Can we cut the bull? Are we on a video game forum? Ok? Then let's discuss video game representation. His words SHOULD be taken at face value BECAUSE of history.
He is still a white guy in the end, which is what the thread is discussing. If Arthur Morgan was a POC you defenders would have a leg to stand on...
I can just let a black woman explain how I felt playing that game and about representation growing up:
If you lads could stop talking to me as if i'm not black man who has an extensive history of pushing for representation in games that'd be great. đź‘Ť
Literally EA's last Star Wars games featured one of the most atypical characters of the generation when it comes to representation. I'm arguing against the extensive downplaying and hot takes such as yours. EA is actually one of the more progressive publishers when it comes to the projects they greenlight and who they reach out to as an audience.
Not to get into this, because jesus christ I'd love to see one star wars thread that doesn't turn into a shitshow, but I think this particular point can be resolved by acknowledging that you two are talking about representation in two different respects.
give me a game with Cad Bane
Or hat guy
I know exactly what those arguments are to the point that I literally have a bingo card dedicated to them for discussions about representation and the braindead arguments people make against it:
I mean if any game would have a commentary on inequality I'd expect it to be the one where you fight space nazis being written by people who worked on Mafia 3....ofc I don't expect it to be that overt but this is SW, the last game was about as subtle as a brick with it's ideas about fascism.
I never agued that more doesn't need to be done. Just that we should ignore that they are doing more. BF2 and Jedi Fallen Order are both examples of games with a further push toward representation. I don't believe that the Cal flies in the fact of that, even when a dev gives an awful off the cuff answer during a rapid fire Q & A.
Hell they even did that in a game as Iden Versio is a commander and the leader of her squad instead of playing second fiddle.
It sounds way less like they thought they had a quota and way more like they didn't want to overshadow, or much more likely, be overshadowed by the existence of a character like Rey.
Again, it starts to become harmful when we start doing things like stating that a PoC doesn't count because their VA doesn't share the exact same skin tone or how white skin in general is the main issue with representation when it's a way bigger and more nuanced subject than that. That sort of reductionist logic dictates that the only reason Kassandra is an example of diversity is because she's a woman, when it's also about the fact that she's Greek and voiced by a Greek actress and speaks Greek, or that any of the white male AC protagonists don't count as representation because they're white and male and we should flat out ignore the cultures presented. The issue with representation in games for a LONG time was that the vast vast majority of protagonists were caucasian brunette american males. And I feel that for devs to get the message about what issue take issue with It's good to acknowledge context. And yes in this case part of the context is that the vast majority of SW protagonists were either customizable or white male, and that was an issue. However, i'm not willing to put the devs over the coals just yet unless we get several star wars games and they all feature white males as the protagonist and it starts to seem like Iden was a one-off occurrence instead of in this instance, Cal being the one off occurrence.
Atleast a game during old republic or new republic ! Im just tired of this empire/first order story we are getting ! Even a game during yuzhan vong invasion would be welcomed
He is arguing in bad faith; just because he's black and his representation quota has been filled...fuck everyone else that don't feel fully represented in video games...
i-Lo This is what I mean by harmful rhetoric that assumes the worst of individuals btw.
I mean yes they know that stormtroopers look cool and capitalize on that, but we're talking about the same peeps who greenlit a multiple million dollar marketing campaign to make audiences think:
Yea again to me, after listening to the podcast, didn't feel that way at all. Rather they didn't want a new jedi character to overshadow or be overshadowed by Rey, which is an oversimplification of what was obviously an incredibly lengthy design protagonist to arrive at the final design, cast member, etc. On top of that, I see the very clear efforts to diversity that tends to fly over the heads of people but were very clearly deliberate decisions made by the devs to fit within the vision of Disney when it comes to their attempts to diversify SW. So seeing PoC and women in the background when all of those characters could have easily been white men and let's be honest if this game was being made for the last generation of consoles WOULD be all white men, that matters to me. I'm seeing the effort. As that was the case with BF2 and it's the case with SW in general as an IP. It's not perfect no. Nothing is, but I see the effort.
i-Lo This is what I mean by harmful rhetoric that assumes the worst of individuals btw.
I mean yes they know that stormtroopers look cool and capitalize on that, but we're talking about the same peeps who greenlit a multiple million dollar marketing campaign to make audiences think:
only to make an entire campaign about how space nazis actually suck which concludes with the head space nazi insisiting that he literally deserves to die for his life choices and for drinking the fascism kool-aid.
So even if stuff flies over the head of viewers, the last thing i'm expecting anything other than scathing commentary on fascism ike SW has always done and frankly a demo centered around how they're sucking the life out of a planet and enslaving the inhabitants and we respond by arriving and aiding the people who're fighting back is a good start.
Yea again to me, after listening to the podcast, didn't feel that way at all. Rather they didn't want a new jedi character to overshadow or be overshadowed by Rey, which is an oversimplification of what was obviously an incredibly lengthy design protagonist to arrive at the final design, cast member, etc. On top of that, I see the very clear efforts to diversity that tends to fly over the heads of people but were very clearly deliberate decisions made by the devs to fit within the vision of Disney when it comes to their attempts to diversify SW. So seeing PoC and women in the background when all of those characters could have easily been white men and let's be honest if this game was being made for the last generation of consoles WOULD be all white men, that matters to me. I'm seeing the effort. As that was the case with BF2 and it's the case with SW in general as an IP. It's not perfect no. Nothing is, but I see the effort.
I don't know why people keep saying this. As a member of a multiple intersections of marginalized people, we already tolerate the thousands of games that have straight, white, cisgender male characters. Like 80% of the games on my wishlist have characters that fit that mold. However, the reason this game in particular is an issue is simply due to the context that the creator's rationalizations paints their character in.
Huh. I didn't even know Battlefront II had a single-player campaign. I thought they were multiplayer-only games.Had to look this up because folks are reluctant to say the character's name and game for some reason. Never touched BF2 because of, you know, the gacha jank.
This is cool I guess, but it's marred by the clusterfuck of what surrounded BF2.
You know how ZattMurdock tends to go overboard in MCU topics? Same thing but with more gifs.
I still can't go over Stig going basically "yeah, the movies had Rey so we needed our PC to standout so we went with a male."
"Standout."
It had one. It was just garbage so no one remembers it.
I read it as even stupider of "Rey is very successful as a female protagonist, so we thought it best not to do that"
Man I would love a game staring Ciena!You know, it be nice for Ciena Ree to get some more love. Maybe a story post Lost Stars and dealing with stuff between Ep VI and VII.
Well maybe a book sequel than a game, but was just reminded of her.
