Comment Rationalized view on things (Score 2, Insightful) 646
Copied this insightful comment from the article link. I took the liberty to post it here for some additional views (I apologize in advance for any copies I posted by accident as "Anonymous Coward").
Author: Areala
Any time you bring race or gender bias into any particular medium, there's going to be problems. And while I can certainly see that there is a disparity, the first thing one has to look at is that numbers don't tell you everything.
Being female, when I was growing up, I heard all the time about how women were paid less than men, and how terrible this was. And while the numbers are true, they don't tell the whole story. Women, by and large, simply tend to go after jobs that traditionally pay less. Female teachers outnumber male teachers in every school in the US, for example--this is not because men are being "held back" from teaching by an elite group of high-powered females in schools and universities, it's because there are more women interested in the job than men, and fewer males are getting their degrees and licenses than females are. Numbers alone are meaningless without a reason to go along with them.
On the subject of ethnicity, the only counterpoints I can offer to the subject of "bias" against any particular ethnicity are as follows. First, the majority of gamers are male, and the majority of game developers are male; this isn't surprising considering that males (especially in the teenage demographic) are statistically more interested in gaming than females. We're not the rare birds we once were, but we're still not as common. Boys use video games as bonding experiences and social experiences. By and large, girls tend to bond and socialize in other ways. Men are more apt to enter the field of game design because, statistically speaking, they are more apt to be interested in it than their female counterparts are (remember the teacher analogy). It's not that the top-tier of every gaming company is conspiring to keep women out, it's that they're having a hard time finding any who are at all interested in the field period. Black or white, asian or european, it's going to be guys right now who are filling the ranks. And gaming isn't the garage-based hobby it was twenty years ago--with budgets of games in the next generation hovering in the double-digits of millions of dollars for a major, AAA title like Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, or Gears of War, and gaming revenue surpassing Hollywood in terms of dollars generated, gaming companies are only interested in hiring the best people for the right positions. If you can't program, or you aren't as good a designer as somebody else, or you lack the experience a company is looking for, it doesn't matter what colour your skin is or whether you have two X chromosomes: the job will not be yours. Plain and simple.
Point two is something that an awful lot of people seem to forget about gaming when this topic comes up for discussion, and that is that video games are all about fantasy. There's a reason why Microsoft has not made a multi-platinum-selling video game about a geeky programmer who works a 9-5 job programming the next iteration of Windows; it's a fantasy that appeals to so few people that those who would be interested in playing the game are already doing it in real life.
Fantasy in games is all about getting to do things that you can't do in real life, either because of physical, social, ethical or legal ramifications or because the universe we inhabit is not the same as the universe of a video game. No matter how hard we might want it, none of us will be able to be Joan of Arc leading an attack on the English in an effort to restore France's deposed dauphin to his rightful place on the throne. Unless we play a video game.
Since gaming is all about fantasy, it stands to reason that the things we want to fantasize about most are the things we will never, ever get to do in real life. There's a reason Madden NFL sells millions of copies with each year's release: there are millions of people all over the world who can never themselves play a game of professional football in a real stadium, but they all dream about doing it anyway. Playing games lets us live the fantasies without any of the real-world dangers. There are far more gamers willing to drop in Call of Duty and kill some terrorists than there are willing to sign up for the armed forces so they can do likewise.
Gamers like to play characters who do not remind them of real life. Tommy Vercetti of GTA: Vice City, Cole Train from Gears of War, Master Chief from Halo and Samus Aran from Metroid are appealing because they don't exist except on a screen. Using them as our avatars, we can commit crimes without suffering the penalties associated with them, chainsaw and curb stomp invading baddies by the truckload, blow away aliens hell-bent on taking over the earth, and explore mysterious planets in galaxies far removed from the Milky Way. When we play, we don't want to be "us". We want to be the loner, the one who succeeds against all odds, the quarterback who makes the hail mary happen, the last bastion of good in a world gone bad. We want to be the wisecracking, fast-talking, smooth-dressing cop who plays both sides of the law, the hip skater girl who can fly with Tony Hawk, the daring adventurer who explores ancient ruins armed with nothing more than a beat-up backpack and a pair of pistols, or the suave and unruffled super-spy who will always prevail in the end no matter what obstacles are set before us.
Are there stereotypes? Sure. But let's face it...if you had to pick between playing a virtual hip-hop star or the real you (who works in an office all day for nine hours with one lunch break and spends most of his or her time answering the phones, writing e-mails, and trying to sell a product or service), the choice is obvious. We're drawn to what we cannot have, to who we cannot be. Indiana Jones doesn't inspire because he's a white guy in a hat with a whip--he inspires because he does stuff that would put most of us in the hospital and lives to tell about it.
Is it worth talking about? Absolutely--video games are an open art form. Is it worth getting upset or worried about? I don't think so. Games are growing up, slowly but surely. Is there room for improvement? Always. Will making more video game characters black, or native american, or female translate to better games? No.
I find it a strange that some people are so easily willing to shrug off the Italian mafioso stereotype image from GTA III as being an amusing parody, but are disturbed by the equal parody presented by the protagonist of GTA: San Andreas. The lifestyle presented by the game isn't one of realistic gang behavior and choices made by the average African American; the lifestyle presented in San Andreas is a parody of the lifestyle presented by hip-hop artists and the mixture of fantasy and reality showcased by their music. Let's face it...I'm a 31-year-old white female. I'll never live the "thug" life. San Andreas lets me play a stylistic parody of it without any of the downsides like getting hurt in real life. Doom 3 lets me play as a muscle-bound "jarhead" on Mars where big, nasty things are shooting and clawing at me without the downside of potentially getting my head ripped off by creatures with more limbs and eyes than your average spider. Smackdown vs. Raw lets me slap on a uniform and step into the ring against people who know at least twenty different ways to break me in half with one hand tied behind their backs without actually worrying about getting cracked ribs.
We want to be who we aren't when we play games. But we don't want it too serious, too realistic, too much like real life. Most often in games, ethnicity and gender of characters is a convenience used to tell a certain kind of story a certain kind of way. But I think the reason we keep seeing the same "stereotypes" in games is simply because, when it comes down to it, we'd much rather be Cole Train, kicking butt and taking names, than the person who is sitting back, safe and secure off the battlefield relaying him information over a comm channel. And that desire isn't going to change any time soon.
Author: Areala
Any time you bring race or gender bias into any particular medium, there's going to be problems. And while I can certainly see that there is a disparity, the first thing one has to look at is that numbers don't tell you everything.
Being female, when I was growing up, I heard all the time about how women were paid less than men, and how terrible this was. And while the numbers are true, they don't tell the whole story. Women, by and large, simply tend to go after jobs that traditionally pay less. Female teachers outnumber male teachers in every school in the US, for example--this is not because men are being "held back" from teaching by an elite group of high-powered females in schools and universities, it's because there are more women interested in the job than men, and fewer males are getting their degrees and licenses than females are. Numbers alone are meaningless without a reason to go along with them.
On the subject of ethnicity, the only counterpoints I can offer to the subject of "bias" against any particular ethnicity are as follows. First, the majority of gamers are male, and the majority of game developers are male; this isn't surprising considering that males (especially in the teenage demographic) are statistically more interested in gaming than females. We're not the rare birds we once were, but we're still not as common. Boys use video games as bonding experiences and social experiences. By and large, girls tend to bond and socialize in other ways. Men are more apt to enter the field of game design because, statistically speaking, they are more apt to be interested in it than their female counterparts are (remember the teacher analogy). It's not that the top-tier of every gaming company is conspiring to keep women out, it's that they're having a hard time finding any who are at all interested in the field period. Black or white, asian or european, it's going to be guys right now who are filling the ranks. And gaming isn't the garage-based hobby it was twenty years ago--with budgets of games in the next generation hovering in the double-digits of millions of dollars for a major, AAA title like Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, or Gears of War, and gaming revenue surpassing Hollywood in terms of dollars generated, gaming companies are only interested in hiring the best people for the right positions. If you can't program, or you aren't as good a designer as somebody else, or you lack the experience a company is looking for, it doesn't matter what colour your skin is or whether you have two X chromosomes: the job will not be yours. Plain and simple.
Point two is something that an awful lot of people seem to forget about gaming when this topic comes up for discussion, and that is that video games are all about fantasy. There's a reason why Microsoft has not made a multi-platinum-selling video game about a geeky programmer who works a 9-5 job programming the next iteration of Windows; it's a fantasy that appeals to so few people that those who would be interested in playing the game are already doing it in real life.
Fantasy in games is all about getting to do things that you can't do in real life, either because of physical, social, ethical or legal ramifications or because the universe we inhabit is not the same as the universe of a video game. No matter how hard we might want it, none of us will be able to be Joan of Arc leading an attack on the English in an effort to restore France's deposed dauphin to his rightful place on the throne. Unless we play a video game.
Since gaming is all about fantasy, it stands to reason that the things we want to fantasize about most are the things we will never, ever get to do in real life. There's a reason Madden NFL sells millions of copies with each year's release: there are millions of people all over the world who can never themselves play a game of professional football in a real stadium, but they all dream about doing it anyway. Playing games lets us live the fantasies without any of the real-world dangers. There are far more gamers willing to drop in Call of Duty and kill some terrorists than there are willing to sign up for the armed forces so they can do likewise.
Gamers like to play characters who do not remind them of real life. Tommy Vercetti of GTA: Vice City, Cole Train from Gears of War, Master Chief from Halo and Samus Aran from Metroid are appealing because they don't exist except on a screen. Using them as our avatars, we can commit crimes without suffering the penalties associated with them, chainsaw and curb stomp invading baddies by the truckload, blow away aliens hell-bent on taking over the earth, and explore mysterious planets in galaxies far removed from the Milky Way. When we play, we don't want to be "us". We want to be the loner, the one who succeeds against all odds, the quarterback who makes the hail mary happen, the last bastion of good in a world gone bad. We want to be the wisecracking, fast-talking, smooth-dressing cop who plays both sides of the law, the hip skater girl who can fly with Tony Hawk, the daring adventurer who explores ancient ruins armed with nothing more than a beat-up backpack and a pair of pistols, or the suave and unruffled super-spy who will always prevail in the end no matter what obstacles are set before us.
Are there stereotypes? Sure. But let's face it...if you had to pick between playing a virtual hip-hop star or the real you (who works in an office all day for nine hours with one lunch break and spends most of his or her time answering the phones, writing e-mails, and trying to sell a product or service), the choice is obvious. We're drawn to what we cannot have, to who we cannot be. Indiana Jones doesn't inspire because he's a white guy in a hat with a whip--he inspires because he does stuff that would put most of us in the hospital and lives to tell about it.
Is it worth talking about? Absolutely--video games are an open art form. Is it worth getting upset or worried about? I don't think so. Games are growing up, slowly but surely. Is there room for improvement? Always. Will making more video game characters black, or native american, or female translate to better games? No.
I find it a strange that some people are so easily willing to shrug off the Italian mafioso stereotype image from GTA III as being an amusing parody, but are disturbed by the equal parody presented by the protagonist of GTA: San Andreas. The lifestyle presented by the game isn't one of realistic gang behavior and choices made by the average African American; the lifestyle presented in San Andreas is a parody of the lifestyle presented by hip-hop artists and the mixture of fantasy and reality showcased by their music. Let's face it...I'm a 31-year-old white female. I'll never live the "thug" life. San Andreas lets me play a stylistic parody of it without any of the downsides like getting hurt in real life. Doom 3 lets me play as a muscle-bound "jarhead" on Mars where big, nasty things are shooting and clawing at me without the downside of potentially getting my head ripped off by creatures with more limbs and eyes than your average spider. Smackdown vs. Raw lets me slap on a uniform and step into the ring against people who know at least twenty different ways to break me in half with one hand tied behind their backs without actually worrying about getting cracked ribs.
We want to be who we aren't when we play games. But we don't want it too serious, too realistic, too much like real life. Most often in games, ethnicity and gender of characters is a convenience used to tell a certain kind of story a certain kind of way. But I think the reason we keep seeing the same "stereotypes" in games is simply because, when it comes down to it, we'd much rather be Cole Train, kicking butt and taking names, than the person who is sitting back, safe and secure off the battlefield relaying him information over a comm channel. And that desire isn't going to change any time soon.
