Bioware: Better stories please!

[DarthBehemoth]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6 ... games_.php

Discuss!

 

[Ahzaruuk]

It's fine if they want to deviate from the usual Male white Protagonist.


But when you try to say, make it so that it's a Hispanic lesbian instead, does that impact her character or is it just a game of Mad gab ?

 

[Morgoth]

Here, another link: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/07/bioware-developer-wants-to-augment-your-virtual-diversity-still/

"You can think of fantasy games where if you were the dark elves, you know, the Drow, were always looked upon... They were the black people of the fantasy world, right? And if you played the dark elves, you were treated like garbage by many of the townspeople," Heir said to Gamastura. "So, my only question is, why can't we do that when we're actually talking about real people?"

Bioware always got it's priorities straight!

 

[Konjad]

I want to be a black homo in da3

 

[SuicideBunny]

i'd like to see a mass effect where shepard is a single black mom who does not look like a slutty bimbo and has to balance saving the universe in some faraway corners of the galaxy versus not alienating her "i hate you, you don't understand me"-phase teenager kid left on earth (with, say, grandparents).

congratulations, you saved everybody from the reapers (again)! meanwhile your daughter has dyed her hair purple and ran away with a known drug-dealer.

 

[J_C]

congratulations, you saved everybody from the reapers (again)! meanwhile your daughter has dyed her hair purple and ran away with a known drug-dealer.

You just made my day with this.

 

[Ahzaruuk]

congratulations, you saved everybody from the reapers (again)! meanwhile your daughter has dyed her hair purple and ran away with a known drug-dealer.

...Bahahaha!

 

[Wyrmlord]

Wow Ed123, that is one bizzare post.

 

[PorkaMorka]

It seems like it is a lot easier to include people of different races in sci fi settings. All you have to do is assume that multikult won and then you can just plop in a black space marine without mentioning it. (well, except in WH40k, heh)

Assuming a perfectly color blind society is an easy way to a) avoid making racial faux pas and b) avoid having to write about different cultures.

In fantasy games set in primitive times it's a little more difficult though. Mass (semi) peaceful immigration would be a lot less common, travel would be a lot more difficult and societies would be a lot more insular. Most people would just sit around in one small area, grubbing out a living.

So generally speaking you'd have a big area with a lot of white people and a big area with a lot of black people and a big area with a lot of tan people and a big area with a lot of yellow people and only a few small areas with a mixture where these blobs overlap.

So instead of just plopping in a black paladin, you need to figure out where he came from. This entails actually writing about a non white fantasy culture of some kind. Have you ever seen what happens when mediocre fantasy writers try to do this?

Al-Qadim, Maztica, Kara-Tur, etc. without established fantasy cliches to fall back on, the writers just opt for fantasy Arabia, fantasy South America, fantasy Asia, etc. Stuff like this tends to come off as a bit cheesy and even a bit ignorant and stereotypical.

Even professional fiction writers end up doing this at times, Glen Cook's Taglios for example is mostly just fantasy India, although it seems a bit more well done than the above examples, at least for those like me who know nothing about India.

While to some extent a "standard fantasy setting" is just fantasy Europe, by this point it's mostly just a mishmash of cliches from other fantasy stories that we've been programmed to accept. Very little of actual medieval Europe is involved, except the whiteness.

Are fan fiction game writers to the task of coming up with non white fantasy cultures? It appears to be more difficult than just regurgitating a bunch of fantasy cliches.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

An interesting variant on this is the Salamanders of 40k, an all-black space marine chapter that happens to be the most down to earth chapter that actually interacts with the civilian community and are also black only because it's the skin color that's most suitable for adapting to their home planet

Also aren't the continent where the paladins in Diablo come from have a black/swarthy population? They don't make a special deal of it, it's just how the setting is.

and as for the whole cross resemblance thing I wouldn't let it bother me too much, nothing is new under the sun etc. If you want super alien aliens read stephen baxter or something.

 

[Menckenstein]

Heroes guild enacts affirmative action. Underqualified heroes assigned to epic quests fail hard and doom humanity. News at 11.

 

[Mastermind]

"You can think of fantasy games where if you were the dark elves, you know, the Drow, were always looked upon... They were the black people of the fantasy world, right?

Err, drow are known for being evil murderous bastards, not "being looked upon" (nice fucking grammar, journalist). I don't think he wants to make that comparison.

 

[Flatlander]

What does diversity have to do with better stories? Or better yet, why Kwanzanians have to be so obsessed with sex and race issues, it's like games can't be "art" or have "deep, meaningful" stories and themes unless there is big narrative finger pointing: "Look here! A gay black womyn!".

 

[Spark Mandriller]

I don't think anyone who's this desperate to promote equality and pushing the medium should be allowed to actually do it. There's no way this isn't going to result in the most ham handed shit ever, it'll be like PLANET RACIST in KotOR all over again, with team evil racists all lined up ready to be told off by your party members in the clumsiest way possible.

I'm kinda interested in how this guy plans on making game mechanics change if you're gay, though. We talking sex minigames like in Fahrenheit, or what?

An interesting variant on this is the Salamanders of 40k, an all-black space marine chapter that happens to be the most down to earth chapter that actually interacts with the civilian community and are also black only because it's the skin color that's most suitable for adapting to their home planet

I think Matt Ward retconned that to a defect in their geneseed turning them black. Those defective darkies, oh ho.

 

[sea]

It's a difficult situation to be in. As a developer, do you want to go with real-world races and potentially risk backlash when you try to single one of them out for special treatment in a quest, or in how the game world treats them, even if it's a positive portrayal? Do you give the option for the player to choose a race and then have absolutely no in-game acknowledgement of that choice, which itself is also damaging in that it ignores racial realities? Do you use fake/fantasy races to dance around the issue but end up with your message lost in the mix, or with obvious "hispanic aliens" or "Asian demons" like the horrible racist caricatures in the newer Star Wars movies? And finally, would your publisher even let you do what you think is right?

I don't really envy the position at all. My best answer is to include racial and gender diversity as best you can, even make a point of it in development, but don't draw attention to it. It might be an unrealistic way to handle things, but some visibility is better than none at all, and the current state of the industry still isn't really quite the place for a proper discussion of race and social equality.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Matt Ward

 

[Mastermind]

What does diversity have to do with better stories? Or better yet, why Kwanzanians have to be so obsessed with sex and race issues, it's like games can't be "art" or have "deep, meaningful" stories and themes unless there is big narrative finger pointing: "Look here! A gay black womyn!".

It's not all kwanzanians, just the far left.

 

[Konjad]

make black people mindless mobs to kill and grind on, while white people should always come to a reason and perhaps make an agreement with you.

 

[Spectacle]

When it comes to diversity I'd like to see more futures not populated solely by Americans. Even the token blacks and Asians they put in will be African-Americans and Asian-Americans. Mass Effect is one of the worst offenders.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

fuck this battlestar shit I want an alpha centauri tv series

 

[Excommunicator]

I hate this diversity for diversity's sake crap. I want nothing of it. I refuse to compromise my fictional work for the sake of some oversensitive mush-heads.

Unless you are trying to convey some specific messages about diversity and all of that (in which case these things would be in the game from the beginning anyway) then yielding to such ideas is the first step in losing artistic integrity. If you think you can do such a knee-jerk substitution and not expect it to have an effect on the quality of the work, then you probably have no idea what you are doing in the first place.

 

[Flatlander]

It's a difficult situation to be in. As a developer, do you want to go with real-world races and potentially risk backlash when you try to single one of them out for special treatment in a quest, or in how the game world treats them, even if it's a positive portrayal?.

I don't know, maybe the same it's done in good literature? Of course that would require

a) Audience consisting of adults with basic (media) reading skills and cognitive capability.
b) Actual writers and some kind of an original viewpoint and story to present. For the latter "Racism is bad, mmkay, you can also play as a gay transvestite and BTW we are art" doesn't suffice.

Edit:

I hate this diversity for diversity's sake crap. I want nothing of it. I refuse to compromise my fictional work for the sake of some oversensitive mush-heads.

Unless you are trying to convey some specific messages about diversity and all of that (in which case these things would be in the game from the beginning anyway) then yielding to such ideas is the first step in losing artistic integrity. If you think you can do such a knee-jerk substitution and not expect it to have an effect on the quality of the work, then you probably have no idea what you are doing in the first place.

Basically this.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

An interesting variant on this is the Salamanders of 40k, an all-black space marine chapter that happens to be the most down to earth chapter that actually interacts with the civilian community and are also black only because it's the skin color that's most suitable for adapting to their home planet

I think Matt Ward retconned that to a defect in their geneseed turning them black. Those defective darkies, oh ho.

Nah, their black skin was always a geneseed corruption that prevented them from altering their skin color like every other marine. Similar to how Blood Angels are always tall, handsome, white and blond for good.


But remember, in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium, there are only white people. (Discounting the black dude in that Catachan codex cover, who was probably a mutant)

 

[Flatlander]

From the comments:

I will reiterate one critical point I made in my other reply: companies (or individuals) who wish to truly embrace diversity must hire those of us who are scholars in this particular area of study. There are plenty of us, but we are not from the fields that are typically described in job postings (i.e., programmers, artists, and/or designers). Of course, that is the entire point. The lack of having scholars from fields such as women and gender studies (which focuses on diversity issues, including media content analysis) causes companies (and individuals) to continue to perpetuate the same stereotypes while proclaiming that they are embracing diversity. No, they are not, but they think they are, and they often convince others, including the general public, that they are (because, after all, most people are not trained in these fields).

embrace diversity... us who are scholars in this particular field... having scholars from fields such as women and gender studies... embracing. diversity... after all, most people are not trained in these fields ...

 

[Flatlander]

And this is why I love BioWare

Ok now on to a more serious response Diversity is an interesting topic and one I am fairly passionate about, especially GLBTQ representation

... didn't see that coming. Nope. Not at all.

 

[Angthoron]

Women studies promoting equality, why yes, that's why they're called WOMEN studies.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Twenty bucks says MCA would demolish those PC&Diversity "scholars" when it came to writing a story about such issues, or even debating about the subject.