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[Gotdatmoney]

Well you don't have to. I'm on the other hand firmly believe that one of the goals in creation procces of this game was to expose and spark some interest in the west about slavic culture. Which I'm grateful for.

Again this isn't my argument. The point I am making was not to say they were not highlighting a portion of their culture in their game. The point I was making is the Witcher is not trying to depict the racialization of the "groups of people the dude was claiming would be the make up of the polish population."

And it totally wasn't. And that is fine. I was not viewing the game through the lens of no black people or no asians equals no diversity which is what I was accused of. The game isn't even making a claim to diversity in the way the dude was framing it. It literally isn't. It's just another western RPG with a different lore starting point.

Which is fine but if someone plays the game and goes, "so no POC exist in this world at all?" that isn't invalidated because the game is made in Poland. I dont think the concept of "you are making a global game, your global audience is going to view things different" is not some crazy argument.

(And no I dont actually care about diversity in the Witcher. It's a valid talking point for the discussion we are having though)

 

[Laiza]

Props for the OP putting in all this work. It's a shame there's still some posters for whom all of this is just flying over their heads, but that's entirely within expectations.

I was actually planning on doing something like this myself down the line, but I guess now I don't have to. Subscribed & bookmarked for future use.

Since antyk is talking about quotas and historical accuracy now, let's handily debunk those.

[snipped for length]

Well-said. It's nice to have a name for that particular strain of argument I keep seeing time and time again ("Thermian argument"). Sounds like I need to watch some videos!

 

[Nepenthe]

This is a strawman, because people are specifically bringing up The Witcher 3 in diversity arguments. It's highlighted in the OP.

The Witcher 3 isn't indicative of most gaming trends anymore than Super Puzzle Platforming Plus is. So a conversation about Witcher 3 doesn't necessarily indicate any trends about where proponents of diversity are mainly aiming their sights at. In short, it's an exception to the rule, hence why I called it a strawman. But if we are going to discuss Witcher, do you think Slavic culture has absolutely no minorities (ethnic, sexual, gender, etc.) in it? Furthermore, what does any culture being chosen at the end of the day ultimately mean when it is subsequently imbued with magic and monsters that don't exist in real life?

 

[DriftingSpirit]

Great OP.

Bookmarked.

 

[purdobol]

Which is fine but if someone plays the game and goes, "so no POC exist in this world at all?" that isn't invalidated because the game is made in Poland. I dont think the concept of "you are making a global game, your global audience is going to view things different" is not some crazy argument.

For sure. I agree. Bud expectations shoud be kept in check when dealing with any medium of foreign origin. Global game and global audience is meaningless term because it's impossible to make a product that would please everybody, and have every possible minority included in meaningful way.

Context matters a lot.
Ever thought about how Russian gamers must feel when they're portrayed as a bad guys constantly in western games? Or movies for that matter?

Never had a chance to ask anybody from there, but i'm curious what the answer would be.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Do you think Slavic culture has absolutely no people of color in it?

For the time period? No, not a whole lot. Poland is one of the most insular European countries historically, especially since it never got in on that colonialism business.

Furthermore, what does any culture being chosen at the end of the day ultimately mean when it is subsequently imbued with magic and monsters that don't exist in real life?

Because it's still inspired by history and that history is intrinsic to the world. The magic really makes no difference in the argument for me, because we're not talking about stuff like bikini armor and the like. If we were, I'd get started on a whole lot of stuff I found weird about the Witcher series' treatment of women, for example. I'm not out to fanboy bat for a game I struggled through.

But what if I made a game that was substantially based on the Nok Empire? Even if I incorporate the fantastic elements of their culture, it would make no sense for random Europeans to show up in an ancient West African empire.

At this point, the argument usually turns to "no, that's different" (a la the Witcher article in the OP). Except it's really not. It's moved beyond what's "fair" and the moral question in the whole argument and to "well it's what I want because I want to see more stuff like this." Which is fine. We're allowed to vote with our wallets and allowed to criticize stuff for not conforming to our desires. But you aren't intrinsically arguing from moral righteousness.

Few games actually have these strong historic ties, but I think they should be respected. If some guy is complaining about having to be a black guy in that Nok game, or an Indian guy in something that draws from that culture, or are forced to be a woman or a black man or a gay Elf in an RPG where you're playing as a character instead of yourself, I say there's similarly no ground to stand on. The Rust controversy, while I'm not familiar with it beyond the aforementioned link, seems to be an example of that.

A generic high fantasy RPG doesn't have those historic ties at this point, and so I'm not defending most games. Neither am I in contexts where such historical considerations are not in effect—seems reasonable to question a lack of color among a large cast if you're setting your game in modern-day New York, for instance. And if someone wants to say "I'm going to adopt Polish folklore as the basis of my fantasy game but I want it to reflect modern global diversity," that's their prerogative. They can make everyone black and gender-nonconforming too, and you won't hear a peep from me, because it's public domain history at this point to adapt and twist and play with.

As an addendum, I do think games have a more muddy relationship with historical fiction than do a lot of books and TV and movies. To wit, I'd prefer a WW1 game like Battlefield to actually be a lot more faithful to the actual war, and you can still bring a diverse cast from history into the picture (black American soldiers, the various ethnic groups from the European empires that fought, et al.) But unlike a movie or book, you also have the questions of how this stuff relates to game mechanics. In most other adaptations stuff like ammo capacity and respawn times are not considerations into the believability of a setting.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

For sure. I agree. Bud expectations shoud be kept in check when dealing with any medium of foreign origin. Global game and global audience is meaningless term because it's impossible to make a product that would please everybody, and have every possible minority included in meaningful way.

I mean I only agree it would be useless if no developers or publishers ever read or acknowledged anything said about games at all. But if a developer reads this thread and walks away with more perspective I dont find it to be meaningless.

Context matters a lot.
Ever thought about how Russian gamers must feel when they're portrayed as a bad guys constantly in western games? Or movies for that matter?

Never had a chance to ask anybody from there, but i'm curious what the answer would be.

I find the "TM American War Hero" protagonist fucking boring personally. But as an example as someone whose famaily is all from Western Africa I find the depiction of thebcontinent so motherfucking boring and offensive in practically every video game ever.

There are so many cool sights and locations and i interesting and different things you can do with the location and its always so fucking awful when games actually take place there. What the fuck was Far Cry 3? Holy shit at RE5.

 

[Nepenthe]

Because it's still inspired by history and that history is intrinsic to the world. The magic really makes no difference in the argument for me, because we're not talking about stuff like bikini armor and the like. If we were, I'd get started on a whole lot of stuff I found weird about the Witcher series' treatment of women, for example. I'm not out to fanboy bat for a game I struggled through.

But what if I made a game that was substantially based on the Nok Empire? Even if I incorporate the fantastic elements of their culture, it would make no sense for random Europeans to show up in an ancient West African empire.

At this point, the argument usually turns to "no, that's different" (a la the Witcher article in the OP). Except it's really not. It's moved beyond what's "fair" and the moral question in the whole argument and to "well it's what I want because I want to see more stuff like this." Which is fine. We're allowed to vote with our wallets and allowed to criticize stuff for not conforming to our desires. But you aren't intrinsically arguing from moral righteousness.

Few games actually have these strong historic ties, but I think they should be respected. If some guy is complaining about having to be a black guy in that Nok game, or an Indian guy in something that draws from that culture, or are forced to be a woman or a black man or a gay Elf in an RPG where you're playing as a character instead of yourself, I say there's similarly no ground to stand on. The Rust controversy, while I'm not familiar with it beyond the aforementioned link, seems to be an example of that.

A generic high fantasy RPG doesn't have those historic ties at this point, and so I'm not defending most games. Neither am I in contexts where such historical considerations are not in effect—seems reasonable to question a lack of color among a large cast if you're setting your game in modern-day New York, for instance. And if someone wants to say "I'm going to adopt Polish folklore as the basis of my fantasy game but I want it to reflect modern global diversity," that's their prerogative. They can make everyone black and gender-nonconforming too, and you won't hear a peep from me, because it's public domain history at this point to adapt and twist and play with.

As an addendum, I do think games have a more muddy relationship with historical fiction than do a lot of books and TV and movies. To wit, I'd prefer a WW1 game like Battlefield to actually be a lot more faithful to the actual war, and you can still bring a diverse cast from history into the picture (black American soldiers, the various ethnic groups from the European empires that fought, et al.) But unlike a movie or book, you also have the questions of how this stuff relates to game mechanics. In most other adaptations stuff like ammo capacity and respawn times are not considerations into the believability of a setting.

I think "historical accuracy" can be a fair argument versus a Thermian one in certain contexts, and certainly you've made a good point for The Witcher, simply because there's an expectation on part of audiences for their worlds and narratives to have a thread of logical cohesion underneath the randomness of imagination, of which "historical accuracy" can be one such thread, in order to make a work easier to parse and understand. However, I don't really understand the distinction you're making between the Witcher's magic and "magical bikini armor" (which was just a throwaway example btw) because both are still imaginary things whereupon their rules can be decided however their respective creators want to. Thus, the use of magic and fantasy creatures serves to undermine the use of "historical accuracy" as an arbiter for what kinds of characters to initially include in the first place, because the question becomes how is a three-headed hydra that doesn't exist more believable than a black person which actually does exist? The line immediately gets subjective the very moment any deviation from "historical accuracy" happens, and I think it's fair game for people to point that out.

You point out other empires too such as the Nok empire and ask why the same standard wouldn't apply to such a game in equal veracity. Well, I actually agree with the article on the answer which isn't that "it's different just because;" it's because our media doesn't exist in a vacuum or a world where historical precedents and modern inequality don't already exist, meaning any given choice made from a narrative context has a different effect on the real-world cultural landscape by default. As I've said before, ideas are borne from the context of an artist's life, a life which is the result of innumerable decisions and factors originating from that person's culture which includes the double standards that define what it's like being a minority in any given culture. A game based in African culture is going to be more notable than one based in white European culture on the basis of race by virtue of existing in an environment where games that are based in African culture are already few and far between. Subsequently, a white character appearing in a game concerning African culture is going to have a different sociological effect and be backed by a different cultural context (white savior, anyone?) than the reverse in a real-world context. In a context of canon? Yeah, they technically have the same exact effect on each game's respective narrative because narrative is just a series of random and subjective decisions that don't actually have any physical impact in real life. But remember, in these conversations that's not the context people who are for diversity are arguing from. =P

On the point of your addendum, I agree that historical accuracy is not going to necessarily take precedence on the enjoyability and viability of a medium for a modern audience. I don't want to read Shakespeare on a book using the same paper, binding, ink, and even language at the time. I don't want my WWII films to necessarily look and sound like the black and white news reel serials they were partially filmed on. Subsequently, I don't really want reload times that take several minutes in my war games either. I think one can make a reasonable argument that designates when a decision undermines the medium and when it undermines the experience, and that they're not necessarily the same.

 

[Baalzebup]

I saw the thread early on, but noted it was a wall of text and ended up just leaving a tab open to read it when I had the time to actually read and digest it. And I have to say, that is a very good write-up OP. Kudos.

 

[Fuchsdh]

I think "historical accuracy" can be a fair argument versus a Thermian one in certain contexts, and certainly you've made a good point for The Witcher, simply because there's an expectation on part of audiences for their worlds and narratives to have a thread of logical cohesion underneath the randomness of imagination, of which "historical accuracy" can be one such thread, in order to make a work easier to parse and understand. However, I don't really understand the distinction you're making between the Witcher's magic and "magical bikini armor" (which was just a throwaway example btw) because both are still imaginary things whereupon their rules can be decided however their respective creators want to. Thus, the use of magic and fantasy creatures serves to undermine the use of "historical accuracy" as an arbiter for what kinds of characters to initially include in the first place, because the question becomes how is a three-headed hydra that doesn't exist more believable than a black person which actually does exist? The line immediately gets subjective the very moment any deviation from "historical accuracy" happens, and I think it's fair game for people to point that out.

I definitely agree it's a murky line prone to subjectivity, but to the point of "once you add magic realism is out the window" is I don't think it works that way. It's a buy-in, part of suspension of disbelief, and depending on the media you're trying to cultivate that. I was listening to a recent review of Black Mirror and the guy was going off on some of the scenarios and pointing out how how some of the dystopias would come to be makes no sense—a case where authorial designs fundamentally broke the rules of a fictional world, and that's how I view (most) fictional settings; the creator frames the story, but when you're talking about history there's only so many ways to take it.

What I was getting at with the bikini armor line (and really tying into a lot of the earlier stuff about "what if I like fan service in my games") is that what works and how much you can play with your universe relates to the tone you're setting. The Witcher is fundamentally a very grounded game, where the supernatural is treated "rationally", for lack of a better word. Which is why I think staying true to the historical period it is based on makes sense, whereas a more generic fantasy series doesn't merit that consideration to me. Fable, for example, is very much riffing on British folklore (and a game I like more than The Witcher!), but it does it in a very tongue-and-cheek manner that's ultimately not at all tied to a historical period beyond signposts and a few British slang words. So there's no reason for it not to have a diverse cast, and from the very first game it has black characters and later analogues to west Asians. It also features a generally larger worldview than the Witcher's myopic one (where the vaguely-Middle Eastern lands are essentially unknown to anyone who isn't a globetrotter, and beyond that no one knows anything.)

The one area I do think that the Witcher fails in hewing to its appropriate themes is in its presentation of women. To the dev's credit, there's not a main character who doesn't feel fleshed out, but their actual costuming tends to be discordant with everything else. Okay, the manipulative and vain sorceresses being tits-out makes a certain level of sense based on the politics involved... but Ves?

She's a soldier, and at one point her superior officer in The Witcher 3 actually points out she's running around with her breasts exposed in a totally nonsensical way. This is where I think some of the flawed arguments to the OP talks about start filtering in, because I'm taking the game by its own rules but it's not making much sense. Ditto goes with Ciri showing off her bra straps constantly, or the fact that a red-haired woman with a plunging neckline and distinctive costume running in fear of her life decides the best way to go incognito is... put on a hood and keep running around like this. There's no real way to justify that unless you get into the meta arguments you're talking about, and even then it doesn't work because the game doesn't really even try to justify it, and that hurts it.

This is the same lens through which I fault MGSV and Quiet. I personally don't see the issue with sex appeal in general, but it's ridiculous in MGSV when it's a serious war game and the argument for it is entirely self-constructed and inconsistent with the wider setting—as much ass as Snake flaunts it's never this over the top. A more fantastic game like World of Warcraft I don't see the issue with sexy bikini armor, in comparison,* but there you run into issues where players are not actually given options (the male equivalents for armor are less sexy, or female options don't give you a chance *not* to be dressed like a battle harlot.)

*Warcraft I think is an interesting digression with what we're talking about because unlike The Witcher where marginalized groups are all "white" to a modern sensibility, different races have much clearer global racial origins, which combined with the less grounded feel (the rules of magic are much more fast-and-loose for plot convenience, humans run around in a ton of plate mail with giant swords, the entire world is explored, etc.) invites more criticism. Azeroth is apparently the sum of humanity but there aren't any black guys showing up in the original games, and character options in World of Warcraft are apparently rather limited.

 

[_Isaac]

That moment where you are so fucked that you belong to 2 groups forgotten by the intesectionality chart xD

Which two?

 

[Nepenthe]

You've got a point there that fantasy elements don't disclude works from adhering to historical accuracy, although it wasn't my intent to argue for that. I agree that it's a spectrum, that you can have games that are hardline realistic, games that are hardline fantastical, and any level of abstraction inbetween, but the degrees by which a game's world is defined are still subjective and thus up for debate, which in turn should ideally defined by the intent and context of that game's world by people who understand it (which, in the case of Witcher, is certainly not me. I'm not interested much in playing it, although I hope my argument regarding it hasn't stepped on any toes or implied that I'm trying to take over something that doesn't belong to me; as I said earlier, creators can do whatever they want regardless!) So, I'll relent and say you make a good case for The Witcher being predominantly populated with white Polish characters, especially in light of bringing up a counter-example like Fable. Good shtuff.

In terms of Warcraft, or at least the idea of "bikini armor," I think it's another issue of comparing games against the cultural standard rather than just within their own bubble of artistic license. There's nothing really wrong with using any idea like bikini armor, even as much as I personally don't like it from the perspective of a woman, but any one example's effect on the discourse and culture of gaming is going to depend upon its prevalence in the already existing culture. Even if Warcraft offered options, the bikini armor itself still carries an intrinsic cultural connotation that's not really doing the discourse on positive female representation any favors.

 

[Mael]

Put bikini armor if that's your thing but don't come crying historical accuracy if you have people knocking on the door asking for better representation.

 

[Fuchsdh]

So, I'll relent and say you make a good case for The Witcher being predominantly populated with white Polish characters, especially in light of bringing up a counter-example like Fable. Good shtuff.

In terms of Warcraft, or at least the idea of "bikini armor," I think it's another issue of comparing games against the cultural standard rather than just within their own bubble of artistic license. There's nothing really wrong with using any idea like bikini armor, even as much as I personally don't like it from the perspective of a woman, but any one example's effect on the discourse and culture of gaming is going to depend upon its prevalence in the already existing culture. Even if Warcraft offered options, the bikini armor itself still carries an intrinsic cultural connotation that's not really doing the discourse on positive female representation any favors.

Fair enough.

One thing thinking back to Fable that I do think you could argue about with 2 and 3 is whether the protagonists need to be white, although there if you treat it like a "you are this character" RPG you run into cascading issues (what do you do about your NPC family? Would palette swapping a character with stereotypical western features be akin to blackface, or would it be worse if you gave them stereotypical features from their ancestry?) Fable Legends would have sidestepped it entirely by having a broad range of characters with fixed ethnic identities, although that game's gone for good

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Can we just post a link to this post in every "controversial" thread about minorities and sexism in gaming?

I think I will, from now on.

Oh actually, OP, there is one... calling it an argument is probably giving it too much credit, but "response" to these issues that you missed. I talked about it briefly, and it's to do specifically with issues of the sexual objectification of female characters: the "hurr hurr who cares I like boobs" response. There's so much of it in the Kojima thread.

Stay classy, I guess. This one is probably the worst because there's no real rational argument to make. Like, you don't have to stop liking boobs, just recognise that you like something problematic at least.

This.

I'd say it falls under the "prudishness" fallacy, and yes that should be added to the list. The whole "stop being such a prude, sex is fun and good, if you hate bikini armour you must be a prude who hates sex".

And of course it has nothing to do with sexuality. These characters are just drawn to please the male gaze, they aren't expressing any sort of sexuality.

Notice how no one ever called the focus group dudes who didn't like seeing Nilin kiss a boy in the early versions of Remember Me "prudes".

I'd argue that if Kojima made a character named Loud with Josh Holloway-looks, zero body fat, massive junk constantly pushing against his board shorts and flopping around, while everybody around him took him seriously, I'd be totally fine with Quiet.

Hehe.

Didn't they make some feminist games for gamers and they bombed in sales.

Like Mirror's Edge Catalyst for one. Yeah for Diveristy

Read the friggin' OP...

Since antyk is talking about quotas and historical accuracy now, let's handily debunk those *snip*

Nicely said.

Gotta love those who whine about the tone of the OP (while it's incredibly cordial and patient and non-threatening, like, seriously?) or constantly talk about their fear of getting banned. Stop making this about you and your fragility, folks.

 

[jg4xchamp]

Absolutely fantastic op.

 

[Platy]

Which two?

trans and bi

 

[El Topo]

.

First of all, thanks for elaborating. Second, my statement was regarding the monetary and timely effort. My statement was not against Zelda being playable and I fully understand why you would prefer that over female Link (as an option). I would prefer that as well to be frank (as I thought about this), but I also realize what kind of company Nintendo is and for me, any little step towards inclusivity is progress.

It's not a distraction or excuse. It's not my duty to alter my desires to conform to what is possibly easier for a developer for the sake of diversity overall. Half measures in this case do not interest me at all. Diversity in games is incredibly important, but I'm not at all interested in this type of solution.

I completely understand that, but it is also completely detached from reality. Dismissing something in favor of an imaginary/nonexistant/unrealistic option is problematic. As I wrote, an alternative has to be reasonable/feasible.
I am more than willing to compromise, if that means more diversity.

As well I believe Aonuma also did say many of the team wanted to make a Sheik game. Nintendo seems far more against female Link than playable Zelda, even if either is rather unlikely.

Words are cheap. At best I'm expecting a low effort spin-off game. I will admit that I'm maybe too pessimistic regarding this, but until they actually announce/show something, they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Lady Gaia]

Atheists aren't covered by the chart, either, along with all other theological minorities. Neuro-atypical categories such as autistic individuals don't get any recognition, etc. The chart is a useful way of thinking about intersectionality but it is far from complete.

 

[encephalon]

Great thread.

 

[Funyarinpa]

I really disagree with the "You're selling to a global market so you have to be diverse" argument. A game can be about a limited ethnicity of people. And, well, if you aren't willing to consider the context of the origin of a work, then why do you criticize the developer for it in the first place? That's like critiquing a game's story without reaching the ending: You're saying something about a trait of something without considering that trait in full. There's no additional responsibility about representation that comes with selling to a global market. As an example, I'm Turkish and if I made a game that took place in Istanbul it wouldn't necessarily feature people of color, because PoC are really quite rare here from my experience. Why would I need to include more ethnicities *based on my target* market in order to not be critiqued?

I can see the refutations towards the historical accuracy/"has to be good" etc. arguments, and I agree with them mostly, but it's this "You're selling it to me so you should include me" argument that I find wrong. Varying ethnic makeups come with cultural diversity, and there's nothing to be criticised about people reflecting the ethnic makeup of their country of origin in a work (even if the said culture is European). You're being disingenuous if you willfully ignore the country of origin of a game and then say that it should have full representation *because of its market*.

 

[Lo_Fi]

So if I understand you correctly, you're asking developers to not always create the character, or write the story, or make the game they want to, but to sacrifice their wishes to promote diversity. I'm afraid I can't agree with that.

"This pistol is OP. I would prefer it if you lowered the damage it did" <- valid feedback

"Link is always male. I would prefer if he were a woman for one game" <- not valid feedback, apparently?

You seem to think that games are made in a vacuum where the developers are isolated for their entire lives so as to not infringe on their solitary vision. That's not how game development works. Developers WILL receive feedback, and it is up to the developers as to whether or not they want to act on that feedback.

If the developers truly don't want to make a game with a more diverse cast, then they are allowed to do just that. But you are assuming developers are all-knowing, omnipotent beings that know exactly how the final product will be from the very first day of development. Not everything is like that.

For example, one of the designers at Blizzard said that they made the Overwatch cast more diverse because his daughter asked him why she never got to be a girl in a video game. Seems like common sense now that we look back on it, but the designer had to have that experience during development for him to have that change of development. Was the developer forced by his daughter to make a diverse game? No, but developers are always learning, so it is possible for someone to make a convincing argument with constructive criticism.

 

[Enduin]

First of all, thanks for elaborating. Second, my statement was regarding the monetary and timely effort. My statement was not against Zelda being playable and I fully understand why you would prefer that over female Link (as an option). I would prefer that as well to be frank (as I thought about this), but I also realize what kind of company Nintendo is and for me, any little step towards inclusivity is progress.



I completely understand that, but it is also completely detached from reality. Dismissing something in favor of an imaginary/nonexistant/unrealistic option is problematic. As I wrote, an alternative has to be reasonable/feasible.
I am more than willing to compromise, if that means more diversity.



Words are cheap. At best I'm expecting a low effort spin-off game. I will admit that I'm maybe too pessimistic regarding this, but until they actually announce/show something, they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

I get where you are coming from. It's certainly understandable to feel that way in the broad scheme. My personal disinterest in a female Link aside, I'm just not comfortable compromising what I think is right for the series vs what is right for gaming as a whole, which this more or less boils down to and does technically extend beyond just this series into a larger issue of what to fight for and expect. The idea of when is it OK to sacrifice one change for another and how do you weigh whether or not they equivalent.

It's an issue where Female Link would be a huge deal and major win to many in the fight for diversity, which is objectively true, but it isn't actually something that needs to happen in order to address the issues within the series itself. It is a largely external issue, not to downplay its potential importance/impact. Compared to the actual historical issues the series has had with regards to how it has portrayed and represented women, namely Zelda, throughout the series. Along with other issues like the whole Light vs Dark skin trope that we've seen with Ganondorf/Gerudos and the Twili to some extent and that travesty which is Hyrule Warriors.

So in that context I don't feel comfortable trading away the changes and actions that would actually address and rectify the legitimate problems within the series, for a win that doesn't address those issues at all. That's not to say a Female Link cannot or should not happen because of that, just that I don't feel comfortable settling for a Female Link in place of a mainline game starring Zelda.

It would be like a company that has screwed over it's female workers for years with lower wages and blocked them from upper management positions and is finally taken to court over it, but then they hire a single new woman to be the new COO and attorneys and court decide that's makes up for their past wrong doings.

Some might see a Female Link as a win and rectification for the series' past wrongs. But for me it won't be resolved until we see Zelda in a leading role, with then her and other female characters given continued representation that doesn't revolve around them being used to empower the player character at one point or another due in large part because of their gender, but rather they are just other participants in the adventure. It may be less realistic, but I think it's more important. And honestly not something that is impossible and I'm normally someone who pretty damn pessimistic about things.

 

[spiritfox]

I really disagree with the "You're selling to a global market so you have to be diverse" argument. A game can be about a limited ethnicity of people. And, well, if you aren't willing to consider the context of the origin of a work, then why do you criticize the developer for it in the first place? That's like critiquing a game's story without reaching the ending: You're saying something about a trait of something without considering that trait in full. There's no additional responsibility about representation that comes with selling to a global market. As an example, I'm Turkish and if I made a game that took place in Istanbul it wouldn't necessarily feature people of color, because PoC are really quite rare here from my experience. Why would I need to include more ethnicities *based on my target* market in order to not be critiqued?

I can see the refutations towards the historical accuracy/"has to be good" etc. arguments, and I agree with them mostly, but it's this "You're selling it to me so you should include me" argument that I find wrong. Varying ethnic makeups come with cultural diversity, and there's nothing to be criticised about people reflecting the ethnic makeup of their country of origin in a work (even if the said culture is European). You're being disingenuous if you willfully ignore the country of origin of a game and then say that it should have full representation *because of its market*.

It's one thing if a game wants to focus on a particular ethnicity or culture, but when the industry at large is doing it, there's a problem. How many AAA games can really say they're telling a story that only works if the main character is a white male? With the Witcher 3, at least we can point to the devs focusing on historical Polish culture as a inspiration, but with stuff like Call of Duty or Battlefield, I don't see a difference if Shooty McShooterguy is White or Black or Gay or Female.

 

[LionPride]

Quick question, what are some games that absolutely could not have minority characters? Like at all?

 

[jjasso21]

Incredible work, OP. Definitely going to sub this and read it over.

 

[Brutuspedia]

Awesome topic, glad to see this kind of support growing on GAF!

 

[mieumieu]

Quick question, what are some games that absolutely could not have minority characters? Like at all?

I have thought of Wuxia games in Chinese, but it could at least still have some ethnic diversity with Middle Eastern or South East Asian characters.

 

[GLAMr]

Quick question, what are some games that absolutely could not have minority characters? Like at all?

Some kind of game about being in the Republican Party? SNAP!

The "nobody else is going to try, so why should we?" argument seems to keep cropping up a lot. You know, the same awesome thinking that brought us world wars, climate change and runaway nuclear armament.

 

[Funyarinpa]

It's one thing if a game wants to focus on a particular ethnicity or culture, but when the industry at large is doing it, there's a problem. How many AAA games can really say they're telling a story that only works if the main character is a white male? With the Witcher 3, at least we can point to the devs focusing on historical Polish culture as a inspiration, but with stuff like Call of Duty or Battlefield, I don't see a difference if Shooty McShooterguy is White or Black or Gay or Female.

I fully agree with you! I meant in that post that while I agree with that overall sentiment, the "It's a global market, you're selling to me" argument is wrong. There's many other reasons to encourage the adoption og diversity, though.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Link shouldn't be female. Just make a fucking playable Zelda starring in her own game already. (No the CDi games don't count)

 

[Lo_Fi]

For all the worries about developers "just doing x to fill a quota" or being "forced" to have a certain type of character, can anyone in this thread name a specific example where we know that's the case? A lot of people sure do "defend" developers without asking use how we feel about it. If it's such a big problem to worry about, then name an example where a dev has said that's the case. If devs haven't ever said anything about being forced to make a certain type of character, maybe you're worrying about a nonexistent problem? Or at least a problem that's way smaller than you think it is? If devs don't have to deal with that problem, why do you worry about the hypothetical situation so much?

Ironically enough, the only examples I can think of are linked in the OP, and it's cases where developers made female protagonists and then publishers wanted the devs to change it.

(And no, tracer's butt changing isn't an example, no one was forced. That was common feedback/iteration, and if you can't handle that type of simple criticism then you'd have a fucking heart attack even walking into a game studio.)

 

[LotusHD]

I always avoided those kinds of threads in fear of saying (or phrasing) something in a manner that gets me banned, but just to chime in.

I have no issue and strongly support diversity and representation in games and I couldn't care less what gender, skin colour, sexual preference, religious belief, etc. the protagonist, secondary characters or even the ones in the background are representing. It's a game and as long as it's done right and is interesting, I'll "buy" whatever the story is. Just like in real life - they're people and their 'worth' as human beings has nothing to do with those traits.

But what bothers me, is the actual expectation and outright demand of a lot of people that each game needs to include people of various skin colours, various sexual preferences or even that you should always be able to customise your character with respect to those 'features' to your liking. And this is exactly the point where I disagree with the critique of 'artistic freedom'. If an artist - a game developer - wants to do a game happening in Eastern Europe (e.g. in Poland where I live) he should have the right to not include Black people, because you'll meet them very, very rarely even in the biggest cities. If devs decide not to include any LGBT character in the game it's also their right to do so, because according to stats I saw share of LGBT in general population is around 2%, so - statistically speaking - if there's 5 important characters in your game there's very slim chance somebody will be of the LGBT orientation, unless it obviously takes place in a specific community or area, where those odds are different (artistic community in big city vs. coal mine in rural areas ).

What I wanted to say - again, at the risk of being banned - is that wrongly understood political correctness, i.e. fear of opposing and upsetting the loud voice of certain minorities, leads to a very skewed world-view where somehow "diversity and representation" means that within a room of random people there should always be people of different genders, skin colours, sexual orientations and religions; whereas in most cases it's very far from the truth. And those constraints should be completely lifted for fully fictional games & settings, trying to tell a specific story of particular individuals - if you have problem accepting Geralt, Nathan Drake or Aloy as a character and demand to be able to change their appearance, gender, sexual preference, etc (I ROFL-ed reading indignant comments on some Nintendo game requiring you to chose your gender from 'just' a boy or a girl!!!) etc. then just don't play those games, the same way I don't play the 'blank canvas' games like Skyrim for exactly opposite reasons. The same way don't force on me that out of three other characters in my party one needs to be black, one gay and one believes in Allah, unless the story very specifically demands that setup. Sure, by all means let me choose the party members and their traits, but if they're fixed let the composition of the party be realistic with regards to the location, time, etc.

I can fully relate to minorities wanting their 'trait' to be more present in media or entertainment - just like I would love every game, movie and radio to play psychedelic trance music, I know weak example - but let's not tilt it to the opposite extreme, claiming that they should be featured and have prominent role in each & every game. They're called "minorities" for a reason...

There, I said it

Firstly, I find your whole preemptive victimization thing you got going on there to be oddly annoying. If you think posting this will get you banned for some reason, then frankly maybe that says something about you.

Anyways, I find it weird that you claim to take no real issue with this, and go on this whole spiel about how diversity is only ever right if it matches the game, or that because we're minorities, it's wrong for us to want to be in as many games as possible.

No one is saying that a party member has to be black or believe in Allah, just that it's frankly tiring to see the default for the character(s) be white. So naturally yea, it would be nice if they mixed it up as much as possible instead of not even bothering to begin with. It's a video game, so while yea, theoretically some games can have settings where it may be weird to have too many minority characters (I always find these excuses to be suspect tbh), I find that to rarely be the case. Usually people bring up that weak defense for games that could easily have characters of different ethnicities if they really wanted to, or they aren't grounded enough in reality for anyone to take that excuse seriously.

That's exactly my point - devs when forced to introduce diversity ("there needs to be a Black, Asia, Muslim, gay, etc.") without a clear idea for how that character should contribute to the story will inevitably tokenize or objectify them, assigning them the "typical" role of drunk, thief, terrorist, etc. We should encourage them to do it properly, not to do it because they have to.

And as others have said, I hate this excuse as well, as it typically always comes off as disingenuous. As far as minority characters go, like say a black man, plenty of people would happy with the developers not falling into racial stereotypes or worse when creating such a character. You don't always need this big grandiose reason or background in place to justify a minority character's existence, or in this context, said character's "blackness". The whole point is to normalize this whole diversity to begin with after all, where they don't feel that they do it because "they have to", but do it because "they want to". Tired of this whole flimsy excuse of how diversity for diversity's sake is this inherently bad thing, or how people just can't bear to see that minority character be created unless it's absolutely perfect. While yea, there are certain games with certain contexts/settings that you definitely want to nail as coherently as possible (Mafia 3 for example) so as to not unnecessarily offend said minority, that's definitely not always the case.

 

[patapuf]

Quick question, what are some games that absolutely could not have minority characters? Like at all?

What is a minority and what isn't is dependent of cultural context. As long as there are different ethnic groups presents, some of them will be minorities.

Are there settings where having no black people makes sense? Sure. But you'll probably have some other underprivileged ethnicity present. Since those exist in pretty much every culture of the world. Even Isolationist ones.

 

[purdobol]

Quick question, what are some games that absolutely could not have minority characters? Like at all?

Abstract games - Tetris, pongs etc.
Driving games - focus here is on cars not who drives them, and while minorities can be included in story (if there's any) or character selection screen. That's pretty much it.
Games featuring anthropomorphic characters - mainly platformers that use animals as characters. Diversity can exist in those games, but mainly in the form of cultural background, attidude etc. Often stereotyped.
Licensed games - or any type of work confined with arbitrary limits. Games based on something that try to represent previous work. A book, time period, place etc.

And many more genres where focus is not on characters. Shmups, simulators (mech, flight), strategy and so on. In all of those, inclusion of any minority is purely superficial and i don't think that kind of representation (superficial) is main goal of this discussion. I hope at least.

 

[Red Liquorice]

Fantasitc work OP. Good job at gathering together the main arguments and breaking them down to dust.

If devs decide not to include any LGBT character in the game it's also their right to do so, because according to stats I saw share of LGBT in general population is around 2%, so - statistically speaking - if there's 5 important characters in your game there's very slim chance somebody will be of the LGBT orientation, unless it obviously takes place in a specific community or area, where those odds are different (artistic community in big city vs. coal mine in rural areas ).

This just in: gays are all artsy-fartsy types and live in urban areas. Coal mining is a job for real men!

 

[petran79]

But all the perverted stuff happens in coal mine towns

Abstract games - Tetris, pongs etc.
Driving games - focus here is on cars not who drives them, and while minorities can be included in story (if there's any) or character selection screen. That's pretty much it.
Games featuring anthropomorphic characters - mainly platformers that use animals as characters. Diversity can exist in those games, but mainly in the form of cultural background, attidude etc. Often stereotyped.
Licensed games - or any type of work confined with arbitrary limits. Games based on something that try to represent previous work. A book, time period, place etc.

And many more genres where focus is not on characters. Shmups, simulators (mech, flight), strategy and so on. In all of those, inclusion of any minority is purely superficial and i don't think that kind of representation (superficial) is main goal of this discussion. I hope at least.

If you exclude all those genres, games with minorities will be a minority

 

[Llyrwenne]

I'll just leave this here - Video Games' Blackness problem (Written by Evan Narcisse, Austin Walker, me, Catt Small, and Tronmaximum)

This is basically my bag, what I write a bunch, and talk a lot about, so I won't go too far into it here. But I think this article is pretty good.

This is a great read and I'll link this in the OP. I'll also put a short bit at the start explaining that even though I mostly use female protagonists / sexism as examples, many other representation issues are prevalent in the industry across race / sexuality / nationality / cultures / etc. and their intersections.

I also see some fair discussion around the article I linked in the OP that was partly about The Witcher 3, so I'll add a note to tell people to check that discussion out.

Since the Aonuma statements seem to attract the most discussion I'll try and explain in more detail why I included that under that section ( and put a link to this post in OP ) through some points that were brought up.

My point still stands. I feel this is one of those cases where it's forced for no reason.
Do we need a Metroid game with a male protagonist for a change? I don't get it. There's plenty of other Nintendo games with female leads but since it's not into that one...

The interest in a female Link / female protagonist in Zelda did not appear out of nowhere and is not &#8216;just because'. Father hacks Zelda for his daughter, makes Link a girl. She hacked The Legend of Zelda so now it stars Zelda, saving Link. Part of it is statements like these that have reinforced the idea that Link was in many ways designed as an avatar for the player rather than a fully formed character;

When a player is playing a Zelda game, my desire is for the player to truly become Link &#8212; that's why we named him Link, so the player is linked to the game and to the experience. Of course, the player can always change Link's name to their own name to further that notion should they want.​

The most important thing about the Zelda series is that the player becomes Link. One of the challenges with full voice is that if we're trying to convey the player's emotion through Link, but you hear Link talking in somebody else's voice, that creates a disconnect between you and the role that you're taking on.​

So when Aonuma did an interview with Kotaku in 2014 and said;

The main character isn't actually Link&#8212;it's the player. Of course we have to have a main character in the story, so Link is that main character. But I don't want him to be like a superhero. I want him to represent any player, have that possibility. So that's why I don't really know if we need or want to define it so clearly.​

So there are actually many female characters you can play as in Hyrule Warriors. We've introduced Midna, we've introduced Princess Zelda, and Impa as well. So if that connection needs to be there&#8212;I'm not saying that it does&#8212;let's see what happens with Hyrule Warriors, if as a result of there being more female protagonists, more women pick up the game, I'm all for it, so I've decided to see what happens with this title.​

It reinforced the idea of Link of an avatar and indicated that Aonuma was genuinely open to the idea. The wish for a female Link option / female player character was born out of this genuine interest and excitement at the possibility of options being added that would allow the games to be more representative of the people who play it. It's not &#8216;just because' or &#8216;because Link being a man is bad / sexist'. This interview - regardless of whether you may think it was misinterpreted or not - is also why the statements from Aonuma on why he didn't do it faced harsher scrutiny.

This genuine interest in a female protagonist for Zelda is also part of why these &#8216;well, then why shouldn't we make the next Tomb Raider star Lars Croft instead?'-type attacks are just... dumb. These other characters and games do not have the same history as the Link and the Zelda series. There is no actual interest for a Lars Croft or a Sam Aran or Super Maria, and there is no real reason for it to exist. Lara Croft has clearly been a character from the start - not an avatar -, I see no evidence for men playing Metroid Prime 3 and thinking &#8216;I wish I could play as a male version of Samus instead', and Mario very rapidly became a mascot, not an avatar. There are no meaningful parallels to be drawn here.

It also brings up the point that these things are not equal; changing a white character into a black one promotes diversity, while changing a black character to a white one stifles diversity. Expressing interest for a female character ( option ) when the character is male is not the same as expressing interest for a male character ( option ) when the character is female, because at this time female characters are vastly underrepresented and male characters are vastly overrepresented. The same goes for all other minorities. Straight vs. non-straight, white vs. non-white, cisgender vs. transgender, etc. Lars Croft and Sam Aran are blatant false equivalencies.

The interest is genuine and not &#8216;forced for no reason', and by suggesting otherwise you create an inaccurate portrait of the people you are discussing with.

Two side notes for this bit;

Comments such as &#8216;just play Hyrule Warriors' or &#8216;they should make a spin-off Zelda game' completely miss the point. While Hyrule Warriors and a possible Zelda-led spin-off are absolutely positive things, the interest the discussion is based on is for a playable female character ( option ) in a main-line Zelda. A spin-off with significantly different gameplay does not replace that.

There are also comments out there by Aonuma that point more towards him seeing Link as a character, and it can be argued that they are moving away from Link as an avatar and towards presenting Link more as a character. Those are fair points to bring up and I believe a discussion can be had one where they are headed with this. However, this does not take away that they have in the past released statements expressing a belief that Link should be an avatar. It does not take away that those statements informed many people's perception of Link. That context should not be dismissed as it is essential to the discussion at hand.

Right, I think your post is very good in painting the situation.
At the same time, I felt that Aonuma said exactly what you wrote. Actually, I thought he went a step further because if it has to be a female protagonist, it'd make more sense to be Zelda probably instead of forcing a new female link.
So, even if he answered with your last sentence, then people would have said "it's fine that Link is male but this doesn't explain why you can't put a female protagonist".

It might not be "hard" to think about story reasons to enable a female protagonist but you would still get the "lore problem" about the Triforce, the hero and so on. And the Hero is Link. And if you're not playing as the Hero, then it's not really "The Legend of Zelda" anymore, is it? Hence the "what would Link do".

But the point is that he did not say &#8216;We see Link as a male character, and we do not intend to change this in the future.'. There is a difference between that hypothetical statement and the statements he actually made. He did not say &#8216;We wanted to make a story about a boy.', he said &#8216;The lore prevents us from making a story not about a boy.'. Those are two entirely different things.

Using fictitious lore to argue that something is not possible ( like you and the statements by Aonuma are doing ) is not a compelling basis for discussion. It implies that that fictional lore is unchangeable and eternal, when that is simply not true. See also The Thermian Argument ( thanks Nepenthe for bringing this up ). Every new game in the Zelda series inherently adds to the lore and changes the context of previously existing lore. The creators have full control over what is and isn't part of the lore as they created every aspect of that lore. They can say that some things are excluded from it ( Disney dumping the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Nintendo ignoring CDi Zelda games / spin-offs ), add lore to expand on or reframe previously existing lore, or retcon certain elements if they feel the need to do so. Staying with Zelda, a great example is the official timeline. Miyamoto gave a general order after the first few games, but then after that there was not really an official timeline. Aonuma indicated a split timeline with comments on Twilight Princess, but made no commitment to a complete interlinked timeline. While certain games were clearly linked, there was still not an overarching official timeline spanning all games and Nintendo denied one existed. In 2011, the Hyrule Historia was released with an overarching official timeline in it linking all games together ( and adding lore in places to make this work ), but it was inconsistent with the Miyamoto order and introduced an up to then unknown third timeline to the timeline split ( Fallen Hero ). This indicates that even outside from just adding to the lore with new games, the lore and the context of that lore can be manipulated by its creators.

The idea that existing lore makes the inclusion of something impossible is simply false, as new lore can always be added / old lore can always be amended to make an exception. Maybe the Triforce made an exception due to the presence of an exceptionally courageous individual. Maybe the original hero failed ( an element already present in existing lore! ) and the bad guy is ordering all new-born boys to be killed or exiled, spurring into action a girl who through her courage earns the Triforce of Courage. Maybe you are a younger Zelda, who has not yet obtained the Triforce of Wisdom, trained by an older and wiser former hero Link in swordfighting and adventuring after showing interest for it. Then the bad guy rolls in, everything goes haywire as the old wise Link inherits the Triforce of Wisdom due to his wisdom and age, loses the Triforce of Courage and gets kidnapped by the big bad. Then the young Zelda must go out and prove herself to earn the Triforce and save wise Link and the Hyrule. Maybe the protagonist is just a girl because of &#8216;a quirk in the Triforce'; that's actually really all the lore justification you need. Etc. Etc. Etc. there are so many ways they could add to or ammend lore to make a female lead a possibility, and some of them would be genuinely interesting ideas that play upon past elements of the series. The possibilities are pretty much literally endless, and that is why existing lore is just not the basis of a compelling argument against something, at the very least in this specific case where the lore is entirely and completely built from the ground up by the creators.

Aside from that general issue with the Aonuma statements and arguments that revolve around existing lore, I would also like to point out that the ideas of &#8216;the hero must be a boy ( without providing any further compelling lore reasons for that )' and &#8216;the balance of the Triforce' are both in their basis completely arbitrary and that the inclusion of such ideas in the lore is itself something that provides a point of criticism and discussion as well.

I also disagree with your assertion that there would have been just as much controversy if he had simply said he believed Link to be a male and that that is what they were going with. Link being male isn't a problem. The creator wanting Link to be male isn't a problem. The creator not wanting a female option isn't a problem. The problem is that he claims that this is because he can't do these things because the lore prohibits it, when that is clearly not the case as he has full creative control over it. Instead of saying that he wants Link to be male, he cites in-lore justification to claim that he must be male. Instead of taking the responsibility for a creative decision he had part in, he shifts that responsibility onto something inanimate.

The statements were seen as problematic by some for the reasons explained above. The point isn't and was never that a male Link is supposedly sexist or should go away, or that not having a female player character option is &#8216;wrong', or that Nintendo should be forced to add something they don't want to; the point is that the arguments Aonuma made are flawed and that they do not actually address the wishes of many people interested in a female player character. People should be able to see how his statements are flawed regardless of whether they personally think Link should stay male or not. This is why the statements are included in the OP; they do not present a compelling argument in themselves. These statements can and should be criticized, and that can not and should not be dismissed by people calling upon &#8216;artistic integrity' for the reasons explained in the OP.

 

[Platy]

My point still stands. I feel this is one of those cases where it's forced for no reason.
Do we need a Metroid game with a male protagonist for a change? I don't get it. There's plenty of other Nintendo games with female leads but since it's not into that one...

People have worked the rest of your comment better than if I could but I want to focus on the bolded bit

Here is a list of every franchise in smash bros with either a stage or a fighter :
Source : https://www.ssbwiki.com/Series_symbol

41 games
Number of games with actual female main leads :
Metroid, Bayonetta and Wii Fit
You can put Splatoon there since girl squid is the focused more on marketing.
For the sake of completion, 2/14 (11 not counting because online) FF have a woman as the main protagonist

And that is it.

Games that don't have an actual gender or specific protagonist :
Eletroplankton, Miiverse, DS, Tomodachi, Wii Sports, Pilotwings, Nintendogs, Smash Bros

Games where you can make your own character :
Mii Fighter, Animal Crossing, Pokemon
2 of those default to male on adverts.

You could include Princess Peach and Nana on that count but would still look "exactly what are you thinking with 'plenty of other Nintendo games with female leads' ???"

 

[Llyrwenne]

This is a great read and I’ll link this in the OP. I’ll also put a short bit at the start explaining that even though I mostly use female protagonists / sexism as examples, many other representation issues are prevalent in the industry across race / sexuality / nationality / cultures / etc. and their intersections.

I also see some fair discussion around the article I linked in the OP that was partly about The Witcher 3, so I’ll add a note to tell people to check that discussion out.

Since the Aonuma statements seem to attract the most discussion I’ll try and explain in more detail why I included that under that section ( and put a link to this post in OP ) through some points that were brought up.

I had to shorten a few things in a bit, but managed to get in a bit at the start + a link to the Zelda-post, but the OP is now literally at the character limit. Not a few characters under it, but literally at the character limit, so I can't add the note about the The Witcher 3 article. I'll just trust people find those posts by reading through the thread. .w.

 

[yog-sothot]

This was a very interesting piece OP. I am not sure I have much to add to the discussion but I really appreciated it.

 

[psychowave]

It bothers me how defensive male gamers are of Link. I keep seeing this "have Zelda playable if you have to but don't make Link a girl!" argument pop up in these kinds of threads. Like they think having Link be female for once is taking the character away from them or something.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

It bothers me how defensive male gamers are of Link. I keep seeing this "have Zelda playable if you have to but don't make Link a girl!" argument pop up in these kinds of threads. Like they think having Link be female for once is taking the character away from them or something.

Speaking for myself... I don't care if Link is female either, it's not defensiveness at all. I'm not even a fan of Link at all. Actually I think that's why I don't want a female Link xD Link is just... whatever. It's Link.

Not making Zelda playable in her own game (other than the CDi abominations) is the real lameness here. Moreso because the games are actually called "The Legend of Zelda"! And they've made Zelda do cool stuff in some of the games (like Sheik, Tetra, etc) so there's plenty of potential for her do go on cool adventures. But noooo always gotta be Link. Pffft go away Link

 

[LotusHD]

It bothers me how defensive male gamers are of Link. I keep seeing this "have Zelda playable if you have to but don't make Link a girl!" argument pop up in these kinds of threads. Like they think having Link be female for once is taking the character away from them or something.

I've read posts before where someone said a female Link would somehow ruin his childhood if it were to ever happen.

 

[Enduin]

It bothers me how defensive male gamers are of Link. I keep seeing this "have Zelda playable if you have to but don't make Link a girl!" argument pop up in these kinds of threads. Like they think having Link be female for once is taking the character away from them or something.

It bothers me how many people act as though it's absurd that others have developed certain attachments and connections to a character and series that has been around for 30 years. As if everyone has to be coldly detached from a series they may have been playing their whole life. It's normal for people to develop emotional connections to fiction and have strong opinions about it even if it isn't purely logical as to what they feel that way. And it's important to acknowledge that fact, regardless of your stance.

Which leads to my bigger issue with those people who express themselves in ways like you have described, more or less, and when challenged absolutely lose themselves and undermine their own valid opinion by performing extreme mental gymnastics in order to create absolutes as to why Link can never be female simply because they won't just own up to their own preferences and never bothered examining exactly why they have developed those feelings in the first place. And worse the many others who just flatly oppose it due to their disdain for better diversity in games in general. They're just assholes.

I don't think it is at all wrong that people have strong feelings about a franchise they very easily could have decades of history with and as result, albeit selfishly, have developed certain attachments and assigned certain qualities and expectations on it. As long as they have reflected enough as to why they feel that way and don't act like a dick when someone else feels differently. What is at issue is that many of these people, and sometimes those who they are fighting against as well, have not done that self reflection and are unable to look beyond themselves and understand how or why someone can think differently and don't understand that their own opinions and desires do not supersede others.

It's fine to say you do or do not want a Female Link, or a playable Zelda, or whatever. What is not right is trying to shutdown those who believe differently. Using twisted logic and meaningless game lore and other nonsense as definitive evidence as to why something cannot be or should be for that matter. Blindly acting as though their opinion is just without ever actually analyzing why they feel that way or why others feel differently. It's not wrong to want something a certain way, but it is wrong to try and force everyone else to accept that as fact and thus should stop debating the issue entirely. Acting as though what they want is perfectly fine, but what others want is too much and/or wrong.

Debate is good, as long as you are fully aware and honest about your position and views. People voicing their desires and expecting developers to do better is good. Doing what the OP has excellently outlined in order to shut down or stifle debate or quell opinions not their own is not good. There is this weird all of nothing, zero-sum, attitude, especially among those who pull these kinds of tactics in order to maintain the status quo, but also from the opposite side as if someone who is opposed to one change must be in opposition to everything.

But mostly it's people are afraid to just admit they like something and have to find a greater justification outside themselves for it almost for the sole purpose of absolving themselves from self reflection on the matter. And they act as if developers stop doing things they like in every game it will mean they'll end up with no games at all, which isn't what people are looking for at all. Nor something that would ever occur in the first place. If there is a market for something someone is going to cater to that market. Especially if that market is allowed to voice those desires. Crowdfunding has proven that fact even further, not that it would ever get to that point.

Which makes it all doubly stupid that so many people are trying to quell dissent and police how what others expect and ask from developers and artists in general. Most people are just asking devs what all of us should be doing in the first place, thinking about why we do things a certain way and what that says about us and what it means to other people and why they might feel differently. Doing so doesn't mean blindly accepting what others believe or doing whatever it is they say, it just means you at the very least acknowledge your beliefs and way of doing things aren't the only ones that matter.

 

[Abelard]

Great post! I do agree with all of your points accept the one note at the end with The Witcher 3- the game is supposed to take place in pseudo-medieval Poland as the books did, so it would be unrealistic to expect colored characters, and I am saying this as a brown person- I was, however, happily surprised with their inclusion in the "Hearts of Stone" DLC. I think in general projecting an American view of diversity is a bad idea, especially considering as a westerner you must remember the polish themselves were a minority and discriminated throughout history by America, Germany, the USSR, heck even in the UK today (and even so recently with Brexit) and so on. If anything, from an American perspective you should see The Witcher 3 as a celebration of a targeted group (a minority in the countries the immigrated to) as opposed to some declaration of white supremacy or "colorblindness".

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

Llyrwenne: Aonuma's explanation isn't really "because lore", is it?

His explanation is that, in his eyes, Zelda will always be female, and he wants the trio of Link/Zelda/Ganon to be balanced. Link is a boy, Zelda is a girl, and Ganon is a monster.

If they make Link female, then it throws off the male-female balance between Link and Zelda, because Zelda will always be female.

Not saying it's good or bad, but that's how I interpreted what he said.

 

[Llyrwenne]

It bothers me how many people act as though it's absurd that others have developed certain attachments and connections to a character and series that has been around for 30 years. As if everyone has to be coldly detached from a series they may have been playing their whole life. It's normal for people to develop emotional connections to fiction and have strong opinions about it even if it isn't purely logical as to what they feel that way. And it's important to acknowledge that fact, regardless of your stance.

Which leads to my bigger issue with those people who express themselves in ways like you have described, more or less, and when challenged absolutely lose themselves and undermine their own valid opinion by performing extreme mental gymnastics in order to create absolutes as to why Link can never be female simply because they won't just own up to their own preferences and never bothered examining exactly why they have developed those feelings in the first place. And worse the many others who just flatly oppose it due to their disdain for better diversity in games in general. They're just assholes.

( … )

Which makes it all doubly stupid that so many people are trying to quell dissent and police how what others expect and ask from developers and artists in general. Most people are just asking devs what all of us should be doing in the first place, thinking about why we do things a certain way and what that says about us and what it means to other people and why they might feel differently. Doing so doesn't mean blindly accepting what others believe or doing whatever it is they say, it just means you at the very least acknowledge your beliefs and way of doing things aren't the only ones that matter.

I agree with everything in this post. Discussion is not and should not be about clinging to personal beliefs. Introspection and making an effort to understand views that are not your own are important parts of discussion.

Great post! I do agree with all of your points accept the one note at the end with The Witcher 3- the game is supposed to take place in pseudo-medieval Poland as the books did, so it would be unrealistic to expect colored characters, and I am saying this as a brown person- I was, however, happily surprised with their inclusion in the "Hearts of Stone" DLC. I think in general projecting an American view of diversity is a bad idea, especially considering as a westerner you must remember the polish themselves were a minority and discriminated throughout history by America, Germany, the USSR, heck even in the UK today (and even so recently with Brexit) and so on. If anything, from an American perspective you should see The Witcher 3 as a celebration of a targeted group (a minority in the countries the immigrated to) as opposed to some declaration of white supremacy or "colorblindness".

I don’t think the article goes quite as far as saying The Witcher 3 is a declaration of white supremacy, but in general I agree that The Witcher is a more complicated case than the article presents and that that should be a point of discussion - preferably a discussion where flawed arguments as described in the OP are avoided. I still think the article brings up some interesting broader points, but they do not all necessarily relate directly to The Witcher and I agree that the article does not really fit in with the rest of the OP. I will remove it from the OP in favor of a link to the above post by Enduin.

The removed article, for posterity: Colorblind: On The Witcher 3, Rust, and gaming's race problem

Llyrwenne: Aonuma's explanation isn't really "because lore", is it?

His explanation is that, in his eyes, Zelda will always be female, and he wants the trio of Link/Zelda/Ganon to be balanced. Link is a boy, Zelda is a girl, and Ganon is a monster.

If they make Link female, then it throws off the male-female balance between Link and Zelda, because Zelda will always be female.

Not saying it's good or bad, but that's how I interpreted what he said.

It kind of is though. He says there’s ‘an idea’ that exists in the games and then says he can’t do something because it would ‘mess with’ that idea. He does not explain why the idea is important, why that idea was introduced into the lore, or what that idea means to the lore. He does not explain how introducing the thing he says he can’t would ‘mess with’ that idea, nor why he can’t think of the almost endless ways he could add what he says he can’t without having it conflict with that idea. He says it exists and that he therefore can’t do something.

There is a difference between Aonuma introducing an idea into the lore and then using that idea to say he can’t do something and Aonuma saying that he does not want to do something.

The underlying idea might always be ‘Aonuma wants Link to be male and Zelda to be female.’ - which is fine -, but the way that is communicated to us is significantly different.

And as I have pointed out earlier - and you also touched on -, even if we take his statements at face value and accept that the ideas he presents in his statements would somehow make a female protagonist impossible, those ideas themselves would still be subject to criticism.

The end point is that his statements can be criticized for any number of reasons, and that invoking ‘artistic integrity’ - which is the context in which I included his quotes in the OP - to dismiss that criticism achieves absolutely nothing.

 

[Weltall Zero]

And many more genres where focus is not on characters. Shmups, simulators (mech, flight), strategy and so on. In all of those, inclusion of any minority is purely superficial and i don't think that kind of representation (superficial) is main goal of this discussion. I hope at least.

Of course; if a minority character isn't going to have a 200 page characterization, their inclusion is "superficial" and it's better to only have white dudes instead. I mean, that's obviously the default; anything else is pandering unless they meet someone's arbitrary requisites.

 

[Llyrwenne]

Abstract games - Tetris, pongs etc.
Driving games - focus here is on cars not who drives them, and while minorities can be included in story (if there's any) or character selection screen. That's pretty much it.
Games featuring anthropomorphic characters - mainly platformers that use animals as characters. Diversity can exist in those games, but mainly in the form of cultural background, attidude etc. Often stereotyped.
Licensed games - or any type of work confined with arbitrary limits. Games based on something that try to represent previous work. A book, time period, place etc.

And many more genres where focus is not on characters. Shmups, simulators (mech, flight), strategy and so on.

I'm not entirely sure if I'm understanding your post correctly, so apologies in advance if I misinterpreted it.

Why is non-inclusion ok in those instances? Driving games might be about cars, but they still often feature humans in the crowd and as drivers. Why should minorities not be included in that? Sure, you can't really represent sexuality in a random crowd member visually, but things like race and gender shouldn't be an issue here. Games with exclusively anthropomorphic animals ( how... weirdly specific >x> ) can still include diversity on a cultural level, as you yourself point out.

Your 'Licensed games' category is very broad and vague. Arbitrary limits are just that - arbitrary. Creative works based on another creative work can take some creative liberties with that source material, and often need to to make the source material work in a different medium. Why should representation and inclusion be excluded from that? Something being a certain way in source material does not automatically prevent it from being another way in an adaptation. The Harry Potter movies are not 1:1 adaptations of the books. Nick Fury being white in the comics did not prevent Marvel from casting Samuel L. Jackson. 'It's in the source material' is pretty much the same point as 'it's in the lore', and is flawed for all the same reasons. Both points assume that existing creative decisions are immutable, when that is simply not true. Both points are meaningless on their own.

I'd also like to like to pick out 'time period' in specific as that is basically the 'historical accuracy' argument. How does setting your creative work during a certain time period excuse the exclusion of minorities? Did minorities not exist during that time period? 'Historical accuracy' is not a blunt object with which you can bash in criticism.

The question should never be 'why should I include minorities?', because that question operates on the assumption that inclusion is not the default. The question should be 'why shouldn't I include minorities?'. 'Historical accuracy' is on its own not a good answer to that question, because minorities have always existed. 'They're not in the source material' is also not on its own a good answer to that question, because past creative decisions are not immutable or binding. 'Historical Accuracy' and 'Source material' are not the answers themselves, they are jumping-off points for more questions, the answers to which combine to form an actual argument.

If an RTS has human units, why shouldn't minorities be represented among those units if they can? If a simulator has humans in it, why should minorities not be represented across that? They don't need to have stories or background or anything. If you're going to have ten nameless / story-less / non-interactive NPCs walking around in an airplane-hangar in your flight simulator game, surely it wouldn't hurt to include - just throwing something out there - a black woman among them? You know, to acknowledge that people are diverse and that minorities exist and perhaps might even do jobs like these in real life? Why should minority characters have to be front and center to justify their inclusion?

In all of those, inclusion of any minority is purely superficial and i don't think that kind of representation (superficial) is main goal of this discussion. I hope at least.

Why should that not be part of the goal? That kind of minimal base level inclusion should absolutely be encouraged wherever it makes sense, should it not?