Dice//
Banned
I fucking love Medieval Europe, I really do. But this sucks already; AC could really renew some interest in the series by introducing some awesome samurai sword battling mechanics.....boo!
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The importance of Black characters in video games and catharsis in Assassin's Creed
- Thread starter Lime
- Start date
I fucking love Medieval Europe, I really do. But this sucks already; AC could really renew some interest in the series by introducing some awesome samurai sword battling mechanics.....boo!
Well, it's half accurate in the case of Assassin's Creed. Aveline is from Louisiana, Adéwalé is from Trinidad.
You're an assassin Bish. I've seen the way you quietly took down those Farcry 4 posters.
Mauricio_Magus
Banned
Isn't the African-American term just a politically correct way of calling black people? I'm not from the US and I've just said Black all my life, but it's not a problem in my country from what I know(Mexico).
I don't get this, why do you have to feel a connection? I love to play as a variety of characters and not just another generic white male, it gets boring.
I don't get this, why do you have to feel a connection? I love to play as a variety of characters and not just another generic white male, it gets boring.
Nothing special one way or another. I already said earlier in the thread that I don't play video games to have any personal connection to any character.
Do none of you play video games strictly just for fun of gameplay mechanics?
Honestly I'm not even sure the angle of your reply or Bishop's? Usually I can tell from posts but I'm lost on this one.
Actually I was referring to the first Asian assassin being relegated to a budget 2.5D side scroller. Another female assassin no less. Between that and Liberation being a Vita game, it just feels super disingenuous to me. Look at all our diversity! Not in the main games, but it's all over the spinoffs!
I wonder why is that ? they are very good games. I have Liberation on pc and freedom on PS4.
To be fair this really should be about the importance of all ethnicities though. In character creation driven games I actually usually pick 'anything else'. I always use Hispanic or Latin men in Saints Row as they tend to have that option, I tend to pick Asians in others, like the Advanced Warfare MP, I chose the asian guy. Largely because there isn't quite the same issue behind it.
EscoBlades
Ubisoft Marketing
This was exactly my point. A black character is not a positive or negative to me. Just like any other race character.
So no I don't relate to Altair at all, I'm completely neutral on him. He's just there to climb walls and jump around.
If yall want to say my post was a little useless, then that's opinion and I won't argue that. But Lime seemed to understand at least.
When I see a game, I don't only see what mechanics allow me to do what. I also see what world and meaning the game carries.
It matters that I'm playing a cowboy in an old 19th century Western (Red Dead Redemption). It matters that I'm directing a samurai clan in feudal Japan in Shogun 2. It matters that I'm on a space ship trying to Escape an alien terror in Alien Isolation.
The semiotic layer in video games matter to some people. The gun you're carrying, the car youre driving, the characters you engage with. These things carry meaning and in itself the meaning determines a lot of the mechanics and it draws people into their fictional worlds. Marketing is even more reliant on what the meaning of a game is (you're an assassin, you're a military dude, you're a pirate, etc.) in order to peek people's interest.
And that's not even addressing how mechanics are political and carry meaning. Why can't I hug or sing a poem with the Orcs in Shadow of Mordor? Why is my only verb in this virtual world to kill and maim? Why can't I help someone in Watch Dogs instead of stealing money from their bank account??
To do that you have to pretend one race isn't significantly more oppressed, demonized, and generally slighted by the world at large. In which case, yeah, all races.
matrixman92
Member
and one of the most badass assassins at that who made the rope dart, which was used by majority of the main assassins. Cant wait for chronicles
Blood Diamonds
Banned
then why would you post this?
Your post was unnecessary, if you just play "games strictly for the fun of gameplay" then why post shit like this? If it doesn't matter to you, why go out of your way to point out that you're not interested in playing as black characters?
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
The man who wrote the article is black, so he's talking about what he personally knows and feels. (Read it if you haven't)
Good to see that you, unlike some people, see the value in experiencing something different
Then the cure would be to treat such a group the same as everybody else, so what's your point?
The point is:
Just because you personally don't care about the race of protags in a game, does not render the discussion of such a topic irrelevant.
Plus, you cannot use such a sentiment as a legit response to the topic of Black characters being underrepresented and/or misrepresented and typecasted. You not caring is not the point of the thread. That's like walking into a Baskin-Robins talmbout "I hate ice cream". Every person in that parlor is gon' look at you stupid...
I think that the main reason that your posts got such reactions is because this thread is obviously about how having protagonists of certain backgrounds or ethnicities can be a valuable thing for lots of players.
I'm sure everyone in this thread has at least some games that they play where they don't give a single shit about the race of the protagonist (particularly if you consider that some games you don't play as a human character at all). And some people just won't care period, like yourself!
But since this thread is about what it's about, and since people are, of course, aware that individuals exist which don't care about the race/background/whatever of any video game protagonists, your post probably comes across as an obvious side-note which only serves to kind of distract from the actual discussion at hand. At worst, it may even come across as a dismissal of their being value of having such protagonists, which many would disagree with.
So, basically, while your actual opinion itself is fine, and it's fine for you to enjoy games in the way that you do, the fact that you put out that thought the way you did in this thread is the reason you got some backlash.
EscoBlades
Ubisoft Marketing
Got it in one.
ShinMaruku
Member
And there can lie my issue, when they bring somebody of my background all I have to show for it is DJ and he doesn't even have a Jamaican accent or Knuckles with his wierd Rastafarian coloured shoes.
But I know better than to expect more from the people who make games, their pie is too small. Maybe in time It will get better, but we have to fix society for that and from experience people never want to change society until a tragedy happens.
Just to clarify: the writer was addressing the depiction of transatlantic slavery in the context of the two AC games, hence why I employed the African-American demarcation, as I didn't want to include all Black experiences (in a global or international sense) as the target of the article. Nevertheless, I corrected the OP just in case
You're saying you don't care about characters being black because it doesn't matter to you. This is not what the article it about at all from what I can see, it's about the portrayal of the characters. The author is talking about how in the majority of cases a black character is simply a stereotype and how they were impressed by these two AC games.
So what is the point you're trying to make here?
silvermember
Banned
Black is the politically correct way of saying black. Around white dominant online forums mainly reddit, they is always this types that complain about some imaginary black person getting mad for being called black.
And if someone does get mad about being called black, chances are the person isn't very smart.
That's totally cool. So far I have no issues with both of your replies to me.
Like you said, people definitely play video games for different reasons. People should be allowed to have different reasons, right?
However I get the sense that a few other posters in this thread feel like every gamer should care about social principles in video games. I call a little BS on that, because it's not their place to judge other video game Buyers.
I guess here's a final personal example for me, that might help others understand (if they care). Regarding music --
I strictly only listen to music for the instruments & melodies. I do not care one single bit about lyrics whatsoever. Lyrics are meaningless to me and I don't need any personal inspiration or philosophy from them.
For some other people out there, I know that lyrics are very important to them. But I cannot relate.
(Now part of this might be that I've played guitar ever since middle-school, which is over 25 years ago. So I've always been drawn toward the instrument side.)
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
*An irreligious Syrian assassin. He has a Christian mother, a Muslim father and this is the 12th century. He is most likely Arabic on his father's side and either native Syrian on his mothers, or possibly Greek (Damascus had a significant Greek influence and was under Roman rule for a thousand+ years), or western European (if she was from one of the crusader state ruling elites). The Assassin's historically were a group of Muslims but as depicted in AC, they were religiously sceptical, much like the Templars.
Altair is probably one of the most diverse protagonists ever, although in the end I think I recall he just had an American accent. It's been a while since I played though.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
As noted poet Michael D'angelo Archer said, "fuck the slice, I want the pie." We're seeing more people from various backgrounds get into the industry and push for more representation, and making games themselves. Obviously it's going to be a slower process with AAA, especially with people more than willing to be the apathetic minority demographic.
Fair enough, I can appreciate the logic in your replies. You are right, it's gotten a little off-topic.
ShinMaruku
Member
That will take years. And the pie will always remain with the same compenents until their is a societal change.(That ain't happening soon)
No I appreciate that absolutely, I just think the thread or discussion starts with the wrong angle. It's 'the importance of black characters' where I'd title it 'the importance of ethnicities', with that article cited as simply one example. The article is different because it's from personal perspective, but the discussion here is removed that and should probably be viewed through a wider lens, with multiple examples if any recent ones can be found. I also appreciate that the thread title is only necessarily titled so, as reference to the article, but it tends to wrongfoot the discussion and focus is inevitably put on one group which defeats the purpose of the sentiment.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
Well you can either complain about it or help speed it up yourself
Would you rather he had an Arabic accent? wouldn't that be more offensive?
It really doesn't make a difference what accent he has, so long he sounds dignified.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
There's nothing that says the thread can't branch out into discussions about other minorities; the OP can serve as a jump-off.
It's just that there was an unfortunate derail.
ShinMaruku
Member
Culture as it is now will not push it as fast as I'd like it, but I take all the progress I can get. I just want it to be known that this discussion should go farther than "Why don't we have more diverse developers" and more 'How' and then where we can fix it. It will take much more than people posting on websites and blogs.
MHWilliams
Member
Having a black or female lead is novel. It's different. It's not different from praising a game for having a new, novel game mechanic.
And I'm all for characters of other races and creeds. Mix shit around. Having an infinite canvas and diving into the same tired stereotypes and tropes is boring.
Because Sazh does not exist alone. No character, story, or game does. People didn't just take DmC as it's own game, they took it in relation to Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, other Platinum titles, etc.
There's room to look at games within their own confines and within the large confines of the industry.
I like Sazh, but yeah... I gave a side eye to the afro and comic relief angle.
Just call them what they want to be called. It's not hard.
I don't play video games for strictly anything. I play for the art, mechanics, the characters, the level design, the plot, etc. Playing games for only one thing seems odd to me. I play Resogun for gameplay mechanics, I play The Walking Dead for the characters and the story.
After the first game they changed some of the technobabble and started translating other languages as accented English with the odd untranslated word or phrase, so Altaïr had a Syrian(ish) accent whenever he appeared in flashbacks. They also updated his model and made his features look a bit less European.
I loved liberation and Aveline. I feel that Unity missed a great opportunity for a mainline female assassin.
And the idea that writers should write what they know and diverse people will write diverse characters doesn't jive with me.
Everyone is just people man. A good writer will want to write new and varied characters. And I want to experience new and varied characters.
And the idea that writers should write what they know and diverse people will write diverse characters doesn't jive with me.
Everyone is just people man. A good writer will want to write new and varied characters. And I want to experience new and varied characters.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
I had no problem with how they did it in ACII, I don't think having an accent that matched their locale would be offensive, unless it was horrifically exaggerated or done in a mocking way.
TheBlackMarvel
Member
Why would that be offensive?
ChawlieTheFair
pip pip cheerio you slags!
Pretty much, anyone can write the diverse characters, that's the part that makes them interesting as a person/character, they represent a viewpoint you may not be aware of.
Can we all agree that the write what you know excuse for only white male protags is complete bullshit? Only the worst writers can only write from a single perspective. I mean, Stephen King has never been a teenage girl, but Carrie is a classic.
Think of it like this. The game is set in the middle east region so technically they should be speaking an Arabic language. But for the audiences sake all of it is translated to fluent English. Its not like Altair is actually speaking English in the game but it is translated that way for the player's comfort.
So if he happened to talk in an Arabic accent over his "English translation filter" it would perpetuate the stereotype that all ethnic people speak in an accent.
I'll admit, sometimes it felt like Susanna was created so King could write a bunch of horrible shit.
FeenixRising
Banned
Ehh... I believe in the Freedom Cry pic one is a Trinidadian and the other is Haitian.... could've just went with "black" breh...
TheBlackMarvel
Member
Kind of like when they did it with Ezio?
Cool! I'm glad you can understand the other point of view. Also, sorry if my earlier post was a little rude. It's just hard to tell the motivations of posters that end up derailing threads, sometimes.
I never said Ezio was an example done right.
Additionally they did the same with Arno. People are complaining about Arno not having a french accent, which is just silly. He is obviously speaking French in that game but its passed through translation from fluent French to fluent English so it makes sense that he has the "BBC" accent.
ChawlieTheFair
pip pip cheerio you slags!
Yeah, not sure where that comes from. Even if it was for something more realistic/societal, that's what research is for, it's not like you have to live through it.
Edit: though living through it may make for a better story, that's not guaranteed.
TheBlackMarvel
Member
Since people are complaining about the lack of an accent, surely it's that that is offensive?
Heart of Black
Member
It's that we are in a country that was built on genocide of the indigenous people, with a culture built on the back of West African slaves. Yet our games reflect that as much as Michael J Fox teaching people how to play Rock n Roll.
So Aveline is American, not African American. Africa is a huge continent and saying African American is essentially saying that people stolen from West African nations should be ascribed not their nation of ancestral birth (because we really don't know) but rather the vagueness of a continent.
Especially when white people are not called "European Americans".