes, and Mojang should fix this

    Votes: 336 43.4%
  • No

    Votes: 438 56.6%

  • Total voters
    774

Gundam

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,801
EDIT 2: See threadmark "Its 99% official at this point"



EDIT:


justsaying.png



I love Minecraft. I've been playing nearly since it's existed, so it's a little strange to me that a lot of the older Era folk don't, or didn't know who Minecraft Steve was. He's the closest thing to a new Mario in the 2010's. Look at this iconic blockman.

steve.jpg


Recently, Mojang were kind enough to introduce a friend for him, Alex. Here's a comparison.

steveandalex.png


This makes it easier to see the intent of the skin tones - Alex has lighter skin, while Steve has darker skin. Steve has lighter patches here and there, but the overwhelming majority of the coloring is a brownish color. And yet, in nearly every single product tie in, Steve's skin is whitewashed into this:

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th
th
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s-l500.jpg




Why do the colors not more closely resemble this?

IMG_0545_zpsdb9a2e49.jpg


And I'm not referring to the lack of a pixelated texture over everything like it is in the game - the colors themselves are just wrong.


Here in the 3DS box art, they're portrayed as having the same skin tone as well. In isolation, you could chalk Steve's coloring up to the dramatic lighting, but again, using Alex as a point of comparison, he doesn't look right.

427171-minecraft-new-nintendo-3ds-edition-new-nintendo-3ds-front-cover.png


Though in the Switch box art, this is corrected to something more accurate looking, where Steve is darker toned than Alex. It still doesn't seem game accurate to me, but it's perhaps the lighting.

minecraft_box_art.jpg


What gives? Is this an intentional whitewashing, or does Mojang not care about monitoring this stuff from their partners?


Is there a more whitewashed character in games?
 
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OP
OP
Gundam

Gundam

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,801
Where's that one guy from Persona 1 who literally changed races in localization

That's a good one. Edit: Or I guess the opposite

Just a note: by "most whitewashed", I mean to say "most consistently whitewashed". As in, not the most dramatic change in color, but the frequency at which the character is whitewashed.
 
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collige

Member
Oct 31, 2017
12,772
The merch gravy train is huge and I doubt Microsoft or whoever they contract out to was exercising that much oversight over his appearance. That's super fucked up regardless though. I never really though about Steve as being such a huge PoC character in gaming.
 

NoName999

One Winged Slayer
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
5,906
No that would be NSMB Mario

Oh you meant literally. In that case, still no. That would be pre-MK11 Jade
 

Joe2187

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,521
There are "characters" in Minecraft?

I always assumed they were generic "whatever" character you make yourself.
 
OP
OP
Gundam

Gundam

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,801
There are "characters" in Minecraft?

I always assumed they were generic "whatever" character you make yourself.

The characters are just names for the default skins and their models. (Alex has slightly thinner arms).
Most people purchase or upload custom skins, making them just personas for the player.
 

electricblue

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,991
I dunno how much intentional design you can draw from two characters who were made very far apart timeline wise.
 
OP
OP
Gundam

Gundam

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,801
I dunno how much intentional design you can draw from two characters who were made very far apart timeline wise.

Well, the game just received a complete texture overhaul, and I doubt they made the Alex skin without looking at Steve first for a reference point. If Mojang officially wanted to avoid cementing Steve as a brown character, they had their chances.
 

Exit Music

Member
Nov 13, 2017
1,082
I remember on Double Dribble on NES when you would pass the ball to a black player he would turn white. That always bothered me a lot even though I'm sure it was just some kind of limitation of models or something.
 

Slick Butter

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,500
There are "characters" in Minecraft?

I always assumed they were generic "whatever" character you make yourself.
No, there aren't really actual characters. Steve is simply the name given to the default player skin in the game, the guy with the teal shirt and goatee. You can add a custom skin though, and most do. They later created female skins and made a default female which was name Alex.

It would be nice for Steve to be a POC, but I believe the original design of the default skin is just a dirty tanned scruffy white dude, like a stereotypical stranded on a desert island looking guy. Not that that can't or hasn't changed.
 
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electricblue

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,991
Well, the game just received a complete texture overhaul, and I doubt they made the Alex skin without looking at Steve first for a reference point. If Mojang officially wanted to avoid cementing Steve as a brown character, they had their chances.

I don't think they were trying to 'avoid making steve brown' so much as 'steve was made racially ambiguous on purpose and later devs who made the other characters didn't bother to do the same'
 

TacoSupreme

Member
Jul 26, 2019
1,720
They're probably just translating his appearance into what Notch would want him to look like these days :P
 
OP
OP
Gundam

Gundam

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,801
I don't think they were trying to 'avoid making steve brown' so much as 'steve was made racially ambiguous on purpose and later devs who made the other characters didn't bother to do the same'

Regardless, even before Alex was introduced, if Steve was racially ambiguous on purpose, why did all of the merchandise and a lot of the key art not reflect that?
 

Neoxon

Spotlighting Black Excellence - Diversity Analyst
Member
Oct 25, 2017
85,367
Houston, TX
Splatoon 2 has had a few issues with this.

Here are the correct instances for reference.

D3xuDjQjwYy_f65q9IQRB-M6D-CWxQnBLL5LqMvXscA.png
DtHQtHVXgAAQwwQ.jpg
lGijI8Y.png



And here's.......everything else.


4cf74e8b250f6550b3accbb412f9c596.jpg
1Dlolqp_d.jpg
cc14f244-55bf-4ee5-8b18-e2e8ba8457db_1.32b2cf1510e8b20272208f64392aa034.jpeg


Granted, Agent 8 isn't white like what happened to the Splatoon 2 Inkling Girl, but she's paler in her Amiibo than she is in-game (for the default).
 

electricblue

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,991
Regardless, even before Alex was introduced, if Steve was racially ambiguous on purpose, why did all of the merchandise and a lot of the key art not reflect that?

Minecraft has been around a long time now, why do you assume the same people are drawing Steve every time and making him subtly whiter?
 

garion333

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,722
Regardless, even before Alex was introduced, if Steve was racially ambiguous on purpose, why did all of the merchandise and a lot of the key art not reflect that?

There's no indication afaik Steve is racially ambiguous or if it was on purpose, but one possible reason we see him as one color in toys and the like is because it's easier and cheaper to paint the face one color rather than seven or ten.

That's the practical answer and doesn't address why his face color changed from whatever it is to basically as white as Alex.
 
OP
OP
Gundam

Gundam

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,801
Minecraft has been around a long time now, why do you assume the same people are drawing Steve every time and making him subtly whiter?

Because they are? Maybe not the exact same people, but Mojang is still the developer of Minecraft, with plenty of old key staff still on board. Whether intentional or because of some subconcious thing, Steve gets whitewashed nearly every time he's not an in-game skin.
 

Zutrax

Member
Oct 31, 2017
4,192
I initially thought "this has to be an overblown nitpick", but I'll be damned I didn't really pay enough attention to how he looked in the first place to realize just how prevalent it is and you're absolutely right.
 
OP
OP
Gundam

Gundam

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,801
There's no indication afaik Steve is racially ambiguous or if it was on purpose, but one possible reason we see him as one color in toys and the like is because it's easier and cheaper to paint the face one color rather than seven or ten.

That's the practical answer and doesn't address why his face color changed from whatever it is to basically as white as Alex.

I don't expect manufacturers to mold small pieces of plastic in a whole gradient of tones, so yeah, a solid color makes sense. But as you said, that doesn't address why the one solid color they picked was wrong.
 

Deleted member 17210

User-requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
11,569
I hate it when they do this with characters.

It's an ancient game now but Mary in Double Target/Quartet was pretty bad with changing her from Asian to white. Sega was fine with releasing games in the West with Asian main characters and Japanese titles like Shinobi and Kenseiden, though, so it's kind of weird they bothered in this case.
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q2.jpg



Also, sort of in the other direction, they changed Little Mac in Punch Out from pale white to mixed race looking. You could argue it was a technology limitation on NES but they look like different people to me.
1028515-little_mac.png


images
 
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