"Writing what you know" is not the same as simply defaulting to what you know. A good writer always should be able to justify her/his choices about a character. Sometimes that justification comes after something's been written, sometimes before. But a writer who can't justify those decisions isn't a writer, they're a hack.You're looking for privilege where there's none. The "write what you know" is one of the very first advices any writer gets and it's a good one. It's simply easier to understand and develop character you share a lot with. That is white male when the writer is white male, but the very same rule applies to woman writting a famel lead or black writer picking black person as his narrator.
Again, I have no problem at all with white folks writing white characters, or black folks writing black characters, etc. But if those writers can't account for those choices within the work itself, then they should take a good, long, hard look in the mirror and think about where those choices are coming from. If a character's traits (whatever they might be) are irrelevant or interchangeable, then they're not necessary in the first place. Because games are (mostly) a visual medium, race and gender are more obvious than other character traits, so game designers and writers need to be deliberate in those choices. I mean, just think of the amount of time spent during development just looking at those faces and bodies over and over and over again. The visual appearance of those characters is carefully crafted and regularly cultivated. I have a very hard time accepting that those choices are ever really just incidental.Whoa there. Can it really be a privilege if everyone enjoys it? Females tend to write female characters, minorities tend to write minority characters, teenagers tend to write teenage characters, etc. It's a basic tendency that is reflected in every culture throughout history.
The demographics of the games industry does not reflect the demographics of game players. If those in the games industry only make games with characters who look like themselves, then we're stuck in an ugly situation (as we currently are) where women and ethnic minorities are asked to participate in a politics of representation that not only does not reflect us, but also often reminds us in subtle (or unsubtle) ways of where we stand in the social hierarchy.