OP
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Yep - I mentioned this earlier. Kind of interesting, and sad to see where he's at now compared to then in regards to gender. This doesn't really address skin tone unless i'm missing something?
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Is Minecraft Steve the single most frequently whitewashed character in gaming? (Update: Smash Bros. Steve is black!)
- Thread starter Gundam
- Start date
Yep - I mentioned this earlier. Kind of interesting, and sad to see where he's at now compared to then in regards to gender. This doesn't really address skin tone unless i'm missing something?
You're correct, it doesn't, but the idea is that the player isn't meant to have a gender and is meant to represent a human.
From there you can take it to mean race also.
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Perhaps. I don't believe Alex or Steve have or ever should have a specified ethnicity, but just in terms of color, it's clear they have different skin tones.
Ya embarassing. Hurts more since it was the first VF character I actually gave a damn about.
If we follow this line of logic, then making his skin tone an ambiguous shade of brown makes sense (though the Undertale strategy of using yellow would probably be better). That still makes the merchandising whitewashing though.
Mm, that quote from notch really highlights how far he's fallen.
I will say, I've always found the original art pretty ugly with the noisy textures, and loved the boxart renders. That said, I don't think any change was intentional, but they could certainly give Steve a darker skintone to better match the original design.
I will say, I've always found the original art pretty ugly with the noisy textures, and loved the boxart renders. That said, I don't think any change was intentional, but they could certainly give Steve a darker skintone to better match the original design.
Yup, I agree.
As I said earlier, part of it is practicality in terms of the coloring, but since Alex was super pale perhaps everyone just assumed that Steve is a whiter shade also.
Either way, typical whitewashing if you ask me.
tbh hes whitewashed so often that I wonder if its just a tan. I mean some of those are official products right?
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Digging around - The only implication that Steve isn't specifically black is a cut model from an old artist (whose work never made it in the game as far as I understand it), named "Black Steve"
So if we use this as a starting point, it seems that Steve wasn't intended to be black, but he's clearly still not white. Even if he at some point intended to be white, as often white people will view white as a default, (hence there being a specification for "Black Steve" and no "White Steve") Steve's skin is still clearly whitewashed from what it is in-game, from brown to white, as Mojang could easily change the in-game skin tone literally at any time they wanted with minimal effort and haven't yet.
So if we use this as a starting point, it seems that Steve wasn't intended to be black, but he's clearly still not white. Even if he at some point intended to be white, as often white people will view white as a default, (hence there being a specification for "Black Steve" and no "White Steve") Steve's skin is still clearly whitewashed from what it is in-game, from brown to white, as Mojang could easily change the in-game skin tone literally at any time they wanted with minimal effort and haven't yet.
Yeah. I remember pointing this out on a forum years ago and getting shouted down by a bunch of weirdo MK fans that didn't care to notice.
His face is pretty confusing... I guess he has a beard, but also looks like a smile because for some reason Alex has a mouth but no nose and Steve has a nose but no mouth. Never got the appeal to be honest.
Edit: Ok, seems like it's the merchandising that deletes his mouth... I don't understand why, but you have another change there.
Edit: Ok, seems like it's the merchandising that deletes his mouth... I don't understand why, but you have another change there.
In this case I think it's just because it's a figure aimed to the japanese market of a character that can come in any skin colour anyways. I get why they made it, though they could have made another model with importers in mind.Splatoon 2 has had a few issues with this.
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Wow - Notch used to be so cool. I wish Notch still was like this.
Had a couple of (already mentioned) examples in mind when saw the thread title but wow OP. I never saw the black Minecraft character referred to as "Steve", both in official merchandise and in online conversations, it's always the white one.
That's absurdly blatant - without this thread I might have never learned Steve is black at all.
That's absurdly blatant - without this thread I might have never learned Steve is black at all.
It's a weird artifact from the change in Minecraft's artstyle over the years. Even though the big, grimy pixels were always its signature look in recent years they've adjusted its color palette and artstyle to make it more appealing to the mass market, some of which happened after the Microsoft acquisition, some of it was before. I don't think Steve was ever intended to be black per se but the character's depiction has definitely changed for the worse
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But he's clearly brown, at least. I get why people say his face looks dirty from mining, but his arms and exposed neck are pretty smoothly brown. Also, why is Alex's face not dirty from mining? Compared to Alex it's a no brainer that Steve isn't really white.
How is that silly?
Splatoon 2 has had a few issues with this.
Here are the correct instances for reference.
And here's.......everything else.
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).
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He's got purple eyes which means he probably wasn't intended to represent any actual living human. At that point commercial artists probably figured they could do whatever they wanted with him. Once Steve had a couple products out with the light skinned likeness I'd imagine that established a baseline which following products copied. Things would likely only change if Microsoft stepped in at this point and established some guidelines for how Steve is to be portrayed going forward.
I think we all wish that. :(
What a damn shame what he turned into seemingly overnight.
I can see the case for it, whitewashing has always been rampant in the industry (and basically everywhere else).
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It's been said before in the thread, but there was a time where Notch wasn't a fuck head.
This actually hits close to home for me. Just this weekend I went toy shopping with my kids and my 6 year old wanted a "minecraft steve" lego set and he specifically wanted the darker toned version and we simply couldn't find one.
My wife and I assumed that Steve wasn't black but he kept insisting that he was dark skinned...
Smh, we settled on lego batman, but I never noticed this was a thing and it's sad.
My wife and I assumed that Steve wasn't black but he kept insisting that he was dark skinned...
Smh, we settled on lego batman, but I never noticed this was a thing and it's sad.
Steve just looks like a really tanned dude to me. I never saw him as a POC and I still don't. Just my 2c
They also made those things with a much, much brighter and more pastel palette. The non-Sanrio ones that came out were much darker and more correct for it.
https:///wp-content/uploads/2019/02/sanei-boeki-splatoon-2-pearl-marina-plush-feb192019-1038x576.jpg
Also before this thread I had no idea Steve was even a thing. I always just saw generic Minecraft blocks on packaging.
I'm really not sure what posts like these are trying to do. I have never played any minecraft game and yet just by actually reading the topic I can plainly see that the character had a brown tone that was made lighter in merchandise. So what if you never saw him as a PoC? Unless you're blind, you should be able to see that the merchandise made of him has had lighter skin compared to his official darker skin coloring. Just admit that, it's not that hard.
Goddamn what happened to this man? Reading this and looking at how he is now...it's just really sad.
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Yeah, I never knew there was an actual character in Minecraft (never played it), but they are clearly changing their color in other media. And even they weren't, this character is supposed to represent a player and therefore can look any way they want. Why is it always white?
That is wildly progressive to the point of making it even hard to believe it was him who wrote it in the first place.
