Jacob’s post: Culture in Gaming
Video games since the beginning have been dominated with largely male, hetero and Caucasian protagonists while providing for diversity in ancillary or secondary characters; however, the lack of culture in gaming isn’t the only issue, the current line-up of bearded grizzled men that sport muscles of a Greek god are themselves a poor representation of men. The gaming industry as a whole, much like mainstream media, has had a poor track record of
representing various groups even its mostly male protagonists.
Most games are action packed, and while more intricate stories for these games, the overwhelming majority sees the character shoot, hit and kill his way from checkpoint to checkpoint with very little opportunity, if at all, to go about the game without resulting to mindless violence. The mostly white male heroes, sport big guns and muscles and leave the talking for other people, not that they’d be regular “Winston Churchill’s,” which coupled
unattainable physiques results in a poor image of masculinity for our male gaming population. Much like how women in the gaming industry are displayed with breast so large they have their own gravitational pull, and equipment, gear or armor that offers the same protection of their
male counterparts yet only covers a few square centimeters of skin. Women are not alone in being displayed countless images of they should look like. My questions lie more so with the reason for
Minorities, and LGBT members are other common victims of poor gaming
representation that leaves a sour taste in many players mouths. The issue with minority and LGBT characters or the environments made for them is similar with the standard hetero, white male or female protagonists, yet is more obvious given the lack of important or central roles and the clearly misguided and ignorant methods of portraying them. Gay characters in various games are becoming more prevalent, however often find themselves as sidekicks and with very little impact on the main story. On the topic of little impact, the portrayal of gay attraction is often displayed with poor efforts of compromise where developers, directors of movies and short films, series depict the possibility of a gay interaction without there ever being one. No,I’m not talking about sex but the confirmation between characters that there is an actual irrefutable gay relationship, not the insulting pandering where person A and person B have a sexually (because that’s how it’s usually portrayed) charged moment and that’s the end of it.
I personally am not sure how to feel about this. It’s upsetting to see what amounts to poor examples of minorities and members of the LGBT community in gaming is commonplace. The fact that there is a presence is a bit reassuring. Would there really be that many gay characters in video games 10 or 20 years ago, or minority and female characters? Probably not. The fact that developers are trying, even if it is simply to appeal to a larger audience is still welcoming. The poor representation does not surprise me. The gaming industry is largely dominated by straight Caucasian males who wouldn’t know how to properly design a character as such. The ignorance seen is to a good extent, in my opinion, excusable, but only for the time being. The growing awareness of this issue should soon provide developers with proper guidance, or as the industry grows, a more diverse developing group that will make more proper heroes and heroines.
