Video Game Diversity and Representation Thread

This thread was inspired by the Film Diversity and Representation Thread, and by discussions of diversity — or lack thereof — in the Far Cry 5 thread. The purpose of this thread is to discuss racial, gender, and orientation portrayals in games.

I'm curious to hear from other tropers what has and/or hasn't worked in terms of representation in the medium.

One notable obstacle towards the representation of different cultures and ethnicities is that most of them ultimately end up being westernized/Americanized individuals in mannerisms and behavior. Cultural quirks, values and taboos aren't very well translated, or are treated just as little facts that briefly pop up and have little influence on the plot; all it adds is just a bit of world building, at most. That, and when somebody does attempt to create a story that relies heavily upon foreign concepts and ideas, a handful of the audience always gets confused or simply disagrees with the ideas shown and dislikes the result.

Case in point: notice how the Japanese love to use the high-school setting for most of their anime and manga works? It's not because their target audience is of that age, but rather said audience thinks most fondly of that period in their lives. It's when they have the most freedom to do what they want, yet at the same time are beginning to gain the responsibilities and privileges of adulthood; doubly so if their parents are salarymen/women. Yet that point is probably missed out on by many foreign casual fans of anime; they merely find the oddities of {absurdly powerful student councils} and kids living mostly alone as being merely tropes.

Now, apply that line of thinking to countries like China, Russia, India, etc with influential media of their own. Each one of those nations have their own media, with their own cliches and character types. See the challenge now?

An article about ARMS black female character Twintelle.

edited 10th Jun '17 7:57:42 PM by BearyScary

Ninjara's not black, though.

E3 was really amazing as far diversity. Never seen so much color before in lead protagonists. Detroit Become Human? Assassin's Creed: Origins? Horizon Zero Dawn? Splatoon 2 (even if the Inklings are technically avatars)

What the hell happened? And can it keep happening?

edited 14th Jun '17 10:50:06 AM by NoName999

Not as long as developers keep insisting that to make a woman character model is "too hard", a la Assassin's Creed and Persona 5.

If companies actually listen to the backlash from fans over those kinds of comments, then... Maybe. I've seen some trends in the right direction and some steps backwards.

edited 14th Jun '17 10:51:59 AM by PhiSat

I just want Miles to be playable in that new Spider-Man game. Like both Pete and Miles teaming up, especially after teasing his presence.

Yeah, even Forza Motorsport had a female driver in its trailer.

If Assassin's Creed Origins can have characters of color in an Egyptian setting, I don't see why Hollywood can't cast people of color in movies with Egyptian settings. :/