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[Vector]

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[Bauglir]

Yes, I don't think anybody pushing for diversity is advocating making social progress a core element of the gaming community. They don't want to promote LGBT acceptance, for instance, by including a flaming stereotype in every game - that just reinforces the problem, actually. I think the point is that they, and myself, want diverse characters, but with only as much emphasis within the work on their diversity as the standard white alpha male protagonist gets on their own qualities. That already varies from game to game, and so it should with a wider range of characters too.

[GavJ]

It's a simple empirical marketing science question. Not sure where the debate is, really.

 "Will having a story about a gay black female get get more people (of any type) to buy games than it will cause people to not buy games?"

The answer is either yes or no, in actual reality, and the logical decision for any company will be to choose whichever plot line leads to the most games sold, which they would determine by doing things like focus groups and comparing to demographics tables.  Not by engaging in armchair philosophy.

[Bauglir]

Depends on perspective, I suppose. In terms of what a corporation's job is, absolutely, these are all non-questions. In just about any other sense of what should be, though, the philosophy comes back to the fore. Although I resent the implication that this is armchair philosophy - some of us are too poor to afford chairs with arms.

[Ogdibus]

Publishers don't know what will work.  They only know what has worked.  They've also become "too big for their britches."  They need to make a ridiculous number of sales in order to cover the absurd cost of running their massive corporations, so they don't want to invest in anything that hasn't recently been proven to work.  This behavior is causing their games to become stagnant, which is actually hurting their business.

Independent developers are a different story, however.  In that case, the interests of the development team have much more influence on what they make.  This is still limited by the fact that the majority is still white males, age 18 - 45.  Even though many, or most of them might appreciate diversity, they don't necessarily have the means to implement it in their work.  It takes more than a sentiment to do it well.

[Neonivek]

I'm tired of trauma being an expected part of the package.

Good luck with that. I honestly cannot think of many protagonists who don't have some sort of tragedy especially in RPGs and Shooters.

There is a reason only having one parent is on the grand list of RPG clichés.

usually men have emotional trauma happen to them via proxy

That is usually how it is done. Though it happens to male characters quite often as well..

For example Master Chief, Every male silent hill protagonist, Resident evil, Doomguy, the main guy from Indigo Prophacy, Ethan from that treasure hunting game, George Stobart, Guybrush Threepwood....

All had emotional traumatic experience happen to them directly.

You need to define "direct emotional Trauma".

For example Master Chief lost his parents from a young age (by proxy) by being taken away from his parents (directly) and being trained as a soldier in harsh conditions as well as heavily modified (also direct).

[Sappho]

Publishers don't know what will work.  They only know what has worked.  They've also become "too big for their britches."  They need to make a ridiculous number of sales in order to cover the absurd cost of running their massive corporations, so they don't want to invest in anything that hasn't recently been proven to work.  This behavior is causing their games to become stagnant, which is actually hurting their business.

This this this this this. We keep seeing the same old garbage because that stuff worked in the past. It's not "would having a gay black female protagonist sell more copies or less?" It's "has anyone ever made a game with a gay black female protagonist that sold at least as many copies as a white male one? No? Then we're not going to be the first to try it."

Whereas if the big AAA companies heard from the gaming community, including the white male demographic, that yes, we would buy a game like that, and in fact we want it, then they will be willing to make it. But this is not a situation where you can "vote with your wallet." Your wallet can only vote for games that have already been made. If we want something actually new, then we need to tell them. That's where discussions like this come in. If enough people are talking about it and saying loudly that they want more diverse characters, eventually this will catch the attention of someone in the AAA industry and things can start to change.

This is why it's not enough to say "things are slowly changing, so we don't need to do anything." As others have said, things have only changed as much as they have because people demanded it. Progress will grind to a halt or even start going backwards if people just shrug their shoulders and walk away.

And it seems this has mostly been covered while I was sleeping, but just to emphasize:

I'm not demanding GAMES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE. I'm not demanding GAMES FOR GAY PEOPLE. I'm not demanding that every game ever must be completely representative of the entire spectrum of human beings. That would be ridiculous. I have no problem whatsoever with many games being just chock full of white guys.

All I'm asking for is that when a company makes a game, they give AT LEAST AS MUCH consideration to making the lead female as male. That they treat the female characters they include as complex human beings with a personality that isn't centered around appearance or a man (which means consulting REAL LIVE WOMEN when designing the characters). I want to see a gay character in a game every once in a while, and I absolutely do NOT want the game to be about a character being gay. I want to see more non-white characters in games who are just there, not stereotypes, not criminals, not enemies, just people. That's the whole point. I don't really want to play a game that is "targeted for the black demographic" or the "gay demographic." I want there to be these characters in the games and for it to not be a big deal. It shouldn't be a big deal for there to be a lesbian in the game. Or even for the main character to be one. It shouldn't be a big deal to have a female character who's just there to kick ass and take names without highlighting her gravity-defying breasts or tragic backstory.

The world is not full of white guys. Even the gaming community is not full of white guys. So why do the games have to be? It's like the Lord of the Rings thing, where they told the Indian girl she was too brown to be a hobbit. Our game worlds are full of orcs, goblins, elves, dwarfs, robots, aliens, monsters, superheroes, supervillains, evolving bacteria, sentient elements, and talking abstractions. No one should be raising an eyebrow at a black lesbian in there somewhere. Or a transgender character whose story is not about being transgender. Or a playable Arab protagonist who is a practicing Muslim and follows the actual teachings of that religion (peace, love, understanding, equality, and not forcing your views on others) strictly even while progressing throughout the story.

These things don't need to be highlighted or focused on. They just need to be THERE.

[Vector]

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[Neonivek]

Ohh in which case Vector

Male protagonists have to deal with that kind of crud all the time.

I know you are thinking of something Vector.

[Vector]

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[lemon10]

There is a reason only having one parent is on the grand list of RPG clichés.

Again, that's not trauma to yourself--like losing your voice (Transistor, FFIX), being shot in the head (unnamed adventure game), whatever the hell happened in Metroid: Last M, starting the game by having your brain wiped in Remember Me, or the rape attempts common to stuff like the Tomb Raider reboot.

A comparable male example would be when Cloud goes batshit in FFVII and is left mostly mute and trapped in his own mind, or absolutely everything that happens to Snake in MGSIV.

Yeah, Metroid: Other M doesn't really count at all, because screw it.
And once you ignore it (because its not canon no matter what anyone says), Samus is a crazy strong female protagonist that doesn't give a shit about trama or even show a hint of its existence.

[Neonivek]

Ohh in which case Vector

Male protagonists have to deal with that kind of crud all the time.

It's about the proportion.

Games in which men are violated are relatively rare. Games in which women are raped, abused, otherwise violated--make a large proportion of the games in which women even appear.

Persona 2, 3, 4.
Final Fantasy 5, 6, and 8
That Treasure Hunting game with Ethan (why can't I remember it?)
Indigo Prophesy
Heavy Rain
Doom
Halo

To name a few... and that is ONLY getting into male protagonists. If we lessen that to just male characters then there is no way "rare" is an appropriate term to use.

[10ebbor10]

Relatively rare. As vector said, it's about proportion. To give an arbitrary example.

You have 1000 male protagonists, of which 10 get the personal violation treatment.
You have 10 female protagonists, of which 5 get the personal violation treatment.

Despite there being twice as many cases where it happens to male protagonists, it's still more likely to happen to female protagonists. 50% chance versus 1%.

[Neonivek]

You have 1000 male protagonists, of which 10 get the personal violation treatment

I can only comment on male characters (since I have no comment or opinion on female protagonists)

But it is no where near 1000 male protagonists of which only 10 have anything bad directly happen to them.

It would be the equivalent of me saying that for every 1000 male protagonists in movies, only 10 don't use guns.

[Vector]

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