Discussion Do you think Game Developers are purposefully excluding Black characters from their games ？

So, with games such as Genshin Impact, Azur Lane, and almost all JRPGs except the Suikoden series not including Black or Brown-skinned characters, it almost makes you wonder if game developers are purposefully not including Black characters for a reason. Most of those games are not set in China or Japan but in fictional fantasy worlds where there should be much freedom in world-building, but almost all Main Characters look either White Caucasian or East Asian all with light-skin. It is as if they look down upon people with darker-skin that they always want to exclude them from important roles. As a brown-skinned Asian guy that regularly plays games with light-skinned Protags for more than 20 years I feel somewhat sad that no Brown or Black Protagonists are present except for Hugo in Suikoden 3. Ever since I had an Awakening Moment this year, I only want to consume media where the Protagonist is a Black or Brown Male Protagonist for a goddamn change, but as for the choice of heroines I don't mind and love the diversity in female characters, so having a JP or White girl as the main heroine with light skin can help add skin color contrast to the dark-skinned MC in a colorful and aesthetically vibrant combination. That's diversity for, right ？ Also let a White dude be the Best Friend Character for equal representation. So what can we do to tell game developers that we can't tolerate this exclusion of darker-skinned characters in VIP roles any farther ？ By no longer purchasing and consuming their products and making our own that caters to our needs？Brainstorm here. I will email MiHoYo later about this issue. Let us change this stagnant and Anti-Black world and promote inclusivity and equality for all irrespective of skin color.

 

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Developers no production staff and writers maybe

 

You smokin crack or what? Azur Lane has dark colored/tanned girls and many JRPGs do include them.
Also I'm still gonna simp for MiHoYo regardless of what skin color their Characters have. Didn't even notice there weren't any blacks till you started whining lmao.

 

Also, I have not forgotten the racial discrimination suffered by Africans and all Black people in Guangzhou, China earlier this year. As a brown-skinned person myself, I stand in solidarity with all Black people in America and China who are unjust victims of the evil known as Racial Discrimination. Black and Brown Lives have and will always Matter.

 

TBH, its a lose lose situation most of the time. No matter how a gaming company was to protray a protagonist black character, there would be a massive backlash from some portion of the black community. On top of that, most major Asian markets would likely ignore the title due to their own cultural proclivities. So in the end its just easier to make make the protagonist either Caucasian, tan, or of a racial neutral coloration.

 

On purpose not really, do i care, not really.

And i remember black people in RPGs. They have been in the tales games, the ff games, the chrono series, fire emblem series, suikoden series, xenoblade, shadowhearts... while maybe rare its not like they arent in jrpg games.

For me as a dark skinned asian, i could care less about the skin color of characters in the game and the content of the game itself.

 

If a black game developer choose not to include black people, that's considered being purposeful.

If a white game developer does the same thing, that's because it's considered natural for them to not include other races.

 

This is a completely different topic, and will start to go towards politics... (its crazy saying lives matter is now politics I blame poltical people)...

 

I don't care if there's no racial diversity. I care about good writing, I choose to focus on what I care about. I guess all you care about is the color of the characters you see, which shows how shallow your thinking is. Good riddance, go watch some Netflix or something.

 

Is fantasy steriotipe, game developers are white, in Asia there is almost no black people, majority of the players arent black. I dont play jrpg but i guess these are reasons.

 

Also one of my favorite game genres of all time has represented black people a lot fighting games.

 

Mate, I have been seeing a lot of these posts from you. It's good that you are passionate about such things, but you need to remember to not have clouded vision. Be more open. It may not be a good thing to have preconceived notions and then judging things around you from that position.

 

You do realise it's mostly Japanese people behind anime/manga/J-RPG's etc? Japan couldn't give less of a fuck about inclusion, exclusion or whatever. It is simply not a thing for them, nor will it become a thing because they care very little for whatever non-japanese may think about it. They make their entertainment for Japanese and the global market is 'just' extra income, but never the focus.

Also, please stop making threads about diversity or equal representation in this community. If you look, there's probably enough to go around and the entire subject is plain annoying and highly toxic. Which are two subject-qualities I prefer to stay away from.

 

hahah you want to talk about this topic on here? Do you hate yourself?

 

IKR? I've seen this guy post like 3-4(?) of these kinds of threads.

 

Most racism is rarely conscious. It's taught to you from a young age, so you just carry it out because that seems "normal" to you, and you'd probably never notice that anything was wrong until someone points it out to you.

It's not purposeful until someone brings it up as an issue and the creators spit the dummy over the idea of making an effort to do things differently.

Things are slowly changing in the Western gaming industry, but Japan is its own thing.

 

I had been seeing you for a while about this kind of thing. Dude, if you really hate skin color discrimination then stop worrying about something like this, just enjoy the story, not their skin color. I'm not saying it's wrong for you to wanting a black MC, what's wrong is when you're trying to force your ideal to others. It's their game/story, so let them do whatever they want, just because there's a lack of black characters doesn't mean they're racist -_-

 

I don't want to go into politics. But I have only thing to say.
All lives matter.
'I am brown, Just to let you know.'

 

I think it's probably capitalism at play. In Japan, the majority of people are Japanese, so they're going to make the mc Japanese so that the majority of people will feel comfortable relating to the mc. In the west, the majority of people are caucasian, so they're going to make the mc caucasian for the same reason.

Not to mention the fact that in the west a game with a black or brown protagonist might get backlash from sjws if they do it "wrong" somehow.

Making the mc black or brown is choosing a smaller target audience and is going to make less money, unless the game is made in a country where the majority of the population is black or brown and they don't expect to sell more overseas than domestically.

It sucks, but money is all most companies care about, so they're going to play it safe most of the time.

If you really care about this as much as you say, then you can try to make your own games and fiction with black or brown mcs. But like I've said in the past, you still need a good concept for your game or story apart from the mc's race, or else it won't be fun.

Boycotting big companies won't work, because there aren't enough people who care.