Why is there so much blowback from people when asking for more gender & ethnic diversity in games?

[kittens]

Patriarchal for sure, but white supremacist? Im legit curious about that one because most iconic games are not even made in the west, i wouldn't mind to know your reasoning because i personally don't see it.

Click to shrink...

I see white supremacy reflected in games in myriad ways. I'm coming from the perspective of white supremacy being about more than racism, but also all the world views and logics that have come from colonization and white supremacy. I'm talking about all the little and big sociopolitical and cultural reflections and context. It's everywhere.

 

[Palidoozy]

What pretty much everyone else here has discussed: our society still holds racist/sexist values.

In games specifically -- part of this is because mainstream games were (and still in some cases, are) almost exclusively marketed towards an audience of white teenage/young adult men. This set up expectations in media that now feel immersion-breaking to said audience (example: people inevitably complaining about black people appearing in western fantasy games despite dragons, elves, and other imaginative creatures being a thing).

The people working in the industry are also... very white, and very male. If you're not getting the perspectives of women and minorities, then chances are that's going to be reflected in your game which in turn will be reflected in your audience. A personal example I can think of: my team was on a project that involved creating a diverse lineup of characters. All of the black women, however, had straight hair. Our coworker (a black woman herself) had to push for that to be changed, and had to even teach the art director how black hair worked (i.e. if you're a gritty underground fighter in space you probably don't have time to straighten your hair). Were she not present to give her opinion, those characters would have likely been approved unnoticed.

There have been times at past companies (thankfully not EA) where I've been directly told to lighten skin of characters. I got told once (again, not at EA) to put a design for a 90's businesswoman in a skirt, because pants were too masculine. It all feeds into each other.

 

[Ferrs]

I'll put it this way - I find it pretty hard to believe Ubisoft's executive leadership when they talk about valuing their commitment to diversity because so much of their diversity is pathetically shallow and skin-deep in actual practice.

Click to shrink...

Thing is, a lot of white characters are also pathetically shallow, but it's not seen as forced whiteness, because it's seen as the default.

This is why I don't get, you put the most random as shit white character, and no one will judge what it is, but put a minority character and there's a lot of extra hops you have to sort out to not seen as forced.

This doesn't mean I advocate for shitty written characters, but it seems like you can't just put a minority for the hell of it like you can with a white character. And I dunno, it feels wrong.

 

[Thera]

White genocide. Not kidding, a lot of white folks believe that equality and representation of minorities leads to their extinction just because they might not dominate every space anymore.

Click to shrink...

In France, there is a name for that, for quite sometimes now : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement
The new "thing" is (some, of course) white males think they will be "replaced" by women (white or not, at this point nothing matter...).

 

[Sub Boss]

A woman Grand Theft Auto protagonist would be awesome Its time,

for a MOB QUEEN 👠👑💵🔫🗡⚗💊

 

[JahIthBer]

I see white supremacy reflected in games in myriad ways. I'm coming from the perspective of white supremacy being about more than racism, but also all the world views and logics that have come from colonization and white supremacy. I'm talking about all the little and big sociopolitical and cultural reflections and context. It's everywhere.

Click to shrink...

I see, even though Japan was never colonised, it's easy to see they might push negative tropes & stereotypes that come from popular western media. Zelda having the bad guys being well, middle eastern, it's might not be too hard to guess where that could come from.

 

[Patsy]

Because they're racist, misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic. It literally is as easy as that.

 

[SolidSnakex]

A woman Grand Theft Auto protagonist would be awesome Its time,

for a MOB QUEEN 👠👑💵🔫🗡⚗💊

Click to shrink...

Just bring her into a modern setting

 

[JaseMath]

Just bring her into a modern setting

Click to shrink...

Is this from RDR2? Can I play as her? Because you may have just sold me on the game.

 

[Deleted member 59848]

This is my thought on it. I say this as someone who wants more diversity in games.

When people create stories they usually write about themselves. Stories are often expressions of the self, not just products made to cater to an audience. (Sometimes they are products made to cater to an audience.)

In a society where white males are most privileged to create stories (games) and have them published, most will be about white males.

We need more people from other groups creating stories, and confident enough to express themselves, to improve diversity.

We can't really expect white people to start creating stories about other groups - more because they won't than because they shouldn't.

But big companies owned by white males could empower people from other groups to tell their stories via games. And they should because it would make gaming richer.

Edit - I kind of left out the main point. It's ok if you're creating something like a game to express yourself and tell your own story. The answer is helping other groups do that besides white people, imo.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Is this from RDR2? Can I play as her? Because you may have just sold me on the game.

Click to shrink...

Sadly no, Arthur is the main character. But Sadie's in the game a lot and is a fucking amazing character.

 

[Kerotan]

It isn't.

Click to shrink...

Do you think it's the majority?

 

[motherless]

I seriously don't think there as much blowback as it seems. I think those who blow back are, in societal terms, a vocal minority. I think most people honestly don't care either way who they are playing as, so long as the game is fun. I think it's awesome that valve's next flagship game, for example, stars a black woman.

It's just that the gaming internet is a realm where those dissenting voices are amplified. I also think, seriously, most people who are loud shitheads about this are like early 20 year olds, feeling like adults for the first time in their lives, and are acting like it's finally their turn to pontificate. Nobody asked these loser's opinion on diversity, but they feel compelled to spout it out.

Click to shrink...

Exactly right. Same goes for movies as well, I don't care who the actor is as long as it entertains me.

 

[Mesoian]

A woman Grand Theft Auto protagonist would be awesome Its time,

for a MOB QUEEN 👠👑💵🔫🗡⚗💊

Click to shrink...

I don't trust them to do well written women after Elizabetha.

"This person seems pretty badass and has a first grasp on crime in her district. COCAINE DOH!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Thing is, a lot of white characters are also pathetically shallow, but it's not seen as forced whiteness, because it's seen as the default.

This is why I don't get, you put the most random as shit white character, and no one will judge what it is, but put a minority character and there's a lot of extra hops you have to sort out to not seen as forced.

This doesn't mean I advocate for shitty written characters, but it seems like you can't just put a minority for the hell of it like you can with a white character. And I dunno, it feels wrong.

Click to shrink...

I agree with you, yeah. I would prefer if all characters were written extremely well and find a lot of modern protagonists extremely boring.

My issue is when they write a character whose entire character is JUST their representation and they don't even do anything with them. For example, I don't like it when a gay character is just "HEY LOOK I'M THE GAY ONE, GAY GAY GAY, THE ONLY THING I TALK ABOUT IS HOW GAY I AM" because it's not realistic. A gay character shouldn't exist solely in context with whether or not the protagonist can have sex with them.

In other words: there's a difference between having characters who just exist in a world as they are and don't get fleshed out because the plot doesn't need them to...and frustrating tokenism that completely misses the point of what it's like to BE someone marginalized. I have an issue with representation via caricature.

 

[Thera]

You are absolutely missing the forest for the trees if you think that this is emblematic of specific corners of the internet rather than western culture in its entirety.

Click to shrink...

He indeed missing the forest, but this is a "good case". A lot of people don't (honestly) see that they are privileges.

 

[EscoBlades]

Do you think it's the majority?

Click to shrink...

From my almost 10 years in this industry, I can assure you that, the combination of those actively opposed to diversity & inclusion efforts, and those classed as apathetic, is almost an even split when compared to those of us actively pushing for increased representation in videogames and the workforce.

 

[KrillinLikeAVillan]

Because a lot of gamers are not part of a minority and cannot relate with those issues, but mostly because they are intolerant racist pricks.

 

[bobeth]

Insecurity and ignorance.

 

[Nuclear Muffin]

From my almost 10 years in this industry, I can assure you that, the combination of those actively opposed to diversity & inclusion efforts, and those classed as apathetic, is almost an even split when compared to those of us actively pushing for increased representation in videogames and the workforce.

Click to shrink...

You've got a real tough job, it must be maddening to have to fight the pushback I'm sure.

The saddest part is that it's only getting worse... as more and more young white, disenfranchised boys & men are getting radicalised by the continuing rise of right-wing politics, Youtubers, Silicon Valley and the alt-right in general...

Keep at it though. We need people like you!

 

[rochellepaws]

In the past I felt it was the case of sheltered white men who had grown up with the privilege of being represented in every game finding the rare cases of diversity to be a system shock and difficult to relate to, then resisting them through selfishness.
Nowadays it's much more grim and there seems to be a significant portion of the gaming audience who view any kind of diverse representation as some sort of "liberal agenda" and an attack on their values. It's really sad to see so many teenagers and young adults especially with that kind of prejudice.

 

[Nome]

"Keep politics out of games!" - MAGAgamer88

 

[Aomame]

Can we not with the "one and done" comments? There's a way to say that something is a great, succinct summation of the answer to OP's question without implying that there's not significant nuance and discussion to be had around the topic. This issue isn't "done" and the question isn't answered until all people feel comfortable and accepted within games, gaming spaces, and the games industry (whether in development or reporting).

What pretty much everyone else here has discussed: our society still holds racist/sexist values.

In games specifically -- part of this is because mainstream games were (and still in some cases, are) almost exclusively marketed towards an audience of white teenage/young adult men. This set up expectations in media that now feel immersion-breaking to said audience (example: people inevitably complaining about black people appearing in western fantasy games despite dragons, elves, and other imaginative creatures being a thing).

The people working in the industry are also... very white, and very male. If you're not getting the perspectives of women and minorities, then chances are that's going to be reflected in your game which in turn will be reflected in your audience. A personal example I can think of: my team was on a project that involved creating a diverse lineup of characters. All of the black women, however, had straight hair. Our coworker (a black woman herself) had to push for that to be changed, and had to even teach the art director how black hair worked (i.e. if you're a gritty underground fighter in space you probably don't have time to straighten your hair). Were she not present to give her opinion, those characters would have likely been approved unnoticed.

There have been times at past companies (thankfully not EA) where I've been directly told to lighten skin of characters. I got told once (again, not at EA) to put a design for a 90's businesswoman in a skirt, because pants were too masculine. It all feeds into each other.

Click to shrink...

I think your point about marketing and audiences is spot on, and perhaps I'm thinking about this in the context of The Sims, specifically TS4, partly because you're at Maxis (though I understand if you don't really have a part in this area of the game or can't speak about it). The Sims has had, historically, a large female player base compared to other games, and I would argue much of its marketing and directions understand that. It is, after all, based on the concept of dolls in a dollhouse. TS4 definitely has rooms to improve (I saw a great Twitter thread recently about how it should have wheelchairs available, though I understand what a technical challenge that might be, for the same reason there's still no height slider), but it has made some real strides in being more inclusive: clothing options are coded as masc or fem, but any body can wear them, and you can select whether your Sim can become pregnant, if they pee standing up, etc. As far as I'm aware, gay and lesbian relationships have been in the series for some time (at least since TS2), as have different skin color options. It is my understanding that the hair options for people of color have also improved a lot in the last few updates and packs. The last University trailer also featured a black woman prominently.

These changes have not faced nearly the same level of blowback or outrage as, say, Battlefield V putting a woman on the cover, at least not that I have seen. I have to imagine that a large part of that has to do with the audience of The Sims and who it is marketed to. One would think similar arguments would arise from camps concerned with "SJWs invading gaming." But I think those people also don't consider The Sims to be a real game for real gamers, so it doesn't fall on their radar. It's all about gatekeeping, about protecting the space they have understood to be "theirs" and being afraid of other, different people (rightfully) challenging their views.

 

[SolidSnakex]

I don't trust them to do well written women after Elizabetha.

"This person seems pretty badass and has a first grasp on crime in her district. COCAINE DOH!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Click to shrink...

Play RDR2. Everyone is a shitty person in GTA, it's kind of the point. RDR is where they tell more grounded stories with really fleshed out characters.

 

[DeeDubs]

I'm conflicted because, as an escape mechanism/power fantasy, I really do love relating as much as possible to the main character of games I play, BUT I also think everyone should get to have this same feeling too. That's why I really like character creators in games I guess.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Play RDR2.

Click to shrink...

RDR2 has its ups and downs in terms of characterization (Molly............ :|), but man was Sadie great. I wanted to see so much more of her.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

People don't have their heads on straight. To them it's a forced inclusion, which is ridiculous.

 

[L Thammy]

People say it's just racists. They're right, but it's important to note that racists aren't mythological beasts. A lot of the people who consider themselves normal, tolerant folks have views that are more in line with white supremacy than they'd like to admit to themselves, even if it's wrapped up on platitudes or of them not questioning destructive rhetoric ("Why isn't there a white history month?").

See "I want good representation".

 

[Vagabond]

I'm conflicted because, as an escape mechanism/power fantasy, I really do love relating as much as possible to the main character of games I play, BUT I also think everyone should get to have this same feeling too. That's why I really like character creators in games I guess.

Click to shrink...

I agree that more games should allow character customization *AND* have good options for all ethnicities but people are still going to feel threatened online for a long while. I play Black Desert Online and people will still send messages like "U a dark elf or nyggur". They've been shown that there's no place for Black characters in fantasy because up until maybe 5-10 years ago Black characters played the tiniest of roles or weren't in these types of settings at all, and now have the slightest bit of representation in .5% of media.

I think there's a certain subset of people who got used to being socialized to being catered to and they are going to feel threatened when they are no longer catered to because they know no different. Video Games and Action movies and the like have had huge white male leads for decades and has only slightly changed in the last decade. There are still more white male movies and games than anything else.

 

[Neoxon]

You've answered your own question on the op.

The answer is really that simple.

Click to shrink...

The other problem is that I've also seen the aforementioned replies shown in the OP from those who are themselves black, which is part of what got me thinking if it was really that simple.

 

[Shahed]

Because when you're privileged, any attempt at equality feels like oppression.

Click to shrink...

This is probably my favourite post I've read on this site. So true

 

[karnage10]

My experience is that the gaming comunity has a lot of racism and misogenist. If you want an idea go see total war rome 2 reactions to a free content patch that added female generals to certain cultures. It is just horrible.

 

[Florin4k4]

The thing with Lara Croft is that she was undeniably aimed squarely at the "teen/college boy" market that was becoming prevalent during the mid '90s, with her basically being treated as a digital pin-up model. That, plus the internet being in its infancy, meant the typical anti-SJW crowd didn't really have a reason to complain back then.

People definitely complained when they toned her design down for the reboot series, which illustrates the issue perfectly.

Although I will say that people have always seemed generally more accepting of female protagonists when it's a new IP. See: Beyond Good & Evil. You'll see more people crawl out of the woodwork when it's a tried-and-tested franchise changing things up (The Last of Us, Uncharted).

Click to shrink...

What was the "issue" with tlou and uncharted?

 

[Alanood]

Because when you're privileged, any attempt at equality feels like oppression.

Click to shrink...

Thank you!

 

[BrandoBoySP]

Sadly, our society is still sexist, racist, heteronormative, and cisnormative. Even people who legitimately hold no ill will toward people that are not like them still have unconscious bias: nobody is free of that. Combine that with games being a form of escapism, and you end up with a lot of blowback to even the most benign critique.

It's all compounded by the weird struggle that gamers have when games are critiqued the way literature and film are. The rejection of games journalism even when said journalism is good; hating on anyone who takes a literary approach to video games; and worshipping Kojima as an auteur because he makes art games couched in AAA aesthetics yet hating art games that don't have the same budget; all of them end up causing a weird anti-intellectual bent within gaming.

It's a whole mix of not understanding creative endeavors, not understanding commercial realities, a touch of anti-intellectualism (which isn't always consciously done!), and discrimination both systematic and macro. It's easy to say "it's because people are racist", but many people hear the term "racist" (or sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc.) and immediately leap to slurs and physical punishment without understanding that there's a lot more to it than what society at large deems "racist". Obviously, we do have plenty of outright racists in gaming; look at the number of people who will use the n-word on stream. The blowback isn't all because of the Big Things like that, though.

What pretty much everyone else here has discussed: our society still holds racist/sexist values.

In games specifically -- part of this is because mainstream games were (and still in some cases, are) almost exclusively marketed towards an audience of white teenage/young adult men. This set up expectations in media that now feel immersion-breaking to said audience (example: people inevitably complaining about black people appearing in western fantasy games despite dragons, elves, and other imaginative creatures being a thing).

The people working in the industry are also... very white, and very male. If you're not getting the perspectives of women and minorities, then chances are that's going to be reflected in your game which in turn will be reflected in your audience. A personal example I can think of: my team was on a project that involved creating a diverse lineup of characters. All of the black women, however, had straight hair. Our coworker (a black woman herself) had to push for that to be changed, and had to even teach the art director how black hair worked (i.e. if you're a gritty underground fighter in space you probably don't have time to straighten your hair). Were she not present to give her opinion, those characters would have likely been approved unnoticed.

There have been times at past companies (thankfully not EA) where I've been directly told to lighten skin of characters. I got told once (again, not at EA) to put a design for a 90's businesswoman in a skirt, because pants were too masculine. It all feeds into each other.

Click to shrink...

Thanks for mentioning this wasn't at EA. There are legitimate critiques to be had of them, but I feel like a lot of gamers don't really grasp that there's quite a bit that goes into games; there's good and bad even to our favorite devs and publishers.

 

[Rotobit]

What was the "issue" with tlou and uncharted?

Click to shrink...

I've seen more than a few people complain about Lost Legacy focusing on Chloe and Nadine, and a bunch of losers can't deal with Ellie being the protagonist of Last of Us 2, though it's hard to gauge if that's because she's a woman or because she's gay (probably both)

 

[SolidSnakex]

I've seen more than a few people complain about Lost Legacy focusing on Chloe and Nadine, and a bunch of losers can't deal with Ellie being the protagonist of Last of Us 2, though it's hard to gauge if that's because she's a woman or because she's gay (probably both)

Click to shrink...

Back when LB came out there were quite a few people that convinced themselves that she wasn't actually gay and her kiss with Riley was just her "experimenting" because she was so young.

 

[Velezcora]

Because when you're privileged, any attempt at equality feels like oppression.

Click to shrink...

This doesn't make sense to me. How can people see increased diversity as oppressive? In fact the goal of equality would not to be drag down the privileged but raise minorities up to equal privilege.

Wait... why am I questioning this? We know these people are fucking idiots.

 

[Palidoozy]

Can we not with the "one and done" comments? There's a way to say that something is a great, succinct summation of the answer to OP's question without implying that there's not significant nuance and discussion to be had around the topic. This issue isn't "done" and the question isn't answered until all people feel comfortable and accepted within games, gaming spaces, and the games industry (whether in development or reporting).

I think your point about marketing and audiences is spot on, and perhaps I'm thinking about this in the context of The Sims, specifically TS4, partly because you're at Maxis (though I understand if you don't really have a part in this area of the game or can't speak about it). The Sims has had, historically, a large female player base compared to other games, and I would argue much of its marketing and directions understand that. It is, after all, based on the concept of dolls in a dollhouse. TS4 definitely has rooms to improve (I saw a great Twitter thread recently about how it should have wheelchairs available, though I understand what a technical challenge that might be, for the same reason there's still no height slider), but it has made some real strides in being more inclusive: clothing options are coded as masc or fem, but any body can wear them, and you can select whether your Sim can become pregnant, if they pee standing up, etc. As far as I'm aware, gay and lesbian relationships have been in the series for some time (at least since TS2), as have different skin color options. It is my understanding that the hair options for people of color have also improved a lot in the last few updates and packs. The last University trailer also featured a black woman prominently.

These changes have not faced nearly the same level of blowback or outrage as, say, Battlefield V putting a woman on the cover, at least not that I have seen. I have to imagine that a large part of that has to do with the audience of The Sims and who it is marketed to. One would think similar arguments would arise from camps concerned with "SJWs invading gaming." But I think those people also don't consider The Sims to be a real game for real gamers, so it doesn't fall on their radar. It's all about gatekeeping, about protecting the space they have understood to be "theirs" and being afraid of other, different people (rightfully) challenging their views.

Click to shrink...

I think you're correct in a lot of ways, yeah. The Sims has made a lot less blowback just because of their audience -- I wasn't working at Maxis at the time, but I was exceptionally proud when they released the more varied gender options and it didn't receive a wave of gamer rage in response. I'm a transgender man myself, it meant a lot. Also yeah, 100% agree with the take about the Sims not being considered a 'real' game (when telling people I work at Maxis a common response is 'I thought they were dead').

In the past, however, I've worked on titles that have been more... male-oriented (though I am in a mobile space, which has a lot more of a female playerbase than AAA games). And I've definitely worked with art directors and PMs who have had to issue corrections to me because they felt my work wasn't catering to a proper audience. It's a shitty circular situation -- there's an audience of men that tends to be the highest-paying audience, so they're the one that gets targeted. Because you're not open to (or at times outright antagonistic) towards women/minorities, they don't pay money. So men remain the highest paying audience, and therefore the ones that are targeted.

There's also a problem that I'm facing right now, which is an absolute frustrating part of the industry and society as a whole. When you create a style that's geared more towards men, women begrudgingly come along. They'll tolerate it. On the flip side, however -- men as a whole won't tolerate a style designed more towards women. It'll turn them away. That... delves into the whole issue of toxic masculinity, which absolutely blows.

 

[Gakidou]

It's easy to say "because gamers are sexist/racist/homophobic/etc" and you're not wrong on that... but i feel its worth mentioning there's been a long history of active campaigns to smear social equality movements. The mindspace of many people never truly recovered from times when suffragettes were painted as hypocritical bitter witches who hate men, and emancipation activists wanted to dominate the genepool with some sort of weird bad-faith integration(???)
Hence white genocide, bluelivesmatter, #notallmen, gamergate, etc. They're not new grievances, they're a surfacing of old resentments and biases.
The patriarchy isn't just the natural state of humans, it's a system of manipulation perpetuated by a smaller subgroup of people who have something to gain.

I was having a discussion with a fellow game dev recently (i know, yikes) who just wouldn't give up this idea that equality was good, but feminism was BAD and he couldnt explain why feminism was bad if he agreed with every example i gave him of gender equality, he just knew it was. Like, other feminists that exist somewhere were JERKS, he saw it on the internet! Drives me crazy, man.

Unfortunately a lot of these people are individuals who could be convinced to have a reasonable amount of empathy in out-of-context situations (like how they accepted female action heroes before they perceived it as a statement), but as soon as they here those buzzwords like diversity or feminist they spit it out like a child being convinced their candy is a vegetable. It makes them hard to simply separate from seemingly rational, non-bigoted people because its like it only comes up when you say the magic words. Classic brainwashing.

 

[Palidoozy]

Thanks for mentioning this wasn't at EA. There are legitimate critiques to be had of them, but I feel like a lot of gamers don't really grasp that there's quite a bit that goes into games; there's good and bad even to our favorite devs and publishers.

Click to shrink...

Yeah no, this was at some smaller companies I worked at (that I believe are all dead). I wrote that out and then went "... wait, shit, I should REALLY clarify that lol."

EA isn't perfect, but I openly transitioned from female to male here. This has been the only company I've worked at where I have black coworkers. For some of my coworkers it's the first place they've worked at where they haven't been the only woman in the office.

That said -- I don't think this should be taken as "EA's great!" -- rather, it should be taken as "holy shit it's really fucked up this isn't the norm."

 

[grosbard]

The blowback is for two reasons. People either don't want race/sex/gender effortlessly thrown into a game just so the devs can get brownie points from people on twitter or they don't want those things added to a game because they are actually racist/sexist. The people who are actual racist/sexist are a very small number of somewhat loud people though. I do realize this post isn't in line with the bullhorn shouting of "muh stupid white privileged racist men" here on resetera so I'll take my lashing now for going against the majority....lol ironic.

 

[Deleted member 3815]

Regarding Nadine being voice acted by Laura Bailey, you do know she got the job first before the character was designed. Once it was confirmed that Nadine was black, are you seriously suggesting that Naughty Dog should have then sacked Laura because of the colour of her skin? If so, that is racial discrimination. You are misrepresenting the facts to bolster your opinion. This isn't a Julia Roberts can play Harriet Tubman situation.

Click to shrink...

Piss off that "racial discrimination" bullshit nonsense.

Laura Bailey is a privilege white woman taking on a role that should have been recast towards a black woman once the decisions was made to make the character a black woman.

This is actually a big problem within the industry where white folks are taking on roles that should have been reserved for People of colours.

 

[L Thammy]

Piss off that "racial discrimination" bullshit nonsense.

Laura Bailey is a privilege white woman taking on a role that should have been recast towards a black woman once the decisions was made to make the character a black woman.

This is actually a big problem within the industry where white folks are taking on roles that should have been reserved for People of colours.

Click to shrink...

In case someone tries to pull the reverse racism argument on this post:

This is essentially an affirmative action situation, where the issue being addressed in a long-standing systemic inequality, and taking an approach simply of treating everyone as equal is just allowing the inequalities to exist.

No one is saying that every actor should be restrained to playing their own race or ethnicity, but white actors being limited to white roles is a much more lax restriction when white roles are the norm than black actors being limited to black roles when black roles are the exception. Similarly, saying that you're just looking at the best actors becomes more questionable the more consistently those best actors are from the same demographics.

Fictional characters that are people of colour are nice, but it starts to approach virtue signalling and lip service when you aren't putting the same effort into ensuring that you have diversity behind the scenes as you are in ensuring that you have diversity to sell to your customers. You should have both.

 

[DigitalOp]

I love when people make comments about "forced diversity"

As if the US wasn't a country where people had to "force" the goddamn government to integrate ethnic people into it's larger society.

You look like a fucking clueless idiot talking about "forced diversity"

 

[Karlinel]

I would say most people love their comfort zone and don't think much on empathy, so being mainly egocentric the reason would be: why bother in something that doesn't cater to ME?

or sexism, which never fails.

 

[skillzilla81]

I love when people make comments about "forced diversity"

As if the US wasn't a country where people had to "force" the goddamn government to integrate ethnic people into it's larger society.

You look like a fucking clueless idiot talking about "forced diversity"

Click to shrink...

Was about to say something similar, but this.

The blowback is for two reasons. People either don't want race/sex/gender effortlessly thrown into a game just so the devs can get brownie points from people on twitter or they don't want those things added to a game because they are actually racist/sexist. The people who are actual racist/sexist are a very small number of somewhat loud people though. I do realize this post isn't in line with the bullhorn shouting of "muh stupid white privileged racist men" here on resetera so I'll take my lashing now for going against the majority....lol ironic.

Click to shrink...

Always funny that minorities need a reason to exist. White people, status quo, don't ever need to think about it. Put a brown person in, though, and you better validate that so that you don't get "brownie points" for letting us see us in the entertainment we consume.

 

[Aswitch]

It says alot about the people that are blowing back more than anything really. It's hard to not see more diversity and representation in games being anything but positive.

 

[L Thammy]

I love when people make comments about "forced diversity"

As if the US wasn't a country where people had to "force" the goddamn government to integrate ethnic people into it's larger society.

You look like a fucking clueless idiot talking about "forced diversity"

Click to shrink...

While you're there, you could probably also bring up that one of the largest ethnic groups in the country is there because of where they were forced to be, and the original ethnic groups in the country are where they are because of where they were forced to be.

If you want to understand the ethnic makeup of that country, at the bare minimum, you need to understand how it's been created by force.

 

[platocplx]

Equality is an attack on people who have all the power.