Video Games Owe Black Players More Than Just Talk
The video game industry wants us to know it also believes that Black lives matter, but action needs to last longer than this moment.
By Jordan Minor
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Video games aren’t special. They exist in the same world as everything else and are impacted by the same social, cultural, and political forces.
We’re seeing this now as the games industry continues to grapple with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Huge in-person events like E3 and GDC got cancelled and replaced with online showcases for new games and consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. That pandemic is still very much happening, but recently a whole new wave of unrest has the world looking like it will never go back to the way things were.
The murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department has sparked ongoing protests about police brutality and racist violence against African-Americans. Individuals and industries across the globe have offered condolences to the suffering Black folks. To their credit, video game companies have taken a stance bolder than what I cynically would’ve expected even just five years ago. The fact that the phrase “Black Lives Matter” itself has become less inherently controversial is tiny, but meaningful, progress. Really, acknowledging the basic universal humanity of millions of people is the least anyone can do.
However, considering the specific relationship between the games industry and Black players, we need more than just talk. We need significant action that goes beyond this one inescapable moment in history.
40 Teraflops and a Mule
So what has the current response from games companies looked like? There are plenty of appreciated but milquetoast tweets from brands like Nintendo and Pokemon offering sympathy and solidarity with the Black community. This is after Nintendo finally made an Animal Crossing game that let you adjust skin tone after two decades. Sony pushed back the reveal of the PlayStation 5 to let more important news command your attention. Players are organizing virtual BLM protests in social spaces like Splatoon and The Sims.
Pete Parsons, CEO of Destiny developer Bungie, joined real protests in Seattle and got tear-gassed. Plenty of places are raising money for useful charities. Yes, PCMag’s parent company Ziff Davis also owns digital storefront Humble Bundle—but even without that conflict of interest, I would still honestly say this bundle offering over a thousand games for $5 to support Black Lives Matter was one of the greatest gaming deals maybe ever. Did you miss it? Here’s another. So, these companies are doing something.
They absolutely should, though, and they shouldn’t expect a cookie for doing it. Just as white people must grapple with their own privileges and complicity in systemic racism that hurts Black people, video games must also come to terms with the harm they’ve caused. It’s not just about doing good, it’s about fixing mistakes and rectifying past injustices.
Both Apex Legends and the newest Call of Duty force places to look at a screen that says “Black Lives Matter.” That’s great. Call of Duty also subjected Black players to years and years of racial abuse over unmoderated anonymous online voice chat, abuse that developers are now promising to curb. It took a murder and mass unrest spur that change? Let’s not even get into the direct connection between the American army weaponry the shooter franchise fetishizes and the fascist militarization of the real police.
Grand Theft Auto Online went offline for a few hours to support Black Lives Matters. I guess that’s Rockstar’s small way of giving back to the urban Black culture and huge community of Black players who turned Grand Theft Auto into one of the most successful entertainment products ever. That company’s debt to Black folks demands more than just an acknowledgement of one particularly egregious tragedy; it demands ongoing work to dismantle racism itself, in our industry and the world.
That’s the truth of it. While it may initially be jarring to see these brands openly discuss Black issues, to see Black streamers pop up as guest stars on your favorite all-white gaming podcasts, in reality Black people have always been a part of gaming. These conversations have already been happening, now they’re just too loud to ignore.
The Sunken Place
What have we been talking about? Well, all sorts of things. The Miles Morales Spider-Man was one of the most promising parts of the PlayStation 5 reveal. Hip-hop and Spider-Man imagery is such a potent pair. But the game’s status as a modest expansion (similar to the Assassin’s Creed Freedom Cry anti-slavery DLC) rather than full-on sequel has us wondering why Black heroes can only be side heroes. Where’s my game starring Blade or Black Manta or Static Shock? Where’s my Black Panther Afrofuturism game?
The PS5 reveal also let us see how its enhanced power can show the most realistic digital version of Zion Williamson’s sweaty body in NBA 2K21. I’m not even a sports fan and can tell you the way these leagues arguably exploit the Black athletes who sustain them is an ongoing and contentious topic of discussion. Speaking of sports games, let’s see another Black College Football: BCFX: The Xperience. The college football game used HBCU culture, including robust musical halftime band performance gameplay, to stand out in a world where EA’s Madden monopolizes the NFL license.
Sometimes, gaming hardware itself can present unexpected issues when they’re designed by white men for white men. Forget about virtual reality headsets damaging your eyes, wearing one absolutely wrecks my afro, let alone an intricate “unprofessional” natural hairstyle a Black woman might have. To add funny insult to injury, a VR porn demo I once previewed shattered the illusion instantly by giving me a buff but white body. Before it ruined the Xbox One, the Kinect motion camera propelled the Xbox 360 to new mainstream success. But early versions of Kinect got called out for failing to recognize players with darker skin tones.
Like any art, video games themselves must also be open to criticism, including criticism for racial insensitivity no matter how hard reactionary gamers push back. BioShock Infinite saying a working-class, female, Black, leftist, revolutionary leader is just as bad as a hypernationalist, white supremacist, theofascist patriarch is racist. Resident Evil 5 making you gun down hordes of savage zombies in Africa who wear grass skirts and chuck spears at you is racist. Aloy’s white girl dreadlocks in Horizon: Zero Dawn are appropriative and gross. One of the countless post-apocalypse New York City “looters’’ you slaughter in Tom Clancy’s The Division opines about being “just another Black body on the streets” and no one reacts! Clunky and cliche robot racism metaphors are cringeworthy at best (the Mechanical Apartheid in Deux Ex: Mankind Divided) or downright offensive at worst (everything in Detroit: Become Human).
Let’s talk about Fortnite stealing dance moves from Black artists and not paying them despite being gaming’s biggest phenomenon. Cuphead has beautiful 1930’s cartoon art with an ugly 1930s racist legacy. In The Valley of the Gods was doing some low-key groundbreaking work rendering Black hair texture and physics… before Valve cancelled it. If you thought the renegade cop action in Battlefield: Hardline sounded bad, wait until you hear about the Police Quest, point-and-click adventure influenced by a disgraced racist cop following the LA riots.
Fortunately, there are also games with Black representation worth celebrating. The recently re-released Mafia III has issues with pacing and repetition, but it’s one of the least embarrassing examples of a mainstream game trying to say anything about racism. Not only is the writing excellent (thanks Charles Webb) but racism is a mechanic in the open-world. Your biracial Vietnam vet character gets treated differently depending on where he goes in the 1960’s southern Louisiana city.
Speaking of the South, Telltale’s Walking Dead remains a landmark movement for episodic, narrative-driven adventure games. The gripping story hinges on the plight of Lee Everett, a painfully human Black man from Georgia, taking care of his Black surrogate daughter Clementine. Take that, God of War, The Last of Us, and all the other pretentious prestige daddy simulators.
Their character depth may vary, but I always get a charge seeing Black characters like Half-Life’s Alyx Vance, Street Fighter’s Elena, Tekken’s Leroy Smith, Punch-Out’s Doc Louis, anybody voiced by Debra Wilson or Lance Reddick, Charles Milton Porter in BioShock: Minerva’s Den, Dishonored’s Billie Lurk, and even Splatoon’s Marina. Although it is wack that it took a sequel for Overwatch’s colorful cast to gain a Black woman, Sojourn. Apex Legends launched with two. Boisterous beefcakes like Jax Briggs from Mortal Kombat, Barret Wallace from Final Fantasy VII, and Cole Train from Gears of War also ride a fine line between representation and stereotype.
Black culture’s influence on music is impossible to overstate. DJ Hero remains my favorite music game simply by opening up to more diverse genres and artists than previous, rock-focused plastic instrument games. Meanwhile, Def Jam’s pitch of “wrestling game starring real hip-hop musicians” is so delicious that it’s a crime this franchise has been dormant for over a decade. Even another third-person shooter inexplicably starring 50 Cent like Blood on the Sand would be welcome at this point.
Beyond the games themselves, Black creators and players have been a crucial part of this industry and culture all along. SonicFox is the hype new progressive face of the historically diverse fighting game community. Shout out to Omari “NappyRat” Smith, combat designer for pony-powered indie fighting game Them’s Fightin’ Herds (published by Humble Bundle), and Sharpie of Combo Queens, for bringing more Black women to the dude-heavy scene. Reggie Fils-Aime retired after helping guide Nintendo to new heights alongside the late Satoru Iwata. Video games wouldn’t even exist as they do today if the late Jerry Lawson didn’t help create the cartridge. Engineer Ed Smith just published an autobiography about his experience in the early games industry.
Do The Right Thing
Tangible change needs to be made at every level all the time. Not just lip service in February. Making a more equitable game industry for Black people to thrive, both as players and developers, requires work. We need more events like the Game Devs of Color Expo here in Harlem celebrating the vibrant Black indie game dev scene. Where else can a Black woman indie dev show off a game about not touching her hair or hanging out in Chicago’s South Side.
We need white creators to know when it’s time to look outside their own perspective. I always appreciated developer Johnnemann Nordhagen for asking me to author a historic African-American character for his game Where the Water Tastes Like Wine.
We need more mentorships but not “ in a weird way” as described by Treachery in Beatdown City creator Shawn Alexander Allen. Xbox and Ubisoft have thrown networking parties for Black developers. Our good, close friends at Humble Bundle are accepting applications for a $1,000,000 Black game developer fund.
While their calls to action may not be as bold and specific as the statement from… Ben and Jerry’s, video game companies have an opportunity to literally put their money where their mouths are when it comes to anti-racism. We just need to hold them accountable. Organized workforces of video game unions committed to diversity also certainly wouldn’t hurt.
You can help by supporting more Black writers inclined to shine a spotlight on our community; not just me but my co-workers Jeffrey L. Wilson and Alexis Nedd, as well as colleagues like Austin Walker, Gita Jackson, Patrick Austin, Sherri Smith, Yussef Cole, Christopher Byrd, Evan Narcisse, Allegra Frank, Taylor Lyles, Ash Parrish, Charles Pulliam-Moore, Sidney Fussell, Kahlief Adams and Spawn on Me, Blessing Adeoye Jr, Funké Joseph, Leigh Alexander, Jordan Ramée, Edward Ongweso Jr, Akeem Lawanson, the writers at The Koalition, Xavier Woods, Natalie Degraffinried, Kishonna Gray, Mike Williams, Marques Brownlee, Zolani Stewart, Erin Ashley Simon, Jeffrey Rousseau, Tanya DePass, Kimari Rennis, Alan Henry, Royel Edwards, Xavier Harding, Terence Wiggins, Jarrett Jawn, N’Gai Croal, Malik Forté, Kwame Opam, and many others.
Gamer or not, please join me in saying something else I’ve said before and will no doubt say it again: Black Lives Matter.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.
