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Game character ethnicities/sex - Where do you draw the line between anti-woke and racist pushback?

Doom85

Member
If only the RE games weren't known for having a 95% all-American cast.

And 5 isn’t set in America. And AC games have had a non-native lead with the Black Flag (4) lead. Also, Shadows does have a Japanese lead in it.

Bruh, save your breath. I’ve heard all the arguments. Trust me, no one is saying anything new here. I’m sorry if it upsets you that the AC Shadows complainers have been compared to the RE 5 complainers, but the fact is the woke complainers and the anti-woke complainers have much more in common than most would care to admit. The fact that some of the latter are often resorting to the, “and that’s why the opposing side are actually racist/sexist/etc.” tactics some of the woke were well known for using speaks volumes. Why, it’s almost like people who choose to go all in in terms of an ideology end up using the same tactics!

In the end, it’s people making a mountain out of a molehill. They can paint it a different color if they like, but it’s the same bullshit at the end of the day.
 

Bojji

Member
You know that is the same if someone in veilguard says that is full of inclusivity and diversity? 😂

As i said i like freedom of writing ... i'm playing kingdome come right now and i don't care if there's no blacks or whatever like i don't care if AC have a black protagonist in japan or if in veilguard they talk about non binary...whats the difference between me and you? Why i don't care and you care about it?
dQIjFVN.jpeg

I said in my first post in this topic why I care about it in some games and don't care in others.

If you don't see woke agenda behind many developers decisions in modern games - good for you I guess? I think this is cancer for the industry.
 
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nikolino840

Member
I said in my first post in this topic why I care about it in some games and don't care in others.

If you don't see woke agenda behind many developers decisions in modern games - good for you I guess? I think this is cancer for the industry.
Cancer for the industry..must be the same thoughts of the charlie hebdo killers 😂
 

MiguelItUp

Member
Idc about either 'side', they're all the same to me.

Just don't take any of em seriously.
Exactly where I am.

Sex and ethnicity really shouldn't affect anyone. To me, if a game feels like it was made with love, care, and passion (and it's good/great) you can feel that in the game itself and people won't blow a gasket over things that I personally find ridiculous. If it's looks or feels forced, pander-y, money grabby, etc. That's when I think there is more of an issue. If something just doesn't interest me for any reason, I just don't pay attention to it and wait for more games that are up my alley. A bad game is a bad game and will generally phase itself out I feel.

The biggest problem with the whole "side" thing is that people have gotten SO deep into their "sides" that they begin to label things that aren't deserving of it. Thankfully I think it's a real small amount, but they definitely exist on all "sides" which is beyond unfortunate. Some will see a protagonist that isn't white (or a female) and immediately kneejerk to say it's "woke". Just like some that will see a violent game and claim it's a "murder simulator" or a "sexy" female or male character and label it pornographic, misogynistic, or misandrist. There are so many forms of it.

I really just miss the era where none of this stuff was mentioned. No ridiculous content creators/influencers/journalists rage baiting for attention and clicks, no gigantic waves of negativity/toxicity, etc. Games are great, good, okay, bad, or horrible, and that's that. You play the ones you wanna play, and you ignore the ones that you don't.
 
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Bojji

Member
And 5 isn’t set in America. And AC games have had a non-native lead with the Black Flag (4) lead. Also, Shadows does have a Japanese lead in it.

Bruh, save your breath. I’ve heard all the arguments. Trust me, no one is saying anything new here. I’m sorry if it upsets you that the AC Shadows complainers have been compared to the RE 5 complainers, but the fact is the woke complainers and the anti-woke complainers have much more in common than most would care to admit. The fact that some of the latter are often resorting to the, “and that’s why the opposing side are actually racist/sexist/etc.” tactics some of the woke were well known for using speaks volumes. Why, it’s almost like people who choose to go all in in terms of an ideology end up using the same tactics!

In the end, it’s people making a mountain out of a molehill. They can paint it a different color if they like, but it’s the same bullshit at the end of the day.


4 is about pirates and pirates were (mostly) European. Freedom cry is about slavery and this (stand alone) dlc has black protagonist. You also have black female in ac3 liberation.

There was no "drama" when these games were announced because main characters made perfect sense for time and region.
 

Nickolaidas

Member
Bruh, save your breath. I’ve heard all the arguments. Trust me, no one is saying anything new here. I’m sorry if it upsets you that the AC Shadows complainers have been compared to the RE 5 complainers, but the fact is the woke complainers and the anti-woke complainers have much more in common than most would care to admit. The fact that some of the latter are often resorting to the, “and that’s why the opposing side are actually racist/sexist/etc.” tactics some of the woke were well known for using speaks volumes. Why, it’s almost like people who choose to go all in in terms of an ideology end up using the same tactics!

In the end, it’s people making a mountain out of a molehill. They can paint it a different color if they like, but it’s the same bullshit at the end of the day.
The difference is that the anti-woke promote merit, and the woke promote equity, and that by definition means that woke games will always have equity working against the quality of the product.

I don't care what the western gaming studios will end up doing. I have stopped supporting the majority of them and I am just as happy gazing towards the East. I'm literally only watching Korean shows on Netflix and I can't believe how much better most of these are compared to the slops I get from the West - which ironically, defeats the whole 'you are racist' argument the woke are so quick to rely on, since I am watching and playing things from a different culture/ethnicity than mine.

I DO agree that on the surface, a lot of the anti-woke and the woke are opposite sides of the same coin. To the point that quite a few anti-woke are quick to give a movie or a game a pass and call it 'good' instead of 'meh' or 'bleh' because it doesn't have woke elements in it, and that it just as bad.

Like I said, Baldur's Gate III is a woke game, but its quality of writing, game design and production values make it easy to recommend and play. I am not unreasonable. I play woke games if they are legitimately good.
 

MayauMiao

Member

"We are trying to create a game that is as authentic as possible. It's something we take pride in," Onnée tells us. "And that is also a very long process. When we build a Japanese house from feudal Japan, it is very different from, say, a French medieval house or an English one. So you have to learn as artists where things go inside a feudal Japanese house… maybe the food doesn't go there. You have to get everything you need to know and learn it. And that process is long."



I'm not a fan of ac,only played ac2 bc i'm italian...

Funny how you are saying not being a fan of AC because you are an Italian. Somehow because AC2 sets in Italy, with Italian main character, that you decide to play it.

Imagine if AC2 protagonist is black, would you play it? Would the black character make sense in AC2 seeing that it sets in Italy? I bet you'd be piss too.
 

nikolino840

Member
Funny how you are saying not being a fan of AC because you are an Italian. Somehow because AC2 sets in Italy, with Italian main character, that you decide to play it.

Imagine if AC2 protagonist is black, would you play it? Would the black character make sense in AC2 seeing that it sets in Italy? I bet you'd be piss too.
Not the protagonist but the cities 😂 and since the lore of AC isn't the protagonist the character outside the simulation?
 

Dazraell

Member
And 5 isn’t set in America. And AC games have had a non-native lead with the Black Flag (4) lead. Also, Shadows does have a Japanese lead in it.
To be fair, you could actually make a case that Edward as a protagonist was very faithful choice to the setting where the game is set. A very high percentage of pirates during golden age of piracy, especially ones on West Indies were Brits. I believe majority of them were from England, but Welsh and Scots were also among them
 
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YCoCg

Gold Member
To be fair, you could actually make a case that Edward as a protagonist was very faithful choice to the setting where the game is set. A very high percentage of pirates during golden age of piracy, especially ones on West Indies were Brits. I believe majority of them were from England, but Welsh and Scots were also among them
And originally Edward was meant to be Mancunian but the casting directors liked the actors normal voice that much they got the team to make that change since Manchester (North West of England) and North Wales are only a few hours apart distance wise.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
4 is about pirates and pirates were (mostly) European. Freedom cry is about slavery and this (stand alone) dlc has black protagonist. You also have black female in ac3 liberation.

There was no "drama" when these games were announced because main characters made perfect sense for time and region.
There was no drama because 2013 was different and people hadn’t yet lost their collective marbles. Naoe is Japanese, but for some reason, everyone ignores it.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
As long as the black main character isn't forced. It can't be thought about in a premeditative way at all. It has to just spontaneously appear in your brain while writing the story completely on accident like divine intervention. "And the game will have zombies, guns and boom- black person in it. I don't know why I wrote that." That should barely be considered not woke. But its hard since you can't read their thoughts so you should stalk the creators social media as well for years and see if you can find anything you dislike. That's the rational way to do this. If the character artist or writer is black they would likely pass the organic creation test, so in those cases you then should scour their employment history and social media to try and see if they are a DEI hire. You never can truly find proof of this so its safest to just assume they are and boycott the game just in case its woke. Even if the artist isn't black, they may have received advice or consultation from a black person so make sure to go ahead and assume this about everyone if a black character is involved and you won't get caught off guard by the woke mind virus. Afterall they don't make vaccines for woke virus, and even if they did vaccines are bad.
 
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It's hard for me to talk about this subject without offending anyone so I'll just say that I don't really care because it's fictional characters.
 

Bojji

Member
There was no drama because 2013 was different and people hadn’t yet lost their collective marbles. Naoe is Japanese, but for some reason, everyone ignores it.

Remember resident evil 5 drama from 2008/9? Internet was capable of this few years later.

No one is talking about naoe because she isn't that controversial. Other than Yasuka ACS brings negative attention because Ubisoft fucked up a lot of things about japanese culture.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
Racist pushback? I'm sure it's out there but I need examples. I doubt it's a lot of people.
 
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As thousands here said already.. when it feels forced and unnatural then it bothers me. The Last of Us 2 is one of my all time favourites, Abby is fucking cool and i have not an ounce of issue with her character, i did see in my second playthrough that there's about 4 maybe 5 notes on lgbtq things around the world you can collect, which seems a bit forced since there isn't many notes total, but perhaps it's part of the narrative and all of NY gone to Seattle lol, anyway it's not an issue just feels a bit forced.
One of my favourite AC characters is Kassandra, so it's not a matter of playing as a woman, if it's a good character i would enjoy not matter what race/gender.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Remember resident evil 5 drama from 2008/9? Internet was capable of this few years later.
The same would have happened at any point in time in the past 50 years. Equating the controversy of RE with Yasuke and the culture is comically tone deaf.
No one is talking about naoe because she isn't that controversial. Other than Yasuka ACS brings negative attention because Ubisoft fucked up a lot of things about japanese culture.
One of the chief complaints that is so often brought up is that the protagonist is native to the region. There are two, including one native to the region.
 
In recent years across the internet, there has been 'antiwoke' pushback on character ethnicity/sex choices more developers seem to be making. This pushback seems to be ramping up. There have been extremes on each 'side', as with all discussion online

Where do you personally draw the line between 'antiwoke' pushback and 'racist' pushback?
I'm not worried about racist games because that really isn't an issue. DEI is everywhere in the western AAA gaming sphere as it dominates universities where most devs learn to dev. Where do I draw the line? Treat everyone like people not like Pokemon, if a game is all black people it's not racist just as it wouldn't be if it was all asians or whites.
 

Bojji

Member
The same would have happened at any point in time in the past 50 years. Equating the controversy of RE with Yasuke and the culture is comically tone deaf.

One of the chief complaints that is so often brought up is that the protagonist is native to the region. There are two, including one native to the region.

Resident evil controversy was mostly about big bad white man killing black people?

In ACS you have big bad black man killing Asians.

One of those things is politically incorrect in 2024 (and so was true in 2009).

Capcom changed enemies after this, included way more white people (in Africa). Re5 also had second protagonist, black female - looks like no one cared at the time.
 

Fbh

Member
It all comes down to the writing and how these elements get integrated.
I was just thinking about this last weekend as I was watching the finale of Arcane season 2. That's a show with a ton of racial diversity, where a majority of the main characters are female and 2 of the most prominent characters are lesbians. And I thought it was amazing: It's not only one of the best videogame adaptations to date but also one of the best animated shows in recent memory.

Why? Because it had compelling, interesting and mostly well written characters and an engaging plot. Because the diversity didn't feel forced as it's set in a fantasy world that has been diverse from the beginning. Because 2 of the characters being lesbian was just presented as one aspect of a more complex individual and wasn't their character defining trait, nor did I ever feel like the show was preaching to me about it. Because it stayed away from most of what I consider "woke" tropes like Mary Sue type characters or the need to emasculate every male character.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Resident evil controversy was mostly about big bad white man killing black people?

In ACS you have big bad black man killing Asians.
Something about colonialism and the European conquest of Africa? Very touchy and controversial subject to this day that has a lasting impact. That’s why there was so much controversy. Black people in Sengoku period Japan? A footnote.
One of those things is politically incorrect in 2024 (and so was true in 2009).
Something equivalent would be a Japanese killing Africans because just like black people in Japan, Japanese people in Africa don’t have much of a history.
Capcom changed enemies after this, included way more white people (in Africa). Re5 also had second protagonist, black female - looks like no one cared at the time.
And I believe Capcom when they say it wasn’t intended to be racist. Japanese people have a very different view of racism and I doubt anything related to the Scramble of Africa crossed these people’s minds when they were making RE5. To them, it was just killing zombies in Africa. There was no context or undertones of colonialism or Europe’s past hegemony over the continent.

The RE5 controversy wasn’t because of the current culture war and you know this. Over the past few years, this has exploded. The climate was not the same in 2009. It’s also funny because there’s 10x more bitching about AC Shadows than there ever was against RE5.
 
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It all comes down to the writing and how these elements get integrated.
I was just thinking about this last weekend as I was watching the finale of Arcane season 2. That's a show with a ton of racial diversity, where a majority of the main characters are female and 2 of the most prominent characters are lesbians. And I thought it was amazing: It's not only one of the best videogame adaptations to date but also one of the best animated shows in recent memory.

Why? Because it had compelling, interesting and mostly well written characters and an engaging plot. Because the diversity didn't feel forced as it's set in a fantasy world that has been diverse from the beginning. Because 2 of the characters being lesbian was just presented as one aspect of a more complex individual and wasn't their character defining trait, nor did I ever feel like the show was preaching to me about it. Because it stayed away from most of what I consider "woke" tropes like Mary Sue type characters or the need to emasculate every male character.

I actually have more issues with movies/series then with gaming.. like when they make changes to iconic characters just for the sake of diversity it's just dumb, don't remember many games with that issue.
 

Eimran

Member
You could put a Guy in women's clothes since saint's row 2 and nobody gave a shit. Because developers didn't care about it either. They just wanted you to enjoy the game instead of forcing their political beliefs on you.
 
Something about colonialism and the European conquest of Africa? Very touchy and controversial subject to this day that has a lasting impact. That’s why there was so much controversy. Black people in Sengoku period Japan? A footnote.

IIRC the RE5 situation was only some dumb article.
Similar to some nutcases who was bothered why no black people on KCD. Not something to the level of what Hogwarts Legacy had to endure.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
IIRC the RE5 situation was only some dumb article.
Similar to some nutcases who was bothered why no black people on KCD. Not something to the level of what Hogwarts Legacy had to endure.
It was a bit more than that, but you are correct that it’s nowhere near the "controversies" we got today because of the stupid culture war. Hogwarts Legacy, TLOU II, and AC Shadows were way bigger topics.

I’m simply telling Bojji Bojji that the RE5 controversy predates the current climate that has been plaguing gaming for a few years and that it has nothing or very little to do with the current nonsense.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
IIRC the RE5 situation was only some dumb article.
Similar to some nutcases who was bothered why no black people on KCD. Not something to the level of what Hogwarts Legacy had to endure.
These SJW "we gotta be represented" types were around the first Star Wars too, I recall seeing George Lucas apologizing for not having black people in the movie and James Earn Jones getting the role was sort of a band-aid for that mistake. :messenger_winking_tongue:
 
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diffusionx

Gold Member
You know that kcd or ac mirage having only one ethnicity is like "doubt"

I bet if a dev make a game set in china in 742 AD there's some people saying woke agenda if they put arab muslims in china even if there this mosquee

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mosque_of_Xi'an

Do you know how much travel there was in ancient times?
It very much is in doubt.

KCD did not portray some cosmopolitan global city, it was a backwater. You know, the sort of backwater where even up to the 1990s and 2000s, people would live their entire lives in these areas without seeing a single non-native person. But even in the cosmopolitan cities, the non-natives were cast to the fringes, mostly in port areas and stuff like that, to do their trading and leave. They weren't gertting permanent visas and shit like that. Traders on the Silk Road had a job to do - they went to a town, they TRADED, and they went to the next one. There were no H1B computer programmers. This was either formal by legislation (famouslhy in Japan) or informal. Operations to facilitate the trading - finance, insurance, etc. - was by established locals, Jews were heavily involved in this, and they were outsiders of a sort in their towns, and lived in their own areas. Games will not portray this for obvious reasons. Christians were involved as well though.

Like I always say, if these places were so cosmopolitan and multicultural, then where the fuck did they go, because even a place like London was like 95% British in the 1960s. And besides, you need to look at the motivations of the people talking about it. They are not talking about it because of a sincere desire for historical accuracy - if they did, they would criticize the games like Ubislop that portray women as soldiers and mercs in Ancient Greece. They do it because they are pushing their critical race and gender theory in this space. And this is not even in doubt - they talk about it openly.
 
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Bojji

Member
Something about colonialism and the European conquest of Africa? Very touchy and controversial subject to this day that has a lasting impact. That’s why there was so much controversy. Black people in Sengoku period Japan? A footnote.

Something equivalent would be a Japanese killing Africans because just like black people in Japan, Japanese people in Africa don’t have much of a history.

And I believe Capcom when they say it wasn’t intended to be racist. Japanese people have a very different view of racism and I doubt anything related to the Scramble of Africa crossed these people’s minds when they were making RE5. To them, it was just killing zombies in Africa. There was no context or undertones of colonialism or Europe’s past hegemony over the continent.

The RE5 controversy wasn’t because of the current culture war and you know this. Over the past few years, this has exploded. The climate was not the same in 2009. It’s also funny because there’s 10x more bitching about AC Shadows than there ever was against RE5.

RE5 wasn't about colonialism at all. They were looking for virus origins in modern day Africa.

Japanese devs were just clueless what controversy some people might find in placing their game in Africa (starring white man).

Ubisoft on the other hand does this on purpose, they used Yasuka to get higher metacritic score and good coverage in left wing media.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
RE5 wasn't about colonialism at all. They were looking for virus origins in modern day Africa.

Japanese devs were just clueless what controversy some people might find in placing their game in Africa (starring white man).
Yes, and I said as much...you're losing track of what I'm saying here. Let's rewind back a bit. I first replied to this post of yours:

4 is about pirates and pirates were (mostly) European. Freedom cry is about slavery and this (stand alone) dlc has black protagonist. You also have black female in ac3 liberation.

There was no "drama" when these games were announced because main characters made perfect sense for time and region.
I'm saying the reason there was no drama back in 2013 isn't because the characters fit the time and place, It's because 11 years ago, as crazy as it sounds, things were very different. I 100% wholeheartedly believed you could have made an Assassin's Creed starring Yasuke and Naoe back in 2013 and the controversy surrounding Yasuke would have been much more muted than what we currently have. There would have been some groans, but by and large, I don't think for one second it would have been even a fraction as controversial as it is today. 2013 was before Andrew Tate, it was before George Floyd, it was before the fascist current sweeping Europe, it was before BLM, it was before Trump and Biden, and I could go on. The culture war today is far, far more prevalent than it was back in 2013.

Ubisoft on the other hand does this on purpose, they used Yasuka to get higher metacritic score and good coverage in left wing media.
And I agree with this to some extent. However, Ubisoft in 2013 was also a somewhat different company. If they had done this in 2013, it would have been because they were thinking, "Hey, Yasuke is a cool historical figure, let's use him." It was before all the nonsensical pandering and weird writing we got such as in games like Veilguard (though Inquisition was shortly after). No shit about Body Type A or B in games. No game set in a fantasy medieval Europe with characters afraid of misgendering someone. Devs weren't afraid to say men or women. They weren't afraid to put outrageous bust or ass sliders. Ubisoft in 2024 is much more like current BioWare. That's why none of us believe the Yasuke choice comes from a good place. In 2013, we would have given them the benefit of the doubt.
 
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Crayon

Member
Thank you for bringing this up because I think about it and it sucks.

I always wanted to see more black people, women, etc on the covers of games. Now with everything that's gone on, I see just that and I have to be all skeptical of the sincerity. I hate it.

Look at the AC game. I mean c'mon who doesn't like a black samurai lol. But when they do it here it's so transparent... And oddly racist in its own way. It sets me off. I'm suddenly thinking about how asians are 'white-adjacent" this "fuck them".

So that's coming from someone who has always wanted the representation and is self aware of the conflicted feelings. I'm positive there's a lot of latent racism out there getting agitated among the anti-woke just like you are talking about.

Whole thing sucks! I'm looking forward to when it's a weird chapter in the history book.
 

Sooner

Member
It's difficult to define. But, you usually can tell the difference between making choices that fit the story and atmosphere of the game and those that are deliberately put in the game to push a personal belief or agenda.
 
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